by Robert Jones
The old man looked wearily over her shoulder and she trailed his gaze and saw the breaking of Harald’s men as they fled back to the hall.
“It’s enough,” he said and he turned to the two younger guards. “Boys, come with us.”
His name was Folke, that was all he told her as they made their way down the street, keeping to the moonlit shadows beside the buildings. Twice Isolde stopped them, holding her breath to hear any sound, but it was dead quiet. The din of battle was well behind them now, and out here it seemed as though only the ghosts of war were with them.
“Let’s go-”
“Shh…” Isolde silenced him.
She strained her ears and could hear it, the sobbing of a woman somewhere in the back alleys. The old man growled as he heard the whimpering for himself and he strode out in front and charged through the side-alley. Isolde was on his heels when she saw the Skalloway raiders tormenting the young woman. She lunged forward with the three guards and struck her blade down on one raider, and near split him in two as another shouldered his way into her and forced her back into the wall. Her sword went flying, and Isolde clawed out with her fingers like a wild cat in the night, tearing at whatever she could grab. She felt her hand rip into his face and she heard the man’s howls as he threw himself back and clutched at his eyes. Folke finished him off, but the woman was gone by the time the fight was over.
Folke spat on the ground and wiped his blade on the shirt of one of the fallen before they slipped back to the main street. They moved east with the same silence but met no one else. Even the eastern gate had been deserted and they moved up the stone stairs like shadows until the city sprawled out below them.
Flames and chaos stretched out in every pocket of Harkham. Isolde looked at the northern walls and saw the soldiers streaming in through the gates and over the walls themselves. Far over to the west, she could make out the formations of men holding back the tide of horror. It must have been Halvar, he had seen this coming, he had done well.
“There are no elves,” Folke said and one of the boys sneered.
Isolde looked over the wall to the empty fields before her and her heart sank.
“How long can we do this?” she asked under her breath.
“Until it’s done,” Folke answered quietly.
“Look!” one of the lads squeaked, pointing a hand to the Jarl’s hall.
Isolde stared at the scene. She could see Harald and the last of Harkham’s guard holding back a sea of soldiers on the steps of the hall. They were desperate, it was the last stand with nowhere else to run to. She shook her head and glancing back into the city looking for anything that might help break the tide of battle. She grabbed Folke’s sleeve and tugged him to look at what she was seeing.
“Is that…”
“Hrothgar!” he finished her sentence.
The High-King himself had entered the chaos. He was far away, but there was no doubt who they were looking at and she instantly recognized the old man’s white beard. A cohort of his finest warriors trailed behind him in thick ranks as they stormed down the eastern road. There was nothing between her and him, she could feel his approach, she could feel the rising rage mixing with the flood of fear in her stomach.
“Open the gate!” she ordered the boys, and they moved as though entranced by the scene of destruction all around them.
She heard the oak doors creak open and looked at the advancing Hrothgar.
“We have to go,” she said, never taking her eyes off the High-King. “We have to fall back.”
***
The fighting at the hall was savage. The enemy was relentless and Harald gasped for breath between swings with his axe. The great weapon was quickly becoming a burden, but his fists gripped the wooden shaft so tightly that his knuckles glowed white. The soldiers around him panted like dogs as they fought back the raiders. They were down to only a handful of men with only themselves between the raiders and the women and children behind them in the hall. Harald and his men fought like such rabid beasts that the invaders hung back below, daring not to push forward in fear of their deadly blows.
“Where is everybody?” Harald gasped as he wiped sweat from his eyes with the back of his hand.
Another raider pelted up the stairs at them and Harald sent him flying back without his head. The killing had become meaningless, the blood was nothing, and all fear had long been washed away from exhaustion.
“Shieldwall!” a man cried out, but there were barely enough of them to make a stand as it was.
Harald hushed the order as a familiar face stepped up before him. The long blonde locks of Erik the Betrayer. He snickered at Harald and stepped up to the first stone stair alone with only his two little axes in each hand. He was clean still, unbloodied by the battle and stood as though that were an achievement to be proud of.
“You’ve got no more fight in you,” he laughed. “Put down your arms and we will show you mercy.”
Harald looked at the boy and felt nothing, he barely even acknowledged the traitor for who he was. Instead, Harald just stood there atop the steps, axe in hand, head lowered from exhaustion, but always watching the mocking little man.
“See,” Erik said turning back to the invaders. “The city-”
Erik’s sentence was cut short. Harald had dived the steps like a wolf in the night, axe raised high above his head, and as he came down he cleaved Erik from the scalp down to his collar. Everyone watched in horrified silence as Harald wrenched the blade away and turn on the stunned northerners. He growled like a beast before he shrugged back up to the top of the stairs.
“We will hold!” he howled and his soldiers roared with him.
The enemy looked at them, and for the first time, Harald saw fear in the eyes of the northern folk. The entire horde of them held back below the steps, but Harald felt nothing, he just waited for the next fool that would rush the hall.
***
The flaming meteorites arched slowly through the sky, great stones crashed into buildings and a new terror was born as clouds of flaming arrows filled the air to alight new fires deeper into the city. Isolde ran with Folke and the boys back toward the Jarl’s hall, terror in her heart as she heard the fresh screams of the innocent as they were burned out from their hiding places. The once empty street came alive with the townsfolk as they streamed out from the eastern quarter, trying to push their way south to get out of harm's way.
People pushed in from everywhere and she cried out to them, “run south! Run south!” but they neither heard nor needed her advice. The entire northern part of the city was gone, the flames brought brilliant light to the night and the terrifying crash of drums and the cries of orders filled the streets and lanes.
She spurned Folke on and realized the boys had fled with the people, too afraid to face what was coming. A hailstorm of burning arrows fell atop of them, whipping and zipping out of the sky to rip the fleeing people apart and pin them to the streets. Isolde grabbed Folke and tore him into one of the last building not yet alight. A room of gasps welcomed them and the eyes of frightened men stood in the shadows wearing the assortment of colours form all the clans. She looked at them and they looked to Folke.
“We can make our stand,” he said. “If we die here then we will have fought for something worth dying for!”
Isolde looked at the soldiers with their eyes of terror, and she wondered how many of them had left their families to come here. How many of them were sons or brothers? She shook her head and looked back at Folke.
“Take them to the hall. Hold there, help Harald. And if help does not come, get them out.”
The ageing man looked at her with stern eyes and a furrowed brow.
“What are you going to?”
“I’m going to fulfil my destiny.”
As she said the words, the rafters in the building’s ceiling exploded in a storm of a thousand splinters as a great boulder came crashing in and then back out through the front door to skid across the cobbled road outside.
>
“Go, now!” she screamed, but Folke stood his ground and looked her in the eye.
“What are you going to do?” he repeated, and this time she met his gaze full on.
“I am going to kill the king,” there was no doubt in her voice.
Folke’s eyes lit up when she said the words and he put a hand on her shoulder as he bore his eyes into her.
“May Throndir guide you, Isolde Astridsdottir. I will see you soon!”
He looked at the men and with a barked order spurned them back into the fight and they slipped out from the door leaving Isolde in the silence of the night with only her thoughts and the endless screams and drumming to keep her company.
She crawled into the shadows of the room and collapsed into the rubble. As soon as she was alone, the strength seemed to have just slipped away from her and she remembered her father. She could still see his eyes looking at her for the last time, she could see them clear as day, they sparkled, she thought. Tears slipped down her cheek and she buried her eyes into the crook of her elbow, enraged at the weakness. Not now… she kept telling herself, but she had no choice in the matter. The night had caught up with her, every bloody moment, every death. She cursed Hrothgar between her sobs, she hissed aloud and cursed him again in a shrill cry into the sky. But when only the silence answered her she wiped away the tears and stilled her resolve.
I wish I was with Ama…
And as though a prayer was heard, she could hear the old crone’s voice in her ear, as clear as if the seer was right in front of her.
“Get up…” Ama rebuked her. “Get up and do something. You are stronger than this Isolde. You killed a Devil for goodness sake… what’s a man to you?”
Isolde hobbled to her feet, her mouth formed the words, but she only spoke under her breath.
“What do I do, Ama? The city is lost.”
“You don’t die here, Isolde. I showed you that, remember? So kill him, and if things get hard, play on his pride. All men have pride, but King’s most of all. Challenge him and cut him down!”
Isolde’s ears pricked up as she heard the not to distant sound of marching feet.
“How?” she asked the empty room, but Ama was gone.
The crashing of iron hobbed boots on cobbled stones and the rough northern barks that made up orders filled the night. And then she heard one voice that she would never forget. The strong and controlled command that shuddered her to her core.
“Make sure they are all dead…” Hrothgar commanded from outside the building.
CHAPTER VII
Hrothgar’s guard slaughtered the innocent with silent efficiency, they looked like devils in their jet black armour and blood red cloaks. Each armed with wicked broadswords that they plunged into the throats and hearts of the pleading townsfolk. These were the ones wounded with arrows, doing their best to claw themselves away from the danger. But it was no use, Isolde watched it all from the shadows behind the window, the women and children, the men and soldiers. Any who were too weak to hide or had not the wit to play dead were put to the sword. And behind it all was Hrothgar, Isolde watched him in rage, a pure hate, something she had never felt, but it was a disgust that took her and held her eyes in fury.
He was broader then she remembered, his white beard tumbled down the black armour. He was bold enough to wear no helmet and instead showed his faded blue ravens tattooed across his scalp. He turned his head and looked right at her, but the shadows were thick and she smiled wickedly when she saw the grisly remains of what was left of his eye. There was no scar, just the thin skin of eyelid limply sitting over the void of his socket. The other eye, brilliantly green, looked into the shadows passively before he turned his head and pointed at a woman begging for mercy.
“This one,” he ordered and a guardsman put his sword through her neck.
Isolde felt the blade go in as though it was her own soft throat that had been pierced. She couldn’t control it anymore, she couldn’t take it. She didn’t even register her hand drawing her sword, but she was more than lucid as she stormed out the collapsed front of the building. The guardsmen never even noticed as she ran her blade through him. He dropped to the ground with a crunch of armour as Hrothgar saw the threat.
“Kill her!” he barked and ripped his own sword from his belt.
The first guard to meet her went down as she sliced across the slit of unarmored neck showing beneath his helmet. Her eyes narrowed on Hrothgar until all else seemed a blurred background of unimportance. The High-King’s shock was painted across his face as Isolde lunged to strike him down, but all she felt was the crunch of her knees on cobbled stone and the short and sharp wrench of her hair as her head was forced back. She growled like a beast as the soft flesh of her throat was barred and she saw the blackguard raise his shimmering blade for the final blow.
“Hold!” Hrothgar bellowed. “This is my princess...”
Isolde could see the edge of the blade in the corner of her eye, it hung in the air like an executioners axe, waiting for the moment of release to claim her blood. The king’s word was law though, and the blackguard lowered his blade and shoved Isolde forward from the back of her head. She went sprawling into the street and felt the blood-soaked cobbles beneath her hands as she lifted herself back up. But as she raised her head she felt lightning pain crackle across her face and saw the burst of white light flash across her vision as Hrothgar kicked her with an iron boot in the face.
“Thought you could get the best of me did you!?” he growled and she winced as another boot slammed into her shoulder.
“Get away from her!” he bellowed to one of his men. “She carries my son!”
Isolde steadied herself and crawled back to her knees as she tasted the metallic blood in her mouth. She spat it out at the foot of Hrothgar and the High-King looked down on her.
“You were so close, you wretch. You thought you had me… but look at you now. His eye pinned her like a hawk about to tear its prey apart. “How did you do it, Isolde? What have you done with my witch?”
Isolde’s head was hammering and she strained to keep her vision on the king. But she managed to steady herself and looked at him in disgust.
“I killed her,” she said firmly. “And I brought down the hell that she crawled out from as well.”
Hrothgar’s eye widened and he looked as though he were lost for words.
“You lie…” he said.
Isolde shook her head and put her leg out to get herself up. But the King snorted, kicked it from under her and let Isolde go sprawling into a dead child on the road. She felt her stomach heave as the boy’s soft body caught her fall.
“Enough,” she whimpered and tried to get up again, but the High-King roared and kicked her down again to the jeers of the men that had encircled them.
“It will be enough when I say it is enough!”
***
“We yield!”
Harald couldn’t believe the shrill voice crying over the din of battle. The stairs were a bloodbath of bodies, he hadn’t given an inch of ground and still the enemy flooded in strong. All moments were a blur, he couldn’t recollect when his handful of men had been reinforced, but now they stood firm, shields locked into place as the waves of mountain-men and raiders crashed against them.
“We yield! We yield!” There it was again, like a mouse squeaking over the howls of wolves.
Another wave of flaming arrows came arcing overhead.
“Shields!” Harald cried as the back ranks covered their heads and the heavy thuds of broadheads punched through wood and drummed through the line.
He looked back for only a moment and caught the bright yellows of the fat blob that was Jarl Aba.
“We yield!” he cried again with his hall flaming away behind him.
Harald growled and slipped back past the ranks, letting his spot be filled by the stout warriors who would not flee. He stormed up to the Jarl and grabbed the mans ear with his fingers. The blood was slick on his hands and he felt Aba’s ea
r trying to slide out of his vice-grip.
“Make a stand!” Harald bellowed at him. They were nose to nose, the spit flying from Harald’s mouth. “Take that little axe of yours and fight!”
He let the Jarl’s ear go with a flick that sent the fat man sprawling backwards with the look of a stunned fish. His fat lips were bulging out and moving ever so slightly as though he were gasping for breath or trying to get a word out that was stuck in his throat.
“Fight!” Harald yelled at him. “Or put away your title and run!”
The Jarl’s wide eyes flickered from Harald to the burning hall behind him. Then he was gone, half running, half waddling as fast as his legs would take him away from the fighting.
“Coward…” Harald muttered as he turned back to the stairs.
His men were holding strong, but the sea of invaders backed up along the main street for as far as he could see. Their weight pushed them forward, but time and time again they broke on the wall of their shields. He gritted his teeth, how long could they hold for? Until Isolde returns… he told himself and as the thought came there was a great cry from the raiders front line. His eyes flashed up and he saw their flank get hit hard by southern soldiers who forced the enemy in.
“Strike out!” Harald cried. “Charge!”
The moment was fleeting, they had to do it now to keep the momentum. With great strides, he pushed through his line crying out to charge and his men took up the call. He led them down into the heart of the northerners and barreled his way through, his great axe swinging arcs of bloody death. His soldiers were close behind, filling the void he created until they linked up with the flanking force they had seen.
The first push had been easy, the adrenaline shrugged off the cuts and blows he had taken, and the shock to the enemy let them push through. But now, the pushback had them reeling. One step, two steps, the northerners pushed them back.
“Shieldwall!” Harald cried, and together they all made a fighting retreat back to the steps of the Jarl’s hold.
