She pulled against him, rage bubbling through her, at what Biórr had done, to Thrud, to Agnar, how he had made a fool of her. She snarled and spat, the thought of his blood spilling on the ash-covered ground raging through her.
“Stay here and you’ll not avenge Agnar,” Grend shouted at her, his knuckles white around her wrist. “Stay here and you’ll die.” He pulled on her again. “Face him in the shield wall, with the Battle-Grim about you.”
Elvar stared at him, snarled and nodded, then they were running back to the Battle-Grim, slotting into the front row and turning to face the Raven-Feeders.
Ilska was leading her surviving brother and the others who had ridden with her off the field, towards the carts and V?rn, who had leaped down from her mother’s head, silently waiting. Elvar saw that Uspa had gone to stand close to V?rn.
The Raven-Feeders who had marched behind Ilska, over sixty warriors, were striding towards the Battle-Grim.
Elvar sheathed her sword and drew her seax, the blade almost as long as her forearm.
This will be shoulder to shoulder, shield to shield, knifework, seax work, a time of heave and stab, no room for sword skill. She was breathing heavily, could hear her heart pounding in her head, not from exertion but from shock.
Agnar is dead. He had always been so full of life, of courage and energy. And he had won, slain Skrie the dragon-born in single combat, a deed worthy of a saga-song. It was too much for her thought-cage to comprehend: rage and grief raw and surging through her. She ground her teeth and hefted her seax, one side razor sharp, the broken back that tapered to the tip sharpened too.
“BATTLE-GRIM!” a voice cried out: Grend, beside her. “Be ready for the shield-storm, the battle-fray. These gutless worms are betrayers, carrion-feeders come to steal our gold and our glory. They have slain our chief like the nieing cowards they are. Time to show them what true courage and battle-fame is.”
The Battle-Grim roared a cold-hearted cheer.
“SHIELD WALL!” Grend bellowed, and as one the Battle-Grim shuffled tight in their lines, raised their shields and pulled them in, a crack of linden boards as they set the wall, hide-covered rim pressed tight to iron boss, like the rippling scales of a snake. Elvar pounded the iron cap of her seax against her shield, Grend doing the same with his axe, all about them warriors following suit, beating a death march for the Raven-Feeders as they approached.
Thirty paces away, twenty, ten, and the Raven-Feeders halted. Elvar searched for Biórr in their ranks but could not see him among the faces before her, growling and spitting and hurling insults from behind the shield rims as they sought to summon their courage. In their eyes she saw pride, anger, and fear too. It is a hard thing to fight in the shield wall, where death is closer than a lover and the world condenses to the steel-fisted warrior before you: a place of snarling fury and gut-churning fear, of blood and shite and pain.
Shouts came from Elvar’s right. She recognised V?rn’s voice, and Uspa’s joined to it. There was a flicker of flames, a flash of incandescent light, a tremor in the ground, and there was more screaming. A horse neighing and the sound of wood splintering.
A cart? Elvar had no time to look. The Raven-Feeders roared and surged forwards.
“READY!” Grend bellowed. Elvar saw the brightness of his eyes and the trembling in his limbs that took him when the battle-rage swept him. She set her feet, shoulder into her shield, Seax drawn back.
There was a concussive crack as the Raven-Feeders slammed into them, Elvar’s shield battered, Grend beside her snarling. She felt the line wavering, a tremor through her shield arm, her feet scraping and sliding in the ash-thick ground as she fought to keep her place, heaving back against the immense pressure bearing down upon them. She knew that the Raven-Feeders outnumbered them, their wall at least three lines deep, all of that weight pushing and grunting and heaving against her. A gap opened between her shield and Huld’s next to her. Elvar thrust her seax through it, felt the blade bite, and then hot blood slicked her hand. She shoved harder, twisted the blade and heard a scream, pulled her seax back and rammed the gap closed.
To her right Grend grunted and growled, chopping his axe over the top of his shield rim. She heard the clang of iron, saw a body slump to the ground, then shifted her weight and stabbed down into a glimpsed body, flesh bared above the neckline of a brynja, white, panicked eyes in a bearded face. Another scream cut short; the grate of bone and she dragged her blade free.
Behind her a shield held her upright, one of the Battle-Grim stabbing over her head with a spear, and the weight against her shield slackened. Elvar pressed hard, set her feet and looked over the top of her shield. There was a gap as a warrior fell away, hands clasping at blood gushing from a hole in their throat. They sank to the floor, dragged away by someone in the second row, and another figure loomed, stepping into the gap before Elvar could press into it. It was a woman, a pitted iron helm on her head, a hand-axe in her fist, screaming death and murder. Elvar swayed away from the bearded blade as it chopped at her face, ducked and pushed, stabbed under the rim of her shield and sawed through winnigas and flesh, felt the blade grind on shinbone, sawed the seax back and then stabbed over the top as the axe-wielding woman hissed with pain and lurched on her injured leg. Elvar’s seax stabbed into her open mouth. A gush of blood and a gurgled scream.