Part I: Battle (Original)

Just Before Dawn, October, Anno Domini 559.

The misty rain dripped from the edge of Llewin’s round steel cap, soaking the shaggy fringe of sandy hair that stuck out from beneath it and hung lank before his pale blue eyes. The same rain had already soaked his thick green woolen shirt, and between the chill of the rain and the chill of the early-morning air, he wondered if he would ever know warmth again. He suppressed a shiver as he peered out into the grey predawn, trying to stretch his senses to perceive the quarry that he knew would soon come. He thought longingly of the thick wool cloak he had left behind in the camp, but quickly discarded the thought and cursed himself for a weakling; cloaks would be a hindrance when it came time to do this morning’s work.

He was barely aware of the men to his left and right, crouched as he was behind the giant boulders that had fallen from the low cliffs behind them ages ago. They were there, he knew; he had helped place ten of them himself. In all, seventy Britons lined the rocks between the cliffs and the wide bowl that stretched treeless before them; another thirty perched on the cliffs themselves, archers taking advantage of the high ground to stretch the range of their deadly missiles. All of them save one wore the same white surcoat that Llewin himself wore over his cuirass of hardened leather; all bore the same black hand emblazoned across the front, fingers extended. Black like charcoal; black like cold-wrought iron. All bore the same number high on the left breast, above the thumb of the hand: XLI—forty-one. Even the illiterate among the Iron Hands knew their numbers well enough to read and write the number of their Hundred.

The Hundred’s mission this morning was ambush. They lay in wait in the rocks for a Saxon raiding party that would pass this way today. The Redwing had the information from a farmer who lived at the edge of his frontier estates; scouts had attempted to cross his lands three times in six days, and he had managed to wound the third with a stone from his sling and bring him to the keep himself. Under the question the man had revealed that a raiding party would pass this way today, so the Forty-First Hundred, already under contract to the legendary knight, had taken the mission: ambush the raiding party in force and leave none alive. He had led them himself, eager to take the field again after a year of quiet on the border.

Llewin turned his head and peered down the line of rocks to his left, knowing the man was down there somewhere. He could see barely one in ten of the men to his left, between the rain and the rocks behind which they concealed themselves. He thought his eyes caught a flash of crimson down toward the center of the line; the knight would be there, his great red-winged helm burnished to a shine for the day’s fight. Llewin wasn’t sure if the helm was the source of his name or the emblem of it—he had never heard of a battle in which the man hadn’t worn it, nor had he heard him called by any other name.

He brought his gaze closer, to the man on his immediate left. Timothy turned his head slightly and gave him a nod and a reassuring wink, his eyes leaving the area in front of them just long enough to make eye contact. Even clad in his white garment and ten feet away, the man was almost invisible; if he hadn’t wanted Llewin to be able to see him, he would not have, the younger man knew. He cursed his own cowardice under his breath. The men around him showed no outward sign of nerves; if he were showing such fear in his eyes that Timothy felt the need to reassure him, he must look a coward indeed. He tried to make his face emotionless, knowing that trying to adopt Timothy’s arrogant smirk would only make him look a fool.

He turned his attention back to the bowl and allowed his mind to drift to the men around him. They were his men, the nine just behind and to his immediate left and right. The possessive still struck him with a sense of irony; a month gone, they had all been soldiers together, Sergeant Grant their leader. Now he was dead, and by some joke the others allowed Llewin to believe he was in charge. He even wore the chevron of a Sergeant of Ten high on the right breast of his surcoat. It felt odd to have been suddenly elevated to the leadership of these men with whom he had spent the last year.

He had been fifteen when the year started; it seemed a hundred years ago, sometimes. That afternoon the previous September had been the first time he had ever seen a Saxon, and the last time he had ever seen his family. They had at least left him with a parting gift, he thought bitterly, absently running his fingers over the jagged half-moon scar on his forehead; a hoof-mark, that, and the raiders had left him for dead, bleeding and unconscious from the trampling. The Iron Hands had stumbled over him as they moved through the village on the way to meet a contract, and realizing he was still alive, picked him up and brought him with them. He had awakened three days later—no one knew how long he had lain there in the mud—and had been with them since then. It had seemed logical to stay, when they had told him the condition of his village. He had nowhere else to go.

The thought of his village brought a scowl to his face and he returned his attention to the bowl before him, hoping to catch a glimpse of the enemy that had taken his family from him, knowing they wouldn’t be there yet. He took several deep breaths, forcing the anger back down. It would not do to be overcome with rage when the fighting started; he must be calm in order to make the right decisions for his men.

His thoughts turned again to the soldiers around him. He had come to know them as though they were his own brothers over the last year. They were Britons all, bound by the blood oaths all Iron Hands took to defend their lands against the Saxon invaders, never to serve any master but a British one, and never to surrender a Briton into Saxon hands. The newest of them, sent to round out the Ten after Sergeant Grant was killed, was scarred Eric, whom cruel fate had cursed with a Northman’s name, then cursed again by allowing him to be captured. He never spoke of what he had endured at the barbarians’ hands, but his disfigured face spoke volumes. Llewin still found it hard to look at that face without swallowing. He seldom spoke of the Northmen without declaring that he would not be taken again.

The others were just as hard. Round Jacob knew better than most how to use the broad-bladed sword on his back despite his girth. Charles was a Frank, from Gaul; why he had chosen to leave his home and fight for another land no one knew, but his spear and short throwing-axe (he called it a francisca) were welcome in any fight. Old George had been a soldier longer than any of the rest of them had been alive; he had never sought rank through his long career, never wanting to be taken from his place in the line and never yielding an inch until ordered to. Though the man must have been every day of sixty years old, his hands were still strong and his blade still quick. Timothy was their scout, and was good enough at his craft that Captain Jerrodd often used him to scout for the Hundred. He shared Llewin’s own father’s name, and seemed to have appointed himself to the position in the latter’s absence. He had little regard for rank; Llewin had heard him curse at Captain Jerrodd as readily as at fellow soldiers.

Derrick was the giant of the Ten. Almost seven feet tall and as broad as a draft horse, he stood head and shoulders and wide chest above Llewin, one of the few men living to surpass the Redwing in size. Men made fun of him for his size, until it came time for the Iron Hands to do their deadly work—then to a man those who saw him fight thanked Almighty God that he was a friend and not an enemy. Few others could even swing the great spiked tree trunk he called a club. Robert’s preferred weapon, like Llewin’s, was the axe, although he preferred a longer haft than most used, for better leverage; Llewin had seen him unhorse many a charging Northman who underestimated his six-foot weapon.

The last members of the Ten were Garet and Gryffyn, twins of an age with Llewin who had come to the Iron Hands only two months before he had. Their staring eyes bore witness to the horrors they had seen; though Llewin had never heard them speak of their past, it was widely whispered that their father had been tortured to death before their eyes. They seldom blinked, spoke little, rarely strayed far from each other—and never missed a chance to kill Saxons.

He had come to the leadership of these men a month gone, by freak chance and extraordinarily bad luck. The Hundred’s last fight had been unplanned and uncoordinated, two war-bands blundering into each other in the blackness of night under a young crescent moon. They had heard commotion up ahead in the ranks, had gone still and quiet as stones as they were trained to do in a night attack, their other senses straining to identify whether the uproar was benign or a threat. There had been just enough light to discern the spear thrust out of the blackness that had caught Sergeant Grant under the chin, just enough light to make out the shape of a man at the other end. Llewin had caught the haft of the spear, Charles had gotten the Saxon with his francisca, and the man who had been Llewin’s mentor for a year had gone down, his last breath rattling in his severed throat. Then the night had erupted into chaos, men screaming and iron clashing seemingly in every direction. Llewin had made a suggestion without thinking, and the others had followed, and he had made other suggestions, and they had followed those. The next day, Captain Jerrodd had promoted him to Sergeant of Ten and charged him with the leadership of the Ten. He hadn’t yet been able to puzzle why; he had done nothing heroic, just those things that had seemed right at the time.

Many of the Iron Hands now hiding in the rocks had stories like those of Llewin and his men. All hated the barbarian invaders from the north and east, many, like Llewin and the twins and Eric, for very personal reasons. All had sworn blood oaths to defend their homeland to the death. The Iron Hands attracted such men, both with the guarantee of the chance to kill Saxons and with the high wages the band paid. They were the rarest of soldiers: mercenaries who fought for principle as much as for profit, perhaps more so. Those who were willing and able to bear the high price—five pieces of silver per man per day—the Iron Hands charged knew they were worth every penny; the soldiers of the band were the best to be found anywhere, willing to brave almost any hardship and nearly unbeatable in battle. The Redwing, at one time a general of Iron Hands himself, employed none but them. Even his household guard were former members of the band, handpicked men he had brought with him when he retired. The knight still lived by his oaths, and refused to employ any but the best on his frequent campaigns. That meant Iron Hands, and that was why the Hundred found itself here today.

The bowl before them stretched a mile or more to the north, broad and gently sloped and treeless almost to its lip, out of sight now in the dusk beyond the curtain of rain. East and west the ground sloped up to steep hills where travel would be slow and horses would break legs. An ancient Roman road ran straight as an arrow through the middle of the bowl and into a deep road cut in the cliffs behind the Iron Hands. The Romans had bent the land to their will, Llewin noted idly. The cut behind them was more important than the road itself; how they had made it, or why they had been inspired to, mattered not a bit today. What mattered was the fact that it was there, and more importantly, that it was the only easy way through or over those cliffs for fifty miles in either direction. If the Saxons came—when they came—they would have to pass this way, directly through the mercenaries’ position.

The Hundred straddled the Roman road almost perfectly, thirty men on the east side and forty on the west. Llewin’s own ten sat just to the east of the road, his left flank open to it, another ten just on the other side. When the fighting got to the rocks, it would fall to that ten, led by Sergeant Peter, to close the gap, a task that would put them in an exposed position that Llewin did not envy. The thirty archers lined the rocks above on either side of the cut. Their purpose was twofold: first, they would pour their volleys into the approaching Saxons before they reached the main body of the Hundred below, and second, if the Saxons threatened to overwhelm the men in the lower ground, they would cover their retreat by dumping the tons of rocks they had spent the last two days piling on the edges of the cut, effectively closing it to all but the most determined travelers, after the retreating survivors had passed through. The gentle but long slope upward to the cut had been strewn with rocks as well; the Iron Hands had been busy for the last two days adding to those God had placed there when He had formed the cliffs, so that now fist- and head-sized rocks littered the smooth upslope. The rocks would trip feet and turn ankles, breaking up the lines of any force that tried to charge the mercenaries’ position. It was a good position, Llewin noted, not for the first time. A good position and a simple plan—the Redwing believed simple plans were best. Llewin wondered idly how long they would have to wait.

Timothy’s long, low whistle on his left answered his question. The scout had caught a glimpse of the Saxons through the rain. Two more whistles, one from the left across the road and one from the right, told that others had spotted them now as well. More whistles followed, up and down the line, as Llewin strained to see through the rain, to hear the stomp of marching feet, anything that might let him identify their enemy.

After a moment that seemed like an age, he finally heard a slight creak, as of a harness or a scabbard or a belt, out in the bowl in front of him. More sounds followed, and a long heartbeat later he finally saw them: two hundred yards away, the Saxons milled slowly up the road, a disorganized mass moving haphazardly toward the cut in the cliffs behind him, four mounted banners in front. He gave up counting when he saw the banners. They had expected to face a raiding party, at most two hundred men—an easy mark for a full Hundred of Iron Hands attacking from ambush. Those four banners meant the Hundred was facing closer to six hundred men. And that meant this was no mere raiding party, but an army of invasion. Llewin’s pulse quickened; this would be much more difficult than they had anticipated. Retreat crossed his mind, briefly, but he knew the Redwing would never make that decision. The numbers of this force only made it more imperative that they stop the Saxons here, for to allow this army to enter Britain would lead only to disaster.

Seconds later, Lieutenant Roland, the lieutenant of Llewin’s Thirty, seemed to materialize out of the mist behind him. He spoke softly and quickly. “We attack as planned. Wait for the archers.” Then he was gone.

Llewin did not turn his head from watching the enemy approach, merely nodding that he understood. How does he do that? He wondered as the lieutenant disappeared. The man was almost as adept at moving undetected as Timothy. He turned to the latter and nodded once, hoping the scout didn’t see the nerves he knew must be showing in his eyes now. He looked around at the rest of his men, pausing only long enough at each man to make eye contact and exchange nods, ensuring they all understood what they were to do. Not one of them showed any fear in his eyes. Llewin wondered again why Captain Jerrodd had chosen him to lead these men.

He studied the advancing banners in the moments they had left before the fight started. A white boar’s head on green, a black serpent on red, a red hawk on black, and a simple pattern of four blue diamonds linked and arranged in a square, also on black. Except for the diamonds, all were banners he would have expected to see at the head of a Saxon war band.

The Saxons had closed the distance from Llewin’s position to one hundred yards. He watched as they streamed slowly toward the twin stones, planted on either side of the road and painted with a white circle on this side, that marked fifty yards from his position. Those stones were seventy yards from the archers above, an easy shot especially against a target of this size. The archers would loose their first volley when the Saxons reached those stones.

He ticked off the distance in his head. Eighty yards. Seventy. Sixty. He quietly drew his axe from its loop on his belt, heard the whisper of steel and wood on leather around him as other men readied their own weapons. Fifty yards. The banners had passed the stones, and the head of the Saxon column was upon them. One man appeared to squint toward the top of the cliffs, to turn his head to shout a warning, but the shout was drowned by the twang of thirty bowstrings, and an instant later the mass of Northmen erupted in chaos as thirty arrows found their marks.

The Saxons were caught completely by surprise. Men screamed in confusion, screamed in pain as steel tore into flesh, screamed as they fell dying before the curtain of feathered steel as the second volley ripped into them, the third already on the way.

Llewin heard the rhythm of the bowstrings behind him change from even volleys to the more constant rippling sounds that indicated each man was firing at his own pace, as fast as he could. Three volleys; time to move. He felt the line to either side of him surge forward as he left his hiding place in the rocks, adding his voice to the wordless roar as the tide of white-coated Britons surged forward in a loose double line. Arrows continued to whistle over their heads, aimed at the rear of the Saxon mass now, keeping them off balance as the seventy Iron Hands tore into their front and flanks at a fast jog.

Llewin chose a target in the second before impact, a baby-faced Northman who hadn’t even thought to lower his spear to meet the mercenaries’ charge, fear stark in his eyes. He tried to bring his weapon to bear, but Llewin was too close; the heavy blade of the axe tore into the barbarian’s face as the world erupted in noise and blood.

All around, men screamed, metal clashed, the clang of iron, the ring of steel. Wood cracked against wood as shields splintered, and more than once Llewin heard the wet crunch as wood or iron tore into bone. Screams of rage turned into screams of frustration, or pain, or were suddenly cut off as throats or chests or guts were ripped open. Every man screamed, to frighten his enemies, to give vent to his rage, to remind himself that he was still alive.

The numbers made no difference in the initial onslaught; no force could have stood long against such an attack. After moments that seemed hours, the Iron Hands realized that their enemies had untangled themselves from the melee and were retreating back beyond bowshot. The Britons made haste to return to their positions among the rocks; now the hard part would begin.

Llewin took a few seconds to make a hasty assessment of his Ten. None seemed seriously injured, though Robert seemed to be limping slightly on his left leg. His own white surcoat was stained red in half a dozen places, but none of the blood was his. He noticed for the first time that the rain had stopped falling sometime during the ambush, although the heavy clouds promised more. So far, all was good. He looked out to where the Saxons had been; for them the story was much grimmer.

As many as a hundred vaguely man-shaped mounds lay out there, some silent and still, some writhing in agony, a few thrashing about and wailing, blind and deaf now to everything but their own pain. The number of those was growing steadily smaller, as the archers systematically picked off any Saxon that tried to rise or even move. It was a scene of carnage Llewin had seen many times over the past year; he did not think he would ever grow accustomed to it. Even worse was the fact that three of the bodies on that field wore white surcoats. A fair trade, he thought, in a less uneven fight, but today the Iron Hands must charge a heavy price for every man lost—and they would not do nearly so well again, with surprise lost and their enemy over his shock and howling for blood.

He could see them across the bowl now, safely out of bowshot, forming lines for the attack now just moments away. Their savage war cries, carrying across the two hundred yards between the two bands, made the hair on the back of Llewin’s neck rise. He forced his breathing to slow, willed his heart to stop pounding—he needed to be calm when the onslaught came. He had never faced odds like this: a hundred dead already, and the Northmen still outnumbered the mercenaries by more than five to one.

With another resounding war cry, the Saxons started forward at a fast walk. After fifty yards, they broke into a jog as they came within range of the archers on the cliffs, and again thirty bowstrings thrummed in unison. The charge seemed to take forever; a hundred yards, then fifty, and the archers began to pick individual targets instead of firing volleys at the mass of men advancing toward them. The Northmen broke into a canter as they reached the upslope, and men began to trip and turn ankles on the rocks that had been strewn across the approach to the Iron Hands’ position. It all made no difference to Llewin’s eyes. The tide of enemies seemed to slip around their own fallen as a river slips around a handful of pebbles tossed into it.

Finally the tide reached the Britons’ lines. A yellow-haired barbarian rushed at Llewin with upraised axe; Llewin vaguely noted the surprise on the man’s face as he stepped into the blow, throwing off the other man’s timing, at the same time delivering his own full-armed swing into the spot where the ribs met. The axe did what it was designed to do, finally coming to rest in the man’s backbone, and he simply folded around it. Llewin didn’t even try to withdraw his own weapon; it would stick after a blow like that, and the heat of battle was no time to try to wrestle it free. Instead he simply plucked the Saxon’s axe out of his hands as he fell and used the haft to deflect a spear thrust at his belly, moving quickly up the shaft to smash the axe handle into a snarling face.

He had heard men liken battle to a dance, and it often seemed to Llewin that it was so; macabre and bloody, to be sure, but a dance nonetheless. He danced with his enemies for minutes, or hours, among the rocks, pausing occasionally long enough to remind one of his men to draw back, to get back to the shelter of the rocks, to hold the line and not get separated from the others.

Finally the noise subsided, and Llewin realized the Saxons were withdrawing again, pulling back out of bowshot, leaving perhaps another forty littering the slope and the space before the rocks. More, twenty or so, limped or hobbled after their comrades down toward the center of the bowl. This time the archers let them go; they were no longer a threat, and they needed to conserve their arrows. Llewin could see fully a dozen white-clad bodies on the slope, five of them on the road just to his left. Sergeant Peter had paid a heavy price to hold the open roadway.

He was moving around to check his men—physically check them this time, since he knew they had a few moments—and satisfied that none was injured when a shout went up from the left side of the line, cheering voices raised high and coming closer. He looked in that direction, trying to identify the source of the commotion, and quickly raised his own voice in a high-spirited cheer. Down the line toward them rode the Redwing, mounted on one of the Saxon horses and carrying the banner its rider had borne, waving it enthusiastically with his right hand so the sodden fabric would catch the wind and unfurl: it was the scarlet banner, the one with the black serpent. The great knight stopped just in front of Llewin and faced the northern raiders defiantly, waving the flag so they would be sure to see it. Then he was gone again, riding back to his place in the line to prepare for the next attack.

Llewin let his exuberant cheer die while the other men shouted on around him. Had he seen a grimace of pain on the Redwing’s face? Surely he had imagined it; it was hard to tell from behind the obscuring face-guards of the man’s great helm. And he had imagined the blood dripping bright red from the back of the knight’s left arm. He dropped his eyes to the sodden ground and saw two spots of bright crimson on a patch that had not yet been stained red. As he watched, the spots spread and faded, disappearing into the rust-colored clay. He looked up in the direction the other man had ridden; surely the Redwing hadn’t been wounded! His eyes met Timothy’s. The scout returned his gaze without expression, but something in his eyes caught Llewin’s attention. He had seen it, too.

Llewin forced down the panic that rose in his throat. How could they survive if the Redwing were killed? He crushed the thought, concentrating instead on reordering his ten. He moved Robert and Derrick to his left flank, instructing them to help hold the road when the next attack came. The rest he left roughly where they were, spreading them out to fill the gaps left by the shift. Then they settled back down to wait for their enemy to return.

They did not have long to wait. Minutes later the Saxons charged again, coming this time in a more orderly fashion. Two tight lines, shields overlapped to form a wall, advanced rapidly up the slope, stronger by two or three times on the flanks than in the center. A smart one, this Saxon commander, Llewin thought. He knows he can’t take us with another rush, so he’s going to try to overwhelm us on the flanks. He noted without really thinking about it that his heart wasn’t pounding this time, that his mind was focused on the task at hand instead of trying to overwhelm him with nerves. He watched his enemies climb the hill. The storm of arrows was lighter this time; he estimated the archers had expended perhaps half of their arrows, and the shield wall forced them to choose their targets more carefully so as not to waste their missiles. He shouted to Charles, on the right end of the ten’s line, to watch the flank, and then the barbarians were upon them again.

The rocks had forced the shield wall apart, but the Saxons came in as good order as they could manage. From where Llewin stood, it wasn’t enough. He heard a mighty roar from his left; Derrick’s club would be shattering shields and the arms that held them. A red-bearded Saxon thrust a spear between the rocks at Llewin’s throat, and he began his own dance again. This time it seemed to be over much more quickly; in what seemed like minutes there were no Saxons still standing to their front. He scarcely had time to lower his axe, though, when Charles’s warning shout pulled his attention to the right, where fifteen Iron Hands struggled to hold back at least ten times their number of bearded Saxons.

Only one course of action occurred to Llewin: with a shout to his ten to follow him, he plunged forward out of the sheltering rocks, then wheeled them to the right. In two strides they were at a full charge, and they smashed into the Saxons’ own right flank with the fury of men with nothing to lose. Again they had the element of surprise; the Northmen, overconfident and expecting the Iron hands to again wait behind their rocks, had their attention fixed on the fight to their front and never even noticed that their flank was open, much less that death was coming from that direction.

Once again, a few minutes’ furious fighting ended with the barbarians in headlong retreat. The onslaught was more than they could bear. Llewin looked around and was shocked to realize that all of his men were still standing. He nodded once to the lone Sergeant—Steven was his name—remaining on the flank, and again to Lieutenant Roland when he realized he had also been among the fifteen fighting to hold back the flood of fair-haired savages, and then began to lead his men back to their position. Only then did he realize that the left end of the line was still alive with the sounds of battle, which briefly rose tenfold as the Britons surged suddenly forward to push the invaders back. Quickly the Saxons pulled away under that pressure and retreated in good order to rejoin their shaken comrades.

From the corner of his eye he noticed Lieutenant Roland dart past toward the other end of the line, where Captain Jerrodd and the Redwing had positioned themselves. He wondered where the older man got the energy; Llewin’s own muscles seemed made of mud, and he would have gladly sunk to the ground where he was. He looked around at his men, satisfied once again that all were still alive and uninjured. He offered up a silent thanks to God for preserving them, wondering how long their luck would last.

A fur-clad Saxon lay face-down, moaning, a few feet in front of the sheltering rocks. Llewin stepped toward the man, drawing his long dagger. He could see the man’s entrails lying in the mud a foot from where they had been loosed from his gut. No threat, this one. He would just put the poor bastard out of his misery. The barbarian grunted as Llewin grabbed his hair in a gloved hand and pulled his head back; the dagger began to fall in a smooth motion—

“Sergeant Llewin.” It was Lieutenant Roland’s voice. His tone said now.

Llewin let go of the Northman’s hair and started toward his Lieutenant’s voice before he realized that Captain Jerrod was there with him. Timothy stepped forward toward the dying man and Llewin handed him the dagger as they passed. He wondered what he might have done; Lieutenant Roland had never expressed displeasure with his juniors exercising initiative before. Surely this isn’t about leaving our position? The two men’s faces were grim. He stopped before them and stood as stiffly straight as he could.

“Sergeant, how many men do you have left?” the Captain asked briskly.

“All of them, Sir. One man has a twisted knee, but it’s not serious.”

“I need you to do something for me. For Britain. It won’t be easy.”

“We’re ready, Sir. What do you need us to do?”

The Captain paused for a long moment before answering. “Carry the Redwing’s body back to his home. The enemy must not be allowed to have it.”

Llewin felt dizzy. He didn’t just say that. I misunderstood. The Redwing has not been killed! “Say that again, Sir?”

“The Redwing has been killed, Sergeant. The surge on our left was not some brilliant stroke to drive the Saxons off; it was every man pushing forward to destroy the one who struck him down. I need you and your ten to take him to his home, to keep him from Saxon hands.” The older man fixed his eyes with a determined stare. “There is no time for discussion. The rest of us will stay here to cover your movement and keep the Saxons from entering Britain.”

Llewin opened his mouth to ask a question, but no words would come. He closed it again and nodded weakly. “Aye, Sir,” he finally found the strength to say. So we live, and the rest die. We run, and our friends die so we can get away. It was a sentence worse than death; he could not imagine living with the shame.

The Captain turned and began to walk away; clearly intending Llewin to follow. With a quick command to Timothy to assemble the ten just inside the cut, he hurried after, motioning to Derrick as he went.

“Sir—why us?” He asked when he caught up to the Captain.

The older man didn’t turn his head. “Because yours is the only ten that is still whole. And because you have the giant. And because you are the—the youngest leader in this Hundred. You have the best chance of success in this.”

What was he about to say? Llewin wondered. Not the youngest. The weakest? The least competent? Why does he really want me gone? He did not ask the questions. The commander had clearly made up his mind; no amount of talking would change it.

They found the Redwing lying as if asleep, his face pale, his chest unmoving. Llewin had seen enough dead men to know this was not sleep. Quickly he gathered up the knight’s accoutrements, his helm, his great sword, and the torc that was the badge of his nobility, while Derrick picked him up and draped him not ungently over his back. Without a word they moved back toward the cut; the Northmen were already beginning to move forward again.

Llewin retrieved his dagger from Timothy and explained the new plan to the others. They all nodded, stone-faced, as the Captain began to hastily form the surviving Iron Hands into a wall ten feet inside the mouth of the cut. That wall would hold the barbarians’ charge, giving ground only inch by inch, as the narrow confines of the cut nullified the Saxons’ numbers. The outcome was still certain; this way the tide of Northmen would at least be slowed.

Llewin looked back briefly to find Captain Jerrod looking intently at him. The officer saluted hurriedly with his sword, then turned away before Llewin could return the gesture. The young Sergeant stared for a moment, then pulled his gaze away, motioned his men to follow, and set off at a fast jog down the cut toward the Redwing’s distant home. The din of battle rose again behind them, metal clashing, men screaming, men dying. Their friends.

He looked at the giant. “How long can you carry him like this?”

“I can carry him as long as you need me to, Llewin,” was the reply.

They heard the first crash of rocks behind them shortly after they cleared the far end of the cut. The sound and the screams of his dying friends burned itself like a brand into Llewin’s mind as he ran.