IT was a ragged and running fight; a fight that split and reformed and scattered away across the green levels among the sallows and the hazel thickets in a score of lesser fights, and bunched together again, drawing always back toward the gray walls of Eburacum that I began to see in the nearing distance. Slowly, slowly the gate towers rose higher and more formidable while the shadows lengthened from struggling men and white curled hawthorn scrub. I had hoped almost until then to thrust in between the Saxons and their stronghold and throw them back; but far spent as my men and horses were, and lacking all knowledge of how many of the Sea Wolves had been left to garrison the old legionary fortress, I dared not hazard them in such a position now. Instead, I took the alternative risk, charging forward to drive in amongst the enemy so close that there would be no space in which to secure the gates against us. We drove them as dogs drive sheep — not that there was much of the sheep about these men; they were valiant fighters, and fell back before our rushes steadily and with no sign of rout. Indeed they were steadier now than at any moment since they broke on the Deva road; shields up and swords biting, leaving their dead to lie in the track of the retreat without a glance.
There were only two or three hundred left when they gamed the gate, and we crashed after them so close that the triumphant forefront Companions were already mingled with Octa’s house carls, and the Red Dragon of Britain and the white horsetail standards of the Saxons flying almost as one. I could hear already above the yelling of my own lads, the bridge timbers ringing hollow under Arian’s hooves; I could see the folk within, women and old men and boys beside the warriors of the garrison, poised to draw their fellows in and hold the gate — and drive it to against us when the last Saxon was inside. And if they succeeded in that, it meant death to our own forefront, who would also be inside, cut off from all help of their comrades.
I had chosen to take the hideous gamble, but now as I saw the dark jaws of the gateway and the enemy swarms about it, I knew for an instant the sick helplessness of the hunter who sees his hounds running over a cliff. Too late to draw back now, too late to do anything but set our teeth and drive forward, sweep the Saxons away and keep the gates open by the thrust of our own charge. . . .
I raised the war cry: “Yr Widdfa! Yr Widdfa!” and settled lower into the saddle, and drove my heel again and again into Arian’s sweating flank, flinging him forward among the enemy spears. “Keep close! For God’s sake keep close! Keep the gates back!” Beside me, Prosper was sounding the charge, and behind me the Companions sprang forward. But already as the defenders leapt to the aid of their reeling comrades, others had flung themselves yelling at the huge bronze-sheathed timbers of the gate. . . .
We were in the shadow of the gate arch. A flung spear took Irach’s pony in the breast, and the poor brute went down headlong, shrieking as it fell, while Irach himself leapt clear. The horse behind it swung aside, snorting in terror, and for an instant our whole forefront was checked and flung into confusion. The check lasted only for the shortest breath, for a racing heartbeat of time, but it would have been enough. . . . And then in that last black moment of our charge when everything seemed lost, the marvel happened — so swiftly that in the instant of its beginning it was in full fierce flood. Sudden chaos roared up among the defenders, wild figures were springing in from the rear, from the flanks, dropping out of nowhere as it seemed, into the midst of those who sought to close the gates; men, and women too, gaunt and savage, their tatters flying, thrall rings about their necks, with poles and matchets and butchers’ cleavers in their hands. They flung themselves against the valves of the gates to keep them open. All hell had broken loose and was swirling about me in the dark cavern of the gate arch; the shouting and screaming rose and gathered into a solid whirlpool of sound and was sucked up and lost in great hoarse triumphant cheering that might have been the cheering of damned souls. Again I heard myself raise the war cry: “Yr Widdfa! Yr Widdfa!” It was caught up into a rolling roar behind me, and as it were upon a great wave of that cheering, we were crashing through upon that valiant rear guard, riding them down and sweeping them away as a sudden spate sweeps away all things in its path, while behind us the strong gate still strained and shuddered to and fro. Irach was running like a hound at my stirrup. We were crashing through the dark tunnel of the gate arch, deaf with the hollow thunder of our horses’ hooves under the groined roof, through a reeling, howling, wild-eyed mob that was fighting itself now rather than us; and beyond the struggling Saxon rear guard, the straight main street of Eburacum opened, empty of life, before us.
On that moment, even above the dazing roar of battle, I heard the high, wolfish, blood-stirring howl of the Dark People’s war cry, and Irach streaked forward, running with his dagger at the seething mass of warriors. He can have had no thought of breaking through, he was following again the custom of his own people who believe that victory must be bought with deliberate and willing sacrifice. And in that belief he flung himself upon the enemy spears. Truly the little man had eaten his father’s courage — or maybe he had enough of his own.
“Come on, lads!” I shouted. “To me! Follow Irach! Follow me! Follow me home!” And the hunting horn took up the call; ahead of me, with his few remaining house carls about him, I saw the giant figure of Octa Hengestson, his golden hair matted with blood from a scalp wound, and the chain mail of his breast and shoulders stained brown with it, as though with rust. He had lost his shield, or cast it aside. I urged Arian toward him, and with a high defiant yell he leapt to meet me; and as he swung up his sword I saw for an instant his eyes that seemed to burn with a gray-green flame. I took him with the sword point in the strong curve of the throat above the golden collar. Blood spurted out, and I saw his eyes widen as though in surprise; and he crashed backward among his house carls without a sound.
After that, the heart went from them, and they began to give way more quickly.
Someone had fired the thatch of a Saxon hovel and before the fresh evening wind the flames were spreading as wisps of blazing straw drifted from one roof to another; smoke began to hang over the broad street that was narrowed now by garbage piles spread half across it; the high white basilica that stood like a cliff above the huddled rook’s-nest bothies of the Barbarians was dimmed in drifting smoke, and the acrid smitch of it caught at our throats. Men with unlikely weapons in their hands and thrall rings about their necks were running beside me, all among the horses of the Companions. . . . And then the Sea Wolves broke and streamed back, and the thing was no longer a battle but a hunt.
Presently, with the fires already half quelled, I was sitting on the rim of the ornate fountain in the midst of the Forum, my arm through Arian’s bridle while he drank, while cavalry, foot and war-painted warriors ran questing through Eburacum in search of fugitives, and Cei and a handful of the light horsemen swept on after the others toward the coast, and the roaring flood of victory surged all about me. A big man was standing at my elbow. I had seen him in the forefront of the wild rabble at the gate; a man fair-haired as any Saxon, but with the gray iron thrall ring on his neck, and in his hands a naked sword which he was cleaning with care on a tuft of grass pulled from the base of the fountain.
“Whoever you may be, friend, I have to thank you.” My own voice, thick and heavy in my ears, surprised me into wakefulness.