The line almost collapsed in the gap they left, but one man at the center held fast, letting the rest reassemble around him.
Elric.
“Captain! Move the men back!”
He either didn’t hear me or couldn’t do anything because he was fighting the assassins, who were near mindless in their need to get to Sigrid.
Sigrid clutched at her chest and gasped like she was in agony.
“Which injury is it?” I asked, checking her wounds.
“No injury,” she breathed as she forced herself upright again. “My berserker wants to kill these fucks as much as I do. And it’s tearing me apart.”
Shouts of terror from the front were the precursor to another battering blow.
I looked with alarm at the number of men being patched up behind us. More were rushing from the castle, but many weren’t trained soldiers, and it would take too long for real reinforcements to arrive. The heart of the Saxon army was being slowly crushed. “If we keep going like this, we won’t have the forces left to surround them.”
Sigrid gripped her swords and made a determined, angry sound as she pushed towards the front, nudging men aside to make way for her. I couldn’t argue. Drained as she was, she was still the strongest warrior out here. I followed in the path she created, finding myself directly behind Elric.
“We need to draw them out of the maze so we can surround them!” I shouted over the crashing of shields.
He nodded, but once I was up there, it was clear it wouldn’t work. They were too quick to exploit any weaknesses.
Sigrid saw it too, and I could tell she was just watching for an opening to burst from the line to buy us space.
I clasped her arm and felt the tension in her muscles as she got ready to spring. “At least take a shield!”
She shook her head. “I’m already slow enough.”
With one last look in my eyes, she pushed forward between two soldiers.
“Then I’ll be your shield!” I pushed through the line with her and lowering my shield to shelter her from an axe. She immediately adapted her movement to lunge from my cover and stab him in the forearm. She danced out from behind my shield, swinging again and severing his hand from his wrist.
He howled with fury, an unnaturally high-pitched scream that I felt in my bones.
A cheer from the men behind us went up, and I glanced back to find that they’d managed to clear the maze entrance, and Elrichad moved them into a crescent shape, which still blocked the Banamaðr from circling behind our line but left room to draw them out and surround them.
This time it was Sigrid who pulled me back by the shoulders, narrowly letting us avoid the swipe of an axe that would’ve knocked the shield from my arm. We backed our way to the shield wall, where they parted to let us through, but instead of making our way to the back, we took our place in the front line. I locked my shield against Elric’s, and Sigrid stood just behind us in the gap between shields.
Godric’s archers rained down a volley on the Banamaðr, but they were too quick with their shields and their armor was too thick to be pierced by our arrows.
One of the Banamaðr stepped in front of the others and tilted his head, his movements eerily preternatural. “Sssssigrid!” he hissed, his voice like a growl and a scream merged into one. “Sssssigrid!”
Blood spurted from the stump at the other one’s wrist, and the sight of his injury shifted the energy of our formation. Sigrid said these creatures had fears just like the rest of us, that they weren’t devoid of all human weakness.
I called to the men, “See how he bleeds! How a blade can take his hand just as easily as any other man! They have gifts from the gods, but are in the bodies of men all the same! As one we can defeat them!”
Taking the bait, the Banamaðr stepped forward together out of the entrance of the maze. But we’d underestimated them.
They ran with such speed, my eyes could only recognize that they were in the maze one moment and in the next, they were upon us. I braced for the impact, but the blade of an axe swung towards me too quickly to block.
I knew with certainty I was about to die.
The killing blowI’d braced for never came. Elric raised his shield just in time to shoulder the massive impact, but he was on my left, so he exposed himself to do it. His shield splintered, falling to useless pieces between us, and his arm hung at a distorted angle as he dropped the rest. He stepped back one row and allowed another man to fill the gap in his place.
Arnulf now stood to my left. He was mine to protect. I couldn’t let his father down.
“Saxons! Close them in!” I shouted the command over the clash of swords on shields, but the men seemed to be in a daze, barely holding the assassins off again.
