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Céolsige

Hwæt!

In the month when the land birthed this story, it was warm, it was thawing-time. Deep in the dirt, Spring was scalding Winter's bones with her hot rains, gnawing the old meat off his iron-cold ribs. It was the time of buds splitting open, of new roots snaking and swelling under the dark mud, of Eostre's hungry mouth sliding warm over the earth to melt the ice. It was green.

Now, the king Céomil was a mild man—a lover of lute-music and poetry, a peacemaker. He squandered his gold and let his strength wilt away, being too plump to best any man. A kin-shamer. A pitiable king. His cowardice heaped utter disgrace on his forebears' honour.

His father, the mighty Hildegar who cleared battlefields with his fearless arm, was not long out to sea in his funeral-boat when the conquered foreign coasts began to slip out of Céomil's reach. Worse, Céomil's mercenaries were left without their pay, and soon ditched the battlefields to return to their homes, far away from the plagued beaches. Onto the long beaches crept plagues of water-beasts and sea-warriors, but Céomil was a man cowed by battle, and he stopped his ears with honeyed bard-words while the slack-jawed, starved creatures skulked through his lands to thieve and feed.

Céomil's wife, Scyldwynn the Shield-Friend, was a formidable woman, birthed from the bold, ancient blood of noble men. Her bloodline, warrior-bred, fed anger through her veins when she saw her husband's uselessness, and she sought to rid herself of him. Her merciless warrior heart could not brook his unmanliness, and she sought raise her son Céolsige instead to the throne. She was such a fierce foe, with magic besides, that none would dare to cross her decision to gift the throne to her strong son.

It was this Spring that Céolsige came of age, and that Céomil died.

Céolsige first sat the throne at fifteen, a man's age. His proud mother prodded him to fight on the behalf of the failing provinces—she murmured sweet promises and shouted threats, whispered bribes and insults, anything to strike passion into him. But Céolsige was not like his father Céomil, and refused to be woman-led. First, he rode through his motherland on a finely bred horse, and stripped reams of red and yellow gold from all who were indebted to him—so much that a hundred wagons could scarcely lug it back to the kingdom. He dragged back his spoils proudly and packed his coffers to bursting with rich rings and bright sharp swords, battle-tested and blood-bought.

He called close to him the hundred strongest, war-hardened warriors of the kingdom. Ælfrið: the Half-Blind ranged to his hall, so too Uffi: the bearer of ash-spears answered his summons, there was also Thryduulf: the only blond son of Beohrtwulf—these were the three greatest warriors alive. He sat the throng of men down on the mead-benches of his richest hall, and they feasted on boar and beef and bear and gorged themselves with the rarest gold mead.

When the battle-lords had wholly bloated themselves on Céolsige's choice meat and mead, the young king stood atop the dais and shouted lustily to his kinsmen:

“Warriors. On this third day of Eostremonath, I bear you the gold that never jammed my father's hoard. Fresh from my debtors, it is a gift to you. For I am not a simpering bastard like my father—” here he spat like a seasoned soldier, “—and unlike him, I will rule you like a ring-giver, not a bard, or a hirer of mercenaries.”

And he passed out gleaming rings and jewelled torques—enough to string onto every warrior's spear up to the steel points. There were scarlet-gold dragons with coloured jewel-eyes slithering down arm-coils and hammered yellow-gold masks. Coins clinked and streamed over the floor like round ripe wheat grains in threshing time. Mead sparkled like honey as it flowed from gem-crusted goblet to goblet.

While the warriors were basking amidst their riches, Céolsige spoke again. “My father's sins and dues have been sated. And now I sweeten the pot and rejuvenate your war-spirits.”

He meted out round, jewel-lapped helms to the hundred battle-lords who ringed him on the benches; he unlocked his coffers and dispensed gifts of armour with kingly bearing. The helmets were strange and beautiful, fight-won or filched from the patrons of a thousand smithies. The breastplate he gave to  Ælfryð the Half-Blind was worked with boars and birds; to Uffi Ash-Spear he presented a bold, gold-drenched helm that would turn every nick and jab with an edged sword. To Thryduulf the Blond, the most respected of all the warriors and the strongest, he left a treasure-drenched scabbard, a true prize in any battle, a glory-sheath to make a pious man envy. No common sword would rest in this scabbard that had been smithed and hammered far from the forges of any human man.

While the warriors beamed and jostled with their treasures, Céolsige the young king spoke again: “Thryduulf needs an edge to sheathe in his scabbard.”

And then, with graceful speech, he gave them bags of weaponry to add to their spoils. He gifted Uffi a beautiful longsword that glinted like seawater: a battle-bought blade named Hraedl that had shattered many a brave man's helm. He gave Ælfryð a gore-hungry blade named Aldring. The scabbard was ringed with wrought-gold wolves and eagles, to honour his bravery. He turned last to Thryduulf, the strongest proved warrior in the hall, a seasoned man of many years whose strength was burnt and welded to his bones, whose muscles were hard and lean.

Thryduulf took graciously the sword offered to him: a graceful blade won from a god, some said. It bore the name Ecgfledding, the Sword with the Beautiful Blade, and it was the most sought-after sword in the world. Its double-edge glinted with red light like the eyes of a saucy virgin; its long edge was shaped from blood-tempered steel snatched from the deepest roots of the highest hawk-ringed mountains. The pommel was heavy but perfectly balanced, it was steel-cored gold and would never slip in the hand, even under blood, and its ring-whorl patterns curled and doubled in and out with elf-like craftsmanship. Under the bramble-shaped spirals, gold-wrought birds and dragons peered and stalked in a carved forest of gold and jewels—truly, it was a king's sword.

When he had passed swords to all the hundred men, Céolsige sat and rested at table. The war-bringers lurched and crowed on their mead-benches, indulging their mirth, half-drunk on their glee. Finally, Thryduulf spoke loudly, and all listened to the wolf-fighter as he unlocked his word-hoard.

“Young king, son of Céomil, are these bright prizes locked with oaths and bribery? Is Céolsige broaching war with our neighbours? Ecgfledding is a god-worthy boon, but I will not brook a beardless boy flinging trinkets to bathe the earth in blood for his whims.”

Céolsige sat mildly at his bench, girded 'round with his treasure gifts, decked in kingly finery. His mother, Scyldwynn, raged quietly behind him, but he would not let her fume publicly. Breath gushed into his ribs and he answered proudly:

“Thryduulf the esteemed warrior, you are rightly loyal to your land, but do not mock my kingship. These are gifts, all. I am a ring-giver, not a king who lazes and hurls coin to you to raise a horde of mercenaries. I have purged the throne of its dishonour by giving wealth to its fitting owners. This is how it should be. I am Hildegar's grandson, and I rule in that right.”

The warriors near Thryduulf nodded and the old sword-bearer stood aloof, listening keenly to his king's words.

Céolsige said, “I am fifteen and a man. Let any man here challenge me under these beams and lose. I am your king. I will win your trust first, and then tell you my purpose, and then let those bolt who will bolt, and let those follow who will follow, and keep your riches either way.”

Ælfrið and Uffi and all the rest rose up shouting, but Thryduulf stayed quiet until the echoes dulled and broke against the mead-hall's walls. Then with a boast and a scorn, he bore up Ecgfledding and tore toward Céolsige with the mighty sword. The benches were ripped and hurled from the floor as he lurched and charged at the young king.

Then Céolsige the king drew Rathlamming, an elf-forged sword of no small repute, and wielded it high. It loomed huge and fearsome—a bone-wrecking blade—above his head as he stood stalwart and grim to meet the fight. The mighty Thryduulf met him with a bull's fury and Ecgfledding and Rathlamming rang together, clashing. Forge-hammered steel groaned and bowed at the effort; each sword strained to best the other. They jarred and wrangled through the whole hall, upturning mead benches and jostling the other warriors.

Thryduulf's strength ranged hugely—the man could wrestle a boar—but Céolsige's wyrd was thrumming hot and sharp as a fever in his veins. Finally, Thryduulf's lean, battle-salted muscles failed him, and he smashed hard into the floor in a tangle of bones and blade. Ecgfledding spun sparkling through the air and clattered uselessly to the oaken floorboards. Then brave Thryduulf parried against Céolsige with his steel wrapped wrists, but even good armour was a poor match for Rathlamming and the man who bore it.

Céolsige let Thryduulf rise without shame, slinging Rathlamming over his shoulder. Slick with gore from shallow wounds, the sword was slippery and red, bright with gold light from the hall's torches. Fresh from victory, Céolsige bellowed loud for all the hundred men to hear. “I won't plunge my kinsman's honour into the mud, especially during Eostremonath, when there is much struggling and battle to be done. But I will not be mocked. The famous blood of Hildegar pumps deep through my veins, and because of that, at least, I will have respect.”

Thryduulf, a man who bowed easily to a good king, knelt humbly to Céolsige, leaning on Ecgfledding's bright scabbard. The young king, triumph-flushed, at last unlatched his hoard of secrets and announced his battle plan:

“Monsters slink and slither over my conquered lands across the narrow sea, burrowing into grain-houses and glutting on stolen meat, snatching children from beds and men from fields, swallowing blood and crops of innocents. Fierce green-painted men creep from the sea with corpse-cold skin and freezing-black sea-swords to attack the sleeping houses and loot their poor wealth. So then, we will board our oaken, wind-peppered warships and retake our towns from these slubberdegullions, these marsh-eyed villains—we'll prise them like limpets from the sea-slimed rocks.” And Rathlamming shivered from point to pommel.

The battle-nobles nodded: this was good. Murmurs and roars skittered over the plates of butchered bones and quaffed-clean mead cups as they agreed with his words. Some men left with their gold, unsure of battle under a beardless king's sword, even one who had bested Thryduulf so comfortably. None left without first pledging his sword to Céolsige, whether for this battle or the next. And Céolsige sat with the men, a man himself, talking long into the night. All in all, fifty and three men (Uffi Ash-spear, Thryduulf the Yellow-haired, and Ælfrið the Half-blind).

Thryduulf came riding a new horse to the hall the next morning, Ecgfledding bright at his hip. Behind him trotted a young mare, white as salt and clover petals, dappled as with Eostre's fingerprints on her hindquarters, and with a mane like new wool. In the silver-heavy saddle rode the maiden Cynemære—the silk-skinned, salt-grey eyed, tall maiden Cynemære—of the beaten-gold hair. She was stiff-backed and quiet, a royal-miened woman.

The blond warrior reined up in front of Céolsige's hall and hailed the king, “Hoi, my king Céolsige! I've brought a gift!”

Céolsige emerged with his flock of servants. Thryduulf spoke: “Ecgfledding is a fair gift, my lord, and there is no sword fairer. So, humbly I bring you a present in return, not to repay, but as an offer of thanks. This is my daughter, Cynemære, the third fairest maiden who has ever lived, save for her mother Cynegar and your mother Scyldwynn, in their youths, and the fairest maiden alive today. I bring her to you as a bride-gift with her dowry, to marry or to give to whom you will.”

Cynemære's eyes burned with pride and respect as she looked on Céolsige, and she dismounted by herself. Her garments, white as milk, flapped in the breeze, and her feet were bare as a new colt's back. She left her horse to the servants and walked wordlessly into Céolsige's hall, accepting him as her betrothed. Céolsige thanked Thryduulf profusely and ushered him into the hall, where the fifty and three warriors were making preparations for their battle.

Piles of weapons and war-gear reared high above the benches while the warriors scurried and rushed in their readying. Helms jammed over wiry hair, swords clattered in their scabbards.

Céolsige donned his war-gear beside Thryduulf and led his glittering army down to the beach. The water was heavy with three oaken-strapped ships, bulwarked and monstrous, splashed with red and yellow paint and hung with scarlet and gold striped sails. Deep runes and spirals marked the hulls of each ship; the prows gleamed with gilt dragons' heads, fang-bearing figure-heads carved from the heartwood of the oldest oaks of the land.

The spring sea was green with life, savage and cold. The ships hung low in the water when the warriors tramped aboard, and some of the red paint washed off the wood in the suck and ebb of the waves. Céolsige slashed the water with Rathlamming and sent a spray of seawater arcing high in the curved golden sunlight of morning.

“We shall cross the water quickly, kinsmen! This sea is smooth and narrow as a maiden's thigh; we shall disembark by tonight or earlier—and keep your strength for battle!” And the sea roiled around his boat, testing his wyrd and spinning sly messages to the beasts beneath its surface: scaled snake-things lurking and rippling the deep waters with their huge bodies. The savage spring sea was pumping fresh life into these vengeful creatures, readying them to surge up to the surface and drag down men to the depths. There were sea-drakes, basilisks. Knuckers. Ythgewinnes. Desperate and foul, fanged and shadow-hungry monsters. And yet, the sea surface was calm.

The green waves slopped and heaved against the floating boats, reflecting the crimson of the ships' paint. Low above the sea horizon, rising slowly, the world-candle gleamed and threw red light onto the waves and the sails, sitting like blood atop the water. Céolsige gave the signal to weigh anchor, and the warships charged from the docks, ready to ford the inlet sea.

For a while, they pulled the long oars, peddling stories and congratulating Céolsige on his newly betrothed bride-to-be. They were within sight of the land against a stiff, unfavourable breeze—but it would be a short journey. It was not a long hour, though, before a man saw green-glinting scales glimmering strangely beneath the foam-tipped waves, shadows whipping through murkily heaving water. The cry was sounded—there was something vicious underneath them—and then the ythgewinne surfaced.

Céolsige was on his guard, and Rathlamming sang bare in his hand the moment the animal was on them. With a single snatch of its jaws, the water-dragon ripped fifteen men from their oar seats and shredded flesh from flesh; their flimsy bone-houses crumpled under its sword-breaking teeth. Neither Uffi, nor Ælfrið, nor mighty Thryduulf could dart his arm quickly enough to stab at the behemoth before it crashed back down into the water, gulping down the butchered bodies like morsels of meat. When the plumed foam settled down from the chum-flecked water, the ythgewinne was still circling close underneath the ships, not daring to go too deep, trailing bits of bone and brain from its rough jaws, shattering the light into rainbows with its jewel-green scales.

Uffi sent a strong ash-spear into the water—a wasted shot: the water jarred it off-course, and the monster's pearled eyes flicked back to the rightmost ship, raging. It slumped deep in the brackish water, coiling and crouching for a spring, fins barbed for the attack, and the warrior took aim with his second spear.

Snarling beneath yards of mucky water, the monster shook the ships with its roar. Churning the green water, it surged straight up at Uffi—thrice the size of a man—and the warrior  took patient aim. His cold eyes blinked unswervingly at the serpentine thing that was flooding its gills with anger, and heaving wildly toward him. The blond spear flashed like a bird out of Uffi's fist, just as the ythgewinne's head broke the water. The point slammed deep—a good hit—in a chink at its armoured nostril, and the force jammed the haft out through its sea-green eye socket in a spurt of gore. It writhed, fell, splashed again. Blood streamed out its broken eye, as thick as slime in the green water. Uffi peered over the side curiously, ready with another spear, but the limp water-snake only bobbed and bumped against the ship, its skull utterly crushed.

After a silence, some of the weaker men demanded that Céolsige turn the ship around and head for home, but the king was adamant. If they bolted now, those fifteen dead were for naught. Céolsige threatened to bind them to the boat, and Thryduulf swore he'd help. Not accepting a mission was one thing, turning back was another. And so they pressed onward, red-gold sails snapping in the wind, the gilt sun climbing. Uffi slept at the prow, utterly exhausted from his colossal throws. The sea monsters were known to drain a man's spirit, and this dead brute had frayed and exhausted his wyrd.

The sea seemed to sleep under the late-morning sun, as forgiving and smooth as a swan's neck. Eostre's spring candle warmed the land behind them, the breeze changed its mind and began to blow favourably. Céolsige shivered a little in his boots, but it was because of the chilly breeze, not from fear. His heart raged in his chest, his young cage of bones, for his lost kinsmen, but he yearned more for his foreign coasts. He thought of blond Cynemære.

Then, startling everyone, Ælfrið the Half-blind jumped from his oarlock and fumbled for Aldring, his prize-weapon from Céolsige. He leaned over the side of the boat and peered with his milky eyes into the depths. Then with a shout, he stripped off his armour and plowed off the edge of the boat. He treaded easily in the water, his long hair spreading like arrows out behind him. The thirty-five and three other warriors watched baffled as he yelled and pounded the water with Aldring.

“Can't you hear it?” yelled the sodden warrior, crazed with bloodlust and frantic to fight.

A sharp crack rang out—it was the ship's masts splintering. There had been a roar, a hellish, savage roar under the water, and the noise had twined around the oaken masts and snapped them like Spring snaps the jaw of Winter. Céolsige sprang to the starboard side, but reams of empty ocean stared him back—nothing could he see. Ælfrið thrashed, and Céolsige saw it rushing up, perfectly vertical, toward the surface: two bright green eyes ringed with white, set in a skull dark with malice.

Men hurled themselves out of the way of the falling masts, but it was too late for Ælfrið's ship: the wine-dark dragon threw coils of its long body around the ship and twisted it awry, sideways, then upside down. Céolsige saw briefly the head rear up—spine-lapped and armour-heavy, scales fired scarlet at the nostrils and down its neck—and take measure of the ship's naked underside before it. Then the head dropped, and the sea-drake tore apart the ship's belly like a wolf tears a fawn. The king gulped down horror as all twenty warriors in that ship perished: slurped and guzzled by the water-fiend.

Céolsige was too far to reach it, but Ælfrið had not been idle. Aldring flickered gold and blinded the dragon with the sun's reflection, then nicked and gnawed horribly through the tough leather-skin stretched taut beneath its jumbled red scales. The sea-drake's talon's jerked and clicked with a shiver that stirred and churned the seawater until it boiled and swirled white-hot around them. Plunging down to the muck-sloshed bottom, far past the span of the sun, the brute dived deep, trying to shake off the warrior and his sword.

Ælfrið clung, and Céolsige saw him dragged out of the reach of the water's light. Blood jetted up in huge plumes, and the smaller water-creatures gathered to feast on the butchered offal; Céolsige and his men gave up their kinsman for dead. But then like a mist, a shape appeared in the lowest waters touched by daylight, and they sighted the Half-blind, swimming upward in circles, searching for the surface. He broke the sea-skin and gasped for air, and they saw that he had dragged up the head with him; the body had sunk like plunder.

They pulled him aboard and he quickly collapsed, in need of sleep and water. The head they left in the ocean, to be picked and tossed by the water-animals, to bob and rot in the salty sea heat.

Now the warriors plained and snivelled—even the strongest and bravest among them. It was too dangerous: “These seas roil with still viler things!” said one. “Be this a fool's errand? He leads me to lie in the muddy sea-grave for my beds, with the fish for a wife! Your skull's full of sand, boy.”

Thryduulf, had he not been on the other boat, would have silenced the man. He settled instead for bellowing. Céolsige answered that they would stick to their sea-road, and for each man to remember his riches, should he think of turning back. And there was a sullen silence for the next hours, where there was no sound but the dip and pull of oars in their locks, and the slupping of waves against the hull.

The war-lords stirred uneasily in their high-prowed warships. The wood shivered and the shields strapped to the sides clanged hard as the two ships pitched and rolled. More would come—they were heading into deeper water now, passing over the fathomless lightless stretch of sea-bottom that lay farthest from the air.

Céolsige mustered his men's strength and urged on the crippled ships, indifferent to his losses in the face of his plagued beaches. The sun arced and hung at its zenith, filtering its half-warm rays down on the men's backs. Water rose like mossy hills around them. The coast was in sight, rimmed with green peaks and white rivers. Smoke from smouldering houses curled around the clouds. Céolsige and the warriors pulled doubly hard on the oars as the beach neared, frantic to get out of the water to fight their original battle.

Then from behind one of the jagged mountain-tops snaked a huge winged shadow—far bigger than the other two—scaled and iron-plated, cold-blooded—it was a sea-and-air-dragon, a knucker. Toppling trees and flattening houses with the force, its leather wings bent the wind and forced its leviathan body aloft, and the men shouted as it bore down on them.

Tearing the air as it quickened toward the boats, the knucker spun down and broke the water, shooting up streams of foam and bubbles. Céolsige could see it coming: twice the size of his royal hall, skin the hue of freshly-broken iron, eyes green-white like cracked chalcedony and crackling with blood-hunger from its tail to its jade teeth. The sea was already bitter with blood, and the smell drove it mad. When it roared, serpents and kraken slithered out of its maw and swam in the great beast's wake. It spiralled out of control under the ships, biting and tearing with its long claws; it lunged over the ships and beat its wet wings furiously, smearing men like butter against the deck. It was born to split skin, break veins, smash bone-houses.

Céolsige ran to the fore, and bellowed for men to unsheathe their swords, but it was too late. The knucker had already dragged down the other ship. Thryduulf was in the water, swearing by all the gods; he had lost Ecgfledding in the water. The serpent-like knucker snatched the old warrior in his jaws, but Thryduulf was not to be taken so lightly. Ecgfledding's scabbard hung still at his waist, and the mighty man broke the belt and stabbed the tip through the dragon's thin, long neck.

Thryduulf was snapped downward to the knucker's lair—they lost sight of him as it plunged deep. At the surface, the sea was mottled with clouds of blood; men floated in pieces, or sank from the weight of their armour and shields that Céolsige had ordered them to don. Uffi bobbed lightly on his floating spear, having woken up when he was thrown into the water; he was clutching Ælfrið Half-blind who thrashed in the water. Thryduulf had sunk out of sight. Céolsige supposed his body had burst from great pressure of the sea, or he had been gobbled down the knucker's throat.

His boat was still whole, but all its men were dead. Céolsige hoisted Ælfrið and Uffi onto the deck with an oar, and the three started rowing, mournfully, already singing funeral chants and wailing broken-heartedly that the bravest men of Céolsige's kingdom would never lie on a pyre or a funeral boat. They gathered what cadavers they could—it was grisly work—and pressed onward, crying for Thryduulf and for the fifty slaughtered others.

When a splash sounded behind them, all three startled, and Céolsige cried for his mother, the brave Scyldwynn who used to hold him in her arms and sing battle-songs to him. They looked for the wet head breaking the surface, but instead of jade-flecked scales, hairy Thryduulf's head rose from the water. He swam fast enough to catch the boat, and pulled himself aboard. His arms squeezed tenderly about Ecgfledding, gristle-smeared and gut-stained, but without a single notch on the blade. Blood mixed with his tears, and the sweat ran down his face as he bandaged a ghastly wound on his forearm. He was silent. No one could persuade him to tell what he'd seen.

They said no more words save the funeral songs as the world-candle fell and dimmed near the horizon. The oars weighed like boulders against their drained bone-lappings, but they were close, and it cheered them some.

Scraping hard against the sand, the boat lurched onto the beach. Céolsige disembarked and faced the ring of sea-people who had smelled their path of carnage from miles away. Moss-coloured faces—whether green with paint or by witchery—bristled with anger. Spears and scythes glowed in their hands. Hunger glowed white behind their water-clear eyes.

The three warriors and the king were salt-crusted, bloody, and muddy over their gold armour. The enemy loomed green. Céolsige's anger—bear-rage, boar-frenzy—shook off its bridle and bubbled up in his chest, and he ran forward with Rathlamming. Uffi and Ælfrið followed, and Thryduulf boomed a war-cry so loud that it put some of the sea-men to flight. Exhausted and heart-sick they were for their comrades, yet strength and wyrd melded each to each and thrusted them forward.

Ecgfledding spattered blood, broke heads. Rathlamming murdered mercilessly. Aldring and ash-spears carved destruction. The scythe-bearing men crept like crabs down the beach, meeting death very slowly, and their ranks seemed bottomless. When they opened their mouths, seawater poured out betwixt their spear-keen teeth. They overwhelmed Ælfrið Half-blind first, who could not swing his sword at a long enough range to beat back the hordes, and could not hear where their soft, marshy feet stepped in the muffling sand. With sharp scythes and sharper teeth, they took him down despite his cries, and he died blind and terrified. Aldring fell softly in the dry sand, next to his blood, trampled by quiet, fish-smelling feet.

And still they came. Uffi shattered rib cages with the butt of his ash-spear, swinging it like a Saracen's pike. Then the sun fell just below the horizon, and the beach darkened. When  Céolsige looked back, the warrior was already gone.

Céolsige and Thryduulf leaned back to back—the only two men left—and Céolsige knew at once that he really was alone, scared, childish. At fifteen he was stronger than Thryduulf, but could even that save him?

The beach swam with red from both sides, the falling tide washing it out to see where fishes licked and sucked at the floating gore. The last host of sea-people crowded in a swarm a little way away from the battle-lord and his young prince.

Sopping blood off their jaws with their wet tongues, the clump of green men crouched to charge, gape-mouthed, slack-eyed: ravenous for more.

Whispering an oath of loyalty to Céolsige, even amidst the lost battle, Thryduulf pressed Ecgfledding into Céolsige's hand and himself took Rathlamming, the lesser blade. With his death charge and a cry that could have cracked steel with its grief, Thryduulf broke himself on the prow of their attack, dropping his sword, falling. His helm dropped off his grey head and rolled away into the bushes, sparkling gold in the last fading light of day.

Céolsige shuddered, facing the last of them, but Hildegar's wyrd bore him some strength and good fate still. Slaughtering their strongest, he took wounds everywhere, bled in streams. His sumptuous red-gold armour cracked, and his helm dented with a scythe blow, but he finished the last of them, clearing his father's debts and his mother's dreams and his own heart's yearning. His bone-house, exhausted, slumped down into the wind-curved hills of pearly sand that was teeming with sand-speckled rivulets of watery blood. Triumph had not been worth its price.

Obeying tradition, Céolsige struck a stream of sparks onto the wood of his last stout war-ship and piled the bodies of his friends onto the deck with their plunder. The wood caught and blazed, the flames burning a violent green with the sea-salt melded into the rich whorled wood. Skulls stood out char-black like ravens against the gold and green flames, blood sputtered and burnt. Even the gold of the shields began to run as the ship disintegrated under the fire. When the wood failed the mighty warship, the prized oaken boards quietly broke apart, drifting like hot stars on the black, brackish sea.

His wounds troubled him.

Cynemære glowed in his mind, and Ecgfledding sparkled red, gold, and green for a slight and fleeting moment. Then the sinking world-candle plunged into a star-salty blackness, and the moon rose like an eyelid; it swung up like Rathlamming's arc up over the spring-choked earth, the blood-sour sea. The oaken bits of ship charred and floated, slopping gently like his cradle in Scyldwynn's hands.

Céolsige lay down on the beach and slept.

Description
Céolsige

Hwæt!

In the month when the land birthed this story, it was warm, it was thawing-time. Deep in the dirt, Spring was scalding Winter's bones with her hot rains, gnawing the old meat off his iron-cold ribs. It was the time of buds splitting open, of new roots snaking and swelling under the dark mud, of Eostre's hungry mouth sliding warm over the earth to melt the ice. It was green.

Now, the king Céomil was a mild man—a lover of lute-music and poetry, a peacemaker. He squandered his gold and let his strength wilt away, being too plump to best any man. A kin-shamer. A pitiable king. His cowardice heaped utter disgrace on his forebears' honour.

His father, the mighty Hildegar who cleared battlefields with his fearless arm, was not long out to sea in his funeral-boat when the conquered foreign coasts began to slip out of Céomil's reach. Worse, Céomil's mercenaries were left without their pay, and soon ditched the battlefields to return to their homes, far away from the plagued beaches. Onto the long beaches crept plagues of water-beasts and sea-warriors, but Céomil was a man cowed by battle, and he stopped his ears with honeyed bard-words while the slack-jawed, starved creatures skulked through his lands to thieve and feed.

Céomil's wife, Scyldwynn the Shield-Friend, was a formidable woman, birthed from the bold, ancient blood of noble men. Her bloodline, warrior-bred, fed anger through her veins when she saw her husband's uselessness, and she sought to rid herself of him. Her merciless warrior heart could not brook his unmanliness, and she sought raise her son Céolsige instead to the throne. She was such a fierce foe, with magic besides, that none would dare to cross her decision to gift the throne to her strong son.

It was this Spring that Céolsige came of age, and that Céomil died.

Céolsige first sat the throne at fifteen, a man's age. His proud mother prodded him to fight on the behalf of the failing provinces—she murmured sweet promises and shouted threats, whispered bribes and insults, anything to strike passion into him. But Céolsige was not like his father Céomil, and refused to be woman-led. First, he rode through his motherland on a finely bred horse, and stripped reams of red and yellow gold from all who were indebted to him—so much that a hundred wagons could scarcely lug it back to the kingdom. He dragged back his spoils proudly and packed his coffers to bursting with rich rings and bright sharp swords, battle-tested and blood-bought.

He called close to him the hundred strongest, war-hardened warriors of the kingdom. Ælfrið: the Half-Blind ranged to his hall, so too Uffi: the bearer of ash-spears answered his summons, there was also Thryduulf: the only blond son of Beohrtwulf—these were the three greatest warriors alive. He sat the throng of men down on the mead-benches of his richest hall, and they feasted on boar and beef and bear and gorged themselves with the rarest gold mead.

When the battle-lords had wholly bloated themselves on Céolsige's choice meat and mead, the young king stood atop the dais and shouted lustily to his kinsmen:

“Warriors. On this third day of Eostremonath, I bear you the gold that never jammed my father's hoard. Fresh from my debtors, it is a gift to you. For I am not a simpering bastard like my father—” here he spat like a seasoned soldier, “—and unlike him, I will rule you like a ring-giver, not a bard, or a hirer of mercenaries.”

And he passed out gleaming rings and jewelled torques—enough to string onto every warrior's spear up to the steel points. There were scarlet-gold dragons with coloured jewel-eyes slithering down arm-coils and hammered yellow-gold masks. Coins clinked and streamed over the floor like round ripe wheat grains in threshing time. Mead sparkled like honey as it flowed from gem-crusted goblet to goblet.

While the warriors were basking amidst their riches, Céolsige spoke again. “My father's sins and dues have been sated. And now I sweeten the pot and rejuvenate your war-spirits.”

He meted out round, jewel-lapped helms to the hundred battle-lords who ringed him on the benches; he unlocked his coffers and dispensed gifts of armour with kingly bearing. The helmets were strange and beautiful, fight-won or filched from the patrons of a thousand smithies. The breastplate he gave to  Ælfryð the Half-Blind was worked with boars and birds; to Uffi Ash-Spear he presented a bold, gold-drenched helm that would turn every nick and jab with an edged sword. To Thryduulf the Blond, the most respected of all the warriors and the strongest, he left a treasure-drenched scabbard, a true prize in any battle, a glory-sheath to make a pious man envy. No common sword would rest in this scabbard that had been smithed and hammered far from the forges of any human man.

While the warriors beamed and jostled with their treasures, Céolsige the young king spoke again: “Thryduulf needs an edge to sheathe in his scabbard.”

And then, with graceful speech, he gave them bags of weaponry to add to their spoils. He gifted Uffi a beautiful longsword that glinted like seawater: a battle-bought blade named Hraedl that had shattered many a brave man's helm. He gave Ælfryð a gore-hungry blade named Aldring. The scabbard was ringed with wrought-gold wolves and eagles, to honour his bravery. He turned last to Thryduulf, the strongest proved warrior in the hall, a seasoned man of many years whose strength was burnt and welded to his bones, whose muscles were hard and lean.

Thryduulf took graciously the sword offered to him: a graceful blade won from a god, some said. It bore the name Ecgfledding, the Sword with the Beautiful Blade, and it was the most sought-after sword in the world. Its double-edge glinted with red light like the eyes of a saucy virgin; its long edge was shaped from blood-tempered steel snatched from the deepest roots of the highest hawk-ringed mountains. The pommel was heavy but perfectly balanced, it was steel-cored gold and would never slip in the hand, even under blood, and its ring-whorl patterns curled and doubled in and out with elf-like craftsmanship. Under the bramble-shaped spirals, gold-wrought birds and dragons peered and stalked in a carved forest of gold and jewels—truly, it was a king's sword.

When he had passed swords to all the hundred men, Céolsige sat and rested at table. The war-bringers lurched and crowed on their mead-benches, indulging their mirth, half-drunk on their glee. Finally, Thryduulf spoke loudly, and all listened to the wolf-fighter as he unlocked his word-hoard.

“Young king, son of Céomil, are these bright prizes locked with oaths and bribery? Is Céolsige broaching war with our neighbours? Ecgfledding is a god-worthy boon, but I will not brook a beardless boy flinging trinkets to bathe the earth in blood for his whims.”

Céolsige sat mildly at his bench, girded 'round with his treasure gifts, decked in kingly finery. His mother, Scyldwynn, raged quietly behind him, but he would not let her fume publicly. Breath gushed into his ribs and he answered proudly:

“Thryduulf the esteemed warrior, you are rightly loyal to your land, but do not mock my kingship. These are gifts, all. I am a ring-giver, not a king who lazes and hurls coin to you to raise a horde of mercenaries. I have purged the throne of its dishonour by giving wealth to its fitting owners. This is how it should be. I am Hildegar's grandson, and I rule in that right.”

The warriors near Thryduulf nodded and the old sword-bearer stood aloof, listening keenly to his king's words.

Céolsige said, “I am fifteen and a man. Let any man here challenge me under these beams and lose. I am your king. I will win your trust first, and then tell you my purpose, and then let those bolt who will bolt, and let those follow who will follow, and keep your riches either way.”

Ælfrið and Uffi and all the rest rose up shouting, but Thryduulf stayed quiet until the echoes dulled and broke against the mead-hall's walls. Then with a boast and a scorn, he bore up Ecgfledding and tore toward Céolsige with the mighty sword. The benches were ripped and hurled from the floor as he lurched and charged at the young king.

Then Céolsige the king drew Rathlamming, an elf-forged sword of no small repute, and wielded it high. It loomed huge and fearsome—a bone-wrecking blade—above his head as he stood stalwart and grim to meet the fight. The mighty Thryduulf met him with a bull's fury and Ecgfledding and Rathlamming rang together, clashing. Forge-hammered steel groaned and bowed at the effort; each sword strained to best the other. They jarred and wrangled through the whole hall, upturning mead benches and jostling the other warriors.

Thryduulf's strength ranged hugely—the man could wrestle a boar—but Céolsige's wyrd was thrumming hot and sharp as a fever in his veins. Finally, Thryduulf's lean, battle-salted muscles failed him, and he smashed hard into the floor in a tangle of bones and blade. Ecgfledding spun sparkling through the air and clattered uselessly to the oaken floorboards. Then brave Thryduulf parried against Céolsige with his steel wrapped wrists, but even good armour was a poor match for Rathlamming and the man who bore it.

Céolsige let Thryduulf rise without shame, slinging Rathlamming over his shoulder. Slick with gore from shallow wounds, the sword was slippery and red, bright with gold light from the hall's torches. Fresh from victory, Céolsige bellowed loud for all the hundred men to hear. “I won't plunge my kinsman's honour into the mud, especially during Eostremonath, when there is much struggling and battle to be done. But I will not be mocked. The famous blood of Hildegar pumps deep through my veins, and because of that, at least, I will have respect.”

Thryduulf, a man who bowed easily to a good king, knelt humbly to Céolsige, leaning on Ecgfledding's bright scabbard. The young king, triumph-flushed, at last unlatched his hoard of secrets and announced his battle plan:

“Monsters slink and slither over my conquered lands across the narrow sea, burrowing into grain-houses and glutting on stolen meat, snatching children from beds and men from fields, swallowing blood and crops of innocents. Fierce green-painted men creep from the sea with corpse-cold skin and freezing-black sea-swords to attack the sleeping houses and loot their poor wealth. So then, we will board our oaken, wind-peppered warships and retake our towns from these slubberdegullions, these marsh-eyed villains—we'll prise them like limpets from the sea-slimed rocks.” And Rathlamming shivered from point to pommel.

The battle-nobles nodded: this was good. Murmurs and roars skittered over the plates of butchered bones and quaffed-clean mead cups as they agreed with his words. Some men left with their gold, unsure of battle under a beardless king's sword, even one who had bested Thryduulf so comfortably. None left without first pledging his sword to Céolsige, whether for this battle or the next. And Céolsige sat with the men, a man himself, talking long into the night. All in all, fifty and three men (Uffi Ash-spear, Thryduulf the Yellow-haired, and Ælfrið the Half-blind).

Thryduulf came riding a new horse to the hall the next morning, Ecgfledding bright at his hip. Behind him trotted a young mare, white as salt and clover petals, dappled as with Eostre's fingerprints on her hindquarters, and with a mane like new wool. In the silver-heavy saddle rode the maiden Cynemære—the silk-skinned, salt-grey eyed, tall maiden Cynemære—of the beaten-gold hair. She was stiff-backed and quiet, a royal-miened woman.

The blond warrior reined up in front of Céolsige's hall and hailed the king, “Hoi, my king Céolsige! I've brought a gift!”

Céolsige emerged with his flock of servants. Thryduulf spoke: “Ecgfledding is a fair gift, my lord, and there is no sword fairer. So, humbly I bring you a present in return, not to repay, but as an offer of thanks. This is my daughter, Cynemære, the third fairest maiden who has ever lived, save for her mother Cynegar and your mother Scyldwynn, in their youths, and the fairest maiden alive today. I bring her to you as a bride-gift with her dowry, to marry or to give to whom you will.”

Cynemære's eyes burned with pride and respect as she looked on Céolsige, and she dismounted by herself. Her garments, white as milk, flapped in the breeze, and her feet were bare as a new colt's back. She left her horse to the servants and walked wordlessly into Céolsige's hall, accepting him as her betrothed. Céolsige thanked Thryduulf profusely and ushered him into the hall, where the fifty and three warriors were making preparations for their battle.

Piles of weapons and war-gear reared high above the benches while the warriors scurried and rushed in their readying. Helms jammed over wiry hair, swords clattered in their scabbards.

Céolsige donned his war-gear beside Thryduulf and led his glittering army down to the beach. The water was heavy with three oaken-strapped ships, bulwarked and monstrous, splashed with red and yellow paint and hung with scarlet and gold striped sails. Deep runes and spirals marked the hulls of each ship; the prows gleamed with gilt dragons' heads, fang-bearing figure-heads carved from the heartwood of the oldest oaks of the land.

The spring sea was green with life, savage and cold. The ships hung low in the water when the warriors tramped aboard, and some of the red paint washed off the wood in the suck and ebb of the waves. Céolsige slashed the water with Rathlamming and sent a spray of seawater arcing high in the curved golden sunlight of morning.

“We shall cross the water quickly, kinsmen! This sea is smooth and narrow as a maiden's thigh; we shall disembark by tonight or earlier—and keep your strength for battle!” And the sea roiled around his boat, testing his wyrd and spinning sly messages to the beasts beneath its surface: scaled snake-things lurking and rippling the deep waters with their huge bodies. The savage spring sea was pumping fresh life into these vengeful creatures, readying them to surge up to the surface and drag down men to the depths. There were sea-drakes, basilisks. Knuckers. Ythgewinnes. Desperate and foul, fanged and shadow-hungry monsters. And yet, the sea surface was calm.

The green waves slopped and heaved against the floating boats, reflecting the crimson of the ships' paint. Low above the sea horizon, rising slowly, the world-candle gleamed and threw red light onto the waves and the sails, sitting like blood atop the water. Céolsige gave the signal to weigh anchor, and the warships charged from the docks, ready to ford the inlet sea.

For a while, they pulled the long oars, peddling stories and congratulating Céolsige on his newly betrothed bride-to-be. They were within sight of the land against a stiff, unfavourable breeze—but it would be a short journey. It was not a long hour, though, before a man saw green-glinting scales glimmering strangely beneath the foam-tipped waves, shadows whipping through murkily heaving water. The cry was sounded—there was something vicious underneath them—and then the ythgewinne surfaced.

Céolsige was on his guard, and Rathlamming sang bare in his hand the moment the animal was on them. With a single snatch of its jaws, the water-dragon ripped fifteen men from their oar seats and shredded flesh from flesh; their flimsy bone-houses crumpled under its sword-breaking teeth. Neither Uffi, nor Ælfrið, nor mighty Thryduulf could dart his arm quickly enough to stab at the behemoth before it crashed back down into the water, gulping down the butchered bodies like morsels of meat. When the plumed foam settled down from the chum-flecked water, the ythgewinne was still circling close underneath the ships, not daring to go too deep, trailing bits of bone and brain from its rough jaws, shattering the light into rainbows with its jewel-green scales.

Uffi sent a strong ash-spear into the water—a wasted shot: the water jarred it off-course, and the monster's pearled eyes flicked back to the rightmost ship, raging. It slumped deep in the brackish water, coiling and crouching for a spring, fins barbed for the attack, and the warrior took aim with his second spear.

Snarling beneath yards of mucky water, the monster shook the ships with its roar. Churning the green water, it surged straight up at Uffi—thrice the size of a man—and the warrior  took patient aim. His cold eyes blinked unswervingly at the serpentine thing that was flooding its gills with anger, and heaving wildly toward him. The blond spear flashed like a bird out of Uffi's fist, just as the ythgewinne's head broke the water. The point slammed deep—a good hit—in a chink at its armoured nostril, and the force jammed the haft out through its sea-green eye socket in a spurt of gore. It writhed, fell, splashed again. Blood streamed out its broken eye, as thick as slime in the green water. Uffi peered over the side curiously, ready with another spear, but the limp water-snake only bobbed and bumped against the ship, its skull utterly crushed.

After a silence, some of the weaker men demanded that Céolsige turn the ship around and head for home, but the king was adamant. If they bolted now, those fifteen dead were for naught. Céolsige threatened to bind them to the boat, and Thryduulf swore he'd help. Not accepting a mission was one thing, turning back was another. And so they pressed onward, red-gold sails snapping in the wind, the gilt sun climbing. Uffi slept at the prow, utterly exhausted from his colossal throws. The sea monsters were known to drain a man's spirit, and this dead brute had frayed and exhausted his wyrd.

The sea seemed to sleep under the late-morning sun, as forgiving and smooth as a swan's neck. Eostre's spring candle warmed the land behind them, the breeze changed its mind and began to blow favourably. Céolsige shivered a little in his boots, but it was because of the chilly breeze, not from fear. His heart raged in his chest, his young cage of bones, for his lost kinsmen, but he yearned more for his foreign coasts. He thought of blond Cynemære.

Then, startling everyone, Ælfrið the Half-blind jumped from his oarlock and fumbled for Aldring, his prize-weapon from Céolsige. He leaned over the side of the boat and peered with his milky eyes into the depths. Then with a shout, he stripped off his armour and plowed off the edge of the boat. He treaded easily in the water, his long hair spreading like arrows out behind him. The thirty-five and three other warriors watched baffled as he yelled and pounded the water with Aldring.

“Can't you hear it?” yelled the sodden warrior, crazed with bloodlust and frantic to fight.

A sharp crack rang out—it was the ship's masts splintering. There had been a roar, a hellish, savage roar under the water, and the noise had twined around the oaken masts and snapped them like Spring snaps the jaw of Winter. Céolsige sprang to the starboard side, but reams of empty ocean stared him back—nothing could he see. Ælfrið thrashed, and Céolsige saw it rushing up, perfectly vertical, toward the surface: two bright green eyes ringed with white, set in a skull dark with malice.

Men hurled themselves out of the way of the falling masts, but it was too late for Ælfrið's ship: the wine-dark dragon threw coils of its long body around the ship and twisted it awry, sideways, then upside down. Céolsige saw briefly the head rear up—spine-lapped and armour-heavy, scales fired scarlet at the nostrils and down its neck—and take measure of the ship's naked underside before it. Then the head dropped, and the sea-drake tore apart the ship's belly like a wolf tears a fawn. The king gulped down horror as all twenty warriors in that ship perished: slurped and guzzled by the water-fiend.

Céolsige was too far to reach it, but Ælfrið had not been idle. Aldring flickered gold and blinded the dragon with the sun's reflection, then nicked and gnawed horribly through the tough leather-skin stretched taut beneath its jumbled red scales. The sea-drake's talon's jerked and clicked with a shiver that stirred and churned the seawater until it boiled and swirled white-hot around them. Plunging down to the muck-sloshed bottom, far past the span of the sun, the brute dived deep, trying to shake off the warrior and his sword.

Ælfrið clung, and Céolsige saw him dragged out of the reach of the water's light. Blood jetted up in huge plumes, and the smaller water-creatures gathered to feast on the butchered offal; Céolsige and his men gave up their kinsman for dead. But then like a mist, a shape appeared in the lowest waters touched by daylight, and they sighted the Half-blind, swimming upward in circles, searching for the surface. He broke the sea-skin and gasped for air, and they saw that he had dragged up the head with him; the body had sunk like plunder.

They pulled him aboard and he quickly collapsed, in need of sleep and water. The head they left in the ocean, to be picked and tossed by the water-animals, to bob and rot in the salty sea heat.

Now the warriors plained and snivelled—even the strongest and bravest among them. It was too dangerous: “These seas roil with still viler things!” said one. “Be this a fool's errand? He leads me to lie in the muddy sea-grave for my beds, with the fish for a wife! Your skull's full of sand, boy.”

Thryduulf, had he not been on the other boat, would have silenced the man. He settled instead for bellowing. Céolsige answered that they would stick to their sea-road, and for each man to remember his riches, should he think of turning back. And there was a sullen silence for the next hours, where there was no sound but the dip and pull of oars in their locks, and the slupping of waves against the hull.

The war-lords stirred uneasily in their high-prowed warships. The wood shivered and the shields strapped to the sides clanged hard as the two ships pitched and rolled. More would come—they were heading into deeper water now, passing over the fathomless lightless stretch of sea-bottom that lay farthest from the air.

Céolsige mustered his men's strength and urged on the crippled ships, indifferent to his losses in the face of his plagued beaches. The sun arced and hung at its zenith, filtering its half-warm rays down on the men's backs. Water rose like mossy hills around them. The coast was in sight, rimmed with green peaks and white rivers. Smoke from smouldering houses curled around the clouds. Céolsige and the warriors pulled doubly hard on the oars as the beach neared, frantic to get out of the water to fight their original battle.

Then from behind one of the jagged mountain-tops snaked a huge winged shadow—far bigger than the other two—scaled and iron-plated, cold-blooded—it was a sea-and-air-dragon, a knucker. Toppling trees and flattening houses with the force, its leather wings bent the wind and forced its leviathan body aloft, and the men shouted as it bore down on them.

Tearing the air as it quickened toward the boats, the knucker spun down and broke the water, shooting up streams of foam and bubbles. Céolsige could see it coming: twice the size of his royal hall, skin the hue of freshly-broken iron, eyes green-white like cracked chalcedony and crackling with blood-hunger from its tail to its jade teeth. The sea was already bitter with blood, and the smell drove it mad. When it roared, serpents and kraken slithered out of its maw and swam in the great beast's wake. It spiralled out of control under the ships, biting and tearing with its long claws; it lunged over the ships and beat its wet wings furiously, smearing men like butter against the deck. It was born to split skin, break veins, smash bone-houses.

Céolsige ran to the fore, and bellowed for men to unsheathe their swords, but it was too late. The knucker had already dragged down the other ship. Thryduulf was in the water, swearing by all the gods; he had lost Ecgfledding in the water. The serpent-like knucker snatched the old warrior in his jaws, but Thryduulf was not to be taken so lightly. Ecgfledding's scabbard hung still at his waist, and the mighty man broke the belt and stabbed the tip through the dragon's thin, long neck.

Thryduulf was snapped downward to the knucker's lair—they lost sight of him as it plunged deep. At the surface, the sea was mottled with clouds of blood; men floated in pieces, or sank from the weight of their armour and shields that Céolsige had ordered them to don. Uffi bobbed lightly on his floating spear, having woken up when he was thrown into the water; he was clutching Ælfrið Half-blind who thrashed in the water. Thryduulf had sunk out of sight. Céolsige supposed his body had burst from great pressure of the sea, or he had been gobbled down the knucker's throat.

His boat was still whole, but all its men were dead. Céolsige hoisted Ælfrið and Uffi onto the deck with an oar, and the three started rowing, mournfully, already singing funeral chants and wailing broken-heartedly that the bravest men of Céolsige's kingdom would never lie on a pyre or a funeral boat. They gathered what cadavers they could—it was grisly work—and pressed onward, crying for Thryduulf and for the fifty slaughtered others.

When a splash sounded behind them, all three startled, and Céolsige cried for his mother, the brave Scyldwynn who used to hold him in her arms and sing battle-songs to him. They looked for the wet head breaking the surface, but instead of jade-flecked scales, hairy Thryduulf's head rose from the water. He swam fast enough to catch the boat, and pulled himself aboard. His arms squeezed tenderly about Ecgfledding, gristle-smeared and gut-stained, but without a single notch on the blade. Blood mixed with his tears, and the sweat ran down his face as he bandaged a ghastly wound on his forearm. He was silent. No one could persuade him to tell what he'd seen.

They said no more words save the funeral songs as the world-candle fell and dimmed near the horizon. The oars weighed like boulders against their drained bone-lappings, but they were close, and it cheered them some.

Scraping hard against the sand, the boat lurched onto the beach. Céolsige disembarked and faced the ring of sea-people who had smelled their path of carnage from miles away. Moss-coloured faces—whether green with paint or by witchery—bristled with anger. Spears and scythes glowed in their hands. Hunger glowed white behind their water-clear eyes.

The three warriors and the king were salt-crusted, bloody, and muddy over their gold armour. The enemy loomed green. Céolsige's anger—bear-rage, boar-frenzy—shook off its bridle and bubbled up in his chest, and he ran forward with Rathlamming. Uffi and Ælfrið followed, and Thryduulf boomed a war-cry so loud that it put some of the sea-men to flight. Exhausted and heart-sick they were for their comrades, yet strength and wyrd melded each to each and thrusted them forward.

Ecgfledding spattered blood, broke heads. Rathlamming murdered mercilessly. Aldring and ash-spears carved destruction. The scythe-bearing men crept like crabs down the beach, meeting death very slowly, and their ranks seemed bottomless. When they opened their mouths, seawater poured out betwixt their spear-keen teeth. They overwhelmed Ælfrið Half-blind first, who could not swing his sword at a long enough range to beat back the hordes, and could not hear where their soft, marshy feet stepped in the muffling sand. With sharp scythes and sharper teeth, they took him down despite his cries, and he died blind and terrified. Aldring fell softly in the dry sand, next to his blood, trampled by quiet, fish-smelling feet.

And still they came. Uffi shattered rib cages with the butt of his ash-spear, swinging it like a Saracen's pike. Then the sun fell just below the horizon, and the beach darkened. When  Céolsige looked back, the warrior was already gone.

Céolsige and Thryduulf leaned back to back—the only two men left—and Céolsige knew at once that he really was alone, scared, childish. At fifteen he was stronger than Thryduulf, but could even that save him?

The beach swam with red from both sides, the falling tide washing it out to see where fishes licked and sucked at the floating gore. The last host of sea-people crowded in a swarm a little way away from the battle-lord and his young prince.

Sopping blood off their jaws with their wet tongues, the clump of green men crouched to charge, gape-mouthed, slack-eyed: ravenous for more.

Whispering an oath of loyalty to Céolsige, even amidst the lost battle, Thryduulf pressed Ecgfledding into Céolsige's hand and himself took Rathlamming, the lesser blade. With his death charge and a cry that could have cracked steel with its grief, Thryduulf broke himself on the prow of their attack, dropping his sword, falling. His helm dropped off his grey head and rolled away into the bushes, sparkling gold in the last fading light of day.

Céolsige shuddered, facing the last of them, but Hildegar's wyrd bore him some strength and good fate still. Slaughtering their strongest, he took wounds everywhere, bled in streams. His sumptuous red-gold armour cracked, and his helm dented with a scythe blow, but he finished the last of them, clearing his father's debts and his mother's dreams and his own heart's yearning. His bone-house, exhausted, slumped down into the wind-curved hills of pearly sand that was teeming with sand-speckled rivulets of watery blood. Triumph had not been worth its price.

Obeying tradition, Céolsige struck a stream of sparks onto the wood of his last stout war-ship and piled the bodies of his friends onto the deck with their plunder. The wood caught and blazed, the flames burning a violent green with the sea-salt melded into the rich whorled wood. Skulls stood out char-black like ravens against the gold and green flames, blood sputtered and burnt. Even the gold of the shields began to run as the ship disintegrated under the fire. When the wood failed the mighty warship, the prized oaken boards quietly broke apart, drifting like hot stars on the black, brackish sea.

His wounds troubled him.

Cynemære glowed in his mind, and Ecgfledding sparkled red, gold, and green for a slight and fleeting moment. Then the sinking world-candle plunged into a star-salty blackness, and the moon rose like an eyelid; it swung up like Rathlamming's arc up over the spring-choked earth, the blood-sour sea. The oaken bits of ship charred and floated, slopping gently like his cradle in Scyldwynn's hands.

Céolsige lay down on the beach and slept.