Heroes of the Valley

by Jonathan Stroud

  'It's me, Halli.'

  'I know. Otherwise you'd be dead.'

  'Oh. That's good. Are you all set?'

  'We're ready.'

  'You'll whistle for help when—?'

  'It won't be needed. You can clear off now.'

  Halli pursed his lips, but without response drew back grimly into the night. The fact that Leif tolerated his authority at all was miracle enough.

  Back in the yard he slowed and stopped. So. That was everything.

  Except—

  He had almost forgotten. Hurrying across to the stables, he entered and, ignoring the fidgets of the horses in the stalls, went to the nearest deserted corner. Crouching, he scrabbled in the straw.

  'Putting on your lucky belt?'

  He stood abruptly, the hero's belt glittering in the lantern-light. The figure in the doorway was invisible to him, but he knew the voice and was not surprised.

  'I thought ladling soup might bore you before long,' he said, brushing straw away from silver. 'How d'you get out?'

  'Window in my room. Going to order me back in?'

  'No.' He removed his jerkin swiftly, draping the belt across his shoulder and fixing it diagonally across his chest. The familiar weight pleased him. He put his jerkin back on and picked up the lantern. As he walked to the door, her shape became visible, outlined against the mist.

  'Sorry about before,' he said. 'You must do whatever you think's right.'

  'I can help better out here—'

  'Fine.' He was close to her now, looking beyond her into the mist, at the glow of red light from Grim's forge. 'The only thing I ask,' he said quietly, 'is – keep away from me. Hord wants to take the House, he wants to humiliate us – but I'm what he wants most of all.'

  'You don't know that.'

  'I do. That's how I felt when Brodir died. That's what Hord's feeling now. He's living by the old rules. Vengeance is the key. If he gets me, he'll be satisfied. Listen. Aud— No, shut up a minute and listen. You asked before if my plan's going to work and I still don't know. But if it doesn't – if the defences don't hold, I mean – I won't let them break in here. I'd rather go out to Hord myself than see that happen.'

  'What? Leave the House?' He heard her bafflement and alarm. 'He'll kill you.'

  'He'll try.'

  'Yes, if by "try" you mean "tear me to pieces", you're spot on. Don't be a fool.'

  He spoke irritably, but still didn't look at her. 'I'm not going to stand still and let him, am I?'

  'Halli.' She took firm hold of his arm. 'You can't fight him. We've talked about this. Even if it were just you and Hord, he'd have a sword, while you' – she gestured at the long knife in his belt – 'you'd have that pig-tickler there. You'd be rubbish.'

  Halli ground his teeth and leaned in close. 'I'm not planning on fighting him myself. Why should I when there are other things that might do that for me? You know what I mean.' He pulled away gently. 'Listen – I've got to go over to the forge – check Grim and the rest are ready.'

  There was a silence. Aud had not released his arm.

  'Aud—'

  'You mean . . .' Her voice rose in sudden indignation. 'Well, how the hell are you going to get him up there?'

  'He wants revenge on me, doesn't he? I reckon I could lead him up. If the mist persists, he'll never know where he is until it's too late. Anyway, I don't want to talk about it. I've got to—'

  'Halli,' Aud said, still grasping his sleeve, 'this is the worst scheme I ever heard. What would you do when you got up there?'

  'There are those crags. I could get off the ground. Trows are weak when—'

  'Yes, but not that weak. They killed the heroes, remember?'

  'It's not a perfect plan.'

  'You can say that again. There are a thousand reasons why it won't work.'

  'Well, let's hope it doesn't come to that, shall we?' Halli snarled. 'Now, leave me alone. I'm going to the forge. You can come or not, as you choose.'

  They stomped in silence across the yard, Halli first, Aud some way behind him. In Grim's forge the light burned red. Grim, Unn and twenty other men and women of the House stood or sat like a huddled congregation of fiends, surrounded by their weapons of choice. Grim's great hammer was flat upon his lap. Unn had a narrow, curved knife, normally employed for scraping fat from skins.

  As Halli entered, everyone stirred, shuffled and moved their shoulders into attitudes of new alertness.

  Halli nodded round at them. 'Everything's ready. Now we just have to—'

  Even as he spoke, a short sharp whistle sounded, far off, shrill in the night. Then another – of a different, deeper tone. Almost at the exact same time came shouts, screams and other incoherent noises.

  'Hord's early,' Halli said.

  Across the forge hands snatched up weapons; twenty men and women sprang to their feet, their shadows black upon the blood-red surface of the walls.

  Halli was already back out of the door. Whistles blew in three locations. Halli ran, Aud ran; the defenders ran. In moments they had dispersed across the cobbles of the yard.

  26

  AND ALL AT ONCE, the sound of digging rose from a hum to a mutter to a roar, and all along the base of the tilted rock the Trows burst forth, spattering the men with soil and reaching with their clasping fingers. Svein and the rest stepped back again, a little way up the rock, for they knew that Trows are weakened when they no longer touch the earth. And soon they heard the claws clicking on the stone.

  Then – blinded as they were – they swung their swords mightily and had the satisfaction of hearing several heads go bouncing down upon the rock. But as the dead Trows fell, new ones erupted from the churned muck of the field, and still more came pressing behind them, snapping their teeth and stretching out their thin, thin arms.

  The loudest noises came from the eastern side, where Leif 's ambush had lain in wait. Halli took the lead, Grim and four others running alongside. A single glance showed that Aud was not among them: she had gone a different way.

  Across the yard, through floating fingers of mist, towards the alley. Halli's lantern swung wildly in his hand, but the light was useless, weakly spinning over swirling whiteness. He tossed the thing aside.

  Ahead came dull, repeated impacts and the cries of men in pain.

  Halli reached for the long knife in his belt.

  The mists parted; they were there.

  At the end of the narrow alley a net – ordinarily used for catching hares and rabbits in the fields – had been dropped with weighted corners so that it hung taut from the roof ends, blocking the exit into the yard. Grim's son, Ketil, stood there with a knobbed stave in his hand, watching confused and desperate movements in the dark beyond. Even as Halli ran up, an unfamiliar bearded face, red lips apart, appeared briefly at the net. Fingers wrenched at the knotted threads, sought to rip them; Ketil struck the face with his club, so that it groaned and fell away.

  Halli stepped back, surveying the rooftops above the alley. On either side he saw Leif 's men, risen from concealment. They hurled rocks into the alley below, thrust down with forks and mattocks, and beat zealously with flails. The contents of Unn's vats was poured in noxious torrents. Anguished cries came from the darkness.

  'How many here, Ketil?' Halli said.

  'Six or seven only. We've dropped a net at the other end so they can't get out.' Ketil's face was lively, grinning. His eyes flashed with grim merriment. 'Don't think they'll much enjoy this welcome.'

  Ketil stepped back to the net, squinting to see through. A sword blade stabbed through the net and into the side of his chest, catching him beneath the arm. With a gargling cry he lurched clear, dark blood gouting on his tunic. Halli cursed, caught him as he fell forward, stumbling back with the youth's face pressed against his neck. He felt hot wetness on his left hand.

  A howl of rage and grief. Grim the smith thrust Halli aside and took Ketil in his arms. He lowered his son slowly, first to his knees, then back so that he sat slumped against the nearby wall. Th
ere was blood at Ketil's mouth.

  Halli's other companions were clustered at the net now; they stabbed through it viciously with hoes and fish-spears, screaming as they did so. Halli stepped close, dragged two of them back. 'Stop! You'll tear the net to pieces! Gisli, Bolli – you two wait here and guard it. No one gets through. You others come with me.'

  Back across the yard they went, through the curling mists. Sounds of combat came from the southern and western sides. Halli's face was set hard, the corners of his mouth clamped downwards. Ketil's blood felt cold upon his palm.

  With a swing of the hand he led the two men with him towards the House's southern edge. They passed Eyjolf 's byre, now empty, leaped upon the tumbled wall and halted, looking down into the meadow.

  A little way off, like hunching birds of prey, a group of defenders stood silently around two black squared holes in the earth. Eyjolf and another man held torches; light flickered against the wisps of mist and the harshness of their faces. Several of the party held rocks in their hands, but it seemed that the use for these was past. There was a groaning coming from one of the holes. Fragments of branches, turf squares and pieces of grass netting that had been used to camouflage the pits lay scattered beneath the defenders' boots.

  Halli called, 'All well, Eyjolf ?'

  The torch moved; the old man stepped nearer, his face an inhuman mask floating redly in the mist. 'We have three beauties here. Three others evaded the trap and ran away when we came charging.'

  'Are your captives dead?'

  'Most are wriggling. We have just been discussing how to kill them.'

  Halli thought of the dull weight of Ketil's face pressing upon his neck. Then came memories of Brodir, Olaf, the hulking form of Bjorn the trader . . . He said quietly, 'Discuss all you like within their hearing, so that their fear for their lives is raw and intimate, but do not kill them. Just make sure they don't get out.'

  Eyjolf said peevishly, 'Svein would have buried them alive.'

  'Well, I am not Svein. Do as I say, old man.' He spoke then to the two men with him. 'Seven to the east and six here. There'll be seven more to the west, fighting Kugi and Sturla's group. That's not good odds.'

  One man said, 'Unn and several others went that way at the first alarm.'

  'Even so, they'll be hard pressed. Come on.'

  Back through the yard. In the east, where Leif 's net-trap held, the sounds of battle were diminishing, but to the west the noises had intensified. Past Unn's tannery they ran, along a narrow lane towards the midden. The way was dark; ahead, between the houses, beyond the tumbled wall, Halli saw the light of the full moon shining on the mists that billowed on the fields. Silhouetted black against this, men were fighting in twos and threes, sword against scythe, sword against mattock.

  The two defenders accompanying Halli sprinted past him on longer legs and threw themselves into the fray.

  With his knife raised, Halli accelerated too, and immediately tripped over a body lying face up on the stones. He sprawled across it, barking the palms of his hands on the ground. He rose, looked. Moonlight had broken through the mists; it splashed on a dislodged helmet, fair hair, a short cropped beard, a ruddy, open face. It was the face of Einar, the man of Hakon's House who had befriended Halli the year before. Einar's eyes stared fixedly at the sky; his open mouth grimaced like a smile.

  Halli stumbled back. Looking wildly about, he saw all around a confusion of wrestling bodies and bursts of violent movement. Men gasped for breath, metal splintered wood; dark blood fell on stones.

  The Hakonssons were clear enough to see: they wore long chain-mail coats, which clinked dully as they moved. Their rounded helmets, with long nose-guards and curling cheekplates, hid their heads entirely. Their eyes were black slashes, without form or light. Moving quickly, swinging their blades with brutal speed, they seemed scarcely human, creatures from an ancient tale.

  The defenders of Svein's House had no such armour – their heads were open, unprotected – but in the livid whirl of mist and moonlight, in the mess of flurried action, with the screams and howls they uttered, it was growing hard to recognize them too.

  Something glittered at Halli's feet: a sword, lying by Einar's curled, stilled hand.

  Halli shoved his knife into his belt, bent and scooped up the sword, instantly aware of its cumbersome, unfamiliar weight.

  There was movement straight ahead of him. A small form collapsed against the Trow wall, a broken dung-rake clattering on the rocks.

  'Kugi—' Halli started forwards, but the sword was heavy, his movements sluggish. Out of the night swooped a savage figure, dark hair flying, great arms slashing with a skinning knife: Unn the tanner, coming to Kugi's rescue, driving an armed and helmeted Hakonsson back over the wall.

  Now, to Halli's right, another tall invader approached, his sword held casually out and to the side, pursuing a cowering youth, who crouched back against the flagstones. The youth was Brusi, Unn's son, the shaft of his scythe sliced pitifully in two.

  With some effort Halli swung his blade round, leaped forward—

  From the opposite side a figure limped from the darkness and swung a metal bar at the Hakonsson's sword arm. A wail of pain – a clattering as the sword fell. The man leaped back, clutching his arm; as Halli lurched close, he ducked away, threw himself over the wall, and fell heavily to the midden below.

  His departure seemed to trigger a general retreat. Two other helmeted warriors suddenly drew back, jumped from the wall and disappeared into the mists. All along the tumbled wall, movement suddenly slowed; weary men and women lowered their weapons.

  Halli took this in obliquely through the tail of his eye. He was staring wordlessly at the person with the metal bar.

  'Hello, Halli,' Aud said, panting.

  He didn't answer: the other survivors were silently congregating around him in the narrow yard, and he knew he had to address them. With the exception of Unn, who was helping Brusi to his feet, they were a bedraggled sight. Most bore wounds on their arms and bodies; many had lost their weapons, or held them shattered in their hands. There were several bodies lying on the ground.

  Unn's knife was dark and wet. There was triumph in her doughy face. 'Easy work, this, Halli! Svein would be proud of us! We'll celebrate long tonight!'

  'I hope so,' Halli said. 'Sturla, Brusi, if you're both uninjured, I want you to do something for me. Go round the walls quickly and remove the log mannequins. Just get them out of sight. If they're still there when the Hakonssons look back, they'll know they're fake. Do that quickly.'

  The young men flitted away into the dark. Halli said to Unn, and the men and women round them, 'You have all fought well. How many were there? How many have we lost?'

  'Seven came over the wall,' Unn said. 'Four fled. As for us – it is as you see.'

  Halli took a lantern and inspected the bodies on the ground. Three Hakonssons were dead. One was the man that Halli knew. Neither of the others was Hord or Ragnar.

  Five people of Svein's House lay amongst them, three – a man and two women – dead from sword wounds. Kugi the sty-boy was one of the injured, his arm and chest both badly slashed.

  Halli knelt beside him. Kugi's face was a dull grey-green and his eyes gleamed wild and bright. Halli said, 'Well done, Kugi. You're a hero of this House. We'll get you to the hall now.'

  Kugi's voice was faint but sure. 'Have we won, then, Halli?'

  'We've beaten them back on all three sides. At least half are dead or captured. I must speak with Leif now.' He squeezed Kugi's shoulder and stood. Looking around, he saw the remaining defenders crouched beside the fallen; some of them were weeping. The sight made him sick at heart, but his face stayed calm. 'Aud,' he said loudly, 'can you marshal everyone, get the wounded back to the hall? Those who can still fight wait here and guard this point. I'll ask Gudny to send food and beer out to you at once. The first attack has been repulsed, but we must not yet weaken.'

  With the wounded going ahead, Halli hurried towards the hall with A
ud alongside him. As they went they inspected the workmanship of the sword he'd taken. Three other swords had been left with the defenders of the wall.

  The hilt was crudely fashioned, a cumbrous wedge of metal, softened with wrapped cloth. The blade, a little longer than the entirety of Halli's arm, seemed rather uneven, and was notched and pitted in places.

  Aud said: 'It's a bit blunt, though the point's keen enough. Not quite a hero's sword.'

  Halli grunted. 'Hord's smiths haven't mastered the old techniques yet. You can have it if you want. I can't use it, anyway – as you predicted. It's too long for me.' His tone was listless, absent: memories from the skirmish bore down upon him – the cries of the wounded, the faces of the dead. He could hear Aud talking again, speaking hopefully of the battle and their success so far, but his mind was elsewhere. Out in the mists, Hord would be regrouping, gathering his men together, taking stock of losses. What would he do now? Flee? Hardly. It would be a stain upon his honour . . . So – what then? It depended how many survivors he had.

  'We've got prisoners,' Aud said suddenly. 'Look.'

  Outside the hall porch a large group was gathering in the lantern-light. At its centre stood Halli's brother Leif, talking loudly, making elaborate gestures. He had a sword in his hand. Around him clustered five or six of the defenders from the eastern alley, the wounded arrivals from the western side, and one or two from Eyjolf 's group. They were considering two dejected Hakonsson men, bleeding, disarmed and helmetless, whose hands were being tied roughly behind their backs.

  One of the defenders – Bolli the bread-maker, whose tunic was bloodied at the shoulder – kicked out at a captive's shin, causing him to stumble back in pain. Leif and many of the others laughed. Someone struck the other prisoner from behind; a fist flew; blood flecked the ground. The crowd bucked and surged round its prey as if with a single thought.

  Halli strode close. 'Stop that, Bolli,' he snapped. 'And you, Runolf !'

  White faces, twisted, hateful, gazed at him. 'They killed Ketil and Grim,' a voice said.

  'Even so. Leave them be.' Halli became aware that both his hands were grasping the sword-hilt; he stared round at the suddenly silent crowd. 'Touch them again and I'll deal with you myself. Leif – speak up. What's happened here?'