The Heroes

hooted with laughter but the Union man only went down as far as his knees would bend then burst straight back up, flinging Irig’s great bulk away and slicing him across the guts all in one motion, sending him staggering, blood spraying from his chain mail coat, eyes popping more with shock than pain. Just couldn’t believe he’d been done so easy, and neither could Temper. How could a man run up that hill and still move so hard and so fast at the top of it?
    ‘It’s the Bloody-Nine!’ someone wailed, though it bloody obviously weren’t the Bloody-Nine at all. He was causing quite a bloody panic all the same. Another Carl went at him with a spear and he slid around it, sword crashing down and leaving a mighty dent in the middle of the Carl’s helmet, folding him on his face, arms and legs thrashing mindless in the mud.
    Temper gritted his teeth, raised his bow, took a careful bead on the neckless bastard, but just as Temper let go the string Irig pushed himself up, clutching his bloody guts with one hand while he raised his axe in the other. Luck being luck, he got himself right in the way of the arrow and it took him in the shoulder, made him grunt.
    The Union man’s eyes flicked sideways, and his sword flicked out with ’em and took Irig’s arm off just like that, and almost before the bloodbegan to spurt from the stump the blade lashed back the other way and ripped a bloody gash in his chest, back the other way and laid Irig’s head wide open between his mouth and his nose, top teeth snatched through the air and off down the hill.
    Neckless crouched there still, dented shield up in front, sword up behind, big face all spotted with red and his eyes ahead, calm as a fisherman waiting for a tug on the line. Four carved Northmen dead as ever a man could be at his feet and Irig toppling gently sideways and into the ditch, even deader.
    He might as well have been the Bloody-Nine, this neckless bastard, Carls falling over ’emselves to get away from him. More Union men started to pull themselves up to either side, over the earth wall in numbers, and the shift backwards became a run.
    Temper went with ’em, as eager as any. He caught an elbow in the neck from someone, slipped over and slapped his chin on the grass, gave his tongue an awful bite, scrambled up and ran on, men shouting and shrieking all around. He snatched one desperate look back, saw Neckless hack down a running Carl calmly as you might swat a fly. Beside him a tall Union man in a bright breastplate was pointing towards Temper with a drawn blade, shouting at the top of his voice.
    ‘On!’ roared Jalenhorm, waving his sword towards the Children. Bloody hell, he was out of breath. ‘Up! Up!’ They had to keep the momentum. Gorst had opened the gate a crack, and they had to push through before it closed. ‘On! On!’ He bent down, offering his hand to haul men over the ditch and slapping them on the back as they laboured off uphill again.
    It looked as if the fleeing Northmen were causing chaos at the drystone wall above, tangling with the defenders there, spreading panic, letting the foremost of Jalenhorm’s men clamber up after them without resistance. As soon as he had the breath to do it he followed himself, lurching up the steep slope. He had to push on.
    Bodies. Bodies, and wounded men scattered on the grass. A Northman stared at him, bloody hands clapped to the top of his head. A Union soldier clutched dumbly at his oozing thigh. A soldier running just beside him made a hiccupping sound and fell on his back, and when Jalenhorm glanced over his shoulder he saw the man had an arrow in his face. He could not stop for him. Could only press on, swallowing a sudden wave of nausea. His own thudding heartbeat and his own whooshing breath damped the war cries and the clashes of metal down to an endless nagging rattle. The thickening drizzle was far from helping, turning the trampled grass slippery slick. The world jumped and wobbled, full of running men, slipping and sliding men, occasional whirring arrows, flying grass and mud.
    ‘On,’ he grunted, ‘on.’ No one could have heard him. It was himself hewas ordering. ‘On.’ This was his one chance at redemption. If they could only capture the summit. Break the Northmen where they were strongest. ‘Up. Up.’ Then nothing else would matter. He would be no longer the king’s incompetent old drinking partner, who fumbled his command on the first day. He would have finally earned his