A different story?

A solitary trumpet blared defiance out across the hillside.

A dozen pipes of some description or other answered, but their lack of harmony or timing left the gesture hollow. It was the smaller force that were cheered by this display, perhaps due to rather than in spite of the massive odds that faced them.

Bjorn was still hidden behind his uncle's spare shield that he could hardly lift. His foster-brother Niall had told him to stay behind the shield until he could smell the fetid breath of the foe. These were Niall's last words before an arrow had burrowed savagely into his unprotected stomach, condemning the Irishman to a horrible and slow death.

Bjorn could still hear the slow, supressed wheezing from Niall a few feet away from him. That all too human sound unnerved him but was an excellent and inescapable reminder to hold his urge to look over the shield in check, lest he get an arrow in his guts too. Around him the other Gall-Goidel were anxious - the Irish arrows had stopped coming, but that meant an attack or a trick to their battle-hardened memories.

Halfdan, Bjorn's uncle, was whispering to himself as he methodically wrapped a tattered old brown rag around his helm and forehead. All the warriors there knew that this was the closest thing their little band had to a talisman. It was the flag of a British war-chief, long since ruined by being ritually dipped in the blood of their fallen enemies. There was now no way of telling what colour it had originally been, or what noble Latin words had been emblazoned upon it.

The Irish pipes had begun again, this time seemingly behind them, where the slope of the hill was shallower. The mist prevented Bjorn from seeing any of the foe, even when he dared to peep beyond the barrier of the hill. Halfdan seemed untroubled by the fact that they now appeared to be surrounded, and gestured subtlely at two of his senior warriors who moved their shields to cover the small band from the rear.

Bjorn was fumbling with his drawers and was about to relieve himself when a horrific wailing began through the sea-grey mist around him. Thoughts of urination left him and he drew his other weapon, a long Aenglish Seax-knife, designed for gutting a foe beneath the shield or poking at unprotected eyes above. His smooth hands trembled slightly, and his pee escaped to soak his thighs and clothes.

His friend Ragnald leant over to him and muttered: "Now it is time to for your knife to sing as loud and as keenly as the Irish voices now shriek."

Bjorn coughed and gulped at the same time.