08 A Little Hatred: Book One (The Age of Madness)

He twisted at a mad screech and Isern sprang from the crumbling steps on one leg, point of her spear darting over his shield-rim, catching him under the jaw and ripping his throat wide. He wobbled another step or two, blood showering down that green tree and turning it red, then his knees went and he fell on his face, gold-chased helmet bouncing off and rolling right between Rikke’s boots.

She saw Shivers snarling, hacking, snarling, metal eye shining. She saw Red Hat shooting arrows into the midst. She saw other men she knew, some of her father’s closest, good men, gentle men, screeching hate, shoving with shields, chopping with swords and axes.

That wedge of Black Calder’s men was choked off, and hemmed in, and cut down one by one, stabbed with spears, shoved over with shields, stomped on the ground. One huge warrior was left, wearing battered plates of armour, swinging a great axe around in heedless circles, rattling and clattering against the spears that stabbed at him.

Then a snarling Thrall sprang onto his back, caught him around the throat, hacking at him with a knife. Another darted in and chopped at his leg, brought him lurching onto one knee. Then they were all around him, Oxel using his sword like a pick in both hands to chisel his helmet off, chisel his skull open.

She saw Isern, tongue pressed into the hole in her teeth as she stabbed one stricken warrior after another with her spear. One crawled towards Rikke, crying through a faceful of mud, and Shivers stepped on his neck and took the top of his head off with a swing of his sword.

That assault was made into a heap of dead, their bravery all come to nothing, but Black Calder’s men still pressed in all around. Through waving spears she saw the Nail, up on the wall, shaking his axe, blood-dotted face twisted with fury and laughter at once, screaming, ‘Kill the fuckers! Kill the fuckers!’

Arrows flickered over, the noise of fighting like hail on a tin roof. Rikke saw ghosts now, among the fighting, among the killing, among the dead. Ghosts of men fighting, killing, dying. Battles long done, maybe, and battles yet to come, and she slid down the pillar until her backside hit mud, knife dropping from her hand into the dirt, and sat there trembling with her smarting eyes squeezed shut.

Leo stood at the top of the hill, hands helplessly clenching and unclenching.

It was the greatest battle he’d ever seen. The greatest the North had seen since the Battle of Osrung, where his mother loved to say he’d been conceived.

Nightfall’s shield wall had bent back when the Anglanders first charged. It had buckled, looked ready to give under the strain, but it had held. More Northmen had filtered down the road to shore it up and pushed the Anglanders back to the base of the red hill. Now there was a boiling engagement all the way along the valley bottom, the mad clamour echoing from the fells, the carnage at the bridge at one end.

If the Dogman swept down from the other side of the valley now, it would all be over. Nightfall would be surrounded, shattered, they could take every one of his men prisoner. Perhaps they could even capture the Great Wolf himself and make the bastard kneel.

But the Dogman didn’t appear, and the glee of the officers on the hilltop turned to concern, then grim worry.

‘Where the hell is the Dogman?’ muttered Leo’s mother. The ruin on the far side of the valley was just a ghost through the thickening rain. ‘He should be attacking.’

‘Yes,’ said Leo. He couldn’t say more. His mouth was too dry.

‘Can’t see a thing in this damn rain,’ she fretted.

‘No,’ said Leo. He’d always been a doer. Sitting idle while other men fought was torture.

‘If he doesn’t come soon …’

They could all see it. Some of Nightfall’s Thralls were still dribbling onto the battlefield. If the Dogman didn’t come soon, they might get around the flank and the Union line would crumble.

A rider came lurching up the back of the hill, pushing his mount hard. A Northman, rattled and dirt-spattered.

Leo’s mother strode up as he slithered from the saddle. ‘What’s become of the Dogman?’

‘Black Calder came out o’ the woods,’ he said, breathing hard. ‘We’re only just hanging on at the ruin. No way we can help with the attack.’

One officer swallowed. Another stared down into the valley. A third seemed to deflate, like a punctured wineskin.

‘Black Calder was supposed to be a day away,’ breathed Leo’s mother, her eyes wide.

‘He tricked us,’ muttered Leo. They were caught in their own trap, outnumbered and facing destruction. He stared towards the bridge. That was where he belonged, where the names were made and tomorrow’s songs written. He could make the difference. He knew he could.

Strategy had failed. It was time to fight.

‘We have to send in the reserves.’ He stepped close to his mother. No whining now, no wheedling. Just the simple truth. ‘There’s no choice. We’re committed.’

She frowned down into the valley, a muscle on the side of her head constantly working, and said nothing.