The Raven Banner

by Tim Hodkinson

Einar watched as the charging Gaels turned around. Before his eyes they dissolved from a disciplined warband into a confused mob. They did not realise they still had more men. Instead they looked all around in panic at what seemed to be enemies coming from everywhere.

  He lifted a stone off the roof and with a scream hurled it at them. Two Gaels jumped aside and the rock landed harmlessly on the ground but Einar was happy to see it had added to their consternation.

  Ulrich smashed into the crowd of warriors. His spear skewered a man from his left shoulder to his right hip. The shaft of the weapon snapped off as the horse knocked another man flying. The beast staggered sideways and Einar saw it was a decrepit creature that had seen much better days. It collapsed, flattening another Gael beneath it and spilling Ulrich onto the ground.

  Skar stepped over the fallen horse. One of the further away Gaels launched his spear at the big man. With astonishing dexterity, Skar ducked sideways and caught the shaft of the weapon as it flew past him. He reversed it and hurled it back. The Gael was still gaping in disbelief when his own spear impaled him through the chest.

  Affreca, realising she was no longer being chased, stopped running and turned around. She loaded another pebble into her sling. This time she took more care and another Gael fell, the side of his head staved in by her rock. She let another stone fly and took one more of the enemy down.

  Einar began flinging rocks from the roof again. After throwing four he could find no more loose and decided he would be better joining the others instead. He turned around so his feet led and began scrambling down the outside wall.

  Two of the Gaels drew swords and ran at the Wolf Coats. Starkad ran to meet the first. The Gael swiped at him, Starkad weaved backwards. The blade just missed him. Then Starkad shot forward, grappling close to the Gael. He grasped the wrist of the Gael’s sword arm with one hand and ripped the weapon from him with his other. He grabbed the hilt, slashed and the Gael cried out and fell backwards, a horrible gash slicing diagonally across his face.

  The second swordsman found himself confronted by the wide bulk of a grinning Bodvar.

  ‘Fancy a bit of bother, do you?’ the Wolf Coat said.

  The Gael screamed and cut at him, swinging overhand from behind his head. Bodvar lashed out with his foot, kicking the man hard in the balls. The Gael’s blow never landed and instead he crumpled to the ground. Atli ripped the man’s sword from him and ran him through.

  Then it was over. All fight was gone from the remaining Gaels and they broke and fled, charging off across the heather in confused panic.

  As they disappeared down the hillside, Einar reached the bottom of the wall and joined the others. They were helping Ulrich to his feet. The little Wolf Coat leader looked like he was in a lot of discomfort and Einar noticed the splint on his foot.

  He held up the broken stump of his spear.

  ‘Well that’s not much use now,’ he said, tossing it over his shoulder. ‘What else have we got?’

  The others gathered up the weapons they had taken or were discarded by the Gaels. There were a couple of swords and three spears.

  ‘Not exactly a king’s weapon hoard,’ Ulrich said.

  ‘That fish smells nice though,’ Skar said, noticing the sizzling contents of the skillet sitting over the fire. ‘I’m starving.’

  ‘This is no time to think of your stomach,’ Affreca said. ‘What if they come back with more men?’

  ‘I think we’ll be all right,’ Einar said. He pointed down the hill and out to sea at something he had spotted just before beginning his climb down the wall. They all turned and saw the square sail and sleek body of a longship approaching the shore below.

  ‘It looks like our friend Roan has come to look for us,’ Einar said.

  Thirty-Five

  Roan’s knarr bobbed on its anchor stone in a crescent-shaped bay. The late winter sun glared from a blue sky that was only partly smeared by thin white clouds. The sand of the bay was almost as white as the clouds. The same sand gave the sea an amazing azure colour. The beach ended in gorse bushes. A little way beyond it, dark hillsides and mountains rose. In the other direction the blue sea deepened into dark green ocean. Dark shapes of islands rose all over the horizon.

  Einar, Affreca and the Wolf Coats had attracted the attention of those on the ship as it sailed along the coast by building a great fire near the stone fort. They had fanned the flames of the Gaels’ campfire and piled heather and gorse on it until it was blazing away. The wet gorse had produced more smoke than flame but the column of grey rising to the sky was better for getting noticed anyway. Affreca had pointed out that the smoke would attract other Gael warbands as well but Ulrich responded that he aimed to be on the ship before they got anywhere near them.

  Roan had spotted the smoke and sailed his ship closer to the shore. The Wolf Coats had run down the hillside, waving and shouting. Seeing them, Roan had got close enough that a combination of shouting and gestures conveyed the message they should follow him along the coast until they came to somewhere safe to anchor.

  A little way around the headland they came to the wide bay and now they were all aboard. There was another surprise waiting for them too as they discovered they were not the only survivors of the shipwreck Roan had rescued.

  ‘Gizur!’ Ulrich said when he saw Thorfinn’s champion. ‘We thought you were dead. Where in Hel’s name did you go?’

  ‘I thought I was dead,’ the big red-haired man said. ‘I was doing my turn on the tiller and a huge wave washed me overboard. In the dark I didn’t know where I was but the tide took me ashore. Thor was watching over me. He helped me in the storm and gave me the strength to survive.’

  Ulrich looked at him for a long moment, then nodded. ‘You’re a lucky man indeed. We all are. If Roan here had not come back to look for us, we’d all be stuck on the Coast of the Gaels.’

  ‘It was Narfi who insisted we turn back,’ the skipper said, casting a glance at the wide-chested berserker. ‘I thought we’d got separated in the storm and assumed with the faster ship you had sailed on ahead but he was convinced something had happened to you so we turned around.’

  ‘The Gods sent me a message in my dreams,’ Narfi said. ‘I am convinced of this.’

  ‘We spotted Gizur on a beach north of here,’ Ayvind said. ‘When we heard his tale and spotted some wreckage, we began to realise something had gone wrong. Gorm and I reasoned that if he had survived then there might be others.’

  ‘I’m glad you did,’ Skar said.

  ‘So what now?’ Roan asked Ulrich.

  ‘We stay on our original course,’ Ulrich replied. ‘We join Aethelstan’s fleet. We find the Raven Banner.’

  The sail was unfurled and the anchor stone lifted. Everyone took to the oar benches and soon the ship was powering towards the open ocean. It was not a moment too soon either. On the beach behind them riders arrived, Gael warriors whose weapons glinted in the winter sun. They were too late, however. The sail filled with wind and the ship was under way.

  ‘Will they send ships after us?’ Einar said.

  ‘Maybe,’ Ulrich said. ‘Or maybe they were just gathering there to make sure we’d gone.’

  As it turned out, no Gael ships followed them. Instead they continued on up the wild coastline of Scotland. At times islands lined the horizon to the west, at others dark mountains, their summits swathed in clouds, dominated the shoreline to the east. As the day drew towards dark the crew raised the canopy over the deck for shelter and settled down around the hearth stone to cook and eat the evening meal. Roan remained at the steering oar at the back of the ship.

  Einar was so starving he found the bowl of salted fish boiled in sea water one of the most delicious meals he had ever eaten.

  ‘By Odin it’s good to be warm and dry,’ Skar said. ‘I’ve been soaked so many times in the last few days I’ll not need be washed for a month.’

  Something in his words triggered a memory in Einar from their conversation on leaving Ireland. He turned to
Skar and said, ‘Last night, what did you mean about Hakon accepting us if we got washed? I wash every week. We all wash a lot more than his Saxons do.’

  Skar chuckled. ‘It’s what they do when you join a Christian army. If you aren’t already a Christian, they wash you. They make you wade into a river or sometimes they have a big tub. You jump in wearing your undershirt and one of their wizards says a few spells. Then he ducks your head under. They give you a new name too. That way you become one of them. A Christian king can say all his army are Christians and victory can be granted by their God.’

  Einar frowned. ‘You’ve done this?’

  ‘Aye, several times,’ Skar said. ‘We all have.’

  Einar looked around to see the others nodding in agreement.

  ‘But you believe in Odin,’ Einar said. ‘Does that not mean you are now a Christian?’

  Skar laughed. ‘Magic only works if the God who works it actually exists, lad,’ he said.

  ‘Besides,’ Ulrich added. ‘Odin would approve. He is the lord of trickery and guile.’

  ‘Kings like Aethelstan are always at war,’ Skar added. ‘They always need fighting men and they pay for them. They recruit from all over the world so they can’t be fussy about only taking warriors who are already Christians. All that matters to men like Aethelstan is that their men are Christian by the time they go into battle. If you’re a warrior and want their money then it’s what they demand in return. If you don’t do it, you don’t get paid. I’ve been washed and renamed a couple of times now. Alfred they called me once. Another time it was John.’

  ‘I’ve been renamed Edward,’ Bodvar said. ‘And Godric. Didn’t like that one.’

  ‘Their God must be blind as Höðr,’ Atli said, shaking his head. ‘He certainly can’t see into men’s hearts.’

  ‘Or maybe he can, but like any earthly king or jarl he doesn’t care who dies for him,’ Affreca said. ‘As long as he wins.’

  After they ate, full darkness fell. There were stars above and Einar felt strangely calm. It was as if now that the thing he had feared most in the world, that the ship he was on would sink, had happened, the thought no longer provoked any fear in him. The worst had happened and he had survived.

  As the night wore on, he and Ayvind sang a few songs to pass the time. The others listened as they stared into the dying embers of the fire on the stone. They passed around a couple of wine skins and before long one by one they began to fall asleep.

  As Narfi let out a loud snore Gorm got up and came over to where Einar sat cross-legged on the deck, his fingers brushing the strings of Ayvind’s harp.

  ‘Come, Einar,’ Gorm said, glancing at the sleeping Narfi. ‘Let us take some supper to Roan.’

  Einar frowned. ‘That would take both of us?’

  Gorm gave him a hard stare then flicked his eyes in the direction of the stern. Ayvind and Gorm then exchanged glances. Ayvind looked at Einar and nodded.

  ‘Go with him,’ the skald said in a low whisper.

  Puzzled, Einar got up. They filled a bowl with some fish and took it to the back of the ship where Roan leaned against the stern pole. His face had its usual, serene expression as if there was nothing he enjoyed more in the world than steering his ship.

  ‘What’s this about, Gorm?’ Einar said as he passed the fish to Roan.

  The big bald man looked over his shoulder then turned back to Einar.

  ‘I don’t know for sure,’ he said in a low voice. ‘But I think something’s wrong.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Einar said, dropping his voice like Gorm and glancing at Roan. The skipper just raised his eyebrows.

  ‘The last I saw of the Wolf Coat’s ship last night before it disappeared into the storm,’ Gorm said, ‘it looked very like it was being sailed towards the coast. Deliberately.’

  ‘It could have been the waves,’ Einar said. ‘If Gizur was washed overboard there was no one to steer it. The tide could have washed us onto the rocks.’

  ‘Tell him,’ Gorm hissed to the skipper.

  Roan sighed. ‘I said earlier it was Narfi who wanted us to turn back but it was only ever Gizur they talked about looking for. Not the rest of you. When we picked him up, he seemed pretty sure you were all dead. If we hadn’t seen that fire, we would have been on our way without you. It was as if they knew Gizur would be on the shore waiting for them.’

  ‘What do we do?’ Gorm said.

  Einar thought for a moment.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘This is supposition. One thing though. Until we’re sure they are up to something we must never all sleep while they are awake. I’ll take the first watch tonight.’

  Thirty-Six

  The Firth of Fjorthur

  Einar had never seen so many ships. King Aethelstan’s fleet spanned the breadth of the estuary, the ships’ masts, their sails furled, looking like a bare forest in winter.

  Skar’s delight at being warm and dry had been short lived. Their voyage around the north of Scotland had been across heavy, storm-lashed seas. When the rain was not lashing down from the skies above, the waves drove spray over the deck so everyone was cold, wet and miserable for most of the journey. Thankfully the driving winds also pushed the ship along faster and the time the journey took was less than it should have been.

  Their voyage took Roan’s knarr north, across the Minch strait between the northern isles, home of Norsemen, and the mainland where the Scots dwelled. Turning west they sailed around Caithness. Einar had been nervous at this part of the journey, knowing just beyond the horizon to the north were the Orkney Isles and the stronghold of his father, Thorfinn. Ulrich might be sure King Eirik would keep Thorfinn in line, but if one of the jarl’s ships intercepted them out here on the wide northern seas, where there was no one around to tell of what happened, Einar wondered just what Thorfinn would try. To that end he also kept a wary eye on Gizur and Eirik’s berserkers. Between him, Gorm, Ayvind and Roan they managed to make sure there was never a time when the other five were awake and alone while everyone else was asleep. He saw nothing suspicious however. The berserkers were brash, loud and arrogant, their constant jibbing annoying, but they did nothing to suggest malice.

  After rounding the north coast of Scotland, Roan turned the ship east. For a time, they were in open sea with no sign of land. Roan had explained that the coast of Caithness went back west before sweeping back east in a vast bay and it was quicker to sail straight across its mouth than follow the coast.

  After a day’s sailing they came upon land again and once more began tracking it southward. At one point they passed a headland that jutted out into the sea. Its sides were sheer cliffs and it was joined to the land by only a narrow strip of rock. The top of it was covered by a fortress, the stone walls and palisades of which ringed the edges of the cliffs. Smoke drifted from behind the walls.

  ‘That must be Dùn Ottar,’ Ayvind said. ‘It’s a stronghold of the kings of Alba. Old Constantine might be in holed up in there, plotting how he will meet Aethelstan’s invasion.’

  ‘It’s an impressive fortress,’ Einar said. ‘It’s in the perfect place.’

  Ulrich, overhearing, had grunted. ‘It’s not impregnable. Our people burned it thirty winters ago. We killed their king. My own grandfather was among the warriors who took that fortress. He was in the army of King Eirik’s father, Harald.’

  The little Viking’s chest had noticeably swelled with pride.

  They sailed on down the coast of Scotland for another day. On the next day the coast opened up into a wide inlet that travelled far inland. It was here that they found the huge fleet of Aethelstan, resting at anchor.

  ‘It reminds me of one of the firths back home in Iceland,’ Einar said.

  ‘Its name is the Firth of Fjorthur,’ Roan said. ‘It marks the border between Northumbria and the Kingdom of Alba.’

  On the southern shore was a large settlement. It was ringed with a ditch and palisade and within that a steep hill ran up to another defensive fortress.


  ‘That’s the burh of Edin,’ Ayvind said, as he pointed at the hilltop fortress.

  ‘It’s an Aenglish burh?’ Einar was surprised. They were quite far north. Roan had said that they were perhaps a couple of days’ sailing north of Jorvik.

  ‘They’d probably still call themselves Saxons but yes,’ Ayvind said. ‘This is what’s left of the northern part of the Kingdom of Northumbria. It once stretched from here to south of Jorvik. Then our people arrived. We took and settled the southern lands leaving this part cut off from the rest of the Saxon kingdoms. Now Aethelstan has taken the five Norse boroughs back and once more Northumbria is united. This lot up here must be relieved. It was only a matter of time before either the Norse or the Scots wiped them out.’

  They sailed up the firth to join the ships of the fleet. As they got closer Einar could not help noticing the dragon prows, narrow bodies and square-rigged sails of many of the vessels.

  ‘A lot of these ships are longships,’ he said.

  ‘Six Aenglish-Norse jarls have joined Aethelstan’s army,’ Ayvind told him. ‘They submitted to his rule when the Kingdom of Jorvik fell. Aethelstan is now testing just how loyal they are.’

  Before they got too close, a sleek, dragon-prowed longship glided out to intercept them. As it came alongside, Einar saw it was filled with warriors in ring mail and visored helmets. A young man with long blond hair, clad in a shining brynja stood at the prow. Einar judged him to be of similar age to himself but everything about the other man spoke of wealth and power. With a weary glance down at his own bare feet he realised how far he had fallen in the world.

  ‘Hello there,’ the young man called. ‘I am Bjorn, son of Jarl Siward of Northumbria. What is your business here?’

  ‘We have come to join Hakon’s fleet,’ Ulrich shouted back from the prow of Roan’s ship. ‘We heard Aethelstan is paying good silver to men who can join his army.’

  Bjorn Siwardsson ran his eyes over the men on the deck. Einar could tell what was going through his mind as he looked at the bedraggled lot, some barefoot, none with armour. It was a motley crew there was no doubt.