Two-Gun Bob, page 43
But on the other flanks, the Danes of Dublin under the redoubtable Dubhgall had held against the first blasting charge of the Western tribes, though their ranks reeled at the shock, and now the wild men in their wolfskins were falling like garnered grain before the Danish axes.
In the center, the battle raged most fiercely; the wedge-shaped shield-wall of the Vikings held, and against its iron ranks the Dalcassians hurled their half-naked bodies in vain. A ghastly heap ringed that rim wall as Brodir and Sigurd began a slow, steady advance, the inexorable onstride of the Vikings, hacking deeper and deeper into the loose formation of the Gaels.
On the walls of Dublin Castle, King Sitric, watching the fight with Kormlada and his wife, exclaimed, “Well do the sea-kings reap the field!
Kormlada’s beautiful eyes blazed with wild exultation. “Fall, Brian!” she cried fiercely. “Fall, Murrogh! And fall too, Brodir! Let the keen ravens feed!” Her voice faltered as her eyes fell upon a tall cloaked figure standing on the battlements, apart from the people–a sombre grey giant, brooding over the battle. A cold fear stole over her and froze the words on her lips. She plucked at Sitric’s cloak. “Who is he?” she whispered, pointing.
Sitric looked and shuddered. “I know not. Pay him no heed. Go not near him. When I but approached him, he spoke not or looked at me, but a cold wind blew over me and my heart shriveled. Let us rather watch the battle. The Gaels give way.”
But at the foremost point of the Gaelic advance, the line held. There, like the convex center of a curving ax-blade, fought Murrogh and his chiefs. The great prince was already streaming blood from gashes on his limbs, but his heavy swords flamed in double strokes that dealt death like a harvest, and the chiefs at his side mowed down the corn of battle. Fiercely Murrogh sought to reach Sigurd through the press. He saw the tall Jarl looming across the waves of spears and heads, striking blows like thunderstrokes, and the sight drove the Gaelic prince to madness. But he could not reach the Viking.
“The warriors are forced back,” gasped Dunlang, seeking to shake the sweat from his eyes. The young chief was untouched; spears and axes alike splintered on the Roman helmet or glanced from the ancient cuirass, but, unused to armor, he felt like a chained wolf.
Murrogh spared a single swift glance; on either side of the clump of chiefs, the gallaglachs were falling back, slowly, savagely, selling each foot of ground with blood, unable to halt the irresistible advance of the mailed Northmen. These were falling, too, all along the battle-line, but they closed ranks and forced their way forward, legs braced hard, bodies strained, spears driving without cease or pause; they plowed on through a red surf of dead and dying.
“Turlogh!” gasped Murrogh, dashing the blood from his eyes. “Haste from the fray for Malachi! Bid him charge, in God’s name!”
But the frenzy of slaughter was on Black Turlogh; froth flecked his lips and his eyes were those of a madman. “The Devil take Malachi!” he shouted, splitting a Dane’s skull with a stroke like the slash of a tiger’s paw.
“Conn!” called Murrogh, and as he spoke he gripped the big kern’s shoulder and dragged him back. “Haste to Malachi–we need his support.”
Conn drew reluctantly away from the mêlée, clearing his path with thunderous strokes. Across the reeling sea of blades and rocking helmets he saw the towering form of Jarl Sigurd and his lords–the billowing folds of the raven banner floated above them as their whistling swords hewed down men like wheat before the reaper.
Free of the press, the kern ran swiftly along the battle-line until he came to the higher ground of Cabra where the Meathmen thronged, tense and trembling like hunting hounds as they gripped their weapons and looked eagerly at their king. Malachi stood apart, watching the fray with moody eyes, his lion’s head bowed, his fingers twined in his golden beard.
“King Melaghlin,” said Conn bluntly, “Prince Murrogh urges you to charge home, for the press is great and the men of the Gael are hard beset.”
The great O’Neill lifted his head and stared absently at the kern. Conn little guessed the chaotic struggle which was taking place in Malachi’s soul–the red visions which thronged his brain–riches, power, the rule of all Erin, balanced against the black shame of treachery. He gazed out across the field where the banner of his nephew O’Kelly heaved among the spears. And Malachi shuddered, but shook his head.
“Nay,” he said, “it is not time. I will charge–when the time comes.”
For an instant king and kern looked into each others’ eyes. Malachi’s eyes dropped. Conn turned without a word and sped down the slope. As he went, he saw that the advance of Lennox and the men of Desmond had been checked. Mailmora, raging like a wild man, had cut down Prince Meathla O’Faelan with his own hand, a chance spear-thrust had wounded the Great Steward, and now the Leinstermen held fast against the onset of the Munster and Scottish clans. But where the Dalcassians fought, the battle was locked; the Prince of Thomond broke the onrush of the Norsemen like a jutting cliff that breaks the sea.
Conn reached Murrogh in the upheaval of slaughter. “Melaghlin says he will charge when the time comes.”
“Hell to his soul!” cried Black Turlogh. “We are betrayed!”
Murrogh’s blue eyes flamed. “Then in the name of God!” he roared, “Let us charge and die!”
The struggling men were stirred at his shout. The blind passion of the Gael surged up, bred of desperation; the lines stiffened, and a great shout shook the field that made King Sitric on his castle wall whiten and grip the parapet. He had heard such shouting before.
Now, as Murrogh leaped forward, the Gaels awoke to red fury as in men who have no hope. The nearness of doom woke frenzy in them, and, like inspired madmen, they hurled their last charge and smote the wall of shields, which reeled at the blow. No human power could stay the onslaught. Murrogh and his chiefs no longer hoped to win, or even to live, but only to glut their fury as they died, and in their despair they fought like wounded tigers–severing limbs, splitting skulls, cleaving breasts and shoulder-bones. Close at Murrogh’s heels, flamed the ax of Black Turlogh and the swords of Dunlang and the chiefs; under that torrent of steel the iron line crumpled and gave, and through the breach the frenzied Gaels poured. The shield formation melted away.
At the same moment the wild men of Connacht again hurled a desperate charge against the Dublin Danes. O’Hyne and Dubhgall fell together and the Dublin men were battered backward, disputing every foot. The whole field melted into a mingled mass of slashing battlers without rank or formation. Among a heap of torn Dalcassian dead, Murrogh came at last upon Jarl Sigurd. Behind the Jarl stood grim old Rane Asgrimm’s son, holding the raven banner. Murrogh slew him with a single stroke. Sigurd turned, and his sword rent Murrogh’s tunic and gashed his chest, but the Irish prince smote so fiercely on the Norseman’s shield that Jarl Sigurd reeled backward.
Thorleif Hordi had picked up the banner, but scarce had he lifted it when Black Turlogh, his eyes glaring, broke through and split his skull to the teeth. Sigurd, seeing his banner fallen once more, struck Murrogh with such desperate fury that his sword bit through the prince’s morion and gashed his scalp. Blood jetted down Murrogh’s face, and he reeled, but before Sigurd could strike again, Black Turlogh’s ax licked out like a flicker of lightning. The Jarl’s warding shield fell shattered from his arm, and Sigurd gave back for an instant, daunted by the play of that deathly ax. Then a rush of warriors swept the raging chiefs apart.
“Thorstein!” shouted Sigurd. “Take up the banner!”
“Touch it not!” cried Asmund. “Who bears it, dies!” Even as he spoke, Dunlang’s sword crushed his skull.
“Hrafn!” called Sigurd desperately. “Bear the banner!”
“Bear your own curse!” answered Hrafn. “This is the end of us all.”
“Cowards!” roared the Jarl, snatching up the banner himself and striving to gather it under his cloak as Murrogh, face bloodied and eyes blazing, broke through to him. Sigurd flung up his sword–too late. The weapon in Murrogh’s right hand splintered on his helmet, bursting the straps that held it and ripping it from his head, and Murrogh’s left-hand sword, whistling in behind the first blow, shattered the Jarl’s skull and felled him dead in the bloody folds of the great banner that wrapped about him as he went down.
Now a great roar went up, and the Gaels redoubled their strokes. With the formation of shields torn apart, the mail of the Vikings could not save them; for the Dalcassian axes, flashing in the sun, hewed through chain-mesh and iron plates alike, rending linden shield and horned helmet. Yet the Danes did not break.
On the high ramparts, King Sitric had turned pale, his hands trembling where he gripped the parapet. He knew that these wild men could not be beaten now, for they spilled their lives like water, hurling their naked bodies again and again into the fangs of spear and ax. Kormlada was silent, but Sitric’s wife, King Brian’s daughter, cried out in joy, for her heart was with her own people.
Murrogh was striving now to reach Brodir, but the black Viking had seen Sigurd die. Brodir’s world was crumbling; even his vaunted mail was failing him, for though it had thus far saved his skin, it was tattered now. Never before had the Manx Viking faced the dreaded Dalcassian ax. He drew back from Murrogh’s onset. In the crush, an ax shattered on Murrogh’s helmet, knocking him to his knees and blinding him momentarily with its impact. Dunlang’s sword wove a wheel of death above the fallen prince, and Murrogh reeled up.
The press slackened as Black Turlogh, Conn and young Turlogh drove in, hacking and stabbing, and Dunlang, frenzied by the heat of battle, tore off his helmet and flung it aside, ripping off his cuirass.
“The Devil eat such cages!” he shouted, catching at the reeling prince to support him, and even at that instant Thorstein the Dane ran in and drove his spear into Dunlang’s side. The young Dalcassian staggered and fell at Murrogh’s feet, and Conn leaped forward to strike Thorstein’s head from his shoulders so that it whirled grinning still through the air in a shower of crimson.
Murrogh shook the darkness from his eyes. “Dunlang!” he cried in a fearful voice, falling to his knees at his friend’s side and raising his head.
But Dunlang’s eyes were already glazing. “Murrogh! Eevin!” Then blood gushed from his lips and he went limp in Murrogh’s arms.
Murrogh leaped up with a shout of demoniac fury. He rushed into the thick of the Vikings, and his men swept in behind him.
On the hill of Cabra, Malachi cried out, flinging doubts and plots to the wind. As Brodir had plotted, so had he. He had but to stand aside until both hosts were cut to pieces, then seize Erin, tricking the Danes as they had planned to betray him. But his blood cried out against him and would not be stilled. He gripped the golden collar of Tomar about his neck, the collar he had taken so many years before from the Danish king his sword had broken, and the old fire leaped up.
“Charge and die!” he shouted, drawing his sword, and at his back the men of Meath gave tongue like a hunting pack and swarmed down into the field.
Under the shock of the Meathmen’s assault, the weakened Danes staggered and broke. They tore away singly and in desperate slashing groups, seeking to gain the bay where their ships were anchored. But the Meathmen had cut off their retreat, and the ships lay far out, for the tide was at flood. All day that terrific battle had ranged, yet to Conn, snatching a startled glance at the setting sun, it seemed that scarce an hour had passed since the first lines had crashed together.
The fleeing Northmen made for the river, and the Gaels plunged in after them to drag them down. Among the fugitives and the groups of Norsemen who here and there made determined stands, the Irish chiefs were divided. The boy Turlogh was separated from Murrogh’s side and vanished in the Tolka, struggling with a Dane. The clans of Leinster did not break until Black Turlogh rushed like a maddened beast into the thick of them and struck Mailmora dead in the midst of his warriors.
Murrogh, still blood-mad, but staggering from fatigue and weakened by loss of blood, came upon a band of Vikings who, back to back, resisted the conquerors. Their leader was Anrad the Berserk, who, when he saw Murrogh, rushed furiously upon him. Murrogh, too weary to parry the Dane’s stroke, dropped his own sword and closed with Anrad, bearing him to the ground. The sword was wrenched from the Dane’s hand as they fell. Both snatched at it, but Murrogh caught the hilt and Anrad the blade. The Gaelic prince tore it away, dragging the keen edge through the Viking’s hand, severing nerve and thew; and, setting a knee on Anrad’s chest, Murrogh drove the sword thrice through his body. Anrad, dying, drew a dagger, but his strength ebbed so swiftly that his arm sank. And then a mighty hand gripped his wrist and drove home the stroke he had sought to strike, so that the keen blade sank beneath Murrogh’s heart. Murrogh fell back dying, and his last glance showed him a tall grey giant looming above, his cloak billowing in the wind, his one glittering eye cold and terrible. But the mazed eyes of the surrounding warriors saw only death and the dealing of death.
The Danes were all in flight now, and on the high wall King Sitric sat watching his high ambitions fade away, while Kormlada gazed wild-eyed into ruin, defeat and shame.
Conn ran among the dying and the fleeing, seeking Thorwald Raven. The kern’s buckler was gone, shattered among the axes. His broad breast was gashed in half a dozen places; a sword-edge had bitten into his scalp when only his shock of tangled hair had saved him. A spear had girded into his thigh. Yet now in his heat and fury he scarcely felt these wounds.
A weakening hand caught at Conn’s knee as he stumbled among dead men in wolf-skins and mailed corpses. He bent and saw O’Kelly, Malachi’s nephew, and chief of the Hy Many. The chief ’s eyes were glazing in death. Conn lifted his head, and a smile curled the blue lips.
“I hear the war-cry of the O’Neill,” he whispered. “Malachi could not betray us. He could not stand from the fray. The Red Hand–to–Victory!”
Conn rose as O’Kelly died, and caught sight of a familiar figure. Thorwald Raven had broken from the press and now fled alone and swiftly, not toward the sea or the river, where his comrades died beneath the Gaelic axes, but toward Tomar’s Wood. Conn followed, spurred by his hate.
Thorwald saw him, and turned, snarling. So the thrall met his former master. As Conn rushed into close quarters, the Norseman gripped his spear-shaft with both hands and lunged fiercely, but the point glanced from the great copper collar about the kern’s neck. Conn, bending low, lunged upward with all his power, so that the great blade ripped through Jarl Thorwald’s tattered mail and spilled his entrails on the ground.
Turning, Conn saw that the chase had brought him almost to the king’s tent, pitched behind the battle-lines. He saw King Brian Boru standing in front of the tent, his white locks flowing in the wind, and but one man attending him. Conn ran forward.
“Kern, what are your tidings?” asked the king.
“The foreigners flee,” answered Conn, “but Murrogh has fallen.”
“You bring evil tidings,” said Brian. “Erin shall never again look on a champion like him.” And age like a cold cloud closed upon him.
“Where are your guards, My Lord?” asked Conn.
“They have joined in the pursuit.”
“Let me then take you to a safer place,” said Conn. “The Gall fly all about us here.”
King Brian shook his head. “Nay, I know I leave not this place alive, for Eevin of Craglea told me last night I should fall this day. And what avails me to survive Murrogh and the champions of the Gael? Let me lie at Armagh, in the peace of God.”
Now the attendant cried out, “My king, we are undone! Men blue and naked are upon us.”
“The armored Danes,” cried Conn, wheeling.
King Brian drew his heavy sword.
A group of blood-stained Vikings were approaching, led by Brodir and Prince Amlaff. Their vaunted mail hung in shreds; their swords were notched and dripping. Brodir had marked the king’s tent from afar, and was bent on murder, for his soul raged with shame and fury and he was beset by visions in which Brian, Sigurd, and Kormlada spun in a hellish dance. He had lost the battle, Ireland, Kormlada–now he was ready to give up his life in a dying stroke of vengeance.
Brodir rushed upon the king, Prince Amlaff at his heels. Conn sprang to bar their way. But Brodir swerved aside and left the kern to Amlaff, as he fell upon the king. Conn took Amlaff ’s blade in his left arm and smote a single terrible blow that rent the prince’s hauberk like paper and shattered his spine. Then the kern sprang back to guard King Brian.
Then even as he turned, Conn saw Brodir parry Brian’s stroke and drive his sword through the ancient king’s breast. Brian went down, but even as he fell he caught himself on one knee and thrust his keen blade through flesh and bone, cutting both Brodir’s legs from under him. The Viking’s scream of triumph broke in a ghastly groan as he toppled in a widening pool of crimson. There he struggled convulsively and lay still.
Conn stood looking dazedly around him. Brodir’s company of men had fled, and the Gaels were converging on Brian’s tent. The sound of the keening for the heroes already rose to mingle with the screams and shouts that still came from the struggling hordes along the river. They were bringing Murrogh’s body to the king’s tent, walking slowly–weary, bloody men, with bowed heads. Behind the litter that bore the prince’s body came others–laden with the bodies of Turlogh, Murrogh’s son; of Donald, Steward of Mar; of O’Kelly and O’Hyne, the western chiefs; of Prince Meathla O’Faelan; of Dunlang O’Hartigan, beside whose litter walked Eevin of Craglea, her golden head sunk on her breast.
The warriors set down the litters and gathered silently and wearily about the corpse of King Brian Boru. They gazed unspeaking, their minds dulled from the agony of strife. Eevin lay motionless beside the body of her lover, as if she herself were dead; no tears stood in her eyes, no cry or moan escaped her pallid lips.
The clamor of battle was dying as the setting sun bathed the trampled field in its roseate light. The fugitives, tattered and slashed, were limping into the gates of Dublin, and the warriors of King Sitric were preparing to stand siege. But the Irish were in no condition to besiege the city. Four thousand warriors and chieftains had fallen, and nearly all the champions of the Gael were dead. But more than seven thousand Danes and Leinstermen lay stretched on the blood-soaked earth, and the power of the Vikings was broken. On Clontarf their iron reign was ended.
