Viking Treasure by Griff Hosker Page A

mighty mailed line from the river and I saw the consternation in their camp.  The Danes were still close to the walls of Elfridaby building the causeway.  They had men with shields protecting those building. As soon as we rose from the river they ran back to their main camp.  The ones who were closest to us fled towards the standards and the banners which marked Ragnar Ruriksson and the other leaders.  We had not seen them before for it had been dark.  I saw that the largest was a skull on a red background. The one with the rearing red horse on a yellow background had to be the Franks.
    Their flight allowed us to quickly organise into our wedges. We were six rows from the front.  My Ulfheonar formed the rear rank of one half of the right hand wedge.  Behind us were Cnut Cnutson and the men of Cyninges-tūn. Raibeart and his men would have to bear the brunt of the initial fighting but if our foes thought they were our best they were in for a shock.
    The enemy formed one large line three men deep.  It would overlap ours.  Or it would were it not for the river to our right and the swamp to our left. They had the Frisians in the centre.  The Franks faced us and the Danes, the largest contingent by a long way were closest to the walls of Elfridaby. 
    Olaf Leather Neck began banging his shield with his axe shaft.  He chanted, "Dragonheart!" The rest of the wedge took it up.
    I shouted, "March!"
    The chanting and the banging were not just to frighten our enemy.  It was to help us to walk in a wedge.  It was like the rhythms of the oars.  It was almost hypnotic. The enemy were three hundred paces from us. They waited.  They were not one clan.  They had no chant. They were bought men and they jeered and hurled insults. It was a waste of breath for we heard them not and we marched steadily across the deserted camps.
    Ketil would have the most difficult of tasks.  He would be facing the Frisians.  That was planned for Raibeart had less experience. The Franks were the weaker of the two bands. When we were ten paces from them I shouted, "Charge!" As we did so Arne's men loosed their arrows.  We had held our secret weapon until the last moment.  We caught many by surprise.  The men of Windar's Mere might not be shield wall warriors but they could release three flights of arrows in the time it took to raise a shield.  Many of the enemy failed to raise a shield and they died.  Those that did so were not looking to us and Raibeart and Ketil struck a line which was distracted.
    As the first swords clashed and clanged, sliced and stabbed at the enemy I heard a horn from my left.  I did not need to turn around to see what it meant.  I knew.  It was my son leading his three war bands to attack the Danes in the flank. As I had thought there was a hidden path through the boggy ground. I was on the right of our line for it was the place of honour. As Raibeart drove through the dispirited and dismounted Franks so we closed with their flanks as they tried to overlap us.  Arne's archers raced behind us to avoid being caught. The hiatus allowed the Franks to close with us.  It was a brief respite for the archers soon rained death again.  Franks are confident when they charge into battle on their horses. They had forgotten how to fight on foot. Their long spears were harder to use on foot.
    I swung my long Frankish sword sideways. It tore through one warrior's side for he had raised his shield to protect himself. The swing took the long blade across the shield of the second warrior.  It was a powerful strike and as the man reeled so Haaken One Eye ended his life. Stepping forward I stabbed a surprised Frank in the face. As he fell back I saw that there was no one behind him. We had managed, somehow to outflank the enemy.  The archers had cleared the flanks and the enemy were packing closer together in the middle.  It was restricting the ability of those in the front rank to swing. 
    "Ulfheonar! Now is our time! "
    Haaken