by Tony Bradman
‘Look at them,’ Egil murmured. ‘They won’t make much of a war-band.’
Finn’s heart sank – he could see what Egil meant. Many of the boys were small and skinny, and the men were all shapes and sizes. Quite a few had big bellies, or were stooped over from years of back-breaking farm work in the fields and sheepfolds. He knew some of them were still strong, and most knew how to use an axe to cut down a tree, or a spear on a hunting trip. But apart from the occasional brawl when they had drunk too much ale, none had any experience of fighting.
‘We don’t have to be a proper war-band,’ said Njal. ‘We won’t be fighting the sea-wolves in the open, will we? We just need to keep them out of the village.’
‘Quite right,’ said Kalf. ‘And we older men can manage that by ourselves. You young pups will probably get in our way, so it’s best if you leave it to us.’
Egil rolled his eyes, which made Kalf angry, and they started arguing. Njal tried to make peace between them, but it was Finn who finally made them stop.
‘That’s enough!’ he said. ‘No more arguing! We are all in this together!’
‘Is that so?’ said a voice behind him. ‘You seem to have left us girls out.’
Finn turned round and saw it was Gunnhild. She had come out of the hall with Freydis and Signy. The three of them stood facing him, their arms crossed.
‘Don’t be stupid, Gunnhild,’ he said. ‘You girls have no part to play in this.’
Gunnhild opened her mouth as if she wanted to say something else. But she thought better of it, glared at him instead, and stomped back into the hall, followed by her friends. Now it was Finn’s turn to roll his eyes, and the three boys laughed.
Then Finn glanced at the sky and frowned. The red sun was low in the far west, the undersides of the clouds over the sea glowing with fire from its dying rays. There was still much to do before night fell, when the sea-wolves might come.
Finn’s stomach clenched – what if they were already on their way?
CHAPTER FIVE
Out of the Darkness
It took a while to get things organised to Finn’s satisfaction. Njal had collected plenty of weapons, including some hunting bows, and he and Egil handed them out, something that caused bickering about who should have what. Then Finn divided everybody into two groups, one to man the walls by day, the other by night, although this led to more grumbling and lots of men wanting to swap for no good reason.
Some of the village’s women turned up as well, mothers who had come to reclaim their sons because they thought them too young to be involved, and wives who thought their husbands were too old. Several men and boys tried to resist, and Finn backed them up, saying he needed them all. But the women would have none of it, and dragged off men and boys alike. Finn soon realised he’d lost a dozen of his war-band.
At dusk, the flocks and herds were brought into the village animal pens as usual. The gates facing the forest were closed and sealed with a thick beam across the inside, and Finn ordered the night guards to take up position on the stockade. They climbed the ladders to the platform, but it was soon clear there weren’t enough of them to make sure they would be evenly spaced around the entire village.
‘So let’s not have two separate groups of guards, then,’ said Egil, shrugging. ‘We should just put everyone on the walls and keep them there the whole time.’
‘No, that way we would get too tired, especially if we have to stand watch for two or three days and nights,’ said Finn. ‘And remember, Solveig said the raiders who attacked Andari’s village came from the sea – they’re called sea-wolves, after all. I think we should put most of the guards on the stockade where it faces the Great Ocean. We’ll only need a few guards over on the forest side, just to be safe.’
Night was falling, blackness spreading swiftly across the sky. Finn, Egil and Njal climbed up to the platform above the gate that gave access to the quayside and the beach. Behind them the village lay hushed, as if all the houses seemed to be holding their breath. Yellow lamplight spilled from their doors, and curls of smoke from the evening cooking fires caught the silver glow of the rising half-moon. Torches stood at intervals around the stockade, their leaping red flames like splashes of blood against the dark. A dog barked, and a baby was crying.
‘We forgot about Ylva and Kjartan again,’ said Njal. ‘They’re still outside.’
Finn felt a pang of guilt. ‘There’s nothing we can do about it now,’ he said. ‘They should be safe where they are. Or we’ll just have to hope they will be, anyway.’
Egil and Njal went off round the stockade to check on the guards, leaving Finn by himself. He tried not to think about the two old people in the forest, and concentrated on what was in front of him. The sea gleamed beneath the light of the half-moon, with small waves whispering every so often on the soft sand of the beach and gently slapping against the timbers of the quayside. Finn leaned on the top of the stockade and stared into the distance, straining his eyes to search for the sail of a longship. But he could see nothing, just the sea merging into thick blackness where it met the sky.
There was no wind, yet it was cold, and Finn was glad Astrid had made him wear his warm winter cloak. He pulled it more tightly around him, and a fold snagged on the hilt of his sword, the one he had found in the hall’s storeroom. Now he found himself wondering if he would be able to use it should the sea-wolves attack. He peered over the stockade, which was almost the height of two men on this side of the village, and imagined a sea-wolf climbing up towards him. What would it be like to strike out with the sword, to feel it clanging on a helmet – or slicing into a man’s flesh?
Finn gripped the hilt and gritted his teeth. He wanted to be a Viking, didn’t he? So, he would do whatever it took to protect his village and his people. Anyway, he was sure proper fighting couldn’t be that hard. It certainly sounded easy in all the stories and songs he had heard, as men did what came naturally, even taking pleasure in killing their enemies. He imagined himself into his favourite tales of great heroes.
Then he realised he was shivering, and it wasn’t because of the cold.
* * *
It was the shouting that woke him. At first it was part of his dream, the voices of the warriors he was fighting in his sleep, but soon his eyes flickered open and he fell out of the dream world and back into the real one. Finn had been tired, and had rested his head on the top of the stockade, and he had no idea how much time had passed. Now he scanned the sea, his heart pounding so hard it seemed to have leaped into his throat. Yet he could see no longship at anchor – the noise was coming from elsewhere.
Suddenly Egil and Njal appeared beside him out of the darkness. ‘Something is happening at the forest gate, Finn!’ Egil said breathlessly. ‘What shall we do?’
Finn quickly pulled himself together and looked in that direction. Shadows were moving on the stockade, and several people seemed to be holding torches aloft. There was shouting, but it was impossible to tell what was being said.
‘You two, come with me!’ Finn said, scrambling down the nearest ladder. ‘Everyone else, stay in your positions. It could be a trick!’
He ran through the village, with Egil and Njal close behind. People appeared in doorways, their faces pale with fear, and some called out, but Finn didn’t answer. He came at last to the forest gate and looked up at the platform above it. The guards he had left there – Kalf, another older man called Ranulf, and Bjarni, a twelve-year-old boy – were each holding a torch, and Kalf was shouting at somebody outside.
‘Open up, I say!’ a rough voice replied from beyond the gate, and then there was pounding on it hard enough to rattle the timbers and shake the cross-beam.
‘What’s going on, Kalf?’ Finn shouted up at the old man. ‘Who is it?’
‘Who do you think it is?’ Kalf replied crossly, turning to glare at him.
Finn climbed up to the platform. He peered out, over the stockade, and saw that three armed men on horses were at the gate. One was close enou
gh to bang on it with his fist, the other two were a little further back. They wore chain mail over leather tunics and had swords in scabbards on their belts. The pair at the rear wore round iron helmets but the man at the gate was bareheaded, his long, corn-yellow hair shining in the torchlight. He glanced up and Finn saw he had a moustache darker than his hair. His cheeks were smooth-shaven, and one side of his face was tattooed with a strange design of swirling lines. He grinned, showing teeth that had been filed to sharp points.
‘Well then, what about you, boy?’ he said. ‘Are you going to let us in?’
Finn stared at him for a moment, not sure what to say. He hadn’t expected the sea-wolves to arrive by land, if that’s who they were. He hadn’t expected to do any talking with a sea-wolf, either. And why were there only three of them? Surely there should have been more, a longship’s crew. ‘No, we’re not,’ he said eventually.
The man sighed and shook his head. ‘That’s not very friendly, is it, lads?’ he said, and the pair behind him smiled. ‘Still, no matter. I’m coming in anyway.’
He raised his legs, stood on his saddle and jumped, grabbing the top of the stockade and swinging himself over. He landed with a thump on the platform, his boots crashing down on the planks, his chain mail jingling. Finn and the others recoiled, startled by his sudden appearance. Finn tried to draw his sword but it stayed stuck in the scabbard. Ranulf threw his torch to one side and picked up his spear, which he had left propped against the stockade. He stepped forward, paused for an instant – then half-heartedly lunged at the man.
The intruder simply laughed and whipped out his sword, its blade flashing. He batted the spear away, knocking it out of Ranulf’s hands, and immediately swung the sword back, chopping into Ranulf’s neck. Ranulf looked startled, then sank to his knees and fell forward, blood spurting from a gaping slash in his throat.
Kalf gasped, stumbled backwards, and fell headlong off the platform. The man followed him, jumping down and landing on his feet again. Egil and Njal were there, and Finn watched helplessly as the man advanced on them, his sword held casually at his side. Ranulf’s blood dripped off its edge and shone black in the torchlight. The man loomed over them, and it seemed as if Egil was about to raise his spear. Finn froze, waiting for his friend to be cut down just like Ranulf.
That didn’t happen. The man raised his sword, but shouted, ‘BOO!’ instead. Njal and Egil stumbled backwards like Kalf and fell over, then struggled to their feet and ran.
The man laughed more loudly, sheathed his sword, and turned to the gates. He lifted the cross-beam, throwing it aside as if it were a twig, and opened the gates wide. He brought in his horse, mounted, and trotted deeper into the village, glancing around, vanishing from sight for a moment down the main street before returning. He stopped below Finn on the platform and grinned up at him.
‘Nice little village you have here,’ he said. ‘We’ll be back.’
At last he kicked his horse forward and joined his companions outside the stockade. Finn watched them ride away, into the darkness from where they had come.
He felt as if his whole world had just collapsed around him.
CHAPTER SIX
Time to Die
A mass of villagers ran to the gates, mostly men and boys who had been on other parts of the stockade, but some women too. Bjarni was nowhere to be seen, and Finn remembered him running off. Kalf seemed to have survived, at least judging by the loud groans and curses coming from him. Finn went over to Ranulf, who lay in a pool of blood that was dripping through the walkway to the ground below.
‘Is he dead?’ said a trembling Njal, his voice hushed. Finn hadn’t noticed until then that his friends had returned and climbed up the ladder to stand beside him.
‘Of course he is,’ said Egil. ‘Nobody could survive a wound like that.’
One of Ranulf’s eyes was still open, and in the torchlight the skin of his face seemed as white as fresh snow. But his throat was a dark mess of blood. Finn stared, unable to tear his eyes away, until his stomach twisted and foul-tasting bile filled his mouth. He turned and threw up, leaning far out over the top of the stockade. Njal and Egil rushed to help him, but he pushed them away.
‘Don’t touch me,’ he snapped. ‘I’m fine.’ After a while he stood up straight and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. Then he took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
Suddenly, one of the women below them screamed, her voice cutting through the cold night air. ‘It’s Luta, Ranulf’s wife,’ said Njal, and they watched as the other women gathered round to hold her. But she refused to be comforted, and screamed even more loudly. Others began to arrive, among them Gunnhild’s friend Signy, who burst into tears as well. Finn recalled that Ranulf was her grandfather.
‘What shall we do, Finn?’ Njal said eventually. ‘You have to tell us.’
A chill wind came whispering down from the mountains, and the torch flames were blown sideways, flapping and flickering. Finn’s mind was in turmoil, his heart pounding in his chest. He wanted to say that he had no idea what they should do, that he wished this nightmare was over – and that he wished most of all that his father had never left him in charge. But he had, and Finn knew he would have to deal with it.
‘Close the gates,’ he said. ‘And bring Ranulf down for his wife.’
Finn looked out into the darkness, his eyes wet with tears.
* * *
In the morning Finn called another meeting. The villagers were scared and wanted to talk, but they went round in circles, asking the same questions and saying the same things over and over again. Solveig had recognised Kalf’s description of the man with the tattoo and yellow hair, so there was no doubt he and his companions were the same sea-wolves who had attacked Andari’s village. Somebody said they were probably a scouting party.
It seemed like a reasonable assumption. Solveig thought the horses could have been taken from her village, and Kalf said it was just the kind of thing that sea-wolves would do. The old man was unharmed from his fall, except for a few bruises. It certainly hadn’t affected his ability to talk – but Finn stopped listening to him after a while, his mind returning to the blood spurting from Ranulf’s throat, and the screaming of Ranulf’s wife Luta when she had seen that her husband was dead.
Finn was no stranger to death. He was a farmer’s son, so he had helped his father slaughter and butcher their animals, and he had wrung the necks of chickens and ducks. He had killed on the hunting trail, plunging his spear into rabbits flushed out of their warrens by dogs. He remembered the climax of a boar hunt last winter, when the beast turned at bay, killing two dogs before his father finished it off with his spear. Finn had even seen dead people before, those taken by age or illness.
But he had never seen a man killed with a sword. The most shocking thing had been the suddenness, the sheer speed of what had happened. Ranulf had been standing there, living and breathing, and then he had simply been cut down, his life’s blood gushing from his throat. Leaping over the stockade, the killing – it had all been so easy for the tattooed sea-wolf, something he had clearly done many times before. And at that moment Finn realised just how crazy it was to think that a band of old men and young boys could hold off a whole crew of such deadly killers.
‘Did you hear me, boy?’ Kalf was saying, his grumpy, droning voice finally breaking into Finn’s thoughts. ‘I told you we should have fled into the forest while we had the chance to get away. It’s still not too late, you know, even now.’
Finn looked at the old man on the other side of the hearth, and sighed. The same thought had occurred to him, but he had decided fleeing still wasn’t the answer. ‘Yes, I heard you, Kalf, and you’re wrong. The man who killed Ranulf said they would be back, and they might already be close by, just waiting for night to fall. So if we left, we might walk straight into them, and that would be the end of us. No, it’s better to stay here, inside the stockade. Then at least we have a chance to defend the village.’
‘Is that so?’ said a
woman. ‘You didn’t do very well last night, did you?’
There was a swell of murmuring and Finn felt his cheeks burning. ‘We will do better next time,’ he said. ‘They took us by surprise. That won’t happen again.’
The woman didn’t seem convinced, and Finn couldn’t blame her. The meeting continued for a while longer. Many of the villagers seemed reluctant to go back to their houses, feeling happier perhaps to stay huddled together. But it broke up at last.
Finn watched the villagers shuffle out. He had already got Egil and Njal to round up the men and boys he had lost to their wives and mothers. There would no longer be two groups of guards. They would have to keep the walls manned day and night, no matter how tired they were. Now Finn sent Egil and Njal to make sure everyone was in position and staying alert.
He had set himself a special task, deciding that he really should go and see Ylva and Kjartan and get them to stay in the village while the danger lasted. So he left by the forest gate, making sure it was closed after him, and headed up the path to the forest, nervously looking around, half-convinced a sea-wolf lurked behind every tree. Ylva’s hut was first, and Finn was relieved to see it was the same as ever, with puffs of grey rising from the roof’s smoke-hole and Ylva outside, tending to her herb garden.
She looked round and put down her basket as he approached. ‘The answer is no, Finn Ottarsson,’she said, fixing him with her gaze. He had never really noticed before how green her eyes were, nor how like the eyes of a younger woman.
