Chapter 72: The Flight of the Slain
The mists of dawn coiled low across the fields of Dún Ailline, veiling the armies of Connacht in ghostly shrouds.
From atop the ramparts, Vetrúlfr peered down, his breath fogging in the chill air.
Below, thousands of Gaelic warriors formed into ragged ranks, banners of hawks, boars, and sun wheels drooping heavy with dew.
At their center stood Conchobar and the petty kings, their bright cloaks cinched tight against the morning cold.
Lines of levies bristled behind them, shield rims knocking nervously together.
To the Gaels, this was to be their final hammer blow; the day they would crack the wolf’s den and drag its lord out by the throat.
Priests stalked the lines muttering prayers, flicking holy water that steamed upon trembling hands.
But within the ringfort, the Norse were not idle. Vetrúlfr moved among his men like a prowling shadow, offering no words of false comfort.
Only nods, a hand upon a shoulder, a low command spoken in a voice that needed no raising.
They had prepared every street with barricades, sharpened stakes, hidden ditches masked by woven brush.
Casks of pitch waited near every choke point. Their shield-walls stood ready, axes dark with old blood.
Ármóðr approached at Vetrúlfr’s side, helm under one arm. “They gather in earnest. More than ever before. You see how the kings have massed their hearthguards to the fore?”
Vetrúlfr merely bared his teeth. “They sense their doom already, though they cannot yet name it.”
He cast a long look to the east; and there upon the river’s edge, sails like dark wings began to blossom through the thinning mist.
Fáfnirsfangr led the vanguard, its dragon prow slick with dew. Behind it followed a hungry flock of ships, the same fleets that had feasted on the river lands.
Gunnarr stood at the prow of his king’s flagship, Maél Sechnaill mac Cathail and his family arrayed near the mast in heavy iron collars, forced to watch as their kin bled.
The captured king’s face was pale, eyes hollow. His daughter clutched her mother’s hand, silent tears streaking down soot-stained cheeks.
When Mael tried to turn away, a Norseman gripped his jaw and wrenched it forward, forcing him to see.
Below on the field, war horns echoed, heralding the arrival of revelation. The Gaels realized too late the shape of their trap.
Their backs were now to the river. With a thunder of drums, Gunnarr’s forces leapt from the ships and surged inland in a tide of shields and spears, smoke still clinging to their beards, the stink of burned hinterlands thick upon them.
Connacht’s men wavered, torn between the fortress they meant to storm and the fresh horror striking at their rear.
Vetrúlfr slammed his sword on his shield, the clang echoing from the walls like a monstrous bell. His own war horns answered.
Gates burst open. The wolves of the north poured forth in disciplined ranks, snarling behind shield walls that bristled with iron.
Caught between two iron maws, the Gaelic host twisted like a wounded serpent.
Horns screamed. Orders tangled. Some kings tried to wheel their men to face Gunnarr’s charge; others pressed forward, desperate to breach the fort and find shelter there.
It was chaos. Spears stabbed from all directions, axes rose and fell with gruesome rhythm. Men slipped on blood-slick grass, were trampled by comrades, or hacked down where they stood.
A knot of Conchobar’s men broke and fled for the river, only to find Gunnarr’s lines there waiting.
The Norsemen laughed as they fell upon them, splitting shields and driving them screaming into the shallows.
High on Fáfnirsfangr’s deck, Mael gave a strangled moan. His wife buried her face against his shoulder, sobbing. But there was no looking away.
The Norse had crafted this slaughter with care — not merely to break the bodies of Connacht, but to break its very heart.
Horses shrieked as they went down beneath sword strokes. The air itself was hot with blood, ringing with prayers twisted to panicked wails.
Vetrúlfr and Ármóðr, Íslendingr and Jomsviking, stood side by side, their shields’ iron rims overlapping, swords jutting from beneath thick laminated wood.
They thrust forward with each disciplined step, like the Roman legions of old, steel driving through linen, flesh, and, in rare moments, mail.
Sanguine ichor and bile spilled to coat the grass below, quenching it with life’s dew.
More wolf than man, Vetrúlfr howled and snarled as his lines pressed forward, boots trampling over corpses; and sometimes over those not yet fully claimed by the Valkyries or the angels alike.
By afternoon, it was done. What few Gaelic warriors remained broke utterly, throwing down arms to beg for quarter or fleeing into the woods.
The Norse gave little mercy. Those who surrendered were stripped, collared, and driven toward the ships to join a growing herd of thralls.
Vetrúlfr walked across the field amid the ruin. Crows flocked bold and close, tearing at open wounds, clawing out eyes that once burned with pride.
He knelt on his sword, breath coming hard but eyes bright.
They were not cast upon the mountain of corpses, but upon the spirits lingering above them; taking flight to the sky, to Heaven or to Valhöll. Only the dead knew that answer.
His silent prayer to the gods, and to the valiant dead, was broken by Ármóðr’s low voice.
“They will speak of this day in every hall,” Ármóðr said. “Of how the sons of Connacht died screaming between hammer and anvil.”
Vetrúlfr only smiled, teeth red where he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Aye. And let Rome hear of it, too. Let them know we are not like the others they bent to heel.”
He lifted his gaze to Fáfnirsfangr, where Mael and his kin still stood bound.
“Take them down to me,” he ordered. “They have more to see before the gods deem their wretched tale finished.”
And so the field of Dún Ailline fell silent, save for the drip of blood from spear tips and the laughter of carrion birds.