Why don’t I go with them?
He could see the battle playing out in his mind, Halfdan’s men pressed in on either side, Halfdan’s hird standing circle around him, fighting off anyone who might break through the shield walls at either end of the hall while the fire spread and the heat began to singe their flesh.
Then he understood. This was his fight. Him and Halfdan. He could not be just another warrior going into battle, one small part of a company of men, an anonymous sword and shield. No. He was too much a part of this to be simply one of many.
It was too personal for that. He did not wish to fight Halfdan’s men. He needed to fight Halfdan himself.
And with that realization he was ready to move. He jogged down the length of the hall, into the dark where flames from the burning roof could not yet reach, over the ground where Amundi had just led his line of warriors. There were dead men strewn around, the last of Halfdan’s men who had been sent to that side of the hall. The side which had no doors, and so did not need men positioned there in great numbers.
Except it did have a door. At the back of the storeroom just past the platform on which Odd and Signy’s sleeping closet sat there was a door that led out to the grounds. It was there for the servants to go in and out, for food and such to be brought into the hall without going through one of the two big doors on the other side. It was very difficult to see in the dark, hard to find if you were not intimately familiar with the hall. Which Odd was.
He found the door easily. He lifted the latch and pushed, but the door, barred from inside, did not move, which was what he had expected. Odd took a step back, lifted his right leg and drove his heel into the door, right at the level of the latch. He felt the pain in his foot, the shudder of the impact up his leg, but he also saw the door flex inward and he heard the splintering sound of the bar giving way. He cocked his leg again, drove his heel in again, and this time the door swung open with the crushing noise of shattering wood.
Odd stepped quickly through the door and into the storeroom. The room itself was lost in dark, but beyond the room Odd could see the brilliant light of the fire that was consuming his hall. He stepped across the room, caught his foot on something, stumbled and recovered. He continued on, a bit more cautiously, until the firelight fell on the floor where he was walking.
He took a tentative step out of the storeroom and into the hall itself. It was a step he feared to take. Not because he thought there would be anyone there—he knew no one would be so foolish as to enter that inferno—but for the heartbreaking sight that would greet him.
And in that he was not disappointed. The entire north end of the hall was lost in a mass of fire that was devouring the walls and roof and tables. Black smoke roiled up, and if the roof had not been so high the entire space would have been nothing but choking blackness, backlit by flames.
Odd stood motionless and watched the destruction and he felt a strange sickness in his stomach. He knew every little bit of that hall, every beam, every post, every rafter that supported the dense thatch. Much of it he had built himself. The familiar walls and roof were illuminated now more brightly than he had ever seen. He could trace their length from overhead right to the point where they were lost in the terrific blaze.
As he stared, one of the great beams broke free and dropped twenty feet to the floor and burst into a spray of sparks and flames and smoke. Above, the roof sagged and the fire redoubled.
“Odin, give me strength to avenge this!” Odd shouted the words, as loud as he was able, but he could still barely hear himself over the sound of the fire that was consuming his home. He stepped out from the shelter of the storeroom door and raced across the floor, vaulting over the long hearth that ran down the center of the room. There were still coals smoldering there and they seemed ridiculous in the light of the massive blaze.
The southern door was off to Odd’s right and he changed direction and ran straight for it. He stopped just inside and leaned against the wooden planks and pressed his ear to them. He could make out the sounds of fighting, the shouting and clash of weapons. It sounded far off through the door and the roar of the fire. But it was fighting, there was no doubt. His neighbors had done as they said, had swept around either end of the hall and charged straight into Halfdan’s men.
Odd lifted the bar and pushed the door open, just a few inches. At first he could see nothing but dark shapes moving against a darker night, but his eyes adjusted and he could make out men fighting just beyond the door, and further away. Dozens of men. There were no shield walls, no organized attack, just dozens of individuals in combat.
He pushed the door wider and half-stepped from the hall. He could not see Halfdan or his hird. He looked north along the wall and saw them at last: Halfdan mounted, high above the fray, his hird surrounding him as the fight swirled around. The fire from the burning hall made his fine mail and helmet glitter and undulate with red and orange light. Odd could see the look of calm on his face, the look of a man who did not expect to see defeat that day.
Beside him, also mounted, sat Einar, his green cape looking black in that light, his face as calm and sure as his master’s.
Odd clenched his teeth. He looked around again. There was no getting through that mass of fighting men. To get at Halfdan he would have to hack his way through the thick of the battle, and even if he lived to do that he would be facing the best of the hird protecting their king.
But there was another way.
Odd stepped back into the hall and closed the door and barred it. His presence had not been noticed—the men outside the hall were too distracted by far to see him. He turned and ran along the wall toward the burning end of the building. He jumped up onto the platform that ran the length of the wall and continued on. Small fires were burning here and there, ignited by flaming debris dropped from the roof, and Odd leapt over them as he ran.
The heat from the flames was all but intolerable. Odd felt his skin grow hot and he felt the searing pain, head to toe, as if he, like the roof overhead, had burst into flames. With every foot he ran, the pain grew worse and he heard himself shout with the agony of it.
The walls seemed to tremble, and a cracking and roaring noise rose up from the flames. Then another of the massive roof beams broke free and came thundering down to the floor just twenty feet away. It was a timber thirty feet long, hewn from a great oak that had once stood on the far hills and was now a flaming shaft, a lance of the gods, flung from on high. It hit the floor and made the platform under Odd’s feet shudder. Burning thatch came down in a rain of fire. A scrap the size of a shield fell on the arm of Odd’s mail and ignited the cuff of his tunic. Odd beat the flames out as he ran, still screaming with the agony of being cooked alive.
At last he leapt down off the far end of the platform right in front of the north door of the hall. On the other side of the door and fifteen feet away were Halfdan, Einar and the hird. Odd knew it, he had seen it from the south door. No need to fight his way to the enemy king: he was there already.
He grit his teeth and lifted the bar from the door, tossed it aside, then paused. He had a vision floating in his imagination of a madman bursting out of the burning building, and he realized the advantage he would gain from so shocking an appearance. He half turned. A pile of burning thatch lay on the floor a few feet away, the flames rising as high as his head. He stepped toward it and held his shield over the fire. The flames licked around the edge and he could smell the paint on its face burning. And then the entire shield ignited.
Odd spun around and took three quick steps to the door. He reached down and lifted the latch and kicked the oak door open, drawing Blood-letter as he did. He stepped out into the night, the shield on his left arm a ball of flame. He could feel the heat through the metal boss and knew he would not be able to hold it much longer, and he knew he had to get the maximum effect while he still could. So he took a step forward and he screamed.
The scream came from deep down, deeper than he thought was in him. It was a sc
ream made up of many parts: the rage of seeing his hall burned, his wife and children threatened, of seeing his father’s farm stolen from him, of being treated like a piece of something that could just be kicked around at will. Of remaining behind on a farm while his father and his brother went a’viking, of knowing that as respected as he might be he would never be respected the way a warrior was respected. Of knowing that his wife loved him but not knowing if he had earned even a part of that love, or was worthy of it.
It was a scream that cut right through the clash of weapons and the shouts of men and the cries of the gravely wounded. It was a scream that made eyes turn quick in his direction and when they did they saw an image of a man, or something like a man, coming out of a burning building in which no man could hope to live and bearing a shield of living flame. It was the image of a demon from the fire, born of the fire, son of the fire.
Odd saw eyes go wide, the men of the hird who surrounded Halfdan, just ten feet away, turning toward him and taking a step back, mouths open. Odd felt the flames from the shield burning his face. His left hand, holding the grip of the shield, was in unbearable pain. He was still screaming as he took two steps in Halfdan’s direction and flung the shield at the cowering men. It spun through the air like a massive fireball and slammed into the warriors who surrounded Halfdan’s horse, and they flinched and ducked and cowered from the assault.
“It’s Odd, you fools!” Halfdan’s voice roared out as the scream died in Odd’s throat. “It’s Odd! Kill him!”
The shock lasted only an instant, but that instant was long enough. The men of the hird were still regaining their senses when Odd was on them, Blood-letter lashing out like lightning striking here and there. A man’s throat was rent, another felt the bite of the sword in his shoulder. Odd still had sense enough to know he did not have to kill these men, only get them out of the way, out of the fight.
The man to his right was down, his shield on the ground and Odd snatched it up even as he held Blood-letter aloft to deflect a blow coming for his head. He slipped his arm through the strap and wrapped his aching fingers around the grip as he stood. He pushed the shield into the man in front of him, half turned and thrust at the man to his left, missing, leaping clear of the counter thrust.
Now he sensed movement in front of him and he turned, shield held up, just in time to catch the point of a sword aimed at his chest. A lucky move on his part, an accidental move, but it saved his life, at least for the moment. He pulled the shield back, felt the point of the sword pull free. He looked over the top edge of the shield, into the eyes of the man who had nearly killed him. Einar.
“Come on, you sorry swineherd!” Einar taunted. His moustache made a black line across his face and down his cheeks and his helmet and teeth reflected the light from the fire. “I’ll have that sword from you! It needs a warrior to carry it, not you!”
Einar’s words were as sharp and quick as his sword and Odd felt the rage swell again. He glanced side to side to see who else was there, if he would be fighting Einar alone or the rest of the hird as well. But the warriors ringing Halfdan seemed to be busy now with fighting of their own.
“There’s no help for you, you bastard!” Einar shouted, misinterpreting the look, or choosing to. “In the name of King Halfdan I’ll cut you down myself!”
He was still speaking the last of those words when Odd lunged, driving straight at him with the point of Blood-letter’s blade, right past the edge of Einar’s shield. Einar twisted at the waist, twisting out of the path of the blade. The point caught Einar’s mail shirt on the side and went right on through. Odd saw it come out through the mail on the far side and he braced for Einar’s shriek of agony, but it did not come.
Instead, Einar twisted back, the sword still caught in his mail, and Odd realized the blade had slid between mail and tunic and not through Einar’s body at all. He realized this at the same instant that Einar turned and Blood-letter’s hilt was jerked from Odd’s hand.
For a second both men stopped, unsure of what had happened. Einar looked down and saw Odd’s sword still thrust through his mail shirt. Odd saw that this was the perfect instance to lash out at Einar and kill him, but he had no weapon. Then the instant passed and Einar was at him again.
He pushed Odd with his shield, pushed him away to get room to fight. Odd stumbled back and saw the point of Einar’s sword coming at him so he stumbled back again and Einar’s thrust fell short by inches. Odd knocked the extended blade aside with his shield, leapt forward, drawing his knife from its sheath as he did.
His shield hit Einar’s and the two of them went down, Odd on top of Einar, shield against shield. Einar swung his arm around and his fist, gripping the hilt of his sword, slammed into the side of Odd’s head. Odd felt the stunning blow and for an instant seemed to lose sense of where he was, what he was trying to do. But it was an instant, no more, and then he drove the point of his long knife down at Einar’s face.
Einar’s eyes went wide and he twisted his head to the side. Odd’s knife sliced through Einar’s ear and stabbed deep into the ground. But Einar seemed not to notice the wound. He pushed hard with his shield, trying to push Odd off of him. Odd pulled the knife free and brought his arm back, eyes fixed on Einar’s face, intent on driving the blade through Einar’s head. His arm was just starting the down stroke when he felt a sudden agony in his right shoulder, as if he had been touched with a red-hot metal bar.
He shouted and jerked back with some half-formed notion that Einar had managed to stab him. But as he straightened he saw the great bulk of a horse looming over him, not three feet away. He looked up at Halfdan and understood Halfdan had just driven a sword into his shoulder. Now Halfdan was bringing his sword up once more, ready to strike again, a backhand stroke that would take Odd’s head clean off.
“Bastard!” Odd shouted and leapt to his feet. He still had the shield in his left hand so he raised it high and stepped on Einar’s chest and launched himself at Halfdan. The shield hit Halfdan’s side and Odd hit the shield and the impact sent waves of pain radiating out from his fresh wound. He felt Halfdan’s sword come down, but Odd was so close that Halfdan’s arm, not his blade, struck his shoulder and bounced uselessly off.
Odd had only the knife, but it was enough. He shifted the shield on his left arm and swung the knife around with his right, sure the weapon’s wicked point would pierce Halfdan’s mail. But even as the knife was in mid-swing Halfdan jerked his horse’s reins and the animal pivoted around, slamming its neck into Odd’s shoulder.
The blow from the horse knocked Odd sideways and he screamed with the agony of it. He stumbled and his foot caught on Einar, still on the ground, and he stumbled further.
Odd was sure he was going down, and all he could think was how much it was going to hurt when his wounded shoulder hit the ground. But he caught himself, regained his footing. He straightened and saw the horse rearing up, saw its hoof lash out like a whip. It struck him in the shoulder and sent him staggering again.
Odd dropped the knife and yelled. He tried to clamp his left hand over the wound, but with the shield on his arm he couldn’t reach it. He saw the horse leap toward him, teeth bared, ready to tear at any flesh not covered with iron—his hands, his face.
The shield was all Odd had now, so he swung it at the horse and felt it connect. The horse reared back again and Odd braced for the flailing hooves, but they did not come. He lowered the shield. The fighting, which had been manic just a moment before, seemed to have all but stopped, as if some signal had been given. Odd found himself looking at Halfdan’s horse, lit up red in the blaze of the burning hall, Halfdan’s mail still glinting in the light as he rode off. The pounding of the horse’s hooves on the soft ground seemed unnaturally loud, and then faded as Halfdan raced away.
Odd looked to his left. Men were standing, men were lying on the ground. Men were breathing hard and holding hands over wounds and staring straight up, mouths open gulping air. Some of Halfdan’s men were on their knees, hands held
up in what looked like supplication.
And then he saw Amundi coming through the press. His mail was rent and there was blood on his face and he seemed to be limping. But he was smiling. A weary smile, a wounded smile, a tempered smile. But a smile of victory.
Chapter Thirty-One
Then he must consider that the wise Lord
often moves through the earth
granting some men honor, glory and fame,
but others only shame and hardship.
Deor's Lament
Early Anglo-Saxon Poem
It amazed Nothwulf how often it happened. One could wait days for some change in circumstance, some indication of which direction to move. And then, suddenly, everything seemed to happen all at once. That was certainly the case now.
In truth it had been just one day, but in the wake of the battle and all that hung in the balance it certainly felt as if he had been stewing much longer than that. And now, at last, the momentum seemed to be building again.
The signs of the fighting were still visible: the humps of fresh-turned earth where the dead had been buried, thankfully not too many, the tent set up to shelter the wounded, the series of dark patches on the ground where the fires had burned to light the arrows shot at the Northmen. The tide had gone out and the burned hulk of the Northman’s ship was mostly exposed, run up hard against the ships Nothwulf had sunk in mid-channel to prevent their escape.
It had worked just as he had envisioned. Except for the bit where the heathens had escaped by rowing back into the bay and ensconcing themselves on a sandbar where they could not be reached.
Kings and Pawns Page 33
