Harald renewed his grip, wrapping fingers around the tough walrus-hide line, when the whale gave another stroke of its tail. He felt the line going tight again, threatening to trap his hand against the fin, and he jerked it free. As he did, the whale twisted under him and again Harald felt himself sliding down the animal’s rounded back.
He grabbed desperately for the hook. He felt the cold iron under his hand and grabbed tight as his legs slipped down the side of the whale.
“Hold still, you bastard!” he shouted as he pulled himself back up. He spat out a mouthful of salt water, repositioned his hand, and once he felt as secure as he was going to feel he looked around. The whale was really swimming now, pumping its tail with a steady rhythm, driving its massive body forward, its back now just above the surface, now just below. The water rushed down its length and sometimes Harald was clear of it, and sometimes he was chest deep.
Dragon was twenty feet astern. They had not cut the ropes after all, but had slacked them away, opening up some space between the battered ship and the whale’s deadly flukes.
Good, good… Harald thought. It was what he would have done, or what he hoped he would have done. Dragon was being pulled along like a toy boat on a string, like the plaything of a child in the surf.
The best way for the whale to escape this danger, Harald realized, was to dive, to plunge down as deep as it could go and stay there as long as it could. He wondered if the whale would realize that. He hoped that Herjolf had men standing by with axes ready to cut the ship free. If the whale dove there would be a heartbeat or two, no more, before it dragged the ship down with it.
The whale dipped its head and the water rushed down its back. It hit Harald like a wave and he guessed this was it, the whale was going under. But its head came up again as the tail pumped and drove the animal forward. In the strange equilibrium of the moment Harald looked around. He could see the fleet off to the south and east. There seemed to be more ships than was right, but he was in no position to count them, clinging to the whale, spitting salt water from his mouth and blinking it from his eyes as he was doused over and over.
The whale was charging away on a more northerly heading, opening up the distance between itself and Dragon and the rest of the ships, and Harald could see there would be no help coming from that direction. And as that thought occurred to him it brought a new sense of resolve. He didn’t want help. He shunned the idea of help. He alone had made the decisions that put him in this danger — danger that was both mortal and ludicrous — and it would be by his own doing that he would get out of it.
He took his eyes from the ships and turned them back toward the whale. It was still driving along but Harald had the distinct impression that it was moving slower now and he wondered again if it was getting tired. Powerful as the beast was, it could not be easy to pull an entire ship behind it. Would it just stop? And if it did, what would he do about it?
How do you kill one of these things? Harald wondered. He had never seen it done, not close up. From the shores of East Agder he had watched men go out in boats, men equipped with long lances and spears, and he had seen them later towing dead whales back. But how they had actually dispatched the things, he did not know.
Lance in the heart, or the lungs… he thought. It seemed as if he had heard that before. There was a way to kill a whale by driving a lance into its heart or lungs. But you had to know where to drive the lance so it would hit one of those organs, and then you had to get into a position to do it.
Well, I have to do something, Harald thought. If he didn’t want help then he would have to help himself. He looked toward the whale’s head, and as he did a great cloud of mist burst from the animal’s blowhole with a hissing sound, jetting up twenty feet in the air. The spray drifted back toward Harald, and with it a revolting fishy smell that nearly made him gag.
But he was certain now that the fish was swimming slower, its motion less violent. His first thought was to get back aboard Dragon. He could probably climb back along the rope that bound the ship to the whale. But that seemed like running away, backing down from a fight. He couldn’t do that. Even if his entire crew had not been watching, he couldn’t do such a thing. He would know that he had fled from danger. The gods would know.
But he also could not remain where he was since he could do no good there. He thought it might be possible to work his way forward, up to the animal’s head. Surely there he could reach some part of the creature that was vulnerable, find some way to kill the thing.
He pressed his lips together, let go of the iron hook, and began to move, half crawling, his legs wide to give him as much grip as possible, his hands trying and failing to get a hold on the thick, slick flesh. He knew now that standing was not a good idea, and he no longer worried about looking foolish in front of the men.
The whale twisted under him, its back dipped below the water. Harald felt himself begin to slip, sliding down the larboard side. He reached around and snatched the dagger from his sheath and plunged it into the whale’s body and steadied himself with that precarious handhold. He braced for the whale to begin thrashing with the pain, but it seemed not even to feel the point of the blade.
Harald let his breathing settle, then pulled the knife free and began moving toward the head once more, stabbing into the whale whenever he felt himself losing his perch. The water rushed down the sides of the beast, tugging at his leggings and his leather shoes. He had a fleeting glimpse of the shoreline, far away, and sails off to his right, but he could spare them no more than a glance.
He was fifteen feet from the whale’s blowhole and still had no idea what he was going to do when he saw one of the spears thrown from Dragon’s deck jutting from the whale’s side and flailing in the rushing water.
There, Harald thought. There. It wasn’t much, but at least he had a more realistic chance of killing this thing with the spear than he did with his knife. He inched his way forward, working himself as close to the spear as he could. It was sticking out of the whale’s right side, but too low for Harald to reach. And then the whale rolled to its left, and as it did Harald reached down and grabbed the shaft of the spear, rolling back as the whale came more upright.
“Ha!” Harald shouted in triumph as he held the spear up. He shuffled a bit further along. The whale dipped its head and the water rushed waist deep over him, but he had his knife plunged into the whale’s hide and managed to hold on that way. He considered his situation. He did not know how to find the heart or lungs, but he guessed he was now over the beast’s brain, which should also do, though it would take some effort to drive the spear down into it. For this he would need all the strength of arm he could muster, and all the leverage as well.
He held tight as the whale dipped again, held on as the water pulled at him and swirled around. And then the whale rose, its head and back lifting a foot or two above the surface and Harald leaped to his feet, balancing on the slick, rounded back. He lifted the spear up above his head and with both hands on the shaft he drove it down with all his considerable strength right into the head of the whale.
The spear was on its way down when Harald realized that the spear point was going to hit the whale’s skull and it was unlikely to go further. But the point hit and drove on down and Harald kept driving it on. He could feel resistance, the point going through something firm and thick — muscle, perhaps, or a thicker layer of blubber — but he could not feel it hit anything as solid as bone. He kept driving it down until the shaft was half buried in the whale and he could push it no deeper.
Whatever he hit, it was not a vital organ, apparently. The whale did not die, as Harald had hoped, or show any sign of being mortally wounded. Quite the opposite. The anger and pain the animal had felt from the Northmen’s spears was nothing to the reaction it had to Harald’s attack. Its forward momentum stopped and it seemed to double over, its head plunging down into the sea, its back arching above. Then it straightened again, its head coming up and thrashing side to side. Harald could he
ar the massive tail beating the water but he did not dare turn and look.
“Cut the ropes! Cut the ropes!” he shouted back toward Dragon, though he doubted they could hear him over the terrific thrashing of the wounded whale. It twisted from side to side, bucking and plunging, but Harald had driven the spear so far in that it made for a solid handhold. He clung to it now with both hands as the whale pounded and flailed under him.
“Will you die, you son of a bitch?” Harald shouted. He remembered the teeth. Didn’t know whales had teeth. He wondered again if this was a whale at all, or if he had involved himself and his crew with something that mortal men should not tamper with.
Jörmungandr, the Midgard Serpent?
The whale rolled to its left and Harald grabbed tighter onto the spear, bracing for the fish to roll back, but it didn’t. Instead it kept rolling, turning clean over, and Harald found himself under water, under the whale, which was now twisting above him.
Harald was a good swimmer and not afraid of the water, but this was something different. He had managed to suck in a lungful of air before he was rolled under, but he knew he could not hold that for long. In another moment he would have to let go of the spear and kick for the surface, in which case he would be beside the whale, not on top of it, and very much in the path of its fury.
But the whale did not remain upside down for long. Instead it kept rolling, turning completely over, and Harald found himself rolled up above the surface again. He took a deep breath and coughed and took another, but his thoughts were entirely on Dragon. If they had remained tied to the whale then they were certainly sunk or stove in already.
He twisted around as best he could and at first he didn’t see his ship and he felt a swell of panic in his gut. And then he saw her, a good two hundred feet away and floating on her waterline. They must have cut the ropes free, just as he hoped they would, just as he had called for them to do. At least his ship would be safe, regardless of what happened to him.
Wrong place, I speared it in the wrong place, Harald thought. Whatever he had driven the spear into had only infuriated the whale, not killed it. He had to try again, in a different spot, which would not be easy given the frenzied motion of the beast.
He grabbed tighter onto the spear and pulled up to free it, but the spear did not move, not even a tiny bit. Whatever he had plunged it into was dense and had a grip on the point that even Harald Broadarm could not break loose. He tried again and with no better results. And then the whale rolled again.
“Ahhhh!” Harald shouted in frustration as the whale turned over once more. He felt the cold water close over him, the force trying to tear his hands free of the spear, the only thing he had to hold on to. His feet lifted off the whale’s back and he knew he was streaming behind the spear shaft like a flag in a high wind as the whale drove forward.
His lungs were aching as he made a conscious effort not to breathe. He knew his time was about up, and then it was kick for the surface or die. But before he released the spear he felt the whale rolling again and once again he came sputtering up out of the water, hands on the spear, legs splayed out behind. But this time things had changed, because this time there was a ship alongside the whale, driving hard under a bellying sail, her high, curved stem cleaving the water as she came on.
The ship was no more than fifty feet away and seemed to be driving at the whale as if it meant to ram the thing. Harald blinked the salt water from his eyes but his vision was too blurry to see much, to tell what ship it was. He was pretty sure it was not Dragon, but beyond that he did not know.
Nor did he much care. It was a ship, and that was all that mattered. His stubborn resolve that he kill the whale himself had been washed clean out of him. He was ready for a bit of assistance. He knew he was done for if the whale rolled him under one more time.
He opened his mouth to shout to the men in the ship and received a mouthful of seawater for his trouble. He spat it out, choking and coughing. The ship had not changed course — it was still charging down on the whale with its sail full and the water curling around its stem. And up in the bow Harald could see a man, a big man with a long beard and wild hair, and he was holding an oar up over his head as if it was a spear.
For an awful moment Harald thought he must be dead, or near dead, to be seeing such strange things. Then just as the ship’s bow was about to ram into the whale’s side the man with the oar yelled, “Now!”
Harald wasn’t sure if that was directed at him, and if it was he did not know what to do, but in that instant the ship turned hard to starboard, running its larboard side against the whale.
Harald was no more than twenty feet from the man in the bow and he could see now there was a spear lashed to the oar, extending the reach of the weapon by twenty feet. The man plunged the spear down, right into the whale’s side, just behind the fin. At that the whale convulsed in a way that Harald had not seen, slamming its tail, twisting and rolling. Harald grabbed tighter to the spear and felt something hit him on the shoulders.
He looked down, almost too numb to understand what was happening, and he saw a rope lying there, draped over his arms. He looked up and followed the rope back to its origins. It had come from the ship, fifteen feet away, and now a crowd of men were beckoning him and pointing to the rope and shouting.
Then he understood. He released the spear and grabbed the rope just as the whale rolled away from him. The men on the ship heaved and Harald was dragged down the side of the whale, which was twisting and thrashing under him. He hit the water and did not let go, but instead gripped harder on the rope and felt himself lifted up. He bounced against the side of the ship, the smell of oak and tar sharp in his nose, the wake from the dying whale slamming him against the planks.
And finally his hands reached the sheer strake and a dozen others grabbed onto his arms and grabbed handfuls of his soaked tunic and hauled him up and deposited him on the deck. He lay there for several moments, gasping for breath. He looked up at the mast which was sweeping wildly back and forth against the clouds as the ship rocked in the maelstrom kicked up by the whale alongside.
And then the motion of the ship slowed and an odd quiet came over the world. It lasted for a moment, no more, and then the men aboard burst out into wild cheers. The cheering was so infectious that Harald almost smiled, and he might have done so if he had any idea what the cheering was about.
A shadow fell across his face and he looked up there was the man he had seen standing in the bow, the big man with the big beard and the oar and spear. He no longer had the oar and spear, but he was smiling a great smile.
“Harald Thorgrimson!” he said in a loud voice. “Don’t you know how to kill a whale?”
Harald did not reply. He had no idea who this man was.
Chapter Eight
This sumptuous house shall,
for ages hence,
be but from hearsay known.
The Poetic Edda
A blacksmith shop stood a couple hundred feet from Halfdan’s great hall, a big shop, big enough to satisfy the considerable smithing that a king might require. Big enough to house all thirty or so of Halfdan’s warriors who had surrendered to Odd’s overwhelming force.
The captain had been the first to throw his sword aside and the rest had immediately followed suit. Odd’s men gathered up the swords and relieved the warriors of their helmets and mail as well. These were the accoutrements of an elite band of fighting men, part of Halfdan’s hird, Odd imagined, though they did not look so elite locked in the smithy with a guard posted around.
Odd had assured them that Halfdan could find no fault in their surrendering. It would have been pointless for them to fight. No reasonable man could think they had failed in their duty. But then, Halfdan was not always a reasonable man.
I’ll give them the chance to join with us, Odd thought. It was quite possible those men, those warriors, would choose to throw in with Odd and the others rather than wait to hear Halfdan’s opinion of their behavior in battle.
>
With the fighting men secured, Odd turned his attention to the rest of the people in Halfdan’s compound, all of whom were keeping out of sight. He called to the men behind him, his warriors and the men brought by the other freemen. “Spread out, search the hall, the outbuildings. Anyone you find, bring them out here. If you find any wine, any mead or ale, you keep your hands off it. Any man here gets drunk, I’ll see they regret it for a long time.”
The men headed off, nearly all of them in the direction of the great hall because they knew that anything worth taking was likely to be in there. But Amundi, Vifil, Ragi Oleifsson and the rest of the freemen stopped them and split them up, sending bands of men in various directions, assuring them all that any plunder would be shared out equally.
“Well,” Amundi said to Odd once the men were off, “this little scene, taking the fort, it played out just as you thought it would. I’ll give you credit there.”
Odd nodded his thanks. There had been some debate as to how easy the taking of Halfdan’s compound would be. Odd knew it would depend on how many men Halfdan had left behind. But he also knew that Halfdan wished to crush the rebellion under the weight of greatly superior numbers, which meant he would take nearly all his men with him.
He knew also that if he was wrong, if the compound had been too heavily defended, they could simply abandon their attempt to capture the place. The biggest risk was a trap: a few defenders on the walls, three hundred warriors waiting inside when the gates were broken open and Odd and his men came swarming in.
But that had not happened.
The gods are with us, Odd thought. He almost said as much out loud, but he did not think that would be wise.
Soon the men began to return, and they did not come alone. They came driving servants and wives and children, slaves and craftsmen, all the people who occupied Halfdan’s fortress, the folk who made it a home and made it productive. Well over a hundred of them, all the people who were not part of the army marching off over the countryside.
The Midgard Serpent Page 8
