Wulfhere stands on the crest of the hill and stares in horror at the
terrible carnage surrounding him. He surveys the scene with blurred vision. Body
parts are scattered indiscriminately. As his eyes clear, he sees that they are
set about the bloody slope in congealed masses. His byrnie feels unbearably
heavy. Sweat trickles down his skin in rivulets. Instinctively, he clasps his
sword, Hildbana, as the perspiration runs from under his sleeve and into his palm. But
his hand is soaked and he cannot hold on to it, and the weapon slips down the slope.
The sky is dense with dark clouds.
The mist-ridden air is dank with the stench of death and blood. He feels dizzy
and wants to gag. Instead he forces himself to breathe, breathe hard, to avoid
expelling the bile that rises in his throat.
“Pick up your sword, Lord Wulfhere!”
urges a familiar voice.
A terrible throbbing pounds at his
temple and he fights his desire to lose consciousness. “I cannot find it…”
“You must!” the voice shouts at him
in earnest.
Wulfhere staggers down the hill,
recognising the faces of his fallen comrades on the severed heads that he passes
by. They speak to him through lips that do not move; words he cannot discern. His
feet are slipping in the oozing blood and he feels his heart racing. The voice
continues to order him to find his sword. Below him, at the foot of the hill,
he sees a morass of jumbled men and spears. His head throbs as he moves toward
them, fearing that his sword is lost somewhere amongst the chaos.
Suddenly, he is in the midst of the
growling shield wall. The sound of battle deafens him as he is heaved, pushed
and stabbed at with spears or axes. The enemy are in front. Snarling wolf-like
faces. The points of their spears jab at him. Wooden shields slam into the
phalanx, trying to break their way in. Wulfhere is jostled this way and that,
as if he is a coracle tossed in a stormy sea. He wants his sword. How can he
fight without his sword?
“Where is my sword? Where is Hildbana?”he hears himself shout and, though he knows it is his voice, it feels
as if it has come from another.
His head spins. He stares down in an
attempt to avoid passing out and sees that his feet are bare and the air is
freezing against his naked body. Where is his armour?
Terror grasps at his insides and fear
tears through his veins. He is naked. No spear, no sword, no armour to protect
him…
“My lord, your sword!” he hears the
voice shout again. “Where is your sword?”
He looks up from the ground and
stares into faces that are no longer fleshy. Faces of bone. Skeletons wearing
dark hoods. He screams...a long, agonising cry that is eventually broken by the
familiar voice calling him again.
“My lord! Open your eyes! Can you
hear me?”
"I know that voice. Esegar!"
"I know that voice. Esegar!"
He is pulled by his ankles out of the
scrum of the shield wall.
“My lord! ’Tis I, Esegar! Can you
hear me?”
Wulfhere lies on the grass, dazed,
tries to sit up. His helmet is gone and his head pounds. Around him he hears
the screams and roars of the men in the shield wall; the agonising sound of men
dying.
“Here, take your sword!”
“You have it?” Wulfhere asks. Relief
overwhelms him. He is alive and Esegar has found his sword. He must have passed
out.
Esegar’s face flashes above him and
Wulfhere feels reassured. Then, almost as quickly as it has appeared, the flesh
begins to deteriorate, leaving a mass of hideously rotting flesh, until it is no
longer Esegar hovering above him, but the hooded figure of death surrounded
by darkness.
Death smiles; a repugnant grim contortion of the jawbone drops open to spill
forth evil laughter and, with it, disgusting creatures, bugs, worms and all
kinds of ghastly things from hell.
“Your sword is broken, my lord,” the
face of death says, rasping and mocking like the voice of an old harridan. A pair of
bony hands hold forth his beloved Hildbana, Battle Slayer, the sword that has
been handed down to him from his father…it is broken in two.
Wulfhere is lifted to his feet, as if
by unseen hands. A scream is rising within him as the world around him spins.
The scream pierces through his brain as if his head will break open and scatter
its contents in an explosion of agony. Unable to breathe or move, his whole
body is paralysed. The noise inside his head grows louder until it reaches a
crescendo and, suddenly, he forces his eyes open and breathes in a heavy gasp.
