“No, my old friend,” Geirmund said. “I do this alone. You must rouse the Hel-hides and be ready to lead them from this place, no matter the outcome. If it is my fate to fall, all who followed me will become enemies to Guthrum. But I do not think it is my fate to fall.”
Steinólfur grabbed Geirmund and pulled him into a fierce embrace, something he had never done. Geirmund felt the older warrior’s frustration, and pride, and love. “It is not your fate to fall,” Steinólfur said. Then he pulled away, thumbing the tears from his eyes. “I will rouse the Hel-hides, but we will not ride without you, because you will lead us.”
Geirmund gave him one last nod before setting off towards the hill. He had no plan, and he knew that no cunning could defeat Guthrum while he wore the ring. Only a few years ago, back at Avaldsnes, he might have been called reckless and a fool for what he was about to do, but to be reckless was to chase fate while fearing it, but also to hide that fear behind scorn. Geirmund had done that before, but no longer. He did not fear his fate, and he would not chase it, so he did not charge up the hill to meet it. He marched.
When he reached the temple door, he rapped on it with his knuckles, and he heard Guthrum’s distant voice within.
“Come!”
Geirmund opened the door and stepped inside.
“You are late,” the king said, facing the altar at the end of the temple hall where a soapstone lantern glowed, but as Guthrum turned, he flinched in surprise. “Geirmund? What are you–”
“Who did you think would come?”
The king paused. “What do you want, Hel-hide?”
Geirmund strode up the hall towards him. “I want the ring.”
Guthrum laughed. “What?”
“Völund’s ring, Hnituðr. I have come to take it back, and then I am leaving with my Hel-hides.”
“At last you admit you are an oath-breaker. I knew that one day you would betray me. It was you who warned me I would fear you.”
“Is that why you sent me to die? Twice?”
“Yes.” The light behind the king threw his long shadow over Geirmund, and across the floor and walls, seeming to swell him to the size of a jötunn. “But each time I also hoped you would return.”
Geirmund halted a few paces from the altar. “I am here. And you are the oath-breaker.”
The king snorted. “How?”
“You deal secretly with Ælfred. You would become a Christian and betray your gods, and you would betray your warriors by surrendering to that Saxon spider.”
Guthrum said nothing for a moment. “You are cunning, Hel-hide. But you are wrong. I cannot be an oath-breaker, for I am a king, sworn to no one.”
“What of honour?” Geirmund asked.
“What of peace!” Guthrum shouted. “The sons of Ragnar and the warriors sworn to them have all been taken to their grave-beds by the sleep of swords. What comfort is their honour to them? We Danes have had our fill of raiding and war. My warriors want to settle on the lands they have won. They want to drink, hunt, hump, have children, and grow old telling lies about their youth. Would you have me tell them to go on fighting and dying instead?”
“They will die humping, or they will die fighting, but they will die, for there can be no truce with death. Only the coward–”
“Do not speak to me of fate!” Guthrum’s hand went to the grip of his sword. “Did fate sink my fleet and drown my army? Did fate slay Ubba, and Ivarr, and Bersi? Did fate give Ælfred and his brother victory at Ashdown?”
“Yes,” Geirmund said. “But fate also gave you Cippanhamm.”
“Cippanhamm?” The king laughed, full of bitterness and defeat. “We did not come for Cippanhamm! What is Cippanhamm without Ælfred, but a hovel covered in sheep shit.” He drew his sword and pointed it at Geirmund. “We came here for the king of Wessex! We chose this place so we would only face his hirð, but still he slipped away. We cannot fight the ealdormen’s fyrds, we do not have the strength, and now we are surrounded by the warriors of Wiltescire, Bearrocscire, and Defenascire. If you say that is fate, then I say we are cursed.”
“But you have the ring,” Geirmund said.
“The ring is war!” Guthrum bellowed. “And I want peace. So I say there is no fate, and no curse. We are but straw dolls who must make our own peace, and our own destiny.”
Geirmund knew then that the king’s mind could not be changed by anyone but a powerful seer. Guthrum denied the power of the Three Spinners because he lacked the courage to meet the fate they had cut for him. That kind of cowardice seldom changed to courage.
“I surrender the fight for Wessex,” Geirmund said. “I will leave you to your peace with Ælfred, but only when I have the ring.”
Guthrum sighed. “You will have to come and take it, Hel-hide, if you can, for I will not give it to you.”
“Why?”
“Ælfred wants it destroyed.” He shrugged. “The price of peace.”
Geirmund drew his sword, Bróðirgjöfr, and he charged at the king. Guthrum stood his ground without moving, and he barely lifted his blade as Geirmund brought his sword down from over his head with the strength of both arms.
Before the strike landed, Geirmund felt his blade slow, as if slicing through water. Then it seemed to hit stone, and it glanced off the Dane with a force that rang the bones in his arm like bells and sent him reeling.
“Now you see,” the king said, moving towards him.
Geirmund found his feet and turned to face the Dane again. He did not know how he would break through the ring’s power, but this was not a battle from which he would surrender, no matter the end. This fight had been fated from the moment he had given Guthrum the ring.
He howled and charged again, still holding his sword with both hands, this time up near his shoulder, blade up, point forward. When he reached Guthrum, he felt the same slowing of his weapon, pushing back against his arms and his shoulder, and then the king swung his sword and swept Geirmund’s aside with more than a man’s strength.
Bróðirgjöfr lurched and dragged Geirmund’s arms with it, spinning him as it flew from his hands and chimed against the temple stones a dozen paces away. At the edge of his eye he saw Guthrum’s sword swinging around for a second strike, and he dropped to the ground and rolled away to dodge it.
Guthrum chuckled. “Did you know what it was when you gave it to me?”
Geirmund leapt to his feet and pulled his father’s seax from its sheath. Guthrum stalked towards him, swinging his sword in the air like a herdsman driving sheep. Geirmund changed his stance and his grip, using one hand to better control his strikes and keep his footing. Even the strongest armour had gaps and places of weakness, so he stabbed and ducked, sliced and leapt away, searching for an opening. But the power of the ring surrounded the Dane like a wall, a headland of swords, and Geirmund only tired and weakened in throwing himself against it.
He pulled back a few paces to catch his breath, forehead dripping, and he knew his death would come within moments. If Guthrum were a younger, stronger man, or a better warrior, Geirmund would have already fallen. He needed to weaken the Dane within his unseen armour, in the same way he had weakened Krok.
“After you become a Christian,” he said, “I hear Ælfred will give you a new name. You will be like one of his dogs, sniffing his cock and begging from scraps.”
Guthrum laughed. “You know nothing, Hel-hide. Any Christian in England would be honoured to have Ælfred christen them.”
He rushed at Geirmund, swinging his sword fast and hard. Geirmund fought to keep his grip on the seax as the Dane’s blows flung it from one side to the other, until the sweat on his palm turned slick against the polished antler, and the blade flew out of his sight.
The king grinned, a troll in the dim lamplight, and butted Geirmund’s face with his forehead, smashing his nose. Geirmund stumbled backwards and fell, blood coating his l
ips, blinded by sparks and tears. He blinked up as Guthrum came towards him, flipping his sword around in his hand for a downward thrust.
He knew that in the next moment that blade would pierce him, but he had no weapon in his hand, no way to join his father in Valhalla. He only had Bragi’s bronze knife, just as he had when he was sinking in the sea. He pulled it from its sheath, but unlike when he had thought he would drown, he refused to surrender, so long as he had one more claw.
Geirmund clutched the knife close until the Dane came within reach.
“Farewell, Hel-hide,” Guthrum said. “You–”
Geirmund lunged from his hands and knees, like a wolf. He expected to be thrown aside, but instead he heard a grunt. Then his chest hit the cold stone floor as the king staggered backwards. Geirmund looked at the knife still in his hand, saw blood on its blade, and he realized that he had stabbed the Dane.
Guthrum realized it also. He looked down at his thigh, where a stain of blood grew, and then looked back up at Geirmund, and at the knife, in true fear. The wound did not look fatal, so that was not the source of his terror. The king now knew that Geirmund had a blade that could kill him, and he knew Geirmund could do it. The king could see his fate.
He dropped his sword, which clattered to the temple floor, and limped towards the altar as Geirmund rose to his feet.
“Where did you get that knife?” Guthrum asked.
“It is a common thing,” Geirmund said. “It was a gift to remind me where to look for true enemies, and true danger.”
The king bumped up against the altar and put his hands back to steady himself. “If I give you the ring, will you let me live?”
Geirmund laughed. “You still believe there can be a truce with death?”
“There can be a truce between us.”
Geirmund looked again at the bronze weapon and thought of Bragi, who had last used it to cut his meat, the night they spoke of weapon-weather. At that memory Geirmund made his choice and looked up at the Dane. “Toss me the ring.”
“How do I know you–”
Geirmund raised the knife, holding the blade between his fingers as if he meant to throw it at the king. “The ring,” he said. “I will not miss.”
Guthrum reached up his sleeve, wedging his hand up high, and then slowly tugged the ring down his arm until it came free of his hand. He looked at it for a moment, and then he threw it towards Geirmund.
The metals glinted in the light, spinning their colours around the temple walls, and then Geirmund caught it out of the air. He had not seen it in years, and he admired it anew, its craft and beauty, and the glow of its runes, thinking that Hytham would likely wish to see it, and may know more about it. He slipped it over his hand and pushed it up his arm, outside his sleeve.
“Do not trouble yourself, Dane,” he said. “I will not kill you. A wise man once told me that come winter, neither king nor thrall can expect to harvest anything other than what they sowed in summer. I was not sure I believed that then, but I believe it now. England has taught me well that war grows only more war.”
Guthrum sneered. “So now you want peace?”
“Not your peace,” Geirmund said. “Not the peace of the coward, and not the peace between kings who ask warriors to die for them. Never again will I swear to king or jarl. I will make my own peace, with honour.”
Guthrum swallowed and winced, holding his hand to his bleeding thigh. “Will you leave England?”
“Do you fear I will stay?” he asked, but he did not wait for the answer. “I will go freely where my will takes me,” he said. “Kingdoms will pass. Wealth will pass. Warriors will pass. I will pass, and you will pass. One thing alone will never pass, and that is the honour and fame of one who has earned it. And you, Guthrum the Christian, will never forget that I am Geirmund Hjörrsson, called Hel-hide.”
Epilogue
There are kings of the land who rule patches of ground and wage war over the size and shape of their borders. They live as prisoners behind the walls of their holds and fastnesses, their freedom and their wealth bound to the land. There are also sea-kings, whose halls are longships that sail the whale roads and grow no roots. The waves and the currents are their kingdom, where the only borders they know are beaches and shores, and the limits of their courage.
Before Geirmund Hel-hide became a sea-king, and before he settled the reaches of Island far to the west, he fought for the Danes against the Saxons in England, winning many battles through his cunning and courage. When Guthrum, king of the Danes, made peace with Ælfred, the king of Wessex, Geirmund and his Hel-hide warriors rode north, and after some time there they took to the seas with Geirmund’s twin brother, Hámund.
With them were Steinólfur and Skjalgi, Vetr and Rafn One-Arm, Eskil the giant and Birna the shield-maiden, Thrand Spindle-Shanks and Kjaran, along with as many warriors as would take the oaths required of every Hel-hide. They raided and traded to the edges of the world, performing many feats that are well known and often told, and gaining much fame and riches until their longships were feared by all.
It was sometimes said that Geirmund wore a ring made by Völund the smith, which turned his skin to iron so that no weapon could pierce him, but upon his death no ring was found in any of his halls, nor was it on his arm, nor was it buried with him in his barrow, and it was generally agreed that he needed no ring to become a king, and that his fame was well earned.
About the Author
MATTHEW J KIRBY is the critically acclaimed and award-winning author of the middle grade novels The Clockwork Three, Icefall, and the Assassin’s Creed series Last Descendants, among many others. He has won the Edgar Award for Best Juvenile Mystery, the PEN Centre USA award for Children’s Literature, and the Judy Lopez Memorial Award.
matthewjkirby.com
twitter.com/writermattkirby
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Part One 1
2
3
4
5
6
Part Two 7
8
9
10
11
Part Three 12
13
14
15
16
17
Part Four 18
19
20
21
22
23
24
Part Five 25
26
27
28
29
30
31
Epilogue
About the Author
Aconyte Newsletter
Geirmund's Saga Page 38
