Raven

by Giles Kristian

  ‘That is some seidr,’ he said. ‘I have never heard a man bawl like that.’ He scratched the crook of his elbow. ‘Makes my damn skin itch.’

  ‘The Christians are always singing,’ I said, ‘and it can tempt your ears to jump off your head. But this … this is different.’ I looked at Penda, questioningly.

  ‘Sounds like a couple of wolves chewing on a lamb,’ he said unhelpfully. ‘And Christ alone knows why they keep putting their faces in the dirt.’ He grinned. ‘Poor bastards must be hungry.’ But even Penda must have felt that sound worming up his spine, for he made the sign of the cross, before drawing his long knife and checking its edge.

  To the south-east the riders had dismounted and were performing the same strange rite, their horses waiting patiently, some of them dipping their heads like their masters as though the seidr filled them too.

  ‘Stay up here, Gorm, with two others,’ I said, to which he nodded, calling the names of two Danes. ‘And don’t drop anything on us or you’ll wake up to find your own head in a barrel of piss.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be the first time,’ Gorm said, grimacing at Rolf. Then, whilst the blaumen greeted the dawn with their faces in the dirt we descended into Gerd’s Tit and readied for a fight.

  There were thirteen of us waiting for the blaumen to attack, with three more above us on the lookout platform, whose job it was to keep an eye on the enemy and call down to us with their movements.

  ‘Let’s hope they come,’ I muttered to Penda as we stood in a dog’s leg line so that half faced the north-east and the foot soldiers, and half faced the mounted men to the south-east. We were a good spear’s throw from the open doors of Gerd’s Tit, meaning we would have to retreat forty paces over that hard-baked ground and so it would all be in the timing.

  ‘They’ll come, Raven,’ Penda said, taking his spear in great circles to loosen his arm muscles. ‘They’ll come eager as crows to a hanging. We burnt their village. Some of it, anyway.’

  Columns of grey rose lazily into the blue sky from smouldering piles of ash where lean-tos, cattle stalls and simple shelters had stood the day before. Many of the surrounding stone houses were scorched, their doors either burnt where they stood, hacked to splintered ruins or taken to feed our fires. Chickens scrabbled in the ashes, pecking for food. Penda was right. The blaumen would come because we had brought death and fire to their homes. But they would also come because we looked like a sorry bunch of raiders with barely five or six decent blades between us. I glanced up at my spear’s blade, noting that it could use a good whetstone. Then again, I knew that even a blunt spear can gather enough speed in the air to pass through a man’s body. Not that I intended throwing it, not unless I had to.

  ‘Danemen!’ Rolf yelled in a voice that was bigger than he was. ‘You will take your orders from Raven. Do as he says and soon we will be back aboard Sea-Arrow with a decent silver catch and another tale for the skalds.’

  ‘I was killing men when Raven was still clawing at his mother’s tit!’ a man named Beiner shouted. I glanced over at him and he glared at me and shrugged, and I had no doubt he was telling the truth. He was a big man and had held on to some of his muscle even chained like a mad dog in that Frankish Hel. ‘Why should I take orders from a whelp? My woman has more of a beard between her legs!’ The other Danes laughed at that and Rolf rounded his cheek and hoisted his brows as though to say it was up to me to convince Beiner and any of the others who needed convincing. But I knew that I was beginning to get a reputation as a killer. Even Beiner must have heard how I had slaughtered the giant Frankish warrior who had leapt aboard Serpent, but reputations are hungry things and you must feed them to keep them alive. So, without telling Penda what was going on, I undid my belt and handed it with the scabbarded sword to the Wessexman. Then I stepped out of the line and walked towards the blaumen to the north-east. And after just ten paces I cursed under my breath, because to my right two riders had urged their mounts forward and were now coming towards me, and I would rather have faced men on foot.

  ‘Get back here, you bloody heathen fool!’ I heard Penda yell, but I kept going, thinking to myself how the gods love to watch us mortals abandon good sense and throw ourselves into the Spinners’ web to see whether the strands will hold or snap. ‘Raven! Get your arse back here!’ The spear suddenly felt light in my hand because the blood in my veins was beginning to tremble like water over coals, as it has always done before a fight. And yet strangely, my legs felt heavy, so heavy that I feared that if my nerve failed and I turned and ran, I would make it barely halfway back to the Danes before the blaumen cut me down. But that was a good thing because it meant that even though I was tempted to turn and run I would not.

  ‘Thór’s hairy whore,’ I muttered in relief. One of the riders had stopped and the other was coming on alone, his shield held wide to show he came in peace. I glanced up at the birds, dark specks still, jostling against the blue at the edge of the eyes’ range. I had noticed that the sky seemed to grow bigger the further south we sailed, and not just bigger but higher too, so that I wondered how Yggdrasil the World-Tree could be so huge that I could watch birds amongst the beams of the world yet still not see its branches.

  The breeze shifted, bringing the stink of horse sweat and leather to my nose as the distance between the rider and myself closed. I could see his face clearly now, which was as dark as pitch, and his eyes which were proud verging on haughty. He rode with his chin high, studying me down the length of a strong, flaring nose. His moustaches and beard were short, neatly trimmed and glistening, and the white robes beneath a short mail brynja were dusty and mud-spattered, though the linen wrapped round his head was as clean as fresh snow. When he was three spear-lengths away his eyes narrowed and his thick lips gathered, the expression of arrogance melting to a deep, cold revulsion because he could now see my blood-filled eye.

  ‘Al-majus,’ he said, tossing his head and tugging the reins to halt his bay mare. The beast whinnied and pulled its lips back from its yellow teeth, not liking the look of me either, as the blauman burbled on at me in a tongue that I doubted even he could unravel. So I smiled and nodded and the blauman frowned, half turning back to his companion fifty paces behind. Then I took my spear in both hands and ran forward and plunged the blade straight through the mail and into his chest. The man yelled in shock and fury and his mare swung its head into me, teeth gnashing, almost knocking me off my feet, so that I let go of the shaft and staggered backwards, leaving seven foot of ash jutting from the rider’s chest. Blood frothed at the blauman’s mouth and hung in gobbets from his short beard and he died in the saddle, feebly clutching the spear, his mouth forming a scream that never came.

  I heard the thunder of hooves and men yelling and I turned and ran. I would rather have walked in my own time, heedless of the armed riders bearing down on me, my jaw firm, eyes cold as a nun’s tit. That is the way a skald would weave it, but the truth was that I ran as fast as I could and no doubt my eyes were stretched wide as a whore’s legs. It’s likely I was yelling too, in fear and with the sheer thrill of it, because I was unarmed and the hooves were striking the earth and my heart was banging as fiercely as Thór’s hammer. The Danes held their line, constrained by Rolf’s bawling, but they were howling and punching the air with spears and axes, spurring me on, willing me to make it back to the line before the blaumen rode me down. Then Penda was running towards me, which told me that the riders must be close, and I pumped my legs and hoped Óðin Spear-Shaker was shaking Valhöll’s oak beams with a belly laugh like thunder.

  ‘Down!’ Penda screamed, hurling my scabbarded sword to me then launching his spear, and I threw myself into the dirt and rolled to my right just in time to see the Wessexman leap and wrap his left arm round a horseman’s neck, so that the man toppled backwards off his mount and Penda was flung through the air like a hare from a hound’s jaws. I scrambled to my feet, grabbed my sword and saw that the rest of the blaumen were almost upon us, their curved swords held wide ready to sc
ythe our heads from our necks.

  I hauled Penda to his feet, tensing as I turned to face the riders, who hauled on their reins, their horses screaming with anger.

  ‘To us, Raven!’ Rolf yelled and I spun round to see that the Danes had moved up, still in line and horribly exposed, but there had been enough spears in that poor defence to deter the blaumen, or perhaps their horses, from riding into it. We began to step backwards under a thin rain of javelins, joining the Danes.

  ‘Everyone back!’ I roared and the Danes kept their spear blades up as we retreated raggedly. Rolf knocked a javelin out of the air with his own spear, saving another man from being belly-pierced. ‘Faster!’ I shouted, because Gorm was yelling from Gerd’s Tit that the other band of blaumen were coming for us now and the Danes knew as well as I did that if we did not move faster we would be trapped.

  ‘If they get behind us we’re dead!’ Tufi said, cursing as an arrow whipped past his face.

  ‘Then move faster, Tufi, you son of a three-legged dog,’ I yelled. Amongst the bristling knot of horsemen in front of us I saw a man gesture to the others that they should ride round our flanks and get behind us.

  ‘We’ll be the bloody lump on the anvil soon enough,’ Penda spat through a grimace, clutching his shoulder. The rider he had hurled himself at lay a distance off, his neck broken.

  ‘Give them your spears!’ I yelled. ‘Then break and get to the Tit!’ I knew they did not want to lose their spears, but we had to buy some time and so with curses the Danes pulled back their arms and launched their shafts towards man and beast. ‘Now run!’ I yelled and we turned and legged it, and beside me a Dane went down but two others took an arm each and ran as if their arses were on fire. The first to reach Gerd’s Tit held the doors open and we piled inside, half the Danes continuing up the stone stairwell whilst the rest of us barred the door and bolstered it with timbers taken from the surviving lean-tos.

  ‘Why didn’t they ride us down? Why didn’t they fight?’ Byrnjolf said, doubled over and gasping for breath. Candles still burnt peacefully, chasing shadows into the dark corners of that strange empty place.

  ‘Why would they?’ Rolf answered, scowling at a slice in the shoulder of his jerkin. Dark blood stained the leather. ‘Now that we’re holed up in here like rats in a pot all they need to do is wait for us to starve.’

  ‘Soot-faced sons of whores,’ Tufi gnarred, then kicked a chicken which had strayed from the others to peck the stone floor by his foot.

  ‘I don’t think they will wait for long,’ I said. ‘This place means something to them. It’s important. They made a stand out there yesterday,’ I said, nodding towards the barricaded door, ‘and they will not be happy about us being in here.’ As if in answer something pounded against the door. The nearest candles guttered and a cloud of dust bloomed, making Beiner sneeze.

  ‘They want to come in, Gorm!’ I yelled up into the hollow space above us. ‘Show them some famous Danish hospitality!’ I don’t know whether Gorm up there on the platform heard me, but within a few hammering heartbeats a succession of loud cracks, thumps and yelps told us that he and the others were dropping their stones and earth-filled pots.

  ‘That’s it,’ Beiner called through another enormous sneeze, ‘flatten some heads!’

  Outside, the shouts faded, meaning Gorm and the others had persuaded the blaumen to leave, at least for now.

  ‘They’ll be back,’ Byrnjolf said, testing the blade of a short knife against a strip of leather.

  ‘Aye, and when they do, what have we got to give them? Tooth and nail?’ Tufi said, throwing his arms wide. He had nothing on him more dangerous than his eating knife. ‘Whoresons will stick us with our own damn spears.’

  ‘Don’t piss your breeches, Tufi,’ Beiner said, gripping the throat of his long two-handled axe and slapping its cheek. ‘I’ve still got something to show those Svartálfar out there.’ Svartálfar are the dark elves that live underground and that word made some of the Danes spit or touch the Thór’s hammers at their necks. Now for the first time since he had challenged me I locked eyes with Beiner, unsure how things stood between us.

  ‘I saw that your legs are swifter than your sword arm, Beiner,’ I said, eyeballing him as I looped my belt with the scabbarded sword back round my waist. ‘Stronger too, I think, as your spear fell far short of any of the blaumen.’ In truth I had not even seen the big Dane throw his spear, but I knew I had to finish what I had started outside when I had killed the horseman who had come to talk. ‘I admit you are a fast runner for an old man,’ I said, feeling men’s eyes on me as the insult hung for a moment in that musky air.

  Beiner glanced at Rolf, who gave nothing but a clenched jaw so far as I could see, then the big warrior grinned, cutting his grizzled beard with teeth.

  ‘You must be a Dane, boy!’ he said, shaking his head and drawing in his friends with a sweep of his arm. ‘You’ve got bats in your skull,’ he added, flapping his big hands. ‘Only a Dane would take on a swarm of Svartálfar – or draugar or whatever in Hel’s reeking cunny they are – on horseback, armed only with a bent spear and his own crooked cock.’

  I smiled, mostly in relief that the big Dane didn’t seem about to use that big axe on me. ‘Does that mean you’ll do as I say, Beiner?’ I asked.

  The Dane scratched his cheek and hoisted his brows. ‘Do you want us to go out there and ask for our spears back?’

  ‘I want you to take that axe of yours and kill some chickens,’ I said, pointing into the shadows where the birds clucked and scratched quietly. ‘I’m hungry.’

  ‘Fucking bats in his skull,’ Beiner muttered, swinging his axe from his shoulder into his right hand and shambling off, musky smoke billowing in his wake. Rolf looked at me, bewilderment on his face, and I shrugged, unable to hide the surprise in mine.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  OUR PLAN WAS PLAYING OUT LIKE GOOD FLAX ON A DROP SPINDLE. The blaumen were encamped an arrow-shot south-east of us, foot soldiers and mounted men together now, sharing fires and food whose strange smells carried up to us on the balcony of Gerd’s Tit. I watched from those heights as they performed their strange ritual again, the day’s light rolling westward, relinquishing the dry land to the shadows, as the ululating song wove a braid of sound. I had two fears. One that they would vanish, choosing not to fight us at all, and the other that they would press their attack on the door and break through. For we would eventually run out of heavy things to drop from the balustrade and few of us had decent weapons. But our lack of good war gear was all part of the plan and no doubt much of the reason why the blaumen were still there. We had baited the hook and they had all but swallowed it, though I wanted to draw them in one last time.

  A roar of pain filled the Tit as two Danes put Penda’s shoulder back in its place.

  ‘We need them closer,’ I said to Rolf beside me. ‘If they decide we’re not worth the spilt blood it has all been for nothing.’

  ‘Attack them?’ he suggested, though there was no heart in the words.

  ‘No. Out there they would ride us down. Trample us to dust and horse piss.’ I shook my head, biting a succulent hunk of meat off a chicken’s leg. ‘Just keep your eyes turned to the sea,’ I said, ‘and I will think of something.’

  Inside Gerd’s Tit candles illuminated the darkness and the taut faces of men who now looked to me to keep them alive. The one who had fallen to an arrow outside lay choking on his own blood. Bubbles frothed over his beard and his friends sat with him, talking in low voices of all the swiving he would soon be doing in Valhöll. They were good men those Danes, tough and loyal, if a little wild in a fight, and as I sat in that hollow stone place, watching them sharpen their poor blades and throw insults back and forth, my mind summoned the new oath we had forged on that windswept island off the Frankish coast.

  Each man had begun by proclaiming his ancestors and boasting of their deeds, if any was worth mentioning. I had dreaded my turn, for I did not even know my father’s name, let alone whether he
had been a farmer or a warrior or had done any deed worthy of a hearth-side tale. Not that I believed half of what blew through the beards around me that day. Had Svein the Red’s grandfather really slain a family of giants? Could we believe that with the giants’ blood still wet on his sword he had plunged into the breaking waves to slaughter a great sea monster? To my nose that had more than a whiff of Beowulf about it and I wasn’t alone in smelling it. But when the man next to me had spent his words, filling the world with a silence heavier than a mountain, and all eyes turned to me, I had swallowed my fear and spoken as best I could.

  I swear this oath before my sword-brothers. That I Raven, foster-son of Ealhstan of Wessex, am Jarl Sigurd’s man and that my sword is his. We had said the words with our right hands on the hilt of Sigurd’s sword, which had belonged to his father before him. I will not flee from any man who is my equal in bravery and arms. I will avenge any of my oath-bound brothers as though we are brothers by blood. I will not utter words of fear or be afraid of anything, no matter how hard things look. I will bring all booty to my jarl and he will reward me as a ring-giver should. Men nodded and murmured and I folded my fingers around the sword’s grip to stop my hand from trembling, because an oath is the heaviest thing a man can give and an oath-breaker is no better than a murderer or a man who steals from his friend. I will slaughter my enemies and they shall know the name of Raven of the Wolfpack, who fights for Jarl Sigurd. I felt Sigurd’s eyes boring into me and I could not meet them so I caught Olaf’s eye instead. He grinned and winked at me as though he had just caught me sneaking from the warm furs of my first whore. If I break this oath I betray my jarl and my fellowship and I am a pus-filled nithing and may the All-Father riddle my eyes with maggots though I yet live. And then it was done and I had barely taken my hand from Sigurd’s sword when another man’s hand was on it, his words ringing out amongst the rocks.