The Last Kingdom Read Online Free PDF Page B

care.
    “A swine’s head. Like the tusk of a boar. The bravest will go first and, if they break through, the others will follow.”
    Beocca was right. Three wedges formed in front of our lines, one each from the household troops of Osbert, Ælla, and my father. The men stood close together, their shields overlapping like the Danish shields, while the rearward ranks of each wedge held their shields high like a roof, and then, when they were ready, the men in the three wedges gave a great cheer and started forward. They did not run. I had expected them to run, but men cannot keep the wedge tight if they run. The wedge is war in slow time, slow enough for the men inside the wedge to wonder how strong the enemy is and to fear that the rest of the army will not follow, but they did. The three wedges had not gone more than twenty paces before the remaining mass of men moved forward.
    “I want to be closer,” I said.
    “You will wait,” Beocca said.
    I could hear the shouts now, shouts of defiance and shouts to give a man courage, and then the archers on the city walls loosed their bows and I saw the glitter of the feathers as the arrows slashed down toward the wedges, and a moment later the throwing spears came, arching over the Danish line to fall on the upheld shields. Amazingly, at least to me, it seemed that none of our men was struck, though I could see their shields were stuck with arrows and spears like hedgehog spines, and still the three wedges advanced, and now our own bowmen were shooting at the Danes, and a handful of our men broke from the ranks behind the wedges to hurl their own spears at the enemy shield wall.
    “Not long now,” Beocca said nervously. He made the sign of the cross. He was praying silently and his crippled left hand was twitching.
    I was watching my father’s wedge, the central wedge, the one just in front of the wolf’s head banner, and I saw the closely touching shields vanish into the ditch that lay in front of the earthen wall and I knew my father was perilously close to death and I urged him to win, to kill, to give the name Uhtred of Bebbanburg even more renown, and then I saw the shield wedge emerge from the ditch and, like a monstrous beast, crawl up the face of the wall.
    “The advantage they have,” Beocca said in the patient voice he used for teaching, “is that the enemy’s feet are easy targets when you come from below.” I think he was trying to reassure himself, but I believed him anyway, and it must have been true for my father’s formation, first up the wall, did not seem to be checked when they met the enemy’s shield wall. I could see nothing now except the flash of blades rising and falling, and I could hear that sound, the real music of battle, the chop of iron on wood, iron on iron, yet the wedge was still moving. Like a boar’s razor-sharp tusk it had pierced the Danish shield wall and was moving forward, and though the Danes wrapped around the wedge, it seemed our men were winning for they pressed forward across the earthen bank, and the soldiers behind must have sensed that Ealdorman Uhtred had brought them victory for they suddenly cheered and surged to help the beleaguered wedge.
    “God be praised,” Beocca said, for the Danes were fleeing. One moment they had formed a thick shield wall, bristling with weapons, and now they were vanishing into the city and our army, with the relief of men whose lives have been spared, charged after them.
    “Slowly, now,” Beocca said, walking his horse forward and leading mine by the bridle.
    The Danes had gone. Instead the earthen wall was black with our men who were scrambling through the gap in the city’s ramparts, then down the bank’s farther side into the streets and alleyways beyond. The three flags, my father’s wolf head, Ælla’s war ax, and Osbert’s cross, were inside Eoferwic. I could hear men cheering and I kicked my horse, forcing her out of Beocca’s grasp. “Come back!” he shouted, but though