rider fell back.
He wasn’t sure which way he was facing, world a dizzy mess through the slot in his skewed visor. Damn thing must’ve got bent when the horse kicked him. His head was throbbing. Felt like he could hardly breathe. He fumbled the buckle open, dragged his helmet halfway around before he could finally twist it off.
The chill wind hit his sweaty face like a slap and the world rushed at him, the roar of battle furiously loud.
‘Leo!’ Someone had him by the arm and he almost swung before he saw it was Barniva, unhorsed and mud-smeared. Dead horses everywhere. Dead men. Wounded men. Broken weapons. Leo wobbled down and clawed up a shield. A Carl’s round shield. Shoved his arm through the straps. A Northman was crawling through the mud with a broken spear sticking from his back. Leo chopped his head open.
‘Regroup!’ he roared, hardly knowing who he was shouting at, hardly sure if there was anyone left to regroup except him and Barniva. It didn’t matter. They could do it together. He could do it alone.
The rain was coming hard, fat drops pinging from his armour, soaking into the padding beneath, turning it to cold lead. ‘To the bridge!’ And he started to slog in the direction he thought it was, trusting that men were following. He’d retreated for long enough.
He caught sight of his standard. The white field, the golden lion. Hanging sodden at the near end of the bridge. And there was Stour Nightfall’s. The slavering wolf on grey. Drooping in the rain at the far end. A lion fought a wolf in a circle of blood, and the lion won.
Leo bared his teeth, squelching forward through mud battered and mashed by countless boots advancing and retreating, advancing and retreating. The fighting had been fiercest here. Bodies everywhere. Bodies from both sides. Men still and men still moving, crawling, crying, pawing at the ground, pawing at themselves. Leo stepped between them, stepped over them, teeth clenched, head throbbing, pushing on towards the bridge.
‘Leo!’ Barniva grabbed him, dragged him down, shield across his face. Something rattled from it. An arrow. Another bounced from Barniva’s armoured shoulder, more flickered into the grass. Someone fell, hands clapped to his throat. Leo peered over the rim of his shield, saw the archers, kneeling in a long row before the bridge, nocking arrows.
Barniva sat down. ‘Lo,’ he said, tongue strangely clumsy.
There was an arrow sticking out of his face. In the hollow between his eye and the bridge of his nose. It looked ridiculous. Like a joke. Like a child wedging his wooden sword between his arm and his ribs and standing sideways on. I’m stabbed! I’m stabbed!
But it was no joke. The white of Barniva’s eye had turned red. Bloodstained.
Leo caught him by the shoulders as he dropped backwards. ‘Luh,’ he said, red eye rolling off to look sideways. The other was slightly crossed, peering at the shaft poking from his face, a look of confused surprise.
‘Uh.’ A long streak of blood leaked from the shaft and down his cheek, like a red tear.
‘Barniva?’ said Leo. But he didn’t move.
‘Barniva?’ He was dead.
Leo stood, numb. More arrows flitted down around him with the rain. He lifted his sword, anger boiling up with it.
‘Charge!’ he bellowed, though it came out just a mad gurgle. Other men roared behind him. Glaward’s voice, and Jin’s, and Jurand’s, war cries, mad screams. They were all running. An arrow flickered past. Another rattled off Leo’s breastplate.
‘Fuckers!’ he screeched, spraying spit. ‘Fuckers!’ He caught his foot and went sliding on his face, took a mouthful of grass, near stabbing himself with his own blade. He scrambled up and charged on, throwing his stolen shield away and lifting his sword in both hands.
A glimpse of the stream, full of bobbing bodies. A glimpse of the archers as he clattered closer. Some old men. Some young men. One had a leather hood. One a shock of curly red hair. One’s face was bent sideways by some old wound. He saw Leo pounding towards him, faltered as he drew an arrow from his quiver, let it fall, turning to run. The one with curly hair loosed a shaft from only a few strides away but he fumbled it in his panic and it went spinning high into the air.
He ducked gasping under Leo’s sword but Leo crashed into him with his shoulder, knocked him on his back, started hacking at the others, ears full of their squeals