Chapter Forty-One
Do not be the first to kill,
nor provoke into fight
the gods who answer in battle.
Gisli Sursson’s Saga
“Down, down, everyone down off the hill,” Thorgrim said, his voice just above a whisper. “Agnarr, you stay, keep a watch.” He crawled backward from where he and Bersi and Skidi were lying on the crest of the rise. It was light enough now that he could tell his men apart as they stood waiting to throw themselves into the desperate fight.
Thorgrim looked up at the sky. He could not speak because he did not know what to say. He had to think. Think.
He turned to Bersi and Skidi. “Ottar has abandoned us. It looks as if Kjartan has gone with him, the blackheart bastard.”
“They must have returned to the ships,” Bersi said.
“Yes,” Thorgrim agreed.
“They’ll sail off,” Skidi said. “And that whore’s son shit Ottar might burn our ships first.” Thorgrim could hear a touch of panic, not something he had ever heard in Skidi’s voice before.
Thorgrim nodded. It was exactly what he was thinking. Ottar would burn their ships, or divide his men among the nine vessels and take them all. He would do it to get his revenge on Thorgrim, and to make certain Thorgrim and his men were left behind so that the Irish would be occupied in hunting them while Ottar and his men escaped down river.
“We must get back to the ships,” Thorgrim said. There would be no talk of taking the monastery now. They would be lucky to get away with their lives. Very lucky.
‘Three hours from now we might be sacking Glendalough’, Thorgrim recalled his thinking. Idiot.
“Thorgrim!” Agnarr called down, just loud enough to be heard. “The horsemen are mounting.”
“Very well,” Thorgrim said. He looked to the east, as far as he could see, and considered the terrain he had studied. They were hidden in a low place, but there was higher ground all around them. No matter which direction they moved they would soon find themselves on an exposed hilltop, in full view of the Irish men-at-arms.
But they could not remain where they were, either. The horsemen would soon be sweeping the area. They would find the Northmen even if they did not yet know they were there.
He looked back over the way they had come. They could keep out of sight behind the hill until they reached the high place where the wagons were positioned. Then they would have no choice but expose themselves as they made their way over the hill and back to the ships. It would be an all-out retreat or a running fight, but there was nothing else they could do.
“Skidi, you take the lead,” Thorgrim said. “You know the way. Move quickly, but once you’re up on the top of the hill by the wagons, where the Irish can see you, then you run like Hel herself is on your heels. Get around behind the wagons, maybe they’ll hide you. Lead the men into the woods as soon as you can. Bersi, keep the men together and keep them moving, don’t let them get spread out. Harald and I will be at the end of the column.”
They nodded, moved off. Thorgrim called Agnarr down from the hill.
“The horsemen were mounting,” Agnarr said, “but they did not seem to be in any great hurry. They were still just standing around.”
“They don’t know we’re here,” Thorgrim said. “They think we’ve all gone back to the ships. They’re probably arguing about whether to follow, and they’re taking their time about it. As these Irish will. So, that will buy us a few minutes, anyway.”
The men were in a loose column now, two or three abreast. Those who had straps had slung their shields over their backs, the other carried their shields on their arms. All had their swords sheathed. They would not be fighting and they knew it. They would be running for their lives.
Skidi, at the head of the column, began to walk, surprisingly quick for so squat and broad a man. The line of warriors followed behind, moving faster as they spread out. Finally the last man stepped off and behind him Thorgrim and Harald.
“The Irish will see us when we go over the hill,” Harald said, speaking low. “What will we do?” He had not been elsewhere when Thorgrim gave his instructions to Skidi.
“We run,” Thorgrim said. “What more can we do?”
What more? Harald, trusting soul, had probably thought Thorgrim had a plan, but Thorgrim was all out of plans. One betrayal after another, one run of bad luck following another, one traitorous whore’s son after another had stripped him of plans, ideas, nearly stripped him of hope.
Run like a bastard, try to reach the ships, pray to Thor and Njord that the ships were still there and still intact, and then try to reach the sea. That was the plan. It was the best he had just then, and he had no time to come up with better.
The column was moving at a slow jog, just about right, Thorgrim thought. Move fast but save strength for the real foot race to come. They hurried back over the ground they had covered in the dark hours of the night. They made little noise. Thorgrim was certain they could not be heard as far away as the Irish lines.
All right… Thorgrim thought, all right… They had not yet been seen.
Not so far now…
They covered the last hundred yards quickly and then Thorgrim could see Skidi and the men at the head of the column leaving the low ground and climbing the hill to where the wagons stood in their defensive barrier. He saw them reach the left-most wagon and race around it and it hid them from sight, mostly. And in their wake, strung out more than Thorgrim would have liked, a hundred or so more men, all pushing hard for the same destination. The river. The ships. The sea.
Perhaps a third of his men had disappeared behind the wagon when he finally heard the cry of alarm from the Irish lines.
Not too rutting vigilant, are you? he thought, but the Irish had all the advantages now and they did not have to be all that vigilant.
“Go, go, go!” Thorgrim shouted. No need for quiet anymore. No real need to tell the men to move faster, either. They had heard the cries from the Irish lines and they were running up the hill, racing for…what? There was no protection to be had until they reached the ships, and with the Irish coming to ride them down, the ships and the river were far, far away.
Thorgrim and Harald started up the hill, racing after the men. Some of those ahead were throwing their shields away so they would be better able to run, a very bad idea.
Idiots!
The shields might make it harder to run, but if the horsemen caught them on open ground they would be the only thing standing between them and a spear in the neck or a hoof kick to the head. And Thorgrim could not imagine they would make it to the ships without a fight.
“Keep your shields, you stupid bastards, keep your shields!” Thorgrim shouted as loud as he could, but that was not too loud because his breath was short. Harald took up the cry. He seemed to have no trouble either breathing or yelling.
Up the slope, and when they were half way to the wagons, Thorgrim stopped and turned toward the Irish line, and he did not love what he saw. The mounted men were spurring toward them now. He could hear voices shouting: warnings, encouragements, orders, he could not tell. It didn’t matter. He and his men had been seen, and soon, five minutes if they were lucky, they would be fighting on foot, on open ground, against mounted warriors, the most dangerous of circumstances.
Thorgrim watched long enough to get a rough count. Forty or fifty, he thought. Forty or fifty mounted warriors against his hundred or so on foot. The riders were spreading out as they gained speed, whipping their horses on.
“If they attack like that, like some undisciplined mob,” Thorgrim said to Harald, “if they think they can just ride us down, that will be good for us. If our men can make a shield wall and stand fast.”
He turned and hurried on, now a dozen paces behind the end of the column. He and Harald pushed up the hill and around the wagon. Thorgrim saw the smoldering remains of the campfires. He wondered what had become of the wounded men he had left to tend them. Gone back to the ships, he hoped.
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br /> The dark and rutted road stretched out ahead, and the open ground beyond that. Skidi was leading them away from the road and toward the nearest wood that lined the river. If they could get among the trees then the horsemen would not be able to ride them down. The Irish men-at-arms would probably not be able to fight on horseback at all, and Thorgrim did not think they would try to fight on foot. They were outnumbered, and it was only the horses that gave them an advantage.
If we get among the trees…he thought. He looked back over his shoulder, but the wagons obstructed his view of the riders. It would be a close thing, either way.
His mouth was open, his breathing harder as he and Harald ran across the field in the wake of the men. He understood the impulse that the others had to throw their shields away. Thorgrim’s shield was on his back and it thumped as he ran and he wanted very much to toss the clumsy thing aside, but he did not. Harald, he was certain, was slowing his pace so the old man could keep up, and it annoyed Thorgrim extremely. He might even have said something if he had the breath to speak.
Skidi and those at the head of the line were still a couple of hundred paces from the edge of the woods when the first of the riders came pounding around the wagons in their rear. Thorgrim heard them, the sound of their horses, their shouts to one another, and he turned to see them coming on at a full gallop.
End of the race, Thorgrim thought. They would not reach the woods before the riders reached them. They had to turn and fight. He opened his mouth and managed to shout, “The riders are on us! Form a square! Shield wall! Form a square!”
He yelled as hard as he was able. It was a poor effort. He gasped as he yelled, but once again Harald was there to lend him his young, powerful lungs.
“The horsemen are on us!” Harald shouted, still running at Thorgrim’s side. “Make a square! Shields up, make a square!”
They saw Skidi at the head of the column stop, turn, and start waving his arms as he drove the men back toward Thorgrim, back to where they could all gather and form a defense. Bersi was pushing men into a short shield wall, and then another at a right angle to that, as the entire line was turned into a square. Thorgrim hoped they would sort themselves out in time. He hoped that not too many had thrown their shields away.
He and Harald reached the cluster of men last of all. Thorgrim could hear the sounds of the hoof beats, loud and close behind him, could feel the tremor of the galloping horses in his legs. The men in the square stepped aside and made a gap in the shield wall. Harald and Thorgrim stepped in, turned, locked their shields with those on either side.
The Northmen had made a fort, a small, square fort, walls made of flesh and bone, shields on four side. If they could stand fast as the riders came down on them they might yet live. What they needed were spears to reach out and drive into the horses and riders as they tried to break the walls. But they had no spears, only swords. Swords were not at all ideal for that work, they were too short, but they would have to do.
“Stand ready!” Thorgrim shouted. The horsemen were a hundred paces behind and closing fast, but they were apparently confident of an easy victory and were not bothering to get in any sort of order. They were just rushing in, swords and spears held high, screaming their war cries. They thundered down on the Northmen, no doubt hoping the raiders would break and run and then they could be easily hacked down as they fled.
“Stand fast!” Thorgrim shouted. “You’ll live if you stand fast! Brace yourselves, keep your shields together!”
And then the horsemen were on them, their huge beasts wheeling and turning at the last second, shying from hitting the seemingly immobile line of shields and men. The horses snapped and kicked and the riders flailed with swords, but the shield wall did not break and the horses did not drive the men into panicked flight.
It was the Northmen’s chance to strike back now. Blades darted out from behind the shields, well-honed points found the riders’ legs and guts and the horses’ necks and rumps. Riders screamed and slashed at their attackers and horses reared up in pain and surprise. Thorgrim saw a man tumble to the ground. He rolled and tried to free his weapon and Olaf Thordarson stepped forward and drove a sword clean through his mail, then stepped back into the shield wall before any of the other horsemen could react.
“Hold your ground and kill the bastards!” Thorgrim shouted and he drove Iron-tooth at the rider who wheeled his horse in front of him. The rider parried the blade, brought his own sword back over his head, meaning to bring it down like an ax, but Thorgrim was too quick for him. He took a half step ahead of the shield wall, thrust forward and up.
The point hit the man just below his raised arm and sunk inches deep. Thorgrim pulled it back fast and regained his place in the line. The rider dropped his sword, clutched his wound, hunched over sideways as his horse turned and ran off, away from that wall of death.
The riders were yelling to one another and then one by one they jerked their reins over hard and galloped off. Not far off, only fifty paces or so, far enough to be free of the Northmen’s swords as they reconsidered their tactics. And Thorgrim saw opportunity.
“Run for the woods!” he shouted, pointing with his sword. “Keep together, the horsemen will be back at us in a second, but run for the woods!”
The men understood. They turned all together as if they were doing some elaborate dance and began running toward the distant wood, racing off in the direction Skidi had been leading them before the riders came. They stayed close, they did not spread out, because every man knew as Thorgrim did that the riders would be on them again before they reached safety. And when the riders were back, only the shield wall would save them. But every foot closer to the woods was a foot closer to escape.
The mounted warriors, of course, knew this as well, and so Thorgrim did not take his eyes from them for long. No more than a minute after Thorgrim’s men had begun their dash over the open ground he saw them divide into three groups and charge back toward them. The riders drew apart as they closed the distance, the center group of horsemen, twenty or so, driving straight for the Northmen as those to left and right began to spread out.
“Make your square! Make your square!” Thorgrim shouted. That was all the ground they would get for now. Time to fight off another assault.
The Norsemen had stayed close and it only took seconds to reform their square, shields held at chest height and locked together.
“They’ll hit us on three sides!” Thorgrim shouted. “Don’t let them break us! If we break we’re all dead men!”
Of course, even if they did not break they were all dead men, most likely. Every man knew it. But they stood straight and they dug their back feet into the soft ground and they refreshed the grip on their swords and they waited.
They did not wait long. The horsemen to the left and right swung far out from the close packed Northmen, then swerved their mounts and charged for opposite sides of the square, giving themselves a hundred paces or more to build momentum as the pounded down on the shield-bearers. The center rank of horsemen did not swerve. They came straight on, swords raised, horses hooves tearing up the turf and sending clods of grass and dirt flying back in their track.
“Stand fast!” Thorgrim shouted, letting his voice build into a battle cry. And then the horsemen were on them.
In his years of seafaring, Thorgrim had often enough endured massive boarding seas, great combers of dark water rising up, curling overhead, and slamming down on him and his crew and his ship like the hand of an angry god. And that was what the impact of the mounted riders was like.
The Irishmen had spurred their animals to a frenzy and this time most did not shy and swerve from the wall, and because Thorgrim and his men had no spears they could not even reach the horses or riders until they were all but on top of them. The cumulative weight of fifty horses and fifty riders slammed into the square from three sides at nearly the same instant. Like a boarding sea. Like the hand of an angry god.
Thorgrim saw the animal in front of him rear
and kick. He ducked to his left, felt the horse’s right hoof hit his shield and drive him back. The horse lashed with its left foot and it hit the man beside him – it was Vemund – right in the forehead. The blow sent Vemund reeling back, shield and sword flying from his hand. Then the horse came down on all four feet and Thorgrim saw the rider spur it in the flanks and the animal charged on, right into the middle of the square.
Or what had been a square. It looked to Thorgrim like a ship that had gone up on the rocks in heavy surf, torn to smaller and smaller bits as it was hammered again and again.
The rider who had downed Vemund spun his horse and, seeing Thorgrim, bounded forward, sword up. Thorgrim moved by instinct and the memory drilled into his arms and legs. He let the rider’s sword begin its descent, stepped aside as the blade passed within inches of his chest. He had time enough to see the surprise on the man’s face as he lunged, Iron-tooth piercing his mail and driving into his stomach. Thorgrim pulled the blade free and looked for the next rider because that man was done.
There were still fragments of shield wall, groups of men standing together and warding off the swarming horsemen, but they could not last. The horses and the swords coming down from above would drive them apart and they would be killed piecemeal.
Agnarr was beside him now, to his left, and Godi to his right. He could see Harald ten feet away, swinging Oak Cleaver in wide arcs that cut down anything that came within reach of the blade.
“Thorgrim!” Agnarr shouted and Thorgrim looked over fast as one of the mounted warriors spurred toward him. The rider had a spear, held low, and he was driving for Thorgrim’s chest. Agnarr leapt forward and grabbed the shaft of the spear and twisted it up. The Irishman grunted and his horse turned under him.
Agnarr pulled harder and Thorgrim tried to get at the mounted man, but the horse was there, blocking him, it’s teeth snapping. The Irishman pulled his foot from the stirrup and kicked Agnarr in the head and Agnarr grunted, let go of the spear, stumbled back.
Glendalough Fair: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga) (Volume 4) Page 34
