‘Kill them!’ Ælfweard screeched. ‘kill them! Kill them! Kill them all!’

‘You must close the gate!’ Æthelhelm bellowed

‘God is with us!’ Father Oda’s voice was hoarse. The men in our rear rank were shouting, encouraging us to kill. Wounded men moaned, the dying screamed, the battle stench of blood and shit filled my nostrils.

‘Hold them!’ I bellowed. A spear or a seax scored across my left thigh, Finan lunged. The spearman from the second rank had stepped across Rumwald’s body and his shield touched mine. He lasted maybe long enough to lunge his spear once, then the axe drove into his shoulder, opening him deep and he fell beside his lord, and the axeman, a fair-haired man with a blood-spattered beard, swung his blade at me and I raised the shield to block the blow, saw the wood split where the blade struck, swung the shield down and drove Serpent-Breath at his eyes. He jerked away, another man had taken the dying Mercian’s place and he stabbed with a shortened spear, driving the blade into the axeman’s groin. The axe dropped, the man shrieked in agony and, like Waormund, fell to his knees. There were dead and dying men between us and the enemy, who had to step on the bodies to reach us and try to stab and lunge and hack their way to the gate. The drums still pounded, shields were splintering, the West Saxons were driving us back by weight of numbers.

Then there was a bellow behind me, a cheer, a clatter of hooves, and something slammed into my back, throwing me to my knees and I looked up to see a horseman thrusting a long spear over my head. More horsemen came. The Mercian cheers grew. I managed to stand. Finan had thrown down his seax and drawn Soul-Stealer because the horsemen were driving the West Saxons back, giving us space for longer blades. ‘Break them!’ another voice shouted, and I had a glimpse of Æthelstan, his helmet a glory of polished steel circled with gold, thrusting his stallion into the West Saxon ranks. The warrior king had come, glorious in gold, ruthless in steel, and he hacked with a long-sword, beating down his enemies. His men spurred to join him, spears stabbing, and suddenly the enemy broke.

They just broke. The longer spears of the Mercian horsemen had reached deep into the West Saxon ranks and on another day, on another battlefield, that would not have mattered. Horses are easy to wound and a panicked horse is no help to his rider, but on that day, by the gate of cripples, the horsemen came with a savage fury, led by a king who wanted to fight and who led his men from the front. There was blood on his stallion’s chest, but the horse kept plunging, rearing, flailing with heavy hooves, and Æthelstan kept shouting his men onwards, his long-sword reddened, and our shield wall, saved from death, found new passion. Our line, so short and so vulnerable, now surged forward. Brihtwulf had returned and joined the charge, bellowing at his men to follow, then Æthelstan’s horsemen split the enemy shield wall and the West Saxons broke in panic.