Twilight of the Gods

by Scott Oden

  “Sigrún? Auða? Taking my head might ease the sting of knowing you’ve served a monster all your lives!”

  But both Daughters of the Raven declined. “You serve the Tangled God,” Auða said. “You were chosen to bear his standard. Who are we to dispute this?”

  Grimnir walked down the front rank. “What about you … Hrútr?” He rounded on the malcontent, who stood with his kinsman, Askr. “You spread lies about me, curse me under your breath, and likely swear by your wretched ancestors to end me! Now’s your chance! Do it!” Their companions moved away from them, leaving the kinsmen to stand alone.

  Hrútr glanced at Askr; he licked his lips, tightened his grip on his spear.

  “Do it, I said!” Grimnir bellowed. “Strike me down and deliver my head to those hymn-singing bastards! Earn their so-called clemency!”

  Hrútr took a step forward, but Askr caught his arm and stopped him from going farther. “No, lord,” Askr said.

  Grimnir bared jagged teeth in a snarl of disgust. “So-ho! You’ll keep wagging your slippery tongues against me, but when the iron’s on the anvil and the hammer’s about to fall, you rats are suddenly as contrite as pinched thieves! Is that it? I guess you didn’t hear me right, you piss-blooded whoresons! I said come take my head, or I will take yours!”

  Hrútr risked a sidelong glance at his kinsman. Pale and sweating, Askr gave a nearly imperceptible shrug. His hand dropped to his side; his axe slid down against his leg. He shifted, shield ready. Askr started to speak …

  Hrútr blinked. Turned.

  And lunged. His spear—seven feet of weathered ash capped with a lugged iron head as long as his forearm—darted snakelike for Grimnir’s throat. Had he faced another Geat that man would have crashed to the ground then, with his life’s blood spurting from a punctured neck. But what Hrútr fought was neither Geat nor man.

  Grimnir was in motion even as Hrútr turned. The Geat’s spear skittered off the edge of the skrælingr’s shield; hissing, Grimnir sidestepped Hrútr and cast his own spear point-blank into Askr’s face, hurling it with every ounce of power held ready by his gnarled shoulder and its knotted muscles.

  The diamond-hard blade punched through skin, teeth, and bone—entering Askr’s face above his lips and left of his nose, driving through his brain to exit the back of his neck, left of his spine. Blood exploded from Askr’s mouth and nose. His scream became a gurgling cry as his body tumbled back into the line of Geats.

  Hrútr bellowed at the sight of his stricken kinsman. He dragged his spear around and tried to come at Grimnir’s unshielded side.

  The Hooded One was quicker still. Pivoting, he snatched the axe from his shield hand, rolled around Hrútr’s clumsy riposte, and struck him in the apple of his throat. Gristle and bone cracked; blood fountained, spilling down the front of Hrútr’s mail. The Geat’s eyes widened as he sought to draw a breath through his riven throat, and ended inhaling only a rich foam of coppery gore. Grimnir left the axe there. He spun around to face the impassive Geats.

  “Anyone else?”

  Hrútr staggered, fell to his knees. He clutched at the ghastly wound, unable to swallow, unable to cough. He gobbled and blew froth as his lungs filled with blood.

  “Anyone?”

  The roar started with Bjorn Svarti, who howled as he clashed axe against shield. Dísa took up the clamor, chanting Grimnir’s name for good measure. It spread through the ranks of the sworn men, and thence to the levies. Úlfrún’s lot added their voices, with more wolf howls and throaty shouts of approval, steel clashing on wood.

  Grimnir nodded. He knelt by Hrútr’s corpse, its eyes open and sightless, and wrenched his axe free. Grimnir dipped two fingers into the wound. With Hrútr’s blood, he drew a double line from his left forehead, through his empty eye socket, and down his cheek to his jawline. Then he stood and turned to face Konraðr across the ravine.

  The roars and clashes swelled. Grimnir raised his bloody axe aloft, held it there for the span of a heartbeat, and then flung it down so its head carved a furrow in the earth.

  “There’s your answer, you cross-kissing wretch!” he called out.

  Konraðr watched their savage exultation a moment longer. With a sad shake of his head, he turned away and walked into the tree line. As he vanished, a horn skirled—long and loud. Over the clamor, Grimnir heard the creak of ropes, followed by the distinctive thump of a beam striking a wooden frame.

  And over the tops of the trees came a missile large enough to have come from the hands of a giant …

  * * *

  DÍSA HAD NEVER SEEN ANYTHING like it. The missile that lofted into the sky trailed smoke; to her, it looked like a section of a tree’s trunk, sawed off into a man-high chunk. Its surface was blackened, and embers flared off it as it passed over the heads of the Geats. It struck the earthen embankment at the foot of Hrafnhaugr’s walls … and exploded in a shower of sparks and flaming splinters of wood. Dísa flinched at the sound of it. She heard two more thumps; another pair of missiles soared over the trees. One was a second section of log; the other broke apart in midair. Stones, she realized. A mass of head-sized stones. So dumbfounded was she that she almost missed a more ominous noise: the shhhunk of hundreds of bows loosing in unison.

  “Shields!” Grimnir roared, falling back into line alongside her. Up and down the line, men raised their shields, rims touching, and braced themselves. Dísa heard the sharp crack of arrows impacting, like hammers striking wood; from among the levy, she heard Auða’s voice, calling on them to hold. Screams mingled with the staccato drumming. The stones struck the line between the sworn men and Úlfrún’s war-band—most crashed into shields and rebounded; a handful left crippled fighters in their wake, men with broken arms or legs; a neck was snapped among the Svarti’s crew, and one howling wolf-brother was abruptly silenced when a stone splintered his helmet and the skull beneath. The burning log overshot their lines and exploded on the road to the gate.

  “What are those cursed things?” Dísa said, emerging from the cover of her shield.

  “Valslöngur,” Grimnir replied. “Stone-throwers. Whiteskin bastard means to break the walls. Let him try!” In the lull between arrow storms, Grimnir stepped out. His voice boomed. “Svarti! You and Úlfrún pull your lads back to the gate! Sigrún! Make for the postern and get your lot under cover!” A narrow path ascended around to the level of the postern from where the bridge once stood, following the foundation of the walls. There, the Scar was at its narrowest, with barely fifteen feet separating the walls of the ravine. But the side nearest Hrafnhaugr had a sharp difference in elevation, its edge over ten feet higher than the enemy-held bank and screened by tangled brush and brambles. Dísa could see why he chose to send the levy that way—in the open, at the choke point that was the main gate, they were more likely to panic if the arrows continued. Grimnir’s voice cracked like a whip. “Move, you wretches! Before those machines find their range!”

  * * *

  KONRAÐR WATCHED THE ENEMY LINES break apart, noting that the division on his left moved to the left, following the line of the wall. The albino nodded to himself. Under the trees, Starkad’s archers—men of Skara’s household company who learned to use the bow in the wars beyond the North—drew and loosed in volley. At their backs, through the trees, those soldiers Pétr drafted into his makeshift contingent of engineers scrambled to reload and re-align the trio of siege engines the squat Dane had constructed in the night.

  Mangonels, the engineer called them. Stone-throwing traction engines. Of course, Konraðr had seen engines like these during the assault on the walls of Constantinople. Mammoth constructs with long throwing arms and bodies of heavy timber; some were powered by bundles of twisted hemp, others by counterweights, and a few—like these three—by teams of men pulling in unison.

  This was what Pétr built for him? He’d wanted bridges. He’d wanted a way to cross the ravine and come to grips with the heathens. Instead, Pétr gave him rocks and burning logs! At the edges of his vision, th
e dead of Constantinople crept away from the machines; they remembered too well their deaths by such infernal devices—crushed by stones or strangled by burning sulphur. The lord of Skara felt their unease.

  But as Konraðr looked on, sweating crewmen used long poles to roll a makeshift incendiary into position. The projectile, a five-foot section of pine that had been cored out and filled with glowing coals, was ready to launch at the walls of Hrafnhaugr. The Dane who was chief of the crew checked the sling one last time, then motioned for the ten rope-haulers to take their marks. At the count of three, they heaved with every ounce of might between them. The engine creaked ominously; the arm pivoted on its fulcrum, and the missile shot into the sky. Konraðr heard the heavy thump of the arm striking its padded stop. The incendiary whistled as it flew, rushing air acting as a forge’s bellows to stoke the smoking heart of the missile. Its trajectory was a little flat. The lord of Skara followed its flight and watched it explode against the earthen embankment.

  The crew chief was already at work, using a mallet to adjust the machine’s windage. The next incendiary would doubtless strike full against the wooden palisade, or crest the walls to bring destruction to the first terrace of the village.

  “Pétr!” he roared, slapping his gloves into the palm of his hand. “Where, in the name of Almighty God, are my bridges? Pétr!”

  “Here, lord!” Pétr answered. Stripped to the waist, the squat Dane was a goatish man, his gnarled limbs covered in a pelt of fine black hair. A scrap of cloth tied above his eyes kept the sweat from blinding him, but Konraðr could tell by the redness in his features and his huffing breaths that the smaller man was nearly spent. He’d realized Arngrim’s secret to rolling drawbridges was beyond him, so he turned to what he knew best: ramps and ladders and stone throwers.

  Two teams of men drawn from Kraki’s company of Danes threaded through the siege machines. One group carried two twenty-foot ramps made of the long central roof beams taken from the farm steadings. They had iron spikes at one end, forged from farm implements, and smaller crossbeams running their length, a foot between each. The other team carried ladders, tall enough to scale the walls of Hrafnhaugr.

  Behind these teams came Kraki, himself. The chief of the Danish mercenaries was a burly man, his hair and drooping mustache more silver than black. A tracery of old scars seamed his craggy face, and his jutting chin looked like an axe had cleaved it. Eyes as gray and cold as the sea gleamed now with the promise of battle. The skirts of his heavy mail hauberk rustled as he came abreast of Konraðr.

  “My war hound!” the lord of Skara said, clapping him on the shoulder. “You have the honor of striking the heathen first. Are you and your men ready?”

  “Get us across that accursed ravine, my lord, and we’ll send the Devil a new crop of henchmen!”

  “Yonder is your target,” Konraðr said, pointing at the area where the enemy’s division on the right flank still struggled to negotiate the narrow path. “There is a postern gate to the left. Seize it, if you can, or escalade the walls and gain the parapet. Raise your standard, and I will send Thorwald and his dogs to reinforce you.”

  Kraki gave a sharp nod. The Dane’s lips peeled back over his teeth.

  “Starkad!” Konraðr called out. The captain of his household troops, a tall and lean man with a pox-scarred face and eyes that had seen too many pyres in far Outremer, hustled to attend him. “Direct your archers to pin down those heathen dogs by the main gate! Keep them from venturing out to help their mates on the left, yonder. Rain iron down upon them, good Starkad! Go!”

  As Konraðr made ready to send Kraki off, Father Nikulas approached. The priest bore a tall staff crowned with a gleaming golden crucifix; below it hung the stark white pennon of the Crusade, bearing a black Teutonic cross. He handed it to Kraki, who crossed himself before passing it to the man on his right.

  “Raise this above their walls, Kraki Ragnarsson!” Nikulas said. “Let Heaven see the quality of the men who serve Him! God wills it!”

  “GOD WILLS IT!”

  * * *

  DÍSA HEARD THE BATTLE CRY of the hymn-singers, the dull roar of men charging across an interval. She looked back and witnessed the first of Konraðr’s troops barreling out from under the eaves of the trees. Danes, by the looks of them, a literal horde who followed a man bearing a golden cross on a long staff. Others struggled under the weight of ramps and ladders.

  They meant to bridge the Scar at its narrowest, a hundred yards downslope from the postern gate. The gate stood open; Sigrún bellowed for the men and women of the village levy to make haste, though the narrowness of the path hampered their withdrawal. Dísa could not say if she saw the threat approaching or not. But Auða surely did. As did the Geats bringing up the rear. Men stopped and milled, uncertainty leeching their courage.

  The ramps, rising now, would crash down right in their midst, allowing battle-hardened Danes to swarm across and seize the path—perhaps the postern gate, as well. It would be a slaughter.

  “Grimnir!” she cried out. “They’re trying for the postern gate!”

  Grimnir turned and snarled, venting a string of curses as, from the Crusaders’ war machines, a scatter of stones the size of a man’s head crashed amidst the stragglers coming up the road to the main gate.

  Úlfrún and the bulk of her wolf-warriors were inside now; the berserkir were passing through the gate, goaded on by Brodir; last would come Svarti and the sworn men of Hrafnhaugr.

  “Shields!” someone bellowed as a fresh storm of arrows hailed down from the smoky heavens. Dísa raised her shield and dropped to a crouch. Iron-heads hammered the wooden face protecting her; they grew thick upon the ground, like stalks of grain. Arrows pierced those Geats wounded by the crushing stones.

  Dísa saw the Manx-Geat, Íomhar—boastful Íomhar, who never met a war tale he couldn’t make his own—writhing on the ground, screaming for someone to help him. A stone had broken his ankle, and a pair of goose-feathered shafts jutted from his back. As the girl looked on, a third arrow thudded into Íomhar’s back, its broad iron head splitting muscle and bone to bury itself in the Manx-Geat’s heart.

  Peering around the edge of her shield, Dísa cursed at the Danes who reached the edge of the ravine and threw down their ramps unchallenged. From her vantage she could see Auða chivvying men forward, slapping at them with the flat of her sword as she struggled to piece together a rear guard to screen Sigrún’s withdrawal. She saw Geira come to her aid, with Rannveig and golden-haired Hervor in tow. With two-score men, they made a semicircle around the ramp heads.

  Dísa felt a lull in the deadly hail. In her gut, she knew the postern would likely fall unless someone did something. And though she was but one shieldmaiden, she was the daughter of Dagrún Spear-breaker; she was the Hooded One’s right hand, and she bore the stamp of her master’s hammer. Perhaps she, alone, could turn the tide. Without waiting for permission, or even for a coherent plan, Dísa sprang up and hared off back the way they’d come.

  A burning log exploded against the rocky scarp a few paces to her right, showering her with embers and smoldering splinters of wood; she ducked her head and ran on. Enemy archers tracked her and loosed; she heard their laughter, their jeers, the wagers they made to the man who could bring her down. She raised her shield as she ran. An iron-headed shaft ricocheted off the iron boss; another punched through the hem of her mail and nearly tangled in her legs.

  Her harness crashed and rattled with every loping stride. Dísa hurtled past the stiffening corpses of Hrútr and Askr, the latter with a spear still jutting from his head like some gruesome sapling, and pounded up the slope to where a handful of Geats milled in reserve. These were shrinking back from the ramps, their shields dropping as a prelude to a rout, but the sight of the Hooded One’s priestess, her eyes alight with savage fury, brought them up short. “Ymir’s blood!” she bellowed, barreling past them. “Why do you run? If those bastards scale this wall, your homes and families will burn! Will you let them take all
from you? No! For the glory of the Tangled God, follow me!”

  Dísa did not wait to see how they responded. Ahead, she witnessed the first of the hymn-singers scale the ramp and leap into the midst of the Raven-Geats. He was a broad-shouldered Dane, bearded and sporting a helmet with a brass boar running from crest to nasal. He caught a spear on his shield; with a roar, he swept his axe from side to side, clearing a space for his mates.

  Auða lunged for him, but then stumbled back as her blade rebounded from his mail. The man grunted and thrust out with the horn of his axe. Another Dane landed alongside him, and the pair locked shields. More were scrambling up the first ramp even as the second crashed down, its iron spikes biting into the rocky earth.

  Dísa came up the path; she shouldered Geats aside and slammed her shield into place beside Auða’s. Iron rims grated; linden wood scraped. Auða risked a sidelong glance to see who’d joined with her. She met Dísa’s fierce gaze with a snarl of approbation, and then loosed a cry of hate as the pair of them went for the Dane’s unshielded side.

  The path was narrow, with a grassy embankment to their right and a sheer drop into the throat of the Scar to their left. Dísa heard the dull roar of voices, the screams and war cries; she heard the crash and slither of steel and the bone-cracking impacts of axe on shield. A spear lanced over her shoulder to impale the Geat behind her. This was the scrum of the shield wall, and in it she heard the song of the valkyries.

  Adding her weight to Auða’s, the pair of them rammed the first Dane. He stumbled back, his heel slipping over the edge of the ravine. Dísa saw his eyes widen. She saw sudden terror bloom across his visage. He dropped his axe and clawed for Auða’s shield, his fingers clamping on the edge. Unbalanced, he toppled backward—and dragged Auða after him. She had no choice but to let the shield slip from her grasp as the Dane screamed and tumbled into the Scar.

  A spear jabbed up from the ramp, seeking Auða’s guts. Dísa’s shield caught it; the wooden shaft splintered under the impact. The second Dane, too, came at Auða, vengeance stamped on his brutal features. Dísa watched her parry the first blow of the Dane’s sword. Auða thrust for his groin, overextended herself in the tight confines, and would have died under his blade had Dísa not slammed her shield rim into the knuckles of his sword hand. Bone cracked; blood spurted, and the sword dropped from his nerveless grip. The man opened his mouth to bellow a curse.