The first two volleys of Pictish javelins tore ragged holes through the Viking line.
Seeing the enemy falter, the Pictish warbands roared as they charged—each clan breaking from the main force to attack wherever the shield wall looked weakest.
Their faces were daubed in indigo dye, their hair wild, their eyes burning with madness. With short swords and iron spears raised high, they howled like beasts of the mountains. Compared to these half-naked raiders, Vig's soldiers looked almost civilized.
Moments later, the battle turned into a brutal melee—shields slammed, blades rang, and screams rose over the din. The indigo-painted warriors fought with suicidal fury, forcing the Vikings into a desperate defensive fight.
On the southern edge of the field, Vig's captains—Jorlen, Burlow, and others—watched in alarm as their infantry, normally masters of hand-to-hand combat, were pushed backward.
"My lord," Jorlen urged, "send in the cavalry before it's too late!"
"Not yet," Vig said flatly.
Mounted on his gray stallion, he watched from a rise. His two thousand footmen, drilled for months, were shaken but not broken. The line wavered but held.
"Wait for the right moment," he muttered.
He ordered three hundred raiders and Burlow's Welsh bowmen to circle east and strike the Picts' flank.
Before they left, he warned Burlow sternly:
"Remember—harass them, don't engage in melee. Your men are archers, not brawlers."
"Understood."
Burlow whistled sharply. A column of green-cloaked Welshmen melted into the grass and vanished around the enemy's flank.
Within ten minutes of the battle's start, Vig had committed everything except the two hundred cavalry hidden behind the southwestern hills. Only Jorlen and twenty shieldguards remained beside him.
Soon, on the eastern flank, Burlow's men emerged from the underbrush.
"Loose!"
At his command, a storm of arrows hissed into the enemy's rear—twelve arrows per man, per minute. In two minutes, hundreds of Picts fell. Their left and center wavered, turning half-around in confusion.
Should they continue the assault—or deal with the invisible death striking from the east?
That hesitation was all Vig needed.
His infantry reformed their shield wall, advanced with renewed confidence, and began pushing the Picts back step by bloody step. The balance shifted.
By now, the battle was split: the east and center belonged to the Vikings, while the western flank still Faveled the Picts.
Realizing their danger, the Pictish commanders committed their last reserve—thirteen nobles and their three hundred household guards—charging toward the eastern flank to drive off the Welsh archers.
When Vig saw the enemy commit their final troops, he exhaled slowly.
"Now," he said. "Tell the cavalry—strike the west."
"At once!" Jorlen spurred his horse downhill.
Behind the southwestern ridge, the two hundred horsemen had grown restless, killing time by plucking lice from their collars. When Jorlen appeared, they leapt up, tightening girths and strapping on helms.
"Orders from the lord!" Jorlen shouted. "Charge the western flank!"
That was all they needed. In moments, they were mounted, forming two loose ranks. Before Jorlen could even signal, a few reckless riders bellowed:
"Valhalla!"
The cry spread like wildfire.
The ground shook. The thunder of hooves rolled across the plain as the cavalry began to gallop, faster and faster, the wind shrieking past their ears.
The western Pictish force, seeing them come, sent four hundred men forward to block the way.
Their commander scoffed. His people had no stirrups, no proper cavalry—he saw no reason to fear a few hundred horsemen.
Then, at a hundred paces, the riders broke into a full gallop. At thirty paces, lances leveled, sunlight flashed along the steel tips.
The impact was cataclysmic.
Spearpoints tore through shields and bodies alike; riders hurled aside their broken lances, drawing swords to hack down anything still standing.
In minutes, half the Pictish blocking force lay dead or dying. Those who survived turned and ran.
The cavalry wheeled about, re-formed, and charged again.
By the end of the second assault, the entire western flank collapsed. Panic rippled through the rest of the Pictish army. The Indigo Raiders, so fierce a moment ago, now fled in chaos, their painted faces drained of courage.
From his vantage point, Vig saw the enemy rout and nodded once.
"Signal all units," he told his guards. "Infantry hold position and tend the wounded. Cavalry and Burlow's men will pursue until nightfall."
As messengers galloped off, Vig dismounted, breathing out the tension that had built through the fight.
"The Picts fight with a ferocity I hadn't expected," he admitted. "Without the cavalry, we might not have broken them."
He recalled Roman accounts that had once described these same highland tribes with reluctant admiration—barbarians who "knew no fear of death."
He thought of the vanished Ninth Legion Hispana, lost in northern Britain around A.D. 117—thousands of Roman soldiers who had marched north and never returned. Perhaps they too had met their end at the hands of warriors like these.
By 122, Emperor Hadrian had drawn the line, raising a great wall to mark the limits of empire. Beyond it lay the untamable north—the land Vig now claimed for himself.
"At least we caught them in the open," he murmured. "If they'd retreated to their hills, we'd have bled ten times more men."
Half an hour later, reinforcements arrived from the south, including the Raven-Speaker with his field medics.
Their methods were crude but improving: washing wounds with clean water, stitching flesh with thread and needle. For fevers and infections, they used garlic juice—rich in allicin—and boiled willow bark, a natural source of salicylic acid.
The results were remarkable compared to old Norse remedies. Vig was pleased.
"Record everything," he told the Raven-Speaker. "Every cure, every failure. When we return to Tyne Town, we'll build a proper hospital."
The Battle of the Tweed was over—and the North would never be the same.
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