Had he seen it in his visions? Was the knowledge sent to him by his father-god in Valhalla—Othin the Traitor, God of the Hanged, Betrayer of Warriors—as Brand obliquely continued to suggest?
Whatever the cause, Shef thought, if I were the marshal of the Army, I would call a halt six times a day, and blow the trumpets, so the flank-guards and the rear-guard would know where I was. And I would move no further till I heard the trumpets in reply.
It would be better if everyone knew the time when the trumpets would blow. But how could that be, once we are all out of sight of each other? How do the black monks in the minsters know when it is time for their services? Shef chewed on the problem as his horse took him down between the trees and shadows began to fall across the path. Again and again these days his head swam with thoughts, with ideas, with difficulties to which there seemed to be no solution in the wisdom of his time. Shef’s fingers itched to hold a hammer again, to work in the forge. He felt he could beat out a solution on an anvil instead of restlessly brooding in his own brain.
There was a figure on the road ahead of them. He spun about when he heard the horses—then let his sword slide back down when he recognized them.
“I am Stuf,” the man said. “One of the band of Humli, out of Ribe.”
Brand nodded. A small band, not very well organized. The sort of group that would let a man slip out of line and not think to inquire what had happened to him till too late.
“My horse went lame and I dropped behind. Then I decided to turn him loose and go on with just my own pack.”
Brand nodded again. “We have spare horses here. I will let you have one. It will cost you a mark of silver.”
Stuf opened his mouth to protest, to start the automatic haggling expected of any deal in horseflesh, but then closed it suddenly as Brand waved his men on. He grabbed the reins of the horse Brand was leading.
“Your price is high,” he said. “But maybe now is not the time to be arguing. There are Englishmen around. I can smell them.”
As he said the words Shef saw a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye. A branch moving. No, the whole tree sweeping downward in a stately arc, the ropes tied to its top suddenly visible as they tightened into a straight line. An instant later, movement all along the left-hand edge of the track.
Shef threw his shield up. A thump, an arrow-point just protruding through the soft lindenwood an inch from his hand. Shouts and screams behind him, horses rearing and kicking. Already he had hurled himself off the horse and was crouching below its neck, its body between him and the ambush. His mind registered a dozen facts as if in one flash of lightning, far quicker than any words.
That tree had been cut through after the Great Army had passed through. The rear-guard was even further behind than they had thought. The attack would be coming from the left; they wanted to drive their enemies into the wood to the right. No escape forward over the felled tree, none back through the confusion of shot horses and startled men. Do what they least suspected!
Shef ran round the front of his horse, shield up, and hurled himself straight at the steep left bank of the track, his spear gripped underhand. One leap, two, three—not pausing lest the muddy bank give way. A makeshift barricade of branches and a face glaring over it at him, an Englishman fumbling an arrow out of his quiver. Shef drove the spear through the barricade at groin level and saw the face contort in agony. Twist, wrench backward, reach over and drag the man forward through his own barricade. Shef drove his spear-point into the ground and vaulted over body and branches, turning instantly and stabbing at the ambushers, first one side then the other.