Bloodaxe

by James Tallett

  Things were much as I expected when I got home. Dear old Mum was lounging on the throne, a drink in one hand, rapier strapped to her side, and every warrior in the house was giving her the sideways glance you give people when you’re always scared they’re watching. Nice to know she can still run a household.

  As you might expect, the men looked quite relieved that I’d come back, although they did wonder where the rest of the soldiers were. I declared a feast for the evening, and told them all to wait. They’d waited a couple of months, they could wait a few more hours.

  The feast went well. The men cheered at the appropriate points, laughed when I presented the Earl’s wife as a scullery maid, and cheered even more lustily when I told them that Sithgurd had been given the earldom, as well as fifty men of Rudvic to command it.

  Of course, the next bit wasn’t so well received. The men’s blood was up and they wanted to charge out the door and take on the whole world. And here I was saying that we would wait until the winter festival to launch our assault. Across country, in the snow, through woods and along disused roads. There were definitely some mutterings about “sticking my head in a snowbank”, but I had a plan.

  Of course, the plan had come to me while I was feasting, and I’d been more than a bit drunk. And it was based on a legend from my age. A religious legend. Which we all know are incredibly accurate when it comes to strategy. But it still sounded like a good one when I woke up the next morning with a pounding headache and three new mistresses all harping for presents. One night and they want gifts. They weren’t that good. Should have done less playing with each other and more with me.

  I had planning to do and so I tossed them out. Once I could see straight, I kicked awake two of the brightest men of Rudvic, and sent our new scullery maid to fetch the Queen Mother. A much better title for her than just ‘dear old Mum’, don’t you think? Nice and regal. I’d also given her back the title Duchess of Trond, which was sure to piss off a pair of sitting dukes. Perfect.

  Now that I had gathered what passed for a council, I laid out my plans before them. I’d also included Finehair. Sure, he was big and bald, and looked like the hind end of a cow, but he was what you’d call stolid, always making conservative, sensible judgements. So I thought he was boring as hell most of the time. But you need one of those on every council, and he was never afraid of stating his mind. Probably because until I came along, only Sithgurd could have argued with him.

  There was a lot of back and forth, and I had to keep yelling at everyone to keep their voices down and stay civil. Of course, since all of us but the Duchess were hung over, she took full advantage of it to control the discussion. Since hers was the approval I needed most, that was a good thing. Until she started lambasting me for what kind of stupid, half-brained, idiotic state of mind I’d been in when I came up with it. That wasn’t.

  Strangely, it was Finehair who decided to take my side. Yes, the big lummox liked the idea of a surprise attack during the winter festival. Thought that we could win the war right there. Of course, even if this little campaign succeeded, there was still a duke, an earl, and a baron left to go, and they might decide on a mutual defence agreement. If they’d had half a brain between them, they would have done it already. But most rulers get picked because daddy looked good in gold, not because they had anything resembling a thought.

  So, we went back and forth across the table, shouting, throwing things, occasionally punching one another. It was a grand old round table discussion. Except the table was long. And rectangular. But you get the idea.

  Finally, everyone just gave in. I was King Bloodaxe, and I was going to do things my way. And if hell itself wanted to stick some demons in my path, I was going to walk right over their heads. Although demons aren’t really that scary. They’re more an annoying kind of tax collector. In fact, I was a little surprised I hadn’t seen any demonic assistance for one side or another. They aren’t that common, but a little gold, a little bribery, and they’ll do all kinds of things that don’t put them at too much risk.

  So I pointed this out to Mum, that maybe we could do with a demon spy or two. Or at least a counter-spy. Now, you might have thought that in the old days I would never have had truck with demons, but you’d be wrong. See, we never used human spies or assassins. That meant the human had no honour. But we knew demons had no honour. That’s why they could be bought. So before a campaign or a battle, everyone would pray to the gods and demons and give them offerings. As long as the offerings were more or less equal, they stayed out of human affairs. If one side paid them a lot more, well, they’d be getting involved. Got to keep the reputation up.

  Now, it had to be a lot of bribery to get something truly meaningful out of demons, so most of the time I skimped, and then paid up big when I thought it really mattered. And it was looking like this was one of those times. If I knocked off this Duke, I’d get not only his kingdom but most of Trond back. Me having that much superiority over the rest would mean victory was just a matter of time.

  We waited until the start of the campaign, a month or two before the winter festival, and then we had a big ceremony offering gifts to the gods. And I had a much smaller ceremony off in a side room, offering all kinds of weird and wonderful objects to demons I’d worked with before. One of the offerings was the Earl’s wife, who had turned out to be no good for anything other than cursing and chewing out maids for doing a shoddy job. A noble pain in the ass.

  I called up an old friend, a demon I’d worked with before. I’d chatted with him on and off in the afterlife. Most demons are fairly congenial. They’ve got a lot of downtime waiting for a summons and a gift, and so they spend it chatting with the souls of the dead. They see other demons all the time, anyway.

  Now this particular demon had a name I can’t render in any human language. So I called him Sven. Not sure he was entirely happy with that, but we both made do. Sven, for some reason, liked nasty, shrewish women who would berate him every time he came home. I think it was some kind of envy of the humans thing. And he always said he could never find a demoness who could do it right. So if you knew him well, you bribed him with a really foul-mouthed human female. Of course, if he got bored of his human companion, he’d have a big barbecue and invite friends round, but I knew most of the women he’d paired up with had died of old age. He just wasn’t that evil a demon. More sort of moderately annoying, like a little brother or a drunkard uncle.

  So, he was propitiated, the shrew was gone, a few other bits and pieces had gone missing, including a barrel of our best mead, and we were off to conquer the world, King Bloodaxe style.

  We skied to cross the forests. There’s not much point walking through snow, and although the men had to drag their tents and supplies on sledges behind them, they managed fairly well. The trip was uneventful for an invasion, actually. One or two people got lost, we had the usual array of silly injuries that happens when skiing, and we popped up outside the winter festival and made a total nuisance of ourselves.

  Unfortunately, the other side made a right bloody nuisance back. Someone had warned them. So rather than being a surprise attack, we came charging out of the woods full speed to see the whole host around the festival grounds drop their tankards and whip out swords and shields and axes from where they were sitting. Which I suppose meets the definition of surprise attack, but I had hoped it was us surprising them, not the other way around.

  Of course, I might be a king who plans attacks while drunk at a festival, but I’m not a total idiot. The first of the demons came through, and the skies opened. Only above the foe, mind you. I’d been very specific about that. Can never entirely trust the mischief makers.

  Now he’d been supposed to do this a little earlier on, and with a little more flamboyance (you know, the gods literally pissing on their subjects), but he came through at the last. I made a note to send him a cookie later.

  So we pulled short our assault and waited. When it’s the middle of winter and frigid out, it’s a bit mo
re than just demoralizing to be soaked to the skin. It’s downright deadly, although unfortunately not quickly enough for my personal tastes. I’d asked the demon about a rain of acid, but he’d said he wasn’t allowed to use that particular spell for another thousand years. Bureaucracy of the underworld, apparently.

  It turned out that I wasn’t the only one bright enough to engage the help of our pustulent little friends. A bloody great wind swept up from nowhere and hammered us in the face. Now, if you think a little gust of wind was enough to stop us, well, you’re a fool. But it’s rather unpleasant to get a faceful of ice and snow at forty miles an hour.

  I did the only sensible thing I could do at this point. Charge. Thankfully, the muttonheads behind me charged as well, otherwise I’d have had a very short, but eventful, rule. Now, on the ground man for man, the boys on the other side probably had more than me. Which I’d been hoping would be overturned by surprise. With surprise out the window, it was going to be straight numbers, even with my little rainstorm trick.

  Now, I’m a honourable man, and I’ll face anyone in one on one combat, and I lead from the front. But I ain’t so daft that I’m not going to slant the odds in my favour if I can help it. This was where Sven came in. He’s actually a fairly powerful demon, despite all of his little niceties, and apparently the Earl’s woman was howling at him nice and proper, because Sven came riding down out of the sky on a sledge of ice, hurling fist sized chunks of hail down upon our ducal enemies.

  He only made three passes across the field, but by the end of it, even the battle-hardened men on the other side were looking a little woozy and faint. And they’d just been given ample evidence that King Bloodaxe had outsmarted their Duke straight up. Unfortunately, they’re pigheaded idiots, and they fought like a bunch of berserk northmen. Which is appropriate, since my men fought like berserk northmen as well. Comes with the territory around here.

  The problem with berserk northmen is that they don’t give up very easily, and if they’re in one of their killing frenzies, they don’t give up at all. Which meant the day was a long, drawn out slugfest that ended mostly because of the sun going down and the men from the Duke’s side running for the castle walls. Not because they were losing, but because they were damp and needed to dry off. It’s amazing what a pitched battle will do to keep you warm and healthy in the winter.

  I’d been planning on camping inside those walls tonight as well, but we had our tents with us, and one day’s delay wasn’t going to send us running. Another night in the woods, plenty of sentries, and a resounding speech in the morning had us right back at it, although this time the Duke wasn’t going to be outside the walls, and I didn’t have any more demons.

  Or did I?

  Nope, sorry to disappoint, I really didn’t. I’m a bright King, but I thought it’d be over in a day. Even if we lost. And I didn’t have any more harridans to give to Sven. He only ever wanted one at a time anyway. Thought us humans who took more than one wife were idiots. After my first go round? I was inclined to agree with him.

  And the other demon, well, much as he’d been handy on certain occasions, I couldn’t see any kind of bad weather knocking down those castle gates. It wasn’t as if there were demons who called down lightning or hurricanes or anything. That was considered meddling a bit too much in human affairs. Had to be a nice local matter, clearly determined targets and all.

  So I went and tried to knock down the castle gates myself. Well, not me personally. I’m the King, I don’t do dangerous things all the time. And being one of the soldiers carrying the ram is a guarantee of a trip straight to Valhalla. About five minutes after you pick the damn thing up.

  Took most of the morning to get through those damn doors. They were solidly built. And all the while they were chucking spears and rocks and all other kinds of stuff down at us. One practical joker even tossed a chicken. Not sure what that was going to do.

  We’d taken a fair number of casualties breaching the gates, and now we had to actually get through them, and take the keep. This is one of those things where as a warrior king, you lead from the front. So I did. Hard.

  Finehair on my right, I blew through those damn gates like an avatar of the gods, hewing left and right with my axe. No sissy shield for me, I was a big strong man and I was going to crush anyone who got in my way. Of course, even big strong men could do with wearing armour sometimes. I took a nasty spear thrust to the side. If I hadn’t twisted at the last minute, I’d have been taking the spirit path. Even great warriors make mistakes.

  I didn’t make another that day. Once was enough. I’m the returned King Bloodaxe, and nothing is standing in the way of me getting my kingdom back. Not these men, not that coward Duke who hid in the keep while the fighting was going on, no one. And there sure as hell was no one who did that day. Although I have to commend the person who stabbed me. It was a good thrust, with a strong push from the hips, and a nice twist of the spearhead on the way out. Let his shield drop low as he did, though. Fatal flaw, that.

  Most of the Duke’s men surrendered when they saw he’d abandoned them and done a runner, so I signalled to my men to take their weapons and let them live. Now, I know I’d killed warriors who surrendered before, but these ones had fought me hard for a day and a half, and had their liege quit on them after all that bravery. And on a more practical note, I’d lost enough men I was going to need them from somewhere. With a little retraining, and spread thin amongst my soldiers? These Ducal warriors would make for a pretty strong band.

  I didn’t have to wait too long for the Duke to make an appearance. He came flying over the ramparts. Naked. With a chicken tied to his head. I just don’t understand what these people have against chickens.

  Shortly after the former Duke left a sizeable dent in the courtyard, the doors to the keep opened and the staff trooped out, with an old man asking if I’d accept their surrender. Given I’d had enough of fighting for the moment, I said yes. Plus, I’m a warrior, not a bandit. I don’t kill women and children unless the war really demands it.

  I gave the castle to Finehair, along with most of my warriors. Then I did something very brave. I skied home in the company of a few bodyguards, and all the former Duke’s men who had surrendered. Armed.

  However, they also had their women and children along. I wasn’t going to give them any incentive to return to their old castle, and I’d offered them all homes in Earl Hathdraig’s old place. Where the Queen Mother could keep a strong eye on them. Plus, most of the Earl’s men were now with Sithgurd and Finehair, and I needed to replenish the breeding stock at home. Good hardy men who didn’t blanch at a stand up fight sounded ideal to me.

  Of course, I had to survive the trip home. Which would be a bit difficult if they decided to chop me and my guards up and run to one of the surviving nobles. I was a brilliant warrior, but brilliance doesn’t defeat sheer numbers. Well, past a certain point anyway.

  In an entirely expected fashion, one of the young hotshots tried to stab me while I was sleeping. So it was probably a good thing I wasn’t in my bed, and had left a dummy there, well away from the fire. Me, I was sleeping in the crook of a tree, twenty feet off the ground, with my guards around the base. As I said, I might be a fool, but I’m not an idiot.

  I dropped down to confront the callow youth, and he charged. Shocking. The problem with being a callow youth is that it applies to a lot of things. So his sword play was awful. Really, truly, completely, awful. A tree could have dodged his strokes. I think several trees did. By the end of the fight, my men were laughing, and the former Duke’s men were looking very embarrassed.

  The would-be assassin was getting quite tired from his exertions, so I decided to put him out of his misery. Not too harshly, mind you. Got to keep faith with the underlings. So I punched him. With a chainmail fist. In the face. I think he lost four teeth, but it’s better than his life. Not that he was going to have a firm grip on living, shortly.

  I had him towed behind the sledge of his family, face down
in the snow. If he survived the day’s trek, then he could rejoin the ranks of the warriors. If he didn’t, he’d die an innocent. An idiot, but innocent.

  The rest of the trip home was uneventful, although I’d probably inspired a few lasting hatreds. Good. It’ll keep me on my toes. Assassinations and coups always liven up those dull winter months. It gets to be so boring listening to everyone proclaim you King of all the world. C’mon, how am I supposed to conquer anything if I already rule everything? I can’t reconquer my leading dukes, now can I? And there’s all these silly ceremonies where I have to wear enough fur to drown an elephant. Sure, I try and outlaw them as much as possible, but try dealing with an entire priesthood in a snit. It’s a right pain in the arse, I can tell you.

  And I got home and walked right into one of those snits. There’d been a bad omen at the midwinter festival because I wasn’t there to kiss some god’s royal buttocks. I have a kingdom to conquer. Did this god really think I was going to miss out on a perfectly good sneak attack just because his chair wasn’t polished by my ass? Bloody idiot could go hang himself. Or jump off a cliff or fall on his sword or whatever the hell it is gods do to commit suicide.

  Mum was none too pleased at the present I’d brought her this time, all these ducal warriors and their families. I got that evil eye look that says “we’re having a conversation in private later”. But in public she managed with her usual aplomb, finding housing for all of them, magically conjuring extra tables for the feast hall within minutes, all those little details to take care of.

  Apparently the extra room was because some of Sithgurd’s warriors had come back to collect their wives and children. They liked their new home so much they were moving there permanently. Good. That makes that noble fief nice and secure for me.