The Last Kingdom Read Online Free PDF

high, and steep, so it would be a hard climb into the face of the waiting killers, but I was confident we would win. I was ten years old, almost eleven.
    The Danes were shouting at us, but we were too far away to hear their insults. Their shields, round like ours, were painted yellow, black, brown, and blue. Our men began beating weapons on their shields and that was a fearsome sound, the first time I ever heard an army making that war music; the clashing of ash spear shafts and iron sword blades on shield wood.
    “It is a terrible thing,” Beocca said to me. “War, it is an awful thing.”
    I said nothing. I thought it was glorious and wonderful.
    “The shield wall is where men die,” Beocca said, and he kissed the wooden cross that hung about his neck. “The gates of heaven and hell will be jostling with souls before this day is done,” he went on gloomily.
    “Aren’t the dead carried to a feasting hall?” I asked.
    He looked at me very strangely, then appeared shocked. “Where did you hear that?”
    “At Bebbanburg,” I said, sensible enough not to admit that it was Ealdwulf the smith who told me those tales as I watched him beating rods of iron into sword blades.
    “That is what heathens believe,” Beocca said sternly. “They believe dead warriors are carried to Woden’s corpse-hall to feast until the world’s ending, but it is a grievously wrong belief. It is an error! But the Danes are always in error. They bow down to idols, they deny the true god, they are wrong.”
    “But a man must die with a sword in his hand?” I insisted.
    “I can see we must teach you a proper catechism when this is done,” the priest said sternly.
    I said nothing more. I was watching, trying to fix every detail of that day in my memory. The sky was summer blue, with just a few clouds off in the west, and the sunlight reflected from our army’s spear points like glints of light flickering on the summer sea. Cowslips dotted the meadow where the army assembled, and a cuckoo called from the woods behind us where a crowd of our women were watching the army. There were swans on the river that was placid for there was little wind. The smoke from the cooking fires inside Eoferwic rose almost straight into the air, and that sight reminded me that there would be a feast in the city that night, a feast of roasted pork or whatever else we found in the enemy’s stores. Some of our men, those in the foremost ranks, were darting forward to shout at the enemy, or else dare him to come and do private battle between the lines, one man on one man, but none of the Danes broke rank. They just stared, waited, their spears a hedge, their shields a wall, and then our horns blew again and the shouting and the shield-banging faded as our army lurched forward.
    It went raggedly. Later, much later, I was to understand the reluctance of men to launch themselves against a shield wall, let alone a shield wall held at the top of a steep earthen bank, but on that day I was just impatient for our army to hurry forward and break the impudent Danes and Beocca had to restrain me, catching hold of my bridle to stop me riding into the rearmost ranks. “We shall wait until they break through,” he said.
    “I want to kill a Dane,” I protested.
    “Don’t be stupid, Uhtred,” Beocca said angrily. “You try and kill a Dane,” he went on, “and your father will have no sons. You are his only child now, and it is your duty to live.”
    So I did my duty and I hung back, and I watched as, so slowly, our army found its courage and advanced toward the city. The river was on our left, the empty encampment behind our right, and the inviting gap in the city wall was to our front; there the Danes were waiting silently, their shields overlapping.
    “The bravest will go first,” Beocca said to me, “and your father will be one of them. They will make a wedge, what the Latin authors call a porcinum capet. You know what that means?”
    “No.” Nor did I