Norseman Chief

by Born, Jason

  “Good! Now tell me, how will we win in battle this day?”

  “He’ll know! How should I?”

  “You are right, Father. You won’t know, but he will know. I just hope you listen. Here is what I want you to do.” And I laid out my plan for victory to the two men.

  . . .

  Moments later a sweat-bathed runner came back to me reporting that the twenty Pohomoosh would soon be upon us. There was no sign of our scouts from the night before. I counted them as lost. Their women would wail and our village would mourn.

  “Good. We attack them. You,” I said to the runner who panted heavily with his hands resting on his knees, “Run to the other picquets and bring them here for battle. We may need all of them. And you,” I shouted to Torleik over my shoulder, “Do what I say!”

  The priest nodded from his lonely position on the beach. His face was filled with a certain determination that made me proud to know the man. He knelt in the sand just at the intersection of the water and land so that his robes sopped up the moisture. The water wicked up the old tattered fabric making it appear darker near the bottom. As my warriors and I pushed into the brush, I heard him begin his prayers, loudly, in Latin for that was the language of God, I supposed.

  By now all the men I led knew that we may find ourselves in a trap. Or they knew that their chief had become worrisome and addled like a man his age often does. Despite those thoughts swirling in their minds, my brave warriors stood ready to slaughter the dirty Pohomoosh. Their grim faces told me this fact. Their clenched fists, wrapped tightly around handles of clubs, axes, and spears told me this. My experience with them in these woods against enemies bent on satisfying their thirst for our blood told me this. Win or lose, they would fight for their chief and for their village.

  I gave a terrible war cry which they answered in kind with weapons raised. I led them through the forest over a rise in the direction of the Mi’kmaq dung. Rowtag the Younger and I were the first to see the Mi’kmaq war leaders jerking at two more of our scouts’ hair. They pulled savagely on it while slicing through hair, skin, and skull to claim their prize. The Mi’kmaq finished retrieving the scalps without showing any concern that I led a force at least twice their size in howling, running madness directly toward their position. One of them took his bloodied knife and wiped his hand along the flat body of the stone blade before visibly licking the blood from his hand. He did this to show us he had no fear. The warrior showed that he intended to devour us as he had our fallen scouts.

  Behind me, from the beach I swore I began to hear more commotion as the Mi’kmaq who lay in hiding would drive their canoes across the channel to our rear. They would be shouting and screaming. Soon they would be past Torleik, complete with is dripping scalp tied to someone’s belt. They would fall upon our backs, crushing us between this smaller force of Pohomoosh and whatever numbers they had.

  I did not dwell on those thoughts. Had I been a better chief and realized earlier that I was deceived, had I been more perceptive and known that Pajack and perhaps Chansomps made peace with the Mi’kmaq in exchange for some promise, I would have had time to plan. I was not a better chief and I was not perceptive. But I was the jarl of Vinland, by God, and I led these men into battle, and I would see many of the Pohomoosh bastards fall before me. And if I lived, I would see that Pajack and those with him met a tortuous death.

  The Pohomoosh warrior who had swallowed his victim’s blood moments earlier was the first to die. Rowtag had thrown his spear with devastating force. His aim was low, the spear came down into the man’s abdomen, reappearing with entrails and blood where the man’s shit would exit. In fact, the man did shit himself then as the two sides crashed together.

  I swung my massive sword downward and across using my left hand which I had continued strengthening through rigorous training. I killed the first man easily as my blade with the symbols of the One God and Christ emblazoned along the blood gutter snapped his war axe handle in two. The sharp edge of the sword entered his face at his right temple, splaying open a gash through his eye, bones, and mouth until it sprung free at his neck.

  Our aggressive attack down the hill was having a brilliant effect and we pushed through their ranks. Rowtag had retrieved his spear or someone else’s, I saw. Like the practiced killing spirit he was, he used every bit of the device as a weapon. The stone tip, of course was thrust into the belly of one Pohomoosh warrior. The butt of the spear cracked a second Pohomoosh beast in the chest with two rapid bursts so that I had an opening for my sword to drive into the soon-to-be-dead man’s lung. We killed them. We harvested them like my Norseman father had brought in the barley. They fell before us and yet they did not flee, further confirming that they expected their brethren to join their assault at any moment.

  Soon we were tripping over one another as only eight Pohomoosh were left standing and we numbered at least forty, having lost only a handful of men. One of the youngest Mi’kmaq warriors, his face almost surprised, sent a rock from a sling toward us. Just as I stepped on the back of a moaning, fallen enemy, the stone met my eyebrow and eyeball with a dull splat. I wobbled into one of my young men who immediately set me upright and threw his spear into the young Pohomoosh man’s shoulder. I tried to blink away the pain, but the attempt only made the pain worse. I felt the eye with my palm and knew that it was already closing up, swollen and misshapen. My hand came away from the wound covered in thin, flowing blood. I determined I would live so continued to lead my people. I shouted to Rowtag to continue the fight, but if the cowards fled, not to pursue. I gathered ten men by name and strode off toward the beach to blunt the assault which should have already hit us by now.

  My men formed a fan around me as we moved. I walked slowly to encourage caution, but also because I was winded, gasping for breath in my old age. The eye was crusting over quickly with the watery contents still oozing into my beard, mixing with sweat. I was not eager to discover what may await us at the beach. You know I did not have any particular fear of death. My long-dead, gambling friend Cnute would certainly have told me the odds were in death’s favor since I willingly presented my body to him in battle so often. I did fear dying as an old man, however. An old man who was too exhausted to pick up his own blade to defend himself was no way for a jarl to die.

  We walked through our camp from the night before, heads darting. I saw nothing to indicate that the Pohomoosh had come through or waited for us. We moved down the slope toward the sand. Very audibly I heard Torleik’s voice as clear and plain as ever praying with immense fervor. He shouted. He called. His voice boomed many prayers taken directly from the words of the One God. Torleik screamed spontaneous prayers I had never before heard. His voice carried more strength and confidence that I had heard in it since he came to living among us. The priest alternated his prayers between languages now. I had told him I wanted only Latin used, but now he rumbled prayers to the God or against the Pohomoosh in Norse or even skraeling languages.

  The warriors with me looked nervously at each other and then to me. The Pohomoosh blood splattered across their tattoos showed me they were ready despite their current confusion. I nodded as if this was all part of my plan, for in a way it was, which settled them as we cautiously peered through the brush to the beach. My driftwood log was there. Torleik was still on his knees exactly where I had left him, his arms were raised, his back to us. The water was still in the channel, but now a lone canoe floated in its center. It bobbed peacefully in the water. A Mi’kmaq who appeared to be dead lay limp over the gunwale with one hand dangling in the quiet water, rivulets of blood spilling down, around his arm. Three other bodies floated in the water nearby. Each of them lay face-down bobbing like the boat, their feet and hands extending below the surface, perhaps even scraping along the shallow channel’s floor. Pools of blood surrounded each man, growing wider and wider with every passing heartbeat.

  I stepped onto the beach with my men, allowing my one eye to get a clearer view. Five bodies lay all around Torleik; blo
od covered his robes and the sand beneath each dead warrior. One of the slain men sat nearly upright, his back against the priest’s back, his chin slumped to his chest. Another Pohomoosh body laid only two ells from where I stood, his head cracked open by a thick, heavy arrow painted in solid red with alternating stripes wrapping around the shaft from the head to the fletching. My warriors began to smile and I did too, for it seemed we had won two battles while fighting only one. Torleik continued his thunderous oration.

  Then I jerked my eye to the arrow. I knew that arrow. I mean I knew who carried those arrows. I knew not only what tribe the warrior from which the warrior hailed, I knew without a doubt exactly who launched the arrow that pierced that Mi’kmaq’s skull.

  I have endured much physical pain in my life. If you read my words, you’ve read about some of them. From waters so frigid I felt as if I would be better to cut my hands from my arms, to a spear buried deep into my thigh, to bloodied noses, to a ringing head, to all sorts of injuries – I have survived them all and the bastards who’ve inflicted them upon me. At that moment, when I knew who had saved us from the second attack, a thumping, burning, searing pain forced me to cry out in a woman-like gasp. I crumpled to all fours between my surprised men. I vomited everything I had consumed in the past day and then when I had nothing left I vomited the heaving air. Torleik halted his prayers and soon I heard footfalls pounding toward me. The world spun. My body, my face, my injured eye splashed into my own vomit beaded up in the sand and there I slept or died or was resurrected.

  CHAPTER 14

  I had become a god. For a time I convinced myself of this, anyway. I had become a god, immortal in battle. I was capable of being injured, but could not be killed. My body would continue to age and deteriorate, but death would not find me, at least not on the field of battle. No, I convinced myself for a short time that I was immortal.

  “Oh Lord what a glorious day that was. You commanded I show true faith and I did. Look what became of the day!” It was now the heart of winter, many weeks after our lopsided victory over the Pohomoosh. It was the first time following that day when I recalled anything – any words, any images, anything. Torleik sat cross-legged in my mamateek next to a roaring fire. I was told I demanded more and more warmth in the days leading up to the priest’s visit, but if so I do not remember it.

  With a poultice of some type covering my injured eye, I watched the priest with the other single, tired orb. My body felt spent, exhausted, but I listened intently to his words, hoping he or someone else would tell me all that happened while I was dead. “Tell me again,” I croaked with a voice that sounded more like the creaking of taut rope straining under pressure on a ship pounding the waves than the resonating boom it had once been, “What happened. Why did I sleep for so long?”

  I was in no mood for his answer of, “He’ll know!” and so I barked at Torleik as he started to form the words. He would not be put off, however, and the priest narrowed his eyes, now saying, “He’ll know” in a low tone. But he was jovial that day and returned quickly to truly answering my question. “We thought you would die so you were dragged back to the village. At first Hassun cared for you, but you continued to get worse. Then when the rest of our warriors returned triumphant, Achak and I were put in charge of your recovery.”

  “But neither of you know anything about healing men,” I huffed. “Who told you to take over?”

  “He’ll know! Lord, as they say across the sea to one of your station, I’d say we’ve proven that we know more than a little about healing. You’re talking with me now and I’d say you died at least three separate times since the battle.” He stopped there admiring his own wit at proving me wrong. “Oh, Alsoomse.”

  “Alsoomse what?” I asked.

  “He’ll know!” Imagine how frustrating he was in live conversation and not just the re-telling! Someday, I vowed, I would cease using any questions with the man. “It was Alsoomse who directed us to see you recovered.”

  “Why? Forget that I just asked you a question. Just begin telling me all that happened starting from when your knees hit the sand across from Aoutjaduch until right now.”

  He looked at me, silent. It was as if he were confused by the lack of something for which he waited. I grew impatient. “What is it, you old man?”

  Then the flood gates opened, “He’ll know!” and Torleik started telling the tale.

  “Oh, Chief Halldorr! The whole thing is miraculous. That’s what I am telling you. When my knees sunk into the cool sand, I was so frightened at what might be across that channel peering at me from the island. But I was resolved, first from your direction and confidence, but then from the One God! You know he even says that in his word?” The old man was so happy telling the tale I started enjoying it as if he told of Odin, the one-eyed, poet, warrior god around a bursting hearth at Yule. I forgot it was about me. “The prophet Isaiah said, ‘Confirma manus debiles!’ and if that weren’t enough, he concludes by saying, ‘Stabiliendae genua quae fatisco!’ Let me tell you when the prophet’s words came to me like that as my old feeble hands quivered and my bent knees ached down in the cool sand – that was when I knew we would be victorious!”

  “You and your warriors walked away to begin the slaughter of the Pohomoosh and I followed your instructions by shouting the prayers of the Lord across the waters in the universal Latin tongue. I felt strong then. I think that I even saw the water ripple away from me with each word. I was so certain at that moment that we could not be defeated. Moments passed and I prayed while staring across the channel. Behind me you howled the start of battle and I heard screams and crashes. Then the underbrush across the water came alive, rattling, shaking as the forest coughed up scores upon scores of Mi’kmaq. They carried canoes, leaping into them just as the crafts hit the water’s surface.”

  “Scores of them? Where did they all go?”

  “He’ll know! In time, Chief Halldorr. I will tell you in time.” Torleik licked the teeth he had left as if preparing for a long yarn. “I am ashamed to tell you this part, but my faith from just a moment earlier vanished when I saw them all in their paint, brandishing all manners of weapons that would easily cut the scalp from my head. So I closed my eyes, tight. The One God knows I still prayed but I admit that the volume of my voice may have faltered. And I tell you this part because you are jarl. But chief, please allow me the dignity to tell the tale to others as I see fit. While you slept I have been known to embellish some details when talking with the younger women.”

  I chuckled at his pride, a pride all men shared. “You may have your ‘embellishment.’”

  “Good, good. Thank you. Now where was I? Oh, yes, my eyes were closed and I heard them fast approaching. I now murmured my prayer and my bladder let loose.” The priest looked nervous again and opened his mouth to speak. I interrupted.

  “I’ll not say anything to anyone, especially the young women. Now continue.”

  “Good. Thank you. I heard them paddling. They didn’t shout as they probably wanted to surprise you from behind. Over the splashing and paddling I heard a distinct, very distinct, loud thump. I have heard it when standing with your men as they hunt. I had heard it growing up in Norway when my father took me to take down a reindeer. It was an arrow cracking into flesh for sure!”

  “At first, I worried that it was my own flesh and I was so nervous I just didn’t feel the pain. But when the second thump rang out, I mustered the courage to peek a single eye open. The Mi’kmaq still came, but the lead canoe floated aimlessly with a dead man in it and another floating nearby. That is when the Lord began striking them down in earnest. Thump! Thump! Thump!” the priest shouted, striking his fist against the earth to mimic the sound of his words.

  “Mi’kmaq men were sent reeling from their canoes, blood splattered over their friends. Halldorr, I tell you, arrows came from the sky. God sent each of them. Not a single one missed its mark. None of them missed! As you can imagine, I gained confidence right there. Now I wasn’t so sure we were gu
aranteed victory as much as victory or defeat didn’t matter because God, the One God was for us! I opened both eyes and prayed like a man half my age. I shouted at the bastards in Norse at first because it was just so natural. Then I switched to their tongue, because I wanted them to know for certain that I called upon the glory of the One God to bring about their demise.”

  “When they began to understand what I said, and as the arrows from heaven slapped into their chests, the Mi’kmaq checked their paddling. Suddenly they weren’t so eager to attack and be struck down. They argued, but I don’t know what they said because I prayed so loudly that more arrows would kill them. And they did!” He laughed with excitement.

  “Two canoes filled with men decided that they should continue the attack – probably in the name of their Great Spirit or in the name of that infected goat teat, Luntook, God rest his soul, and resumed paddling.”

  “Wait a moment. Luntook is dead?”

  “Oh, he’ll know!” the priest chided me. “In time, chief, in time. You asked for the tale, now sit still. You remind me of a baby standing on wobbling legs whose shit-filled cloth makes him fidget.” Hurit came in to the mamateek then. The woman smiled silently at me, having spoken to me for a short while that morning. I loved that woman and was happy when she came to sit next to me as Torleik continued. I was surprised at just how much her presence warmed me. Hurit placed some buckskin article in her lap that required mending so that her hands were kept busy just as my Norse sisters would have done under the same circumstances.

  “Those two canoes struck the sand and men piled over the sides. Each of them raised their weapon to me, but I had no fear at that point. I even straightened my back to meet the blow cleanly and with honor. But look at me now! I was not even touched. Each of those who intended to kill me, were themselves cut down with the Lord’s arrows. I looked straight ahead at the canoes in the water while hearing the thud of death kill the Mi’kmaq around me. Then two of them, probably the bravest two of all the Mi’kmaq warriors decided that they must keep the attack moving. They decided to by-pass me and run toward the forest behind me. The first one must have only made two steps before I heard him grunt from an arrow strike. He toppled backward against me, but I ignored the blow and kept on praying. Two of his companions stood in front of me at the water’s edge. They stared in wild-eyed amazement. I heard the footsteps of the second man who ran past me as they moved away, up toward the forest. In the Mi’kmaq tongue, I asked the One God to send him to the earth from whence he came and was so pleased when I heard the crack of bone and skidding of his lifeless form into the sand.”