The Midgard Serpent

by James L. Nelson

  I need a shield, Thorgrim thought. This sort of work did not go well without a shield. He could do without a helmet, a helmet was just protection, but a shield was as much a weapon as it was a means of defense.

  He stepped up close to the man directly in front of him, grabbed the edge of the man’s shield and jerked it and the man toward him. They were inches apart, too close for Thorgrim to use Iron-tooth, so he drove his fist right over the top of the shield and hit the man square in the face.

  The Englishman’s nose was at a strange angle, blood pouring over his face and mouth and turning a pale pink as the rain half washed it away. He was staggering, stunned. Thorgrim heaved on the edge of the shield and pulled it free from the man’s arm, stepped back and slipped it on his own.

  He was just in time. The English were pressing around to his left and he was set on by two men, both with swords and mail, elite warriors. The man on his left slashed down toward Thorgrim’s head with a chopping motion, forcing Thorgrim to raise the shield, and as he did the other man lunged for Thorgrim’s exposed side.

  Thorgrim swung Iron-tooth down and to the right and heard it ring against the other blade, felt the vibration of iron striking iron. He pushed his shoulder into the back of his shield and drove it forward. He could not see the man he was pushing but he felt the shield slam into him and felt him lose his balance. Thorgrim continued to push.

  The other one, the one who had tried to come under Thorgrim’s shield, raised his sword for another blow, too fast for Thorgrim to fend it off with Iron-tooth — the English sword would cleave his head first. So instead he slashed low. He felt Iron-tooth’s sharp blade sweep across the man’s legs and saw the raised sword fall as the warrior staggered back.

  Thorgrim gave one last push with his shield and the man in front of him went down. Thorgrim moved the shield aside to see him sprawled, wide-eyed, on the deck at his feet. He drew Iron-tooth back for the thrust that would finish him, and once again felt the ship stagger beneath him. He stumbled, tried to keep his balance, but his foot caught on the Englishman’s leg and he fell forward, sprawled over the man he was about to kill.

  Thorgrim shouted in anger and frustration. He pushed himself up. The Englishman had dropped his sword so he swung a fist at Thorgrim’s jaw, but Thorgrim pulled back just enough that the fist only grazed him. He in turn punched the Englishman and the blow landed, not terribly hard but enough to give Thorgrim a moment to regain his feet.

  He used Iron-tooth to help him stand. He was still not sure what had caused him to fall, but he saw it as he stood. A second ship, a second English ship, had rammed into their larboard side, and even now its warriors were coming aboard, catching Thorgrim’s men between them and the Englishmen from the first ship on the starboard side.

  That’s the end of it for us, Thorgrim thought. Against the one ship there had been a fighting chance. But now many of the Northmen were down, and the rest were tired, and this second ship had sixty men at least aboard her.

  “Larboard! Larboard! There’s more of the bastards!” Thorgrim shouted, hoping his voice would cut through the sounds of the fight. He pointed with his sword and shouted again, then turned to meet the fresh wave of men as they crossed Sea Hammer’s deck to hit Thorgrim’s men from astern.

  Thorgrim held his shield at chest height, sword raised behind. He braced himself against his back leg, looking for grip on the wet deck, and realized he was alone, standing in front of this line of men pushing toward him. So be it.

  They hit like surf running up on a beach, breaking around Thorgrim on either side while those directly in front ran into Thorgrim shield to shield. The English hoped no doubt to bowl him over but Thorgrim was ready for that, and the man who had hit him stopped as if he had hit a wall. Thorgrim dropped his shield, just for an instant, just long enough to thrust out over the other man’s shield, long enough to feel Iron-tooth tear through the leather armor the man wore and send him reeling and staggering back.

  To his left he caught the dull flash of a battle ax, poised, ready to come down. Thorgrim twisted and held his shield up to defend against the ax and as he did he felt the wicked point of a spear tearing into his side, his right side, just above his belt. It might have gone clean through him if he had not twisted, but as it was the point tore through flesh, a glancing cut but a deep one. The blood spilling out was warm against his cold, wet skin.

  Thorgrim shouted in pain, or thought he did. With all the noise around him he could not be sure. Involuntarily he doubled over, holding his shield up as best he could, hoping it would ward off the next, fatal bow. But the blow did not come. Instead he found himself surrounded, not by the English but by his own men who had turned and pushed against this new threat, driving them back.

  This won’t last long… Thorgrim thought. His men were caught between the warriors of two ships, and more were coming over the rail.

  He clenched his teeth and straightened and turned his shield in time to get it in front of a spear coming at him. He felt the point hit the shield’s face, saw it tear through the other side. He jerked the shield to the left and it took the spear with it, exposing the spearman behind, and Thorgrim drove Iron-tooth into his chest. He pulled the blade free, cocked the sword back, and once again felt the deck shudder underfoot.

  It was not so bad that time, not enough to even make him stagger or lose his footing, and he knew by then what it was. Another ship, run hard into Sea Hammer. More warriors pouring aboard. Toward Sea Hammer’s stern, he imagined, since he could not see the ship that had hit, and he was in no position to turn and look.

  Let’s be done with this, he thought. He did not imagine the fight would last much longer.

  He heard shouting behind: the newly arrived warriors. He tensed for a renewed attack from the men in front of him, encouraged by this third line of attack. But instead he saw the English stepping away, glancing aft with expressions that did not look triumphant.

  Thorgrim chanced a quick look over his shoulder. There was another ship alongside, run up against the starboard side aft, and Thorgrim knew right off which ship it was, because he recognized with just that quick glance Wave Splitter’s tall carved prow and the bundled red sail. The crew of Bergthor’s ship was already coming over Sea Hammer’s side, and Thorgrim saw Bergthor leading the rush.

  The Northmen’s arrival seemed to temper the fighting spirit of the Englishmen, but it did not extinguish it. They took a step back, and another, angling themselves to meet the onrush, but they did not retreat any farther than that.

  Bergthor’s men were there in an instant, coming up on either side of Thorgrim and rushing into the fight on the starboard side as well. The shouting and clash of weapons rose like a building wind as the two sides pushed and hacked and thrust at one another. Men fell right and left, but the lines did not move, the two armies in bloody stalemate, the five ships drifting and locked together.

  Then through the noise and the wind and driving rain Thorgrim heard a long, sharp note, a horn of some sort. It came from one of the English ships. It had to. It sounded like nothing Thorgrim had ever heard from any ship driven by Northmen.

  He had no idea what it might signal, but the English did, apparently. The line of men who had stood unyielding began to back away. One of their number had climbed up on a sea chest and was shouting. The master of one of the ships, or captain of the guard, Thorgrim guessed. He seemed to have the air of a man in command, and the words he shouted sounded like orders rather than a mindless battle cry.

  He kept shouting as his men backed away, and then suddenly he doubled over, mouth and eyes wide, as if he had been punched in the stomach, as if some spirit had struck him an invisible blow. Thorgrim frowned, puzzled, and then he saw the arrow jutting from the man’s guts. He turned and looked aft. Failend was on the afterdeck, eyes moving over the crowd, another arrow already fitted to her bowstring.

  He turned back. The English were climbing back aboard their ships, abandoning Sea Hammer, while those in the front ranks did th
eir best to hold the tide of Northmen with the long reach of their spears. The Northmen pressed forward but with no great enthusiasm. They were too exhausted, too bloodied to follow up.

  And finally the last of the Englishmen, the last who could still move, were back aboard their ships and shoving off as the oars came out through the row ports and the vessels pulled away. Thorgrim tossed his shield aside and let the tip of Iron-tooth rest on the deck. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back and let the cold rain run down his face and through his beard.

  “Thorgrim! See here!”

  Thorgrim tilted his head back down and opened his eyes and felt a sharp and agonizing pain in his right side, as if he had been skewered all over again. He sucked in his breath and clenched his teeth and when the worst of it had passed he looked beside him.

  Bergthor was there, grinning, pointing with his sword past Sea Hammer’s bow. All of the English ships had broken off the fight and were pulling for the river from which they had come.

  “See there!” Bergthor said. “They’re retreating, the lot of them.”

  Thorgrim nodded. The English were retreating. “They didn’t beat us, it seems,” he said. “But sure as you and I are standing here, we did not win.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  What new tidings

  canst thou give

  from Norway?

  Why art thou, prince!

  From the land driven,

  and alone art

  come to find us?

  The Poetic Edda

  The sun was up when Odd Thorgrimson came to. He was in the tent where they kept him when the army was in camp. In the gray, half-light inside the rough shelter he could see the canvas walls, the trampled grass on which he was lying.

  He had been unconscious when they threw him in there, and so had no idea if it had been day or night then. And though he knew it was daytime now, he had no idea what part of the day —morning, midday, evening. He knew dark and he knew light and beyond he didn’t know much else.

  He was awash with pain, his entire body one great sheet of agony. The pain was like a heavy snow blanketing everything. He was on his back, had been put on his back deliberately, he guessed, and the pressure on the wounds was all but unbearable. He clenched his teeth, unwilling to make any noise, give any sign of the agony he was in, as he pushed himself slowly onto his side.

  The motion made the pain redouble and he gasped despite himself, but once he came to rest, his back no longer on the ground, he felt the worst of it fade away. He was in a fever dream of torment and fear and humiliation, and had been since he had given himself up to Halfdan. He had no idea how long ago that was. He had no idea where he was or where he was going or what his fate would be.

  He did know he was in the same tent in which he was always kept when the army was in camp. An old leaking affair, it offered just the minimum of shelter. Its purpose, Odd understood, was to provide enough protection to help keep him alive for as long as Halfdan wanted him alive, which would be just a little while longer. In his more lucid moments Odd could hardly believe he had not died already, after the punishment Halfdan had doled out. It made him marvel at the durability of the human form, and it made him shudder at the cruelty of the gods, that they could let such a thing go on.

  But he also knew that his continued hold on life was no accident, no quirk of his own constitution. Halfdan seemed to have a canny sense for how close he could bring a man to death without actually killing him, how long his victim needed to recover before he could be subjected to such torment again.

  In the dull light inside the tent Odd could see a wooden plate on the ground, a few feet away, a hunk of oat bread sitting on it, and beside it a cup of water. He reached out a hand, moving slowly to minimize the pain, but the fabric of his tunic was stuck to the dried blood on his back and it pulled against the wounds, causing him to gasp once again.

  He lay like that for a moment, tortured by hunger and thirst but also knowing the agony that moving would bring. Finally he clenched his teeth and reached out, bracing against the pain as he gripped the cup and brought it to his mouth. It was awkward to drink that way, lying on his side, but trying to shift position would be worse, so he drank as best he could, spilling half the precious water as he did.

  When the cup was empty he reached out again and took the bread. He bit off small chunks and chewed and swallowed slowly. This, he knew, would bring strength, such as it was. He had already endured more of these episodes that he could recall — waking in the tent after having passed out, struggling to take up the food and drink, feeling the slightest bit of rejuvenation sometime after.

  Don’t eat, just don’t eat… he told himself, as he had often done. If he could just not eat, not recover his strength at all, then perhaps he would die and it would be over. But he could not bring himself to do it.

  Weak…you’re weak… he thought as he swallowed another bite. He did not have the courage or the will to just let himself die.

  But it wasn’t weakness, and he knew it. He thought of Signy and their children and that made him want to live. Sometimes, but not always. Sometimes it did little to move him, because he knew that even with all the courage and determination in the world he would not live to see them again. His life was in Halfdan’s hands now, and Halfdan would allow it to continue just as long as he wished, and not a moment more.

  Halfdan made that clear as soon as Odd had given himself up. They had met halfway between the walls surrounding Halfdan’s hall and the distant camp. Halfdan came riding up, little Hallbera on the saddle in front of him, his hirdsmen behind.. The sight of Hallbera, at least, had been a relief to Odd. Halfdan, apparently, meant to keep his word, at least where his sister was concerned.

  Odd stopped as Halfdan approached and Halfdan stopped as well, fifteen feet away. They remained there, Odd looking up at Halfdan, Halfdan looking down from his horse. Odd had no intention of speaking, and Halfdan did not look as if he could be bothered.

  Then Halfdan turned to the men behind and nodded his head. Two men dropped from their horses and approached Odd on either side. They grabbed his arms, bound his hands with a long cord, then mounted again, one of the riders holding the bitter end of the rope. They spurred their horses and rode back to Halfdan’s camp, keeping a pace that forced Odd to jog to keep up, which he was careful to do. He was pretty sure that if he fell they would not stop, but rather drag him the rest of the way.

  Back in the camp they tied him to a post set up near Halfdan’s tent. When Halfdan returned he climbed down from his horse and stepped over to where Odd was bound. He stood a few feet away and looked into Odd’s eyes and Odd met his stare.

  Then Halfdan moved, so fast Odd did not see it coming. He swung his fist in a tight arc and slammed it into Odd’s face, snapping Odd’s head to the side. Odd could feel the blood, warm in his mouth. A tooth was loose, he was pretty sure. He spat blood onto the dry ground and looked back at Halfdan, but Halfdan was already gone, heading for the door of his tent. He had not said a word, and since that moment he had still not said a word to Odd. There was no point, no need.

  That had all happened before Odd was lost to the fever dream of agony. He remained tied to the post that night, and the next morning he had been untied and shoved into a tent, not tall enough for him to stand in. He was aware of the goings on around him then, the routine of the warriors in the camp, the changing of the guards outside.

  Not long after that they had broken camp and returned to Halfdan’s hall. There Odd had been locked in a small, sturdy building that must have been built as a jail. How long he was held there he did not know. It was dark in the cell and Odd lost track of day and night and the unreality began to assert itself. It was torture, waiting on what would come next. He knew that Halfdan had planned it that way. It was perhaps the worst torture Odd had ever endured, the worst he could imagine.

  He had no idea what was to come.

  It was dawn some days later when they finally moved. Odd was dragged from th
e cell and pushed into the back of a cart, hands and feet bound, but not before he saw the three hundred or so warriors standing ready, some mounted, some not. Halfdan’s best men. They rolled out of the compound and marched for all that day, setting up camp that night, where Odd was once again put into his tent, a cup of water and a hunk of bread left for his dinner. The next morning they were underway again.

  Odd thought he recognized the country around them though he could not see much, bound and lying in the cart as he was. But he could see the hills far off and occasionally a distinct outcropping or rock and he was pretty sure they were on their way to Hakon Styrsson’s farm, which was the closest of all of them to Halfdan’s hall.

  And soon Odd was certain of it. The army halted its march and the wagon came to a creaking stop. Odd could hear voices off toward the head of the column but he could not understand what was being said. Then he heard another sound, familiar, but he could not identify it at first. And then he did.

  Shovels, he thought. Shovels digging in the earth. Now what could that be about?

  They had visited three farms since then, but after the brutal flogging at Hakon’s, a beating that Odd was sure would kill him, his sense of time or place was smothered by the all-encompassing pain. A bloody beating, salt in the lacerations, tossed back in the cart, back in the tent, it had grown more unreal, more completely nightmarish with each passing day until Odd hardly knew if he was alive or dead and cared even less.

  And yet he clung to life. A bite of bread, a cup of water, and the spark was back. Weak, sputtering, but it was still there. For how much longer he did not know. One more beating? Two? He did not see how it could last beyond that.