But he did know what to do in a fight.
“Get your shield and helmet and come with me. Harald! Gudrid!” Thorgrim called to men as he walked forward and the men grabbed up weapons and shields. Even those men whose names he did not call armed themselves and followed. Starri was not the only one who wished to come to grips with this vexing enemy.
Thorgrim reached the bow. He looked past Blood Hawk to the beach, where Starri was now dancing around, yelling and waving his axes. Along the wall the archers raised bows and let loose a flight of arrows. Thorgrim grit his teeth and braced for the sight of Starri pierced through and through, but the arrows flew past and Starri continued with his taunting dance unscathed.
And you think the gods favor me? Thorgrim thought. He climbed up onto Sea Hammer’s sheer strake and reached over to grab Blood Hawk’s sternpost. He stepped across, a bit awkwardly compared to the ease with which Starri had made that leap, as if he were walking on a beaten path.
Godi was there on the afterdeck, his face smudged black from fighting the fires and one hand covered with someone’s half-dry blood.
“Going to fetch Starri?” Godi asked.
“We are,” Thorgrim said, stepping clear so the men behind him could climb from Sea Hammer to Blood Hawk. Thorgrim looked down Blood Hawk’s deck. There were fires here and there, and half a dozen dead, most with clothing burned. There were black holes in the sail where the arrows had struck, but the damage did not seem irreparable.
Thorgrim looked past the ship to Starri on the beach. No more arrows that Thorgrim could see; most of the archers were gone from the wall. Now what are they about? Thorgrim wondered, but he thought he knew.
“They’re going to attack us,” he said. Just as Starri had been able to use the bridge of ships to get ashore, the English were going to use the same path to launch an attack. Obviously they would prefer to capture the ships and the plunder rather than burn and sink it all, and now they saw their chance.
And that changed everything. The Northmen were not just dragging the berserker Starri back aboard, they were going to defend their ships, the loss of which would undoubtedly mean the loss of their lives as well.
“To arms! To arms!” Thorgrim shouted in a voice to be heard across the decks of three ships. “To arms and follow me! The English whores’ sons will be attacking us directly!”
Others took up the cry as Thorgrim raced forward. He reached Blood Hawk’s bow and made the step onto Long Serpent, an easier crossing, he was glad to see. Forward, the men of Long Serpent were gathering up weapons. The ship itself was in good shape, little sign of damage from arrows or fire, because she had not been long in the archers’ range.
Once again Thorgrim hurried forward. He looked up in time to see the English men-at-arms swarming around either end of the defenses. They must have been ready for this very thing. They would want to catch the Northmen as they were coming ashore, when they were most vulnerable, and not after they had had time to form up. There was one hundred, two hundred of the men-at-arms, and only Starri Deathless standing against them.
But as far as Starri was concerned, he was all that was needed. He renewed his battle cry and broke into a run, charging straight at the English columns. Thorgrim could see the surprise in the English lines as the men-at-arms hesitated in their advance, clearly thrown off by this ridiculous attack.
Starri was on them in an instant. The man leading the lines of English soldiers stepped forward to meet him, shield in one hand, sword raised and ready in the other. Starri came to a stop a foot from the man and dropped low as he swung his shield. Starri dodged sideways, the shield passed him without striking, and the Englishman followed with a thrust of his sword. But Starri, quick as a snake, was hard to hit and the man missed with both.
Then Starri was up again. He hooked the edge of the man’s shield with the curved blade of one ax and swung the other ax hard at the man’s head. He connected and the man was down and Starri leapt over him and flung himself at the next in line.
Thorgrim smiled. Starri had just bought them the few moments they needed to get ashore and get in some sort of order. He reached Long Serpent’s bow and vaulted over the sheer strake. The water was nearly waist deep where he landed and he felt his shoes sink into the soft mud on which the ship’s bow was grounded. He pushed his way toward the shore, taking exaggerated steps through the water, and heard the splashes and grunts of the men dropping into the water behind him.
Up the beach, near the wall, he could see a knot of thrashing, wild men, weapons hacking here and there, confusion, like a fox bringing panic to a chicken coop. This was what Starri Deathless could do to even a well-disciplined column of men. Thorgrim had seen it before, many times.
“Form up! Form up! Make a swine array!” Thorgrim shouted, waving and pointing where he wanted his men to go. They would arrange themselves in a wedge shape, with himself and Godi and Harald as the point, and drive into the English line.
Thorgrim raced a ways up the beach, gesturing to Godi and Harald to join him, shouting for the others to make their wedge formation, which they did, quickly. Thorgrim drew Iron-tooth and held the weapon high. He adjusted his grip on his shield and shouted as he ran forward, his eyes fixed on the line of Englishmen ahead.
He was aiming for the spot where Starri was doling out a single-handed beating, where the line was a tangled mess of men trying to sort themselves out. Where the confusion was the greatest. The sand was soft underfoot, the running hard, but the distance was not great, and suddenly he was there, plunging into the fight.
The Englishmen on the flanks, those not fighting with Starri, had seen them coming, and they closed in as the wings of Thorgrim’s wedge came charging up. But the men-at-arms occupied with Starri had not seen this new threat, did not know the Northmen were there until Thorgrim and Harald and Godi slammed into the line with the weight of the rest of Thorgrim’s men behind.
The first men-at-arms died with looks of shock on their faces, shields hardly raised in defense, but once those men were down the real fighting began. Thorgrim worked his shield left and right, knocking aside any weapons coming for him, thrusting with Iron-tooth, sometimes hitting shields, sometimes hitting flesh, sometimes hitting air.
There was little strength in the English line; the defense was not solid. Thorgrim could feel it, as he had before, on many battlefields. The two armies might be evenly matched in numbers and weapons and training, but one had the fighting spirit in them, and one did not, and he could feel that the English did not. He wondered if maybe Starri’s madness had unnerved them.
Shield up, Thorgrim took the blow of an ax on its face, saw the blade break through the wood, then jerked it aside and thrust straight out, past the edge of his opponent’s shield, right into his belly. He pulled the blade free as the scream was just building on the man’s lips.
Thorgrim thought about the first man whom Starri had taken down, the man in front who had stepped up to fight. Was that man the leader of the Englishmen here? Were they now leaderless? Did the sight of that man falling so quickly demoralize the rest? It was possible, certainly. It could explain why the fight was draining out of them so fast.
Someone slammed against Thorgrim’s left side and he half turned to see if it was friend or foe, but it was neither. It was Louis the Frank, eyes wide, sweat running down his face and making streaks in the blood splattered on his face. He was fighting with an Englishman right in front of him, while behind that man another was trying to get at Louis with the point of a spear.
The English sword came down and Louis caught it with his blade, inches before it would likely have cut his arm off. He lashed out with his foot and drove it into the man’s knee. The man crumpled and Louis’s sword found his neck as he went down and Thorgrim stepped up and drove Iron-tooth in the spearman’s shoulder as he lunged forward.
Louis turned to Thorgrim and shouted, in Frankish, Thorgrim guessed, since he did not understand the words, but he did understand the look in Louis’s eyes and
the frantic gesture toward the beach. Thorgrim looked back over his shoulder as long as he dared, which was not long, but long enough to see what Louis meant. Long Serpent was on fire.
Perhaps one of the small fires had caught and spread, perhaps the archers were still shooting into her, but either way the ship was on fire and the flames were spreading fast. The fire was concentrated amidships mostly, running over the few shields still on the shield rack and crawling up the heavily tarred shrouds. It surrounded the base of the mast, which looked like a tree in a burning forest. It would catch the sail soon; there was no stopping it now.
“Oh, you bastards!” Thorgrim shouted as he turned back to the fight. He did not want to lose Long Serpent. She was a good ship, Jorund’s command, and he wondered why Jorund was not leading the fight against the fire.
But more importantly, Long Serpent was their bridge to the other ships. If she burned to the waterline she might take Blood Hawk and Sea Hammer with her. Thorgrim and his men would be trapped on shore where they would eventually be killed. They could not hold the English off forever.
Louis was not the only one who had noticed this change of circumstance. The English men-at-arms began a cheer which spread like the fire on Long Serpent, jumping from man to man until the entire line of fighting men was yelling. And that in turn, put renewed vigor into them. Whereas a moment before Thorgrim could feel they were ready to break and run, now they surged forward, pushing back against the Northmen’s line.
“Hold them! Hold them!” Thorgrim shouted, loud as he could, trying to be heard over the cacophony of the fight, and, he knew, likely failing. “Back away! Step by step, back to the ship!”
He batted a spear point away and took a step back and Harald and Godi and Louis did the same. Thorgrim stole a glance to the left and right. The others along the line were also backing away, yielding the ground foot by foot. This was an extraordinary danger, backing away, trying to reach their only avenue of escape before it burned and sank into the water. It was an invitation to panic, to his own men turning and running in fright.
Another step, and another. Another glance left and right. The men were looking behind them as they backed away, looking back at the ships which were their only means of escape and Thorgrim did not like the expressions he saw. He slashed at the Englishman in front of him, then looked quickly over his shoulder while the man was flinching from the blow.
Long Serpent was all but engulfed now, her sail and yard a bold line of flames running fore and aft, her mast burning. There would be no getting through that, and even if they could, it would do no good. The few men left aboard Blood Hawk had pushed Long Serpent’s stern free to keep the flames from spreading. Fifteen feet of water separated the stern of the one ship from the bow of the other.
That’s that, Thorgrim thought. His arms wielded sword and shield while his mind scrambled for a way out of this. Oak Heart, Fox…the other ships, he thought. Get to the other ships…
How? His men were on the verge of breaking, and once they did they would be killed piecemeal. The Northmen were bold and skilled warriors in battle, more so than nearly any other men, but they were still just men. They could still be set to route. And Thorgrim did not even know where the other ships were.
“Hold! Hold!” Thorgrim shouted again. He could feel the hesitancy, and he thought he saw in the corner of his eye one of his men turning and running for the shore. He thought of stepping back, putting himself in a position to kill any man who tried to flee. Make them remember that he, Thorgrim Night Wolf, was more dangerous than the English would ever be.
Thorgrim took another swipe at the Englishman in front of him, an obstinate man with a sword who refused to be run through. He saw another of his men, far off on the left end of the line, break off from the fight and race for the beach.
Time to push forward, he thought. Backing away was pointless. It was time to surge ahead.
Then he heard the yelling.
It was not from the front, not from the English line, but from the right, and some ways away from the fighting. He frowned and looked in that direction, but he could not see through the lines of warriors, English and Northmen.
He took another step back, slashed again at the man in his front. They had been trading blows for what seemed like a half a day. Thorgrim’s arm was tiring and he could tell his opponent’s was as well. It would all have to end soon.
The yelling was closer. Thorgrim still could not see it but suddenly he felt it: some blow to the line of men in front of him, something that staggered the English and seemed to throw them into confusion. Thorgrim looked right again. The line of men-at-arms was crumbling, breaking apart, men running wildly as if a furious bear had been dropped in their midst. They ran for the walls and they ran toward the water and they ran east, straight away from the fight.
The wall of men thinned and Thorgrim was able to finally see. He could see the men who had come, and they were Northmen who had apparently run right up the English flank, hit them unawares and rolled on through. He looked west along the bank of the channel. Oak Heart was pulled up on the shore, and just beyond her, Fox sat with her bow in the sand. Further out on the water, Dragon and Black Wing were backing down on Sea Hammer and Blood Hawk, ready to tow them off.
Asmund, captain of Oak Heart pushed through the men, over toward Thorgrim, with Hardbein of Fox at his side. Thorgrim took their hands, shook them, slapped them on the shoulders.
“Well done,” he said. “Well done.”
They stood in awkward silence for a moment, looking around, then Asmund said, “Looks like you need taking out to your ship.”
Thorgrim looked back at Sea Hammer. She and Blood Hawk were well clear of the flames, thanks to the gods and the men left on board. Long Serpent was burning end to end and starting to settle in the water.
“We do,” Thorgrim said, then he called out to the other men on the beach, “Let’s get aboard Oak Heart! Let’s leave this place. Get the wounded and the dead! Some of you drag Starri along if he won’t come.” Starri was still wailing and struggling, trying to get at the fleeing enemy, while six men held him back, a harder task than fighting the English men-at-arms.
Thorgrim’s eye caught a glint of metal on the beach and he looked down. Fifteen feet away a man lay motionless on the sand, one of many. But the helmet that he wore was polished bright—that’s what had caught Thorgrim’s eye—and his mail was as well. Thorgrim stepped closer. The man was no common soldier. He had a thin white beard and moustache, and the clothes he wore under the armor were made of fine linen and embroidered around the edges. This was the man who had first stepped up to fight Starri, Thorgrim was certain.
He knelt down and pressed his fingers into the man’s neck. Most did not live through an encounter with Starri Deathless on the field of battle, but this one did not look dead. And indeed Thorgrim could feel a pulse, a strong pulse, beating under his fingertips.
He stood. “Take this one,” he said to a handful of his men standing nearby. He pointed to the man on the ground. He was not sure why he had given that order. Better to just kill him there and be done with it. But something told Thorgrim to do otherwise.
“Grab him up and bring him along and let’s get off this stinking beach.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
He who makes blades bound,
the warrior wont to rule supposes
our fate’s in his two strong fists…
The Saga of Ref the Sly
Amundi Thorsteinsson was riding back from an inspection of his fields when he saw the riders coming. Three of them, and one held a shaft with a banner flying at the end. He was still too far off for Amundi to see what banner it was, but in truth he didn’t have to.
He sighed. “Here we go,” he said to Thord, his overseer, who rode next to him.
“Lord?”
“Things have been peaceful here for…what? A week now? But I think that blessed interlude is over.”
This would be the perfect cap to the past few da
ys, Amundi thought. His thoughts had been in a whirl ever since returning from Odd’s farm, where they had done battle with Halfdan’s men. Battle. It was not something he had experienced in a long time.
He had fought often in his younger days, raiding on foreign soil or in feuds with neighbors or hunting down cattle thieves. He had been a decent warrior. Nothing like Odd’s grandfather Ulf, or even Thorgrim Night Wolf, but decent enough. He had liked it. It made him feel alive.
He’d tasted that again, fighting at Odd’s farm, and it made him more acutely aware of something he had long understood: they, he and his neighbors, all of Vik, had been very lucky with the peace they had enjoyed for many years now. Twenty at least, he imagined, since the last time there had been any real trouble in that country. They had become used to it. They had become like weapons whose edges were left to grow dull.
“Is this trouble, lord, do you think?” Thord asked. “Should I get our men under arms?”
“Trouble, probably,” Amundi said. “But I don’t think we’ll be fighting today. I think these men bring trouble, but they will not give it. No, ride ahead and see the boys are ready to care for these fellows’ horses, and see my wife sets a good meal for them.”
“Yes, lord,” Thord said and put the spurs to his horse, riding on ahead of Amundi toward the stables and the hall.
Amundi followed after him, riding more slowly, walking his horse toward the stables. He was not eager to plunge into whatever was about to happen.
His spirit had been low for some time now. On his way back from Odd’s farm he had ridden through the property owned by his neighbor, Thorgrim Night Wolf, whom he had not seen in several years. It was a melancholy experience.
Thorgrim’s farm had always been a bustling place, well-tended and prosperous. There were workers and servants and thralls and they were all well cared for and content in their lot. Thorgrim had always been welcoming to Amundi, unless Amundi arrived in the evening on a day when Thorgrim was taken by the black mood. But at those times Thorgrim was generally absent, and in his place Hallbera was a kind and thoughtful hostess.
Kings and Pawns Page 26
