Of Death In Battle, by Sam Derby

There was a body, she realised immediately. It had been broken by the earth itself over the centuries but it was still very obviously that of a warrior. The remnants of a sword lay by its right hand; there were axe or sword wounds to the shoulder, the ribs and the head.

“What have you got, Jane?” came Mark’s voice, wheedling its way over from the north-south trench that he had insisted be dug about ten yards away from the one she had started.

“A warrior it looks like. Smashed up pretty bad. No grave goods left that I can see for now but I’ll keep looking.”

“Any grave goods that you can see, darling?”

“No, I…” I just said that, she thought, I just fucking said that but you don’t listen to anything, do you?

“Hmm?”

“Just let me work, won’t you? Just let me bloody work for a minute. You’re always…”

“I was only asking, darling. I’ll just keep going over here shall I? Give you a bit of space?”

Jane squeezed shut her eyes and tried to block it all out; the argument, what had started it, everything. I am far away, and the sky is dark, she thought. The sky is black and the woods resound with the din of battle.

His first thought—that it was blood, that it must be blood—receded. The liquid around his feet was cold: so it could not be blood, not yet. It was the dark wet earth of the fen reaching into his boots. He could feel it too clearly: the battle-rage must have left him already. He was weak.

There was an immense and jarring blow, suddenly, upon his right shoulder, and he was knocked off balance. His left arm stretched out instinctively even as he fell, and he pushed himself into a roll to avoid the next swing of the axe, or sword, or whatever it was that had hit him. He tucked the flat of his own blade against his armoured chest as he hit the cold ground, so that it would not bite. He shut his eyes, just for a moment, and then opened them, slowly and with great effort. There was a dreadful throbbing ache in his shoulder, with each beat of his heart a lancing bolt of pain struck him deeply. He fancied that he could feel it now, the call of his ancestors. The warmth of the hearth, and the strengthening mead; the hint of gold in the eyes of his Lord.

There were black clouds across the sun and the wind drove the rain at him, at all of them, flaying each other in the cruel mud. He could no longer see who had hit him; they had been struck down in turn by another. The pain was sharpening, but he pulled himself up to his knees, and then to his feet, and then with the greatest effort raised his head, and looked around.

There were perhaps thirty or forty warriors there, in the icy darkness of that mud-bound place. Not the cream of his kingdom; only one or two thanes, and the rest had been good warriors once or might one day become such. He had been a good warrior once. Since, he had worn his share of winters, and not so lightly.

“Hengist!” came a shout from somewhere, just audible above the clang of sword on sword and the thud of axe-head on hardened leather. His name, he thought. Something was badly wrong, he knew, for he could neither think nor hear clearly. But it was cold, the feeling in his boots; so it could not be blood, not yet.

“Hengist, you are wounded, get back behind me,” said a voice, urgently, and he looked around.

“Alric,” said Hengist, “Alric, I am…” he trailed off.

What was it he had wanted to say?

“Get back, man,” shouted Alric, trying to pull Hengist back as another axe blow came crashing through the blackened sky, and landed.

Hengist staggered and fell again, the cold and marsh-soft ground embracing him. There was warmth, now, in his boots. How he yearned for the welcoming hearth, for laughter and the sound of ale flowing into his tankard; so warm he was now, he could almost feel his hunting-dog curled around his feet, and the gathering blanket of sleep.

When he awoke, the dark had come, and though his body was still lying upon the wet, cold ground, his soul was not. The air rushed around him, as if he were somehow suspended from the moon, and the stars were upon his face. He looked down at the sodden field strewn with bodies, and at the ruins of the fort. They had all gone, those who defended it; they had gone, like the unknown titans who had built the great bridges and temples had gone, leaving their unimaginable works of stone silent upon the mountain; they were all food for the ravens, as was he.

Jane pulled the stub of a pencil out from her jacket pocket and wrote,A warrior, unknown, killed in battleon the label. Mark was still fussing about in his trench and pretending not to look over from time to time. What had she done to deserve him, to end up here? And yet here she was, in the middle of a muddy field, with a dull and to cap it all quite possibly philandering husband, digging up the bones of other, dead, men. She licked the end of the pencil, and looked up at the darkening sky and the setting sun, and thought for a while. And then she added, far from home, to the label, and started to cry.

Author’s note
I have always been a fan of Anglo-Saxon poetry (especially The Wanderer and Wulf) and this is a response of a kind. Being a fan of time team and mildly obsessed with burial rituals are the other main influences.

Sam Derby

Sam Derby lives in Oxford with his wife and daughter. Credits: LL, Bath Short Story 2019; 3rd, 2019 ChipLitFest and HC Manchester Fiction Prize 2019; Ghosts & Scholars, Storgy, Coffin Bell, Schlock, The Quiet Reader, Horla, Fantomes and in anthologies from the Oxford Writing Circle of which he is a member.

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