The Teuring lifted his dripping sword on high. “We have come to cleanse the earth of you,” rang from him.
“Beware. The gods hate traitors.”
“Yes,” answered Solbern at his brother’s shoulder, “this night Wodan fetches you, oathbreaker, and ill is that house to which he will take you.”
More invaders poured through; Liuderis pushed them into ragged ranks. “Onward!” Hathawulf bawled.
Ermanaric had been giving his own orders. His men might mostly lack helmet, byrnie, shield, long weapon. But each bore a knife, at least. Nor did the Teurings have much iron to wear. They were mainly yeomen, who could afford little more than a metal cap and a coat of stiffened leather, and who went to battle only when the king raised a levy. Those whom Ermanaric had gathered were warriors by trade; any of them might have a farm or a ship or the like, but he was first and foremost a warrior. He was well drilled in standing side by side with his fellows.
The king’s troopers snatched at trestles and the boards that had lain on top. These they used to ward themselves. Those that had axes, having retreated before the inroad, chopped cudgels for their fellows out of wainscots and pillars. Besides a knife, a stag’s tine off the wall, the narrow end of a drinking horn, a broken Roman goblet, a brand from the firetrenches made a deadly weapon. As tightly wedged as the struggle became – flesh against flesh, friend in the way of friend, pushing, stumbling, slipping in blood and sweat – sword or ax was of scant more help. Spears and bills were useless, save that from their stance on the benches by the high seat, the armored guards could strike downward.
Thus the fight became formless, blind, a fury as of the Wolf unbound.
Yet Hathawulf, Solbern, and their best men beat a path onward, pushed, rammed, hewed, slashed, stabbed, amidst bellow and shriek, thud and clash, onward, living stormwinds – until at last they came to their mark.
There they set shield against shield, loosed steel upon steel, they and the king’s household troopers. Ermanaric was not in that front line, but he boldly stood above on the seat, before the gaze of all, and wielded a spear. Often did he trade a look with Hathawulf or Solbern, and then each grinned his hatred.
It was old Liuderis who broke through the line. His lifeblood spurted from thigh and forearm, but his ax beat right and left, he won as far as the bench and clove the skull of Sibicho. Dying, he rasped, “One snake the less.”
Hathawulf and Solbern passed over his body. A son of Ermanaric threw himself before his father. Solbern cut the boy down. Hathawulf struck beyond. Ermanaric’s spearshaft cracked across. Hathawulf struck again. The king reeled back against the wall. His right arm dangled half severed. Solbern slashed low, at the left leg, and hamstrung him. He crumpled, still snarling. The brothers moved in for the kill. Their followers strove to keep the last of the royal guard off their backs.
Someone appeared.
A stop to the fighting spread through the hall like the wave when a rock falls in a pool. Men stood agape and agasp. Through the unrestful gloom, made the thicker by their crowding, they barely saw what hovered above the high seat.
On a skeletal horse, whose bones were of metal, sat a tall graybearded man. Hat and cloak hid any real sight of him. In his right hand he bore a spear. Its head, above every other weapon and limned against the night under the roof, caught fire-glow – a comet, a harbinger of woe?
Hathawulf and Solbern let their blades sink. “Forefather,” the elder breathed into the sudden hush. “Have you come to our help?”
The answer rolled forth unhumanly deep, loud, and ruthless: “Brothers, your doom is upon you. Meet it well and your names will live.
“Ermanaric, this is not yet your time. Send your men out the rear and take the Teurings from behind.
“Go, all of you here, to wherever Weard will have you go.”
He was not there.
Hathawulf and Solbern stood stunned.