Viking Slave

by Griff Hosker

  We marched down the slope to the river. The water would protect our left and the slope our right. The Saxons would be funnelled towards us. Butar stood in the centre and Olaf to the right. “Haaken, take Bjorn’s men to the left, to the river.” The place of honour was to the right where Olaf and his men stood. Butar and Olaf were the only ones with mail shirts but the rest of us were armed as warriors. When the scouts halted we saw the Saxon army behind. Their leader, I assumed Aella, had a mail shirt and a full mask helmet. There were also five other warriors with mail shirts but the rest of his bodyguards, all twenty of them, were armed as we were. The rest looked like farmers with axes, daggers and whatever other farm implement they could scavenge. They would not pose a problem save for the fact that there were thirty of them. We were outnumbered. The normal way of fighting for us was a mad charge at the enemy. I was not certain that would work this time. Their leader and his bodyguards were advancing in a shield wall.

  They approached at a steady pace for the ground was muddy and slippery. They were cautious. Suddenly arrows began to rain down on the advancing Saxons. Bjorn was using his five men to disrupt the attack. Two of the farmers and fishermen fell to arrows. Neither looked to have a mortal wound but they were incapacitated. The bodyguards held their shields above their heads. They were protected but not those without shields and helmets. They began to edge away from the Saxon left towards the river and us. It meant that Olaf and Butar would face the twenty well armed men and they would have roughly equal numbers but we seven would have to face over forty armed men. This would be a test of my prowess. I slipped Ragnar’s dagger into my left hand behind the shield and I tightened my grip on the strap.

  Butar judged his moment well and he shouted, “Charge!”

  The Saxons had their shields above their heads when Butar and Olaf struck and they drew first blood. I had no time to be a spectator for Haaken shouted, “Forward!” We ran at the mob which approached us. They were doughty men but they were not warriors. I took the blow from the hand axe on my shield and stabbed the farmer, twisting as I withdrew the blade. One of the Saxons had an axe head tied to a long pole and he swung it at me. I held up my shield but the blade deflected and it struck my helmet. It was a warning that I could be killed, even by a farm tool, and I screamed, “Ragnar!” and hurled myself at the man. Quicksilver took him in the throat but I did not stop. I punched the next Saxon with the metal boss of my shield, the point struck him in the face; when he fell, screaming, I stabbed him. I sensed rather than saw a sword coming down at me and I twisted my own sword up and round to parry it. I was below the man and he was heavier than I was. He roared in triumph as my sword was forced down. I ripped sideways with my left hand holding the shield and the dagger; it ripped across his stomach. I pushed his body away and looked for another enemy. I was shocked to see that there were none before me. I turned and saw that I had emerged from a sea of carnage and my comrades were fighting behind me. I ran at the unprotected backs of the Saxons. It was not glorious but I slashed and hacked at their defenceless rear. Suddenly they found themselves attacked from two directions and they broke. They were not to know it was but one warrior. I punched and slashed at every Saxon I could see but they fled, in terror, up the valley to their homes and safety.

  Before we could congratulate ourselves Haaken roared, “Ulfheonar!” and pointed; Butar was in trouble. We all turned as one and, locking shields, followed Haaken at speed into the side of the throng who surrounded Butar. These men were not as easy to kill for some wore mail. I killed one warrior by smashing Quicksilver down on to his helmet. The iron cracked and he fell to the ground. I stabbed him and saw, to my dismay that Quicksilver was bent. I slashed the edge across his throat, just in time to face a mailed warrior. My sword would not survive another such blow and so I roared, “Ragnar!” again and threw myself at him like a human spear. The edge of my shield caught him below the jaw. His head jerked back and I followed up by throwing my head at him. His neck snapped back and I stabbed upwards with the dagger held in my left hand. The blood from his throat sprayed out like a mountain spring.

  Butar was winning against Aella but one of the Saxon’s bodyguards was advancing towards Butar’s unprotected sword side. I ran, almost slipping and tripping on the bodies and the blood. I would not reach him in time. I saw the Saxon blade rise, ready to hack Butar’s arm. I hurled myself as I had at the farmer. I held Quicksilver before me. The tip entered the mail shirt; had I just stabbed him it would not have penetrated but the blade had all of my weight behind it and it started to rip and tear the metal links. My momentum took us both to the ground. I lifted myself to my feet and found that my blade had bent and then shattered. Quicksilver was no more. It had done its duty and saved Butar’s life. I grasped the dead warrior’s sword. I was just in time to see Aella’s bodyguards carrying his wounded body from the field. Haaken, Cnut and the others stood around Butar and I could hear cheering from the hill top. Against the odds we had won.

  The end of a battle is never pleasant. This was only my second such event but it was hard to look around and see which of your comrades would not fight again. Then there was the task of despatching the wounded enemies and sending them to Valhalla so that their souls would not haunt you. Before I did any of that I went to Butar. He looked drawn but he smiled when he saw me.

  “Dragon Heart indeed! I thought you were a dragon when you flew through the air at that warrior.”

  Haaken slapped me on the back. “And I thought we had a Berserker here the way you charged through those farmers. You drove them from the field single handed.”

  Butar winced. I could see that he was wounded and hidden wounds were always dangerous. “Take my stepfather to my mother she will heal him.”

  Haaken shook his head. “You and Cnut can do that. I will deal with the enemy.”

  Cnut and I looked at the steep hill. “Let us take him down the river to his hall. It will be more comfortable than the fort and they will not be back tonight.”

  Even though he was in pain Butar said, “You have the second sight now do you? You can see into the future.”

  I chuckled, “No Jarl Butar but Aella had to be carried from the field and you are walking. We kept the field and they fled to their home. They will lick their wounds and recover before they try us again.”

  My mother had watched us from the walls and she and the house slaves were waiting at the hall when we reached it. She pecked me on the cheek. “You reminded me of my father today when I saw you fight. Leave Butar with me. You and Cnut will be needed on the battlefield still.”

  As we walked back I asked Cnut what had happened to him on the battlefield. “I killed or wounded a couple of farmers and then wounded a warrior. It does not compare with you. You are fearless.”

  “No. It is the opposite. I am afraid of failing and I do all that I can to avoid that.”

  He looked down at my sword. “That is not your sword. What happened?”

  “Mine broke. I will retrieve it so that I can remove the warrior bands and then I will have the smith use the metal to make me a mask for my helmet.”

  He laughed, “I think he needs to do more than that.”

  I took off the helmet and saw what he meant. The axe had scored a line almost through to my skull. I had been lucky once again.

  By the time we reached the field there were only the Saxon dead. Haaken had had our dead taken to the fort where they would be safe from animals. Bjorn was organising the men to collect the weapons and armour. I found my broken sword and picked it up. It had not let me down but it had been a stolen sword. I would need a new one. I would need one which was mine and mine alone. There would be no shared memories to confuse the sword. Perhaps the sword I had taken from the warrior of Stavanger had originally been taken from a Saxon. That might explain the way it died. I saw that someone had removed the mail shirt from the warrior I had killed. I was slightly disappointed; I had hoped to have my own mail shirt. I still did not know which of my friends had perished on t
hat bloody field. I did not believe for one moment that we could have survived unscathed.

  As I entered the gate I saw the cost laid out beneath cloaks taken from the dead Saxons. Six had died. It was better than we could have hoped but it was six we could ill afford to lose. I saw others like Sweyn and Harald White Streak nursing wounds. Bjorn greeted me and Cnut with a bear hug. “I am so proud of my Ulfheonar. Butar was surrounded until the seven of you leapt into his guards. You were the very wolves we spoke of and Dragon Heart you must show me how I too can become a spear!” The mocking was gentle and I did not mind.

  “Did we lose any?”

  “Aye Eric fell but he killed two of the enemy before he fell.”

  “And how many of the enemy?”

  “Aella will be short of ten of his oathsworn and another ten farmers fell. We won the day.”

  “But not the island.”

  “No, not the island but we have the winter to grow.”

  “Do we plant boys and hope that they grown into warriors?”

  “No Dragon Heart but Butar and Olaf are clever men. They will think of something.”

  That evening we sent our friends to Valhalla. We drew lots to see who would stand guard in the tower and the rest of us went to the warrior hall to remember our friends. None of us were in a mood to drink to excess and we just drank steadily until we fell asleep.

  The next day I went to see Butar. The wound was in his side and would heal. He pointed to a mail shirt which lay untidily in the corner. “Olaf recovered the mail shirt from the warrior you slew. He did not want a lesser warrior to have it.”

  I did not know what amazed me more the fact that he respected me or the fact that he had thought to bring me the shirt. “That is a great gift.”

  “No, it is not a gift. You earned it. It will need some work on it. The shirt was not the best I have ever seen but it will afford you more protection than the leather jerkin.”

  I showed him my sword. I had removed the rings. “It served me well but…”

  “But it can never be trusted again. Take one of the Frankish blades and see Bagsecg.”

  I was laden when I entered the newly built blacksmith’s workshop. He had brought his anvil but he and his son were busy building the fire that would be the heart of the shop. I told him what I wanted. He examined the shirt, the broken sword, the new sword and the helmet. “I will trade with you. You help me and my son to build our furnace and I will do the work in return.”

  I clasped his hand. “When do we start?”

  “Now!”

  I stripped off my leather jerkin and set to work. His son, Bjorn, and I went to the beach to bring up the rocks that we would need to build the outside of the furnace. Bagsecg brought the sand and collected the mud that we would need.

  During the morning as we sat, sweating, drinking some welcome spring water, my mother and her thralls came down to collect some shellfish from the bay. She looked at us and asked, “How will you make this furnace?”

  Normally a woman would have been ignored but this was my mother who was the wife of Butar and a woman respected by the men. Bagsecg explained how he would shape the rocks so that they fitted together and then layer them with mud.

  My mother nodded. “Where I come from in Cymri they have priests who can read the Roman writing. They told my people how to mix rock with water and sand to make a kind of cement which is stronger than mud.”

  She turned to go. Bagsecg looked confused. “Lady, how would we make the rock mix with water?”

  She pointed to the chips of rock which he had already trimmed, “Pound up the smaller pieces until it looks like the sand.” Enigmatically she left.

  Bagsecg took his hammer and smashed it against the small pieces of rock. It turned it to powder. He grinned. “She is a clever woman, your mother.”

  “Will it work?”

  Bagsecg pointed to the pile of earth he had ready. “That is soft. It is the heat which dries it but the rock is hard already. It would be better to make something hard into the furnace. It will not crack as easily. I believe it will work. It is worth a try.”

  That day building the furnace made me much stronger than I had been before. After I had lifted the rocks and Bagsecg had trimmed them I was given the job of smashing the chippings with the hammer. I soon became quite adept. Even as I was doing it I was working out how I could transfer the skill to wielding a skeggox. They were of a similar size and weight. I found that, if I slid my hand down the shaft as I swung I could get greater power. It worried me that to get the full effect you had to use two hands. I would work on that. When I had finished and we had the powdered stone, we began. We mixed the sand with the stone. We had to estimate quantities but we had a great deal of rock powder so we used more of that. Layer by layer the furnace built up until by evening it was finished. The smith looked satisfied. “That took less time than I expected. I hope I have not cheated you for I believe I have done better from this trade.”

  “No, Bagsecg, I think it was a good trade for all of us. I have learned much and I look forward to using my new weapons and armour.” That night I slept well.

  Bjorn the Wolf, as he was now known was chosen to lead his Ulfheonar on a mission to see what the Saxons were up to. Egill and his fishing boat had established that they were in Duboglassio but that was all that they knew. We were to watch them. My new blade was not even started and my helmet was in need of repair; I took my leather cap and my dead enemy’s sword. As I wrapped my wolf cloak about my shoulders the others were envious. We called ourselves the Ulfheonar but only one of us had the cloak. We followed the same route we had taken that first day and trudged below the ridge line. We followed the Salmon River down to the burnt out village. It was a desolate sight. We crept along the tree lined river sprinting from cover to cover until we were sure that the village was devoid of life. The foxes and the crows feasting on the corpses was evidence enough for that. The Saxons had not even returned to bury their dead.

  Cnut pointed to the river which teemed with salmon. “We can harvest those, Bjorn.”

  “Aye. We will do that upon our return.”

  As we headed back up the river I thought about the circle which had started with me in a river emptying salmon traps to me walking along a river with the very people who had captured me. Wyrd!

  We avoided all the little huts and farms we saw dotted around the lower slopes of the hills. We wished to be unseen and we moved through whatever cover we could find. We halted on the hills a mile from the Saxons and lay, hidden, beneath the sky line. Duboglassio was a large fortified village on a small ridge overlooking the bay. They had many fishing boats but I could not see any dragon boats. It was a good vantage point and we could see directly into the settlement. It looked to be well established and they had a large warrior hall. It differed in shape from ours but it was clearly a warrior hall. There were guards on the gate. There had not been any at either of the other two sites which showed that they were now worried.

  “We need to get closer to the walls. Haaken, take Cnut and Dragon Heart and scout the southern end. We will do the same to the north. We will meet you south of the village on those cliffs there.” He pointed across the bay to where we could see the land rising to some low cliffs.

  We scurried down the slope away from the coast. We kept low as we ran. We moved so that we were out of sight of any watchers. After the recent raids they would be wary. When Haaken deemed that we had travelled far enough we turned east. The land here was flatter and heavily wooded. We moved through the woods which hid us from prying eyes. We saw game tracks; there were deer and it looked like wild boars as well. Suddenly we heard a noise. Haaken signalled for us to hide. I lay down beneath a blackberry bush and tucked my legs beneath my wolf skin. I could see through the bushes. The ground was muddy and I streaked my face with it to darken my white skin. I saw the Saxon hunters. There were eight of them; two boys and six men. They were heading back to Duboglassio with a deer they had killed. It was slung on a pole. It b
egan to slip and they halted at the other side of the bush and retied the leather thongs to make it more secure.

  “I still say the king should have attacked those Vikings today. They would not have expected it.”

  “That would have been foolish. He was too badly wounded and besides we do not know how many there were.”

  “There didn’t seem to be that many of them. I only counted twenty or so. We had many more than they did.”

  “The fyrd were useless, they would not stand. They all ran as soon as they were attacked. We need more warriors.”

  “The Vikings are fierce fighters look what they did to Terrell’s burg and Abelard’s burg. They wiped them out.”

  “All the more reason we should have attacked again.”

  “Until things are sorted out on the mainland we can expect no more warriors. We are on our own until then.”

  “You are right brother, let us recover and wait for the men of Udi’s burg to come.”

  I could hear no more for they had moved away. I waited until there was total silence again and then I extracted myself from the bush. Haaken rushed over to me. “I had no idea where you were.”

  “I was under that bush and I heard them talk. Some of their warriors wanted to attack again today but the king was badly wounded by Butar. They are expecting more men.”

  “From another settlement on the island?”

  “I know not but Egill did say there was another port to the south. Perhaps it is the burg of Udi.”

  “Udi?”

  “It is what they call it.”

  “We will follow them down this trail. It is obviously the main way into the town.”

  When we reached the edge of the woods the walls were less than a hundred paces away. We hid in the trees. Like us they had one gate and it faced the sea. We could see that they had a stone wall to which they had tied their fishing boats. I counted six guards on the wall. The men we had seen were also warriors. The fyrd they had spoken of would be the farmers who had fled before us. I could see that they had a ditch running around the edge of the wooden walls and they had wooden towers. It would be hard to assault.