The Earl's King by M J Porter

Author:M J Porter [Porter, M J]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-12-23T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

AD1039 Powys Ælfgar

Ælfgar could see little from his place among the Mercian men. The sum all that was known to him was the warriors in front of him, and those to his side.

Noises drifted to him from behind, but he kept his head forward. When the attack came from the rear, one of the ten warriors there would ensure the Mercians knew their backs were under threat.

For now, events at the front of the shield wall were what mattered.

Ælfgar knew the two sides had clashed. He felt it, rather than saw it, in the quiver of the men before him, and heard it too, in the grunts of men pushed to their greatest physical exertion.

“Keep close,” Orkning barked at his side, his voice harsh.

“And you,” Ælfgar replied, placing his weight on his back foot so that he could better balance the shield he held above the head of the warrior in front of him. The man was of smaller stature than Ælfgar and the gap above his head, from where the shields of the Mercians overlapped, felt like a vast, yawning gape, just waiting for a spear or an arrow to work its way through.

Ælfgar glanced at it fearfully. It would be too easy for the space to be used against him. He prayed that none of the enemy thought to use the shields as a jumping off platform. He knew his arm would buckle under the weight. Already it threatened to shake with the exertion of holding something so heavy above, not his own head, but that of the man before him.

Ælfgar bit his lip, hard, forcing his mind away from his useless thoughts to focus on what was happening in front of him.

The line of the shield wall seemed to be holding, in so much as he could determine, and yet he could hear the terrible cries of wounded men and men fighting for their lives, and as of yet, no forward progress had been made by the Mercians.

Neither had they been forced backwards. Was it possible that a stalemate had already been reached?

The next moment, Ælfgar’s faint hope faded.

It began as a small thing, a flicker passing through the men before him, but then he was being forced backwards, despite his best efforts. His back foot, braced to support the weight of his shield, was quickly joined by his front foot as those before him tried to retrace the ground they’d only just walked over.

Ælfgar knew he needed to yield, if only for the sake of the construction of the shield wall and yet he fought against it until he was left with no choice. Before him, his fellow warrior turned.

“Move you fucking bastard,” the man hollered, spittle flying from his open mouth, as he was forced ever closer to Ælfgar by those being obliged to retreat. For a quick moment, Ælfgar caught a view of the front of the fighting men, through the space below his shield. He gazed at the scene of devastation, at the rage of the enemy fighting warriors they’d trapped, and he finally stepped backwards.

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