The Last Berserker

by Angus Donald

  Last night, Bjarki had learnt, over many horns of ale and a raucous feast in which a whole roasted ox had been consumed, how the Fyr Skola folk – sixteen people, including the arrivals – had come to be in Ash House.

  As Duke Theodoric had been pushed further and further back north by the ever-advancing Frankish tide, he’d sent a stream of desperate messages to the Groves imploring the Fyr Skola for help. After the drubbing they had received at Thursby in the autumn – a battle with unusually high casualties for the Groves, in which two famous Rekkar and nine Barda had lost their lives – the Mikelgothi had been reluctant to sacrifice yet more of her people. But the Mother of the Wolf Lodge, a cousin of Theodoric’s, had volunteered three of her Wolf Rekkar and a dozen of her Barda to support her Saxon kinsman. They had all died in a bloody rearguard action a dozen miles south of the Dane-Work, at Otterfeld, in Nordalbian territory, heroically holding up the enemy advance and allowing Duke Theodoric to get the bulk of his retreating Saxon forces back behind King Siegfried’s massive earthworks.

  On the eve of the fight at Otterfeld, Skymir the Mikelgothi had dreamt of a terrible disaster engulfing the Fyr Skola and, on waking, she sent immediately reinforcements north, a mixed force from all three Lodges, under the command of Ivar Knuttson, Father of the Boar Lodge. They had narrowly missed the bloody massacre at Otterfeld, arriving a day too late to help, but had managed to get themselves safely into the stronghold at Hellingar despite being constantly harassed by the Frankish foot patrols.

  ‘So who’s the top dog here?’ said Gunnar. ‘Siegfried or Theodoric?’

  ‘That remains unclear,’ said Valtyr. ‘Duke Theodoric has many more men – two thousand battle-hardened Saxon fighters under his command, while Siegfried has no more than five hundred shields. But the Dane-Work is Siegfried’s pride and joy, the achievement of his lifetime, and it is on his lands. In theory, Theodoric is Siegfried’s hearth guest. In reality you might say that – like Bjarki and Ivar – they co-operate with each other.’

  * * *

  The council of war was held, not as one might expect, in one of the longhouses in Hellingar Fortress, but in a draughty command post – not much more than a long cowshed – which had been constructed on the brow of the east rampart, and overlooked the countryside for miles around. As Bjarki toiled in full war-gear and heavy bear cloak up the man-made hill, one of the two enormous earthworks that he had seen the year before when travelling south with Valtyr, he was awed once again by the size of Siegfried’s achievement.

  He paused at the summit of the east rampart to catch his breath and admire the view. Leaning on the chest-high wooden fence at the top and looking south into Nordalbia, he could see a wasteland of trampled fields and broken hedges, territory crossed again and again by bodies of marching men. The small woods and copses that had once been a pleasant feature of the lands hereabouts had all been cut down to bare stumps for firewood by bivouacking soldiers. The landscape bore no resemblance at all to the rich, placid farmland he had walked through with Tor and Valtyr only a year ago.

  On the horizon, a mile or so away, he could see a great low bank of pale grey smoke and the dark line of the Frankish encampment under it. The wise word in the fortress had been that the Franks had fielded four thousand against them, which was already an impossible number – how would they feed such a multitude? What about water and firewood? Fodder for their animals? How would they prevent siege-fever running rampant through the lines? Yet, knowing Francia’s resources as he did, Bjarki had believed it.

  Now that he looked out at the great sweep of enemy tents, horse lines and carts moving back and forth, all toy-sized in the distance, the dull, brown earth diggings, the blocks of red-cloaked marching men and black-clad Scholares cavalry, he wondered if there might not be more than four thousand men assembled here. Five, perhaps? Or even six thousand men?

  There was no point being downhearted: the Dane-Work was strong; it had been designed for this purpose. The Fortress of Hellingar in the centre of the defensive line was a circular structure of high wooden walls, the logs reinforced with iron bands and double the usual thickness. It was devised to be held by just a few hundred warriors on the high perimeter walls.

  The fortress lay between the east and west ramparts like a gigantic walnut held between two massive index fingers. On the south side of the fortress was the channel, as daunting a defensive barrier as Bjarki had ever seen, which would halt the attackers before they even came close to either of the two massive ramparts or the thick round walls of Hellingar Fortress.

  The channel was twenty paces wide and filled almost to the lip of the bank with silty brown water. Now that the enormous task of digging it was done, this massive artificial river ran a full ten miles, in a long gentle curve from the fort of Hollinsted above the impassable Eider marshes in the west, all the way to the fortified port of Hedeby on the coast in the east.

  There were no bridges or fords anywhere along the channel’s length. The only way across was via the drawbridge, a massive vehicle, a dozen feet wide, made of wooden planks on eight iron-rimmed wheels. The machine had a twenty-five-yard-long bridge part that could be lifted into the vertical position by a system of ropes and pulleys. Accordingly, the enormous drawbridge could be wheeled to the northern edge of the channel and the bridge section dropped to the horizontal, so that it spanned the brown water, allowing men and horses to cross. Or, as was the case now, the bridge section could be lifted into the vertical position, making the whole contraption the shape of a right angle, and the drawbridge wheeled away from the water’s edge, back across twenty yards of flat turf and stationed out of reach of the enemy beside the huge double-gates of Hellingar.

  The channel was wide enough for two dragon-ships to pass each other in comfort and, without the drawbridge providing a convenient crossing point, it was a truly formidable obstacle for any attacking army. The enemy would have to swim their men across the deep water, perhaps in their heavy armour – a risky endeavour likely to lead to many drownings – or construct a suitable bridge of their own on the south bank under the onslaught of showers of crossbow bolts, arrows and javelins from the fortress defenders.

  Once the enemy had crossed the channel, if they could even manage this feat, they had a choice. Directly attack Hellingar – the Dane-Mark’s strongest fortress – under a barrage of deadly missiles from the west and east ramparts on either side, or attempt to overrun the ramparts, sending their men scrambling up the steep grassy slope that rose thirty feet above the surface of the earth, and then fighting on the summit at the stout wooden fence that ran all the way along the top of the ridge, from east to west, which would be packed with hundreds of ferocious Saxon and Danish warriors.

  The enemy could not go around the ramparts to the east, for at the port of Hedeby a few miles away Siegfried had massed a squadron of warships from his fleet, the most powerful in the North. In the west, the ramparts stretched as far as the marshy Eider River, which flowed into the sea.

  It was cleverly designed, Bjarki thought. Siegfried had done well.

  He glanced behind him to see where Tor had got to. Gunnar had been charged with looking after little Garm this morning and had remained in Ash House. But Tor was supposed to be up here. Bjarki saw she had stopped three-quarters of the way up the slope and was staring out, as he had, over the wheel-shape of the fortress, which was now swarming with fighting folk.

  Bjarki looked north of Hellingar, behind its long protective bulk, and saw that the sprawling village of grubby make-shift tents – the channel diggers’ sad lodgings, through which they had passed on their previous journey – had been swept away and replaced with rows of long wooden barracks for the influx of Saxon soldiers and log storehouses for their food and provisions. Latrines had been dug, and horse lines laid out. He could even see a small herd of penned sheep. It had all been meticulously planned. He could see the smoke of at least three forges and hear the tinking of iron on anvil as smiths worked to fashion weapons for the huge garrison.r />
  However, beyond that neat military encampment, the fields and heathland stretching north as far as the eye could see were filled with small bedraggled groups of people, mostly women and children, camping any old how on the ground, although some had made scrapes in earth banks or stick-walled huts, or crude, low turf-roofed shelters to keep the rain and sun off. These were the poor of Saxony, who had been driven from their homes by the advancing Red Cloaks; some burned out of their villages to make room for new settlements built around churches. There were many hundreds of them, homeless, hungry and owning no more than the rags they stood up in.

  He felt bad about his lavish breakfast, then, and the feast of the night before. But the orders were clear – food was for fighters, and that was that.

  Tor finally emerged, pink-faced and puffing, at the top of the hill, and immediately came over to Bjarki’s side.

  ‘I don’t believe we can hold them here, oaf,’ she said. ‘Not if they come in sufficiently large numbers. They can swamp us. There is too much frontage for us to cover – ten miles of it – and we simply don’t have enough shield-men. We’re spread too thin. I don’t see how we can beat them here.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘They will have trouble getting their men over the channel. And maybe with a bit of good luck—’

  ‘Unless the gods intervene, we’re heading for the Hall of the Slain.’

  ‘The word is that Theodoric sent messages to Svearland and Varmland and Vestfold and the rest of the Little Kingdoms some weeks ago begging for fighting men. They will answer the call, I’m sure of it. They’ll send us a slew of brave warriors in our hour of need, just you wait and see.’

  ‘If the message was sent weeks ago, why aren’t they here? They’re not coming, oaf. We’re on our own – and we’re going to be butchered like pigs.’

  Bjarki frowned. Surely Tor was wrong. Siegfried had spent a lifetime, and the gods knew how much of his silver, in creating this extraordinary defence. It would hold. It must hold now it was to be put to the ultimate test.

  * * *

  ‘I insist, my lords,’ said Jarl Snorri Hare-Lip, his words coming with a light rain of spittle through his cloven upper lip, ‘that the bulk of the Saxon men are assigned to me in the fortress. I need at least fifteen hundred men. It is clear where the Frankish hammer blow will fall, on Hellingar itself—’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Duke Theodoric. ‘I have been fighting these people for years now, and if I have learnt anything in that time it is that Francia teaches its soldiers always to take the simplest option in warfare. In this case, they will come at us straight up the ramparts. East or west, don’t know which, but we must keep the bulk of our strength on both summits.’

  ‘My lords, please,’ said King Siegfried, a tall and very slender man. ‘We cannot know exactly what is in the enemy’s mind. We must try to be prepared for all eventualities. I have heard several rumours to the effect that Karolus himself is here, which may well affect their—’

  ‘He is here,’ said Valtyr. ‘My friends and I saw him with our own eyes on the journey here. And Gerold, Duke of Swabia, his second-in-command, and the general of his armies, and Bishop Livinus, too. This Christian bishop is the Frankish king’s chaplain, chancellor and the so-called Count of Westphalia. He seems to be in charge of the administration of all Francia, so I’ve been told.’

  ‘What do you say, young fellow?’ Siegfried was looking at Bjarki, who was next to Valtyr at the long table in the centre of the command post.

  ‘I understand you have met Karolus in person, several times, while you were his captive in Aachen. What do you think the Frankish king has in mind?’

  Bjarki was struck stupid. This great man before him was king of the Dane-Mark. And he had just sought out Bjarki’s opinion.

  ‘Ah, um, my lord…’ he said. ‘Ah, well, now, you see…’

  ‘Spit it out, boy, you’re the only one of us who knows him well,’ said Valtyr. ‘What’ll he do? How will he come at us? What kind of man is he?’

  ‘He’s a subtle man,’ Bjarki managed at last. He wanted to blurt out: ‘He tricked me into telling all I knew about the Groves, into betraying my friends to their deaths…’ but decided against it at the very last moment.

  ‘He is a thinker, a planner. Not reckless. Not impulsive. He’s actually quite a humble man, plain in his dress, relatively simple in his tastes—’

  ‘Not so humble, I think,’ said Duke Theodoric, slapping a pudgy hand down on the tabletop. ‘He didn’t show a great deal of humility when he barged into my lands and claimed them as his own, or when he drove out or slaughtered my people when they stood in his way. A humble man, pah! He’s a tyrant, a blood-drunk monster, an overweening bully…’

  Bjarki waited politely until the duke had finished his angry tirade. He was grateful for it, in truth. It gave him time to marshal his own thoughts.

  ‘The Frankish king will have a plan,’ Bjarki said. ‘Something clever. He cannot have been ignorant of the Dane-Work all these months. He has more than enough spies and traitors in his pay. So he must know what has been built here. And he will not just throw his Red Cloaks at our defences in huge numbers for us to slaughter. Not because he is tender-hearted about the lives of his men. He is not. He will do it because he enjoys deception. He likes to play games; he loves pretending to do one thing and then doing something different. He wants to be seen as a cunning man. He is vain in that way.’

  ‘A feint, perhaps?’ said Siegfried. ‘He’ll make us think he is coming with all his strength from one direction and, in fact, come in from another.’

  ‘That sounds about right,’ said Bjarki.

  ‘But you don’t know what he plans to do,’ sprayed Jarl Snorri, ‘I’ll wager nobody does except, perhaps, this Livinus character. Until our scouts report in, the spies and what-have-you, we are quite blind. We don’t really know anything. And, if nobody can give us an accurate idea of Karolus’s intentions…’ The jarl wiped his spit-wet lips and glared at Bjarki. ‘I see no value at all in speculating on where he might – or might not – assail us.’

  ‘You make a good point, Jarl Snorri,’ said Theodoric. ‘We must wait for all our spies to report back. We have sent enough of them out there.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Siegfried. ‘It is true that we may not very usefully speculate; but we can make our dispositions intelligently. Fortunately, I designed this fortification to be supremely flexible in defence. I propose…’

  Bjarki listened hard as Siegfried outlined his troop placements, naming this jarl and that one, this captain or another, all men he did not know until they acknowledged their orders with a nod from their position at the table. Siegfried informed each leader where they and their men should take up their positions on the east or west rampart or in the fortress itself. The Master of Hellingar then complained again that he had far too few troops to successfully defend his fortress and Siegfried allocated him another five hundred, after some wrangling with Duke Theodoric, whose men they were.

  Bjarki gazed over the heads of two dozen or so people seated at the table and out of the open shutters that granted a panorama of the battlefield. He wondered what Karolus was doing now – was he over there, a mile or two away, planning out his attack with Duke Gerold and Bishop Livinus? Discussing who should command which bodies of troops? It seemed likely.

  ‘And am I right in thinking that you, Bjarki Bloodhand, claim to be a Rekkr?’ King Siegfried’s question took him completely by surprise.

  ‘I, um, I have not been formally acclaimed a Rekkr by the authorities of the Fyr Skola,’ said Bjarki. ‘Since it is now destroyed, it seems unlik—’

  ‘He is a Rekkr – I can attest to it,’ said Valtyr.

  ‘Has he done his Voyaging? Has he survived the Fyr Pit?’ This question came from a frowning Duke Theodoric. ‘There have been worrying tales circulating recently about some Fyr Skola fighters masquerading as Rekkar.’

  And far, far too late, Bjarki noticed that the duke, a fat, grizzled,
red-faced old fellow, who had seen more than sixty summers, had a faint mark between his bushy grey brows. It was a long thin triangle – Boar Lodge.

  Valtyr answered. ‘He has been through the Fyr Pit, and emerged with great honour – saving the life of one of his comrades from the flames. In fact, he rescued that red-headed shield-maiden there, who sits beside him.’

  The old man indicated Tor, who smiled sweetly and made a half-bow to the assembled company. ‘He has also Voyaged in the First Forest, and has found his gandr, who entered his heart, and who can be summoned at need. He is Rekkr, I swear to you. By my oath, and on my honour, he is a Rekkr.’

  ‘Good enough for me,’ said Theodoric, who nodded and smiled warmly at Bjarki for the first time since they had sat down at the long table.

  ‘In which case, would you be willing to accept another, less prestigious honour?’ said King Siegfried. ‘Will you accept the position of commander and captain, under my authority, of the Fyr Skola contingent in the battle to come?’

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  The paths of peace and war

  ‘Keep still or I will never get it straight,’ said Tor. She grabbed a hank of Bjarki’s blond hair, which had grown back since the Fyr Pit six months ago and was now long enough to fall into his eyes. She sliced through the greasy strands with one motion of her razor-keen seax.

  He was seated comfortably on a stool at the summit of the west rampart, with his back against the thick wooden fence, looking out over the ruin of north Saxony. It was the first time he had been able to relax in twenty-four hours. The sun was shining and the sky was entirely clear of clouds. It looked as if it might well turn out to be a beautiful spring day.

  If he had stood up and walked a few paces to his left, he could have looked down over the ring of Hellingar Fortress. If he had really wanted to, he could have hawked and spat a thick gob of phlegm that would have spattered down on to the log walls of the stronghold between the ramparts.