Like a giant serpent, the army of Athelstan undulated along the grass-carpeted cobblestones of the ancient Roman road, their helms and spears glinting in the morning sun, the hoofbeats of more than a thousand horses deafening.
Even after six days on the road, the size of Athelstan"s force and the alacrity with which it had formed was hard for Hakon to believe. Raising an army of this size, with sufficient mounts, with its supply train and its weapons, took time. After years of peace in Engla-lond, none of Athelstan"s huscarles had expected the fyrd to react so quickly. But the fyrd had proven everyone wrong. The forces of each shire, of each hundred and wapentake, met when and where they were summoned. And day by day, small knobs of warriors swelled Athelstan"s army into this ranging, wel
