Hereward 02 - The Devil's Army Read Online Free PDF

land while they waited for him to arrive. His gaze roved over the weaving gleams of Norman torches and their glinting reflections in the water.Though the light saved their necks from the hostile territory, it made them easy prey for the stealthy English.
    Through the din of battle, he heard the Butcher’s furious orders ring out. They were having some effect. The bobbing brands began to draw together along a narrow line of grassy ground between the edge of the marsh and the wood. Hereward grinned. The Normans still thought they were on the broad downs of Wessex. When the commander barked the order to retreat and regroup, the iron-clad invaders stumbled back into the trees. But the undergrowth was too dense, the trunks too tightly packed for easy progress.
    ‘Bows!’ Hereward called.
    The men he had trained with their hunting bows nocked their shafts. Grey shapes in the night, they steadied themselves against the back foot and raised their weapons as he had seen time and again on the battlefields of Flanders. The torches wavered along the tree-line as the Normans struggled into the wood.
    ‘Loose your arrows!’
    The first flight whistled through the air. With grim satisfaction, Hereward listened to the cries as the shafts drove home. Brands fell, setting alight the dry grass and underbrush. As the flames licked up, he yelled the order for his men to advance. The Normans had slaughtered the best of England. Now it was the time for vengeance. When the echoes of this night rolled out, the king would have no choice but to take notice.
    The skull-faced English warriors raced forward, driving a wedge through the centre of the king’s men. Hereward looked to the far side of the marsh where the right flank of the enemy was being herded towards an area of bog that appeared to be dry land. In the woods, the remainder of the force had realized their error. They turned to engage the rebels, but their ability to fight back was hampered by the trees.
    Hereward shouldered his way through his men to reach the heart of the battle. Some were still but boys, others grey-haired and hollow-chested, yet all had a fierce gleam in their eyes. Familiar faces loomed out of the night on each side. Therewas Guthrinc, more bear than man, ramming his ham-like fist into a Norman face and laughing as he felt bone shatter. There was Hengist, his pale eyes as cold as ice, his ash-streaked face filled with the bitterness of a man who had seen his family and neighbours cut down by the invaders. Kraki the Viking, once the most feared warrior among the huscarls of Earl Tostig of Northumbria, gritted his teeth and swung his axe. No humour lit his features; battle, like life, was a serious business.
    And then Hereward glimpsed apple-cheeks and a mop of curly brown hair, an innocence that even gritted teeth could not mask. Redwald, his brother in all but blood. Though he was not a fighting man, he stabbed his spear as furiously as any other there. For a moment, their gazes locked. Caught in the fury of battle, Redwald appeared oddly blank. But as he looked into Hereward’s eyes, he grinned, making a show of grinding his spear-tip into a Norman face.
    A wall of flame crackled along the tree-line. Panic flared in the faces of the king’s men. The higher ground was tinder-dry, and Hereward saw his enemies start to realize that if the woods caught alight, they would be caught between two different kinds of hell.
    The heat brought a bloom to his flesh and his breath quickened. At that moment he wanted to see the conflagration consume them all, perhaps all England, burning away the darkness and the misery in the fires of purification. He stood calm for long moments, caught in the flames’ spell as the battle raged around him. He heard no clash of iron, no screams of the dying. He saw nothing but the gold and amber and scarlet.
    Then dimly he heard a voice calling his name. He stirred from his dream and glimpsed Kraki pointing past the milling bodies. Silhouetted