David Gemmell. The Hawk Enternal

A huge warrior in a wolf’s head helm leaped from the Aenir ranks, sword raised. Maggrig parried the blow and reversed a cut to the warrior’s neck. The blade hammered into the mail-shirt – and snapped. Dropping the useless hilt, Maggrig grabbed the man by his mail-shin and hauled him forward, butting him savagely and crashing his fist into the man’s belly. The warrior doubled over, his head snapping back as Maggrig’s knee came up to explode against his face.

Intosh threw Maggrig a sword, Maggrig caught it by the hilt and sliced the blade through the back of the wolf’s head helm. The Aenir died without a sound.

‘You lice-ridden sons of bitches,’ shouted Maggrig. ‘Is that the best you can do?’

A roar rose from the Aenir and the line lunged forward.

The battle raged once more and now there were no bloodcurdling battle-cries – only the screams of the dying and the grim determination of the living to survive. The clansmen had been forced back, but their enemies had to climb a wall of their own dead to force a path to the dwindling band of defenders.

Asbidag had climbed into the saddle, the better to see the battle. His trained eye knew it had reached its final stage. A carle beside him screamed suddenly, pitching forward to the ground with a black-feathered shaft in his back. Arrows hissed through the air around him. Asbidag swung in the saddle, tearing his shield from the saddle-horn.

At the mouth of the pass Gaelen lifted his war-horn and blew three blasts. Eight hundred bows were bent and a dark cloud of shafts ripped into the horde.

Maggrig crashed his shield into the face of an attacker, hurling him from his feet, lancing his blade into a second man and dragging it clear.

‘It’s Gaelen!’ shouted Lennox. ‘He must have a thousand men with him.’

Maggrig staggered as an axe-blade shattered his shield. He hammered his fist into the axe-man’s face, feeling the man’s teeth break under the impact. A lean Aenir swordsman pushed .himself past Maggrig. Leofas blocked his blow, but lost his grip on the sword. Grabbing the man by the neck and groin, he hoisted him into the air and hurled him back amongst his comrades. The man vanished into the mass. Leofas recovered his blade, wincing as a sword cut into his shoulder. Lennox leaped to the rescue, his blood-covered club smashing the swordsman’s spine.

At the mouth of the pass Gaelen signalled for the women to scale the slopes on either side of the fighting men. Lara set off to the right with four hundred Haesten women behind her. As she climbed, Gaelen turned to Telor.

‘Now let’s see what you can do with that blade,’ he said.

Hitching his shield into place Gaelen ran at Asbidag’s carles, a hundred Pallides warriors yelling their war-cry behind him.

His horse rearing and kicking, Asbidag saw death running at him. An arrow knocked his helm from his head, another thudded into his shield. Panic overwhelmed him. Kicking his heels to his horse’s side he rode through his own men, smashing their line, than veered away from the advancing clansmen. Arrows hissed around him and he ducked low over the horse’s neck.

Lara saw his flight and notched an arrow to the string, drawing smoothly and sighting on Asbidag’s broad back. The shaft sang through the air, punching through the Aenir’s mail-shirt at the shoulder. Then he was through and clear and riding south. His horse carried him for a mile before collapsing and pitching him to the earth. He rolled to his feet. Three arrows had pierced the beast’s chest and belly; leaving it to die, Asbidag began the long walk south.

In the Folly, Asbidag’s panicked flight had opened the way for Gaelen and his warriors to smash the shield-wall and engage the carles. Gaelen ducked under a two-handed cut and drove his sword home into the man’s chest. Beside him Telor leaped and twisted, his sword flashing in the sunlight, cleaving and killing. Two men ran at Gaelen. He blocked a blow from the first, gutting the man with a reverse stroke; his sword stuck in his opponent’s belly, he saw the second warrior’s sword arcing towards his head. Telor parried the blow, chopping his blade through the man’s neck.

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