by M. K. Hume
“Lord Stormbringer instructed me to present you with Olaus’s sword, his torc of office, and his arm rings. You stripped the Geats of their leader and saved many lives by doing so.”
Ole was so proud of the task he had been given that Arthur lacked the heart to argue with him. The torc was made of orange gold, so Arthur shoved it inside his leather vest where it clunked painfully against his ribs. With the massive Geat sword and its scabbard slung over his shoulder, Arthur could no longer put off the awful moment.
“Where are our own casualties, Ole? I need to see my friend and pay my respects.”
Although he was very young, Ole seemed to understand Arthur’s feelings. As they walked behind the barracks, the young man tried to explain his background in response to Arthur’s questions.
“I am one of the southern Dene, and my kin live close to our borders with Saxony. We live in a state of constant battle readiness. We must, for the Anglii and Jutes have been waiting for an opportunity to obliterate us for many years.” The young man coughed and surreptitiously wiped moisture from his eyes. Arthur pretended not to notice.
“I’ve lost two brothers, a cousin, and my betrothed to the enemy, so it seems my whole life has been lived between burials or periods of mourning. My father died when I was an infant, and my stepfather will never see clearly again.” Ole touched the side of his head and shrugged. “A sword blow to the head, you understand?”
“Aye, Ole, I do! I understand how it is, for I’ve had much the same kind of life with the same enemies.”
The two shared a glance of complete understanding. Our differences are born out of our natures, Arthur thought sadly. Fortunately for Ole, he still joys in life, much as Eamonn had done.
Ole came to a halt beside a long line of some twenty bodies lying swathed in their cloaks. We’ve lost half our captains in one engagement, Arthur thought. He was dumbstruck by the waste and the tragedy of it all. We may have crushed the Geats, but these fine young men will take generations to replace.
“Would you like me to wait for you back at the barracks?” Ole understood that Arthur might be embarrassed to show emotion in front of a stranger.
“You’ve lost friends too?” Arthur asked.
“Aye. We’ve lost many good men today, Master Arthur.”
As Ole walked away, his shoulders squared and his face turned away from the grim line of bodies, Arthur took in the scene, including the four guards, two per side, who’d been placed on duty to protect the dead from scavengers: human, avian, and beast. Already, Mirk Wood was heavy with crows, ravens, and shrikes, all waiting for a chance to feast on the dead. Fastidious as always, Stormbringer had set guards over the enemy dead as well, deep in their pits in a tangle of stiff arms and legs.
Grateful that Eamonn’s physical remains were safe, Arthur walked down the line of corpses. Eamonn’s short size meant that many of the shrouded faces needn’t be bared because the taller bodies were far too large. Then he saw a familiar pair of boots that were more sophisticated than the Dene leggings.
As he folded back the corner of the enveloping cloak, he prayed to his Savior that his friend might have gone into the shades with his face unmarked.
“Oh, Eamonn, you foolish bastard,” Arthur whispered. “Why did you always have to be in the front line when you were called to battle?”
“Because I’m a short arse, you fucking idiot. Why do you think I do it, you great beanpole?” Eamonn’s voice was clear in Arthur’s head, and he could almost believe that Eamonn had been wounded rather than killed.
He twitched the cloak away. Blood had run out of Eamonn’s nose and mouth and left three sanguine trails. Arthur’s sleeve was still damp, so he bent, knelt at his friend’s head, and gently scrubbed away at the dried blood, leaving Eamonn’s face familiar, but strange. Whatever was Eamonn was long gone now, and this husk had been discarded as no longer of any worth.
Blood had pooled and dried behind his head and his thick, black curls; Arthur’s probing fingers soon found a long axe wound. Another knife wound had struck him from behind, just below his shoulder blades.
“It took two men to kill you, my brother, and, even then, they had to take you from behind. I hope we killed the curs that sent you into the shades.”
Arthur forced himself to check Eamonn’s whole body so he could give an honest report to the young man’s kin when he returned to their home. Certainly, Blaise would want to know! Eamonn’s ring still rested on his hand and Arthur eased it off his friend’s thumb for Blaise, as well as a chunky chain that was still hanging around his neck. Arthur decided that this was his bulla, or birth gift, for King Bors had persisted with many of the old Roman ways. This trinket, more than anything else, held Eamonn’s essence, so Arthur slid it off and cleaned away the dried blood with his shirt. He flipped open the clasp, which resisted him for a moment, and then emptied the contents of the small casket onto his palm.
Arthur began to weep in great agonized sobs. He cried without shame, for so much of the sadness within him demanded to be set free.
There, on his open palm, lay a shell made of gold, probably the original birth gift from Eamonn’s father. Alongside it was a small, grey pearl from the distant lands of the north, perhaps a gift from a lover, although Arthur was ignorant of any special woman in his friend’s life.
But the third item was the reason for his tears, the final item that unlocked his misery and reminded Arthur that life is brief, like a butterfly that exists for a single day in beauty and joyfulness. Eamonn had kept a lock of Arthur’s hair, stolen when he had been shorn at some time during his youth. His friend had bound it with a little twist of gold wire and retained it with his other precious objects. He had kept his love for his friend against his heart.
• • •
THREE HOURS BEFORE dusk, a longship nosed into the shore and was pulled above the tide line by its rowers, for this lake was so large that the body of water still felt the pull of the moon.
The Geat ship was broader in the beam than a Dene longboat and, in many ways, it resembled a Saxon ceol. As it approached the shore, it had seemed to walk on the waves, whereas Sea Wife snaked through them with such flexibility and grace that it was hard to see the boat as simply a number of overlapping boards nailed into the shape of a leaf. Later, when Arthur examined the Geat trading vessel, he discovered its keel was heavier, its planks were thicker, and every line was more utilitarian than the poetry of a longboat. This ship was meant to carry cargo on the only western ocean access that Vastra Gotland possessed—down the Vagus River and out into the sea. Now the Wind Eagle would serve a different purpose.
“It’s a pity this eagle looks more like a duck,” Arthur observed to no one in particular, but Stormbringer spluttered into a brief bout of laughter that was quite inappropriate on this occasion. The Sae Dene had seen the redness in Arthur’s eyes and the blotchy skin across his cheekbones, so he knew that Arthur had visited his friend’s body to pay his last respects.
“Our friends will go to their various heavens in this particular duck, so I hope she gains decent wings by this evening when she sails out into the center of the lake,” the Sae Dene responded seriously. He was staring resolutely at the ship as it was stripped of all unnecessary fittings, to allow the shields of their Geat enemies to be piled onto the decks where they would make a bed of weapons on which the dead jarls would rest on their journey to Paradise.
Warriors were out scouring the fields and the margins of Mirk Wood for more fuel that could be added to the fire. Others collected flowers, the enemy’s blankets, and any cloth that held value. Sweetgrass was laid as a pillow for each man’s head, and jars of wine and beer from Olaus Healfdene’s own stores were placed where the twenty-two men could find them when the time came for drinking contests with the gods. A haunch of venison, a wheel of fine cheese, apples, and perfect fruit taken fresh from the vine or tree were placed alongside the wine.
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br /> As the sun sank lower, a long line of warriors bearing the dead bodies on quickly constructed stretchers came slowly to the Wind Eagle. Rolf Sea-Shaper led the procession, his voice rising in a song that shivered through the air, so that Arthur was reminded of keening women. One man stepped out of the crowd of warriors, carrying a strangely constructed brazen horn. As he raised the instrument to his lips, Arthur could see that the beautiful object was a long, sinuous, and delicate tube that widened gradually and flared out into a partly enclosed horn shape, rather like the head of a flower. Arthur could scarcely believe his eyes, or his ears, when the older warrior raised the instrument to his lips, and blew.
The sound, which consisted of several high, thin notes, turned and twisted round Rolf Sea-Shaper’s voice, wailing and mourning as if alerting Heaven to new heroes whose souls were poised to wing their way to its gates. That single horn brought Eamonn’s loss sharply back into Arthur’s imagination, as if that instrument could encompass all his deepest feelings. Perhaps it did, because Arthur and many of the warriors wept without shame.
Once the bodies were in place and flowers heaped around their feet, their swords were placed in their hands. Then, one by one, warriors came forward to extol the virtues of each of the jarls so that all the warriors still alive felt as if they knew the dead man and regretted his loss. One by one, singers praised the dead, until Arthur could no longer bear the thought that no one spoke for Eamonn. He moved to stand in front of Stormbringer as the ceremony began to draw to a close.
“Lord Stormbringer, one man lies unnamed and without kindred to shed tears to speed his way into the grey vastness of death. I speak of Eamonn, son of Bors, the king of the Dumnonii tribe of Britain. He is my oldest friend!”
Stormbringer nodded his head ceremoniously, and Arthur turned to face the dead with a dry mouth, trembling hands, and a pair of shaking knees.
I’d rather face a dozen huge warriors than speak on such an occasion as this, Arthur thought. But Eamonn must be honored, and I’m the only person who knew him well enough to do him justice.
He coughed, cleared his throat and tried to quell his nerves. “Warriors of the Dene, hear what I, the Last Dragon, say to you. I speak for Eamonn pen Bors, a young man who was a prince of the Britons. Many times, he shared a joke with you, and on many occasions you’ve called him ‘little man’ because of his short stature.”
Several of the Dene warriors from the crew of Sea Wife laughed affectionately, then realized that the insult they had laid upon Eamonn, albeit in fun, could never be recalled. They fell silent and looked down at the earth in regret.
“I, too, called him by that same insult, and I can assure you that he felt no resentment for a simple statement of fact. Eamonn saved his anger for deeds of cruelty, depravity, or dishonor. I recall that he once fought ferociously in a small, faraway village to save people who weren’t his own, having no shame in his passionate defense of the weak and the helpless.
“But more than for his courage or for his decency, every man on Sea Wife and Loki’s Eye will remember him for his joy in the whole wonder of being alive. Eamonn taught me about the beauties and pleasures of women, of the fun of being footloose, of fishing in a green bay, of dancing with pretty girls late into a warm summer’s night, and of how there is no need for shame if we weep to see great loveliness. Everything I know about living, I learned from Eamonn.
“He was my friend, but he has gone to sing and drink with the gods. And he’ll probably find a pretty wench to tumble.”
The warriors laughed at Arthur’s accurate reading of Eamonn’s irreverence.
“And so, my friends, I say my last Ave to Eamonn, who will always be my friend.”
“Ave, Eamonn.”
Led by Rolf Sea-Shaper, the cry was repeated by the crew of Sea Wife.
Arthur stepped back, while refusing to wipe away his tears. If men thought him weak, then let them prove their claim with sharp iron.
With a somber face, Stormbringer made a sign, and a dozen men pushed the Wind Eagle into the current. As half a dozen torches were thrust into the ship, the waiting warriors launched her out of the shallows and then stood waist deep in the wavelets to see if the ship had been accepted by the lake. A breeze suddenly sprang up from the land and filled the woolen sail, so that it rattled and soughed before bellying, causing the ship to turn till it faced out over the lake.
As if the ship itself had taken a great breath and leaped forward, the hull cut cleanly into the waves. On board, the torches set the fine cloth and timber alight, and the flames began to catch, licking at the decking and snaking towards the mast. The descending sun set the whole western horizon aflame as if the lake itself was burning, but the ship drove on and on, its rudder swinging uselessly as the sail captured the breeze.
As the light from the sun slowly began to fade, the ship burned from prow to stern. With an explosion of hot air that could be imagined from the shore, the sail caught alight, but the wool burned slowly with great gouts of white smoke. Arthur longed to turn away, yet the rites were so compelling and so final that he was afraid of being disrespectful.
The night seemed to thicken as, slowly, fire engulfed the Wind Eagle, and the ship began to slow. Hissing like a serpent, the fire died at the waterline, but the vessel was wallowing in the water now and the sail collapsed with a great shower of sparks as the ropes and spars burned through. Like a wounded bird, the prow dropped and the rudder rose into the air. Then, faster than Arthur thought possible, the ship and its precious cargo slid below the surface and vanished.
Eamonn was gone, and he would never return.
• • •
THREE DAYS LATER, the ships sailed upriver to the Lake Wener encampment and, regretfully, Arthur rose out of a stupor of indecision to slake his curiosity. The great sails flouted the Geat sky with their symbols of Dene power and, when the forty-three ships drove ashore, manned by skeleton crews under the command of Hoel Ship-Singer, Stormbringer and the jarls walked down to the sandy stretch of beach to greet them.
“Hail, Stormbringer, victor of the greatest battle in the history of Skania,” Hoel called loudly from the bow of the ship and raised his arm in salute to the Sae Dene captain. His eyes were shining with admiration. “We have come to transport you out of this place and take you to Halland, where the banners of the Geat king fly over my land. I beg you to bring relief to the south, and I swear that all able-bodied men who have survived in Guteland and Skania will flock to your standard.”
“We have taken serious losses here—” Stormbringer began, but Hoel cut him off.
“But not as many as your enemy has suffered and not as many as common sense indicated you could have lost. Your warriors have won a great victory, and word of it is already traveling through the villages like fire. Once we have left this accursed place, able-bodied men will come willingly to join your warriors as you continue your campaign.”
“Very well, Hoel.” Stormbringer’s voice was tired. “I will be ready to leave in three days. Meanwhile, we must load the wounded, determine what spoils will be taken, decide what to do with the horses, and store as many supplies as our ships can reasonably be expected to carry.”
Hoel was so pleased with the concessions he had wrung out of Stormbringer that he would have agreed to anything. Depressed, Arthur turned away and would have left the shore had Stormbringer not called him back.
“Hoel, I should point out to you that Arthur is the true hero of this battle, for it was he who killed Olaus in hand-to-hand combat. He denied the Geats the value of having a commander to lead them during the course of the battle.”
Once again, Arthur felt embarrassed at having to accept unnecessary praise.
Stormbringer turned back to Arthur. “If we are leaving with Hoel in a few days, Arthur, I want you to select two of Healfdene’s horses as my personal gift to you and Eamonn. These animals are in addition to your share of the spo
ils. I know that the Britons set even greater store by horses and cavalry than we do, so please take these gifts as a token of my gratitude and friendship.”
Hoel could see Arthur’s discomfort clearly enough, so he watched as Stormbringer sent him off with Ole to make his choice of the horses on the picket line.
“Why do you worry about this Briton, Stormbringer? He’s just another man from a far-off land. I expect that you have a dozen more who are as capable as he is, so why should you concern yourself over his fits and starts?”
“Arthur is one of the most exceptional men I’ve ever encountered.” Stormbringer smiled affectionately. “And he feels everything so very deeply, as you can see. He is unsettled and miserable after the death of his friend and is at a loss to know what to do in a foreign land. But, if you saw him on the battlefield, you wouldn’t ask me why I concern myself with him. He’s cold, distant, and impersonal in combat—the perfect weapon! For him, the goal becomes everything, and such focus actually saves the lives of his comrades and inspires those who fight beside him.”
At the picket line, Arthur’s mood picked up considerably when he saw the fine display of horseflesh that was on offer. He had missed horses, although he hadn’t realized it. These northern animals were heavier and longer in the leg than their British cousins, with large rounded rumps that were ridged with muscle and equally powerful, bowed necks. The faces of the long string of horses looked at him with eyes that reminded him of Eamonn: huge, dark, and fringed with extraordinarily long lashes.
