Wings of the Storm: (The Rise of Sigurd 3)

by Giles Kristian

  It was a wonder she could embroider at all, given her old fingers and eyes and the slight trembling which seemed to fill her now and then, though not today, Runa noted.

  ‘Well?’ the old woman said, looking up with watery, unsurprised eyes, measuring the situation like hacksilver in the scales.

  ‘She is called Gudny,’ Runa said, jutting her chin at the woman, ‘and she should have had the bairn by now but it is stuck inside her.’ As soon as the words were out Runa realized that the old woman was not talking about Gudny. The prophetess lifted a claw-like hand, the bone needle in it pointing at Varin.

  ‘Not her, young Runa. Him. What is he doing here on Kuntøy?’

  Runa felt the heat in her cheeks at that name and avoided the eyes of several other women who had gathered at Vebiorg’s warning, but the witch waved away her embarrassment with that needle. ‘I know what King Thorir’s men call this place, girl. Ha! I was not always a dried up old crab apple.’

  Varin squirmed under her gaze as well he might.

  ‘You know that men are forbidden to set foot on our island, Runa,’ the witch said. ‘Other than that young stallion you have taken to riding in the mornings. And his father, who still makes a straight iron bar whenever it is called for, so I hear.’

  ‘Wise Mother, this man is unarmed. I saw no threat.’ Runa gestured at the young woman. ‘His wife will die if someone does not help her.’ The bairn may be dead already, she thought but did not say.

  Varin was brave enough to take another step towards the witch, though he pulled his wife forward with him. ‘You can work some seiðr, Wise Mother,’ he said, laying a hand upon the young woman’s barrel belly. She was sobbing now, moaning with discomfort and still trying to lift the burden in the sling of her entwined hands. ‘You can help her, Wise Mother. Give her some brew for the pain. Weave some spell to make the bairn come.’ He glanced at Runa now and then as though hoping that she might speak on their behalf. But Runa did not think that anything she said would weigh in the couple’s favour. She had done what they asked and brought them to the Wise Mother and whatever happened now was out of her hands.

  Varin looked round at the dozen or so women who had abandoned their work to come and see what was happening and to ensure that these visitors posed no threat. Most were armed with spears or bows and they eyed Varin with suspicion, some of them asking each other how he had been allowed to come ashore and who was to blame for it.

  Varin’s fists balled at his sides and sweat glistened in the scar pits of his cheeks. ‘You can help us,’ he told the Wise Mother again. ‘You can save my wife. I know of no one else with the seiðr. You must get the bairn out of her.’

  ‘So you say,’ the witch told him, and looked down, pushing the needle and thread through the cloth on her lap. ‘I could coax the bairn out, hey. Perhaps with a song. Or maybe the promise of some warm milk and honey will do it. Out it pops like a bung from a flask. Like a fox cub from its den.’

  Gudny groaned again and one of the Freyja Maidens said that if the woman burst like a boil where she stood, she would not want to be the one who had to clear up the mess.

  ‘What say you, young Runa?’ The Wise Mother looked up at Runa though her fingers were still busy with their work.

  ‘We should help her. If we can,’ Runa said, nodding at Gudny, who, in between grimace and groan, was trying to hum to the bairn in her belly now.

  The Wise Mother was staring at Runa, her head on one side. Runa could smell her catskin clothes from where she stood. ‘You know what Skuld would do?’ the old woman asked.

  Runa did not know what the Freyja Maidens’ leader would do, but Skuld was off practising utiseta at the Freyja tree. She was under the cloak, as the women put it, seeking guidance from the gods in light of the warnings which the old prophetess had brought back with her from her travels, news which had bent her as a sackful of grain would. The gods, perhaps Freyja Giver herself, would tell Skuld if she should lead the women from Fugløy’s rocky shore; if the warrior women should abandon their secluded way of life and make a place for themselves out in the world, a world which was changing, so the witch said.

  ‘Skuld would throw him back into the sea like a codling not worth splitting open,’ the old woman answered for Runa. ‘As for his cow,’ she added, ‘Skuld would put her back in the boat they came in and let her spill that calf in the thwarts.’

  Varin looked horrified. ‘A woman would never—’

  ‘Hold your tongue!’ the Wise Mother spat at him, pointing her needle at Varin who must have feared she was going to put some curse on him. He held his tongue. The witch swung her gaze back to Runa. ‘But if you think we should help these strangers, these nobodies who have violated our island, tainted this day like dog piss in the milk pail …’ she shrugged, ‘then we must do what we can. Though some spell is not what is needed here. Runa, fetch your young stallion’s tongs,’ she said, snapping her fingers and thumb together, ‘the smallest pair he has for holding moulds of hot metal and such.’ She gave Varin and Gudny a gummy grin. ‘Or pulling bits from the fire,’ she said. ‘No, no, ’tis not seiðr that’s needed but a steady hand.’ She made several more stitches then folded the tapestry and stood, putting the cloth on the stool. ‘Get her inside, then,’ she told Varin. ‘And you, girl, what are you waiting for?’ she asked Runa, and so Runa ran off to the forge.

  None of the sentries on the ramparts noticed the three of them slip over the palisade one hundred paces from the gates, where the brow of the hill partly shielded them from Guthrum’s camp. Even so, they crouched for a while at the base of the wall just to make sure, Sigurd’s chest tight but his bowels loose as water.

  He had chosen Floki because the ex-slave would not question his plan and because Floki could kill as easily and quietly as drawing breath. And he had brought Valgerd because she could be stealthy as a hawk and her skill with the bow might come in useful.

  The only other person in on it was Moldof, who would stay behind and who, being no great talker, was unlikely to let Sigurd’s plan slip out of his mouth even by accident. King Gorm’s former champion would wait with a rope on the ramparts, ready to haul the three of them back into the borg when the thing was done.

  Neither Floki nor Valgerd, though, had been impressed with that choice of Sigurd’s.

  ‘We have given a one-armed man the job of pulling us back over the wall with Guthrum’s war host on our heels,’ the shieldmaiden had said when Sigurd told the three of them of his plan.

  Moldof had said nothing to that but it was a good point and Sigurd felt his face flush.

  ‘If Guthrum’s men are after us we won’t need much pulling,’ he said, glancing at the one-armed warrior. In the event they were discovered they would climb that rope like mice up a barley stem, he assured them. ‘Remember, we are the only ones in this. The others must not know.’ Floki and Valgerd shot each other wary glances then, for no one could say those two were friends.

  ‘You won’t tell Olaf?’ Valgerd said.

  Sigurd shook his head. ‘He would say it was a mad scheme and try to stop me. Some of the others would want to come, but think of Svein and Bram sneaking around in the night.’

  ‘They would wake Guthrum’s whole camp,’ Black Floki said.

  In truth the three of them seemed pleased to have been chosen and when it was time, Sigurd had found them waiting for him in the shadow of the grain store, full of the same thrill that had his own blood simmering in his veins.

  Now, outside the timber wall, he nodded that they should move. Valgerd pulled her hood forward so that her face was in shadow. Keeping low, they left the relative safety of the borg, moving down the slope to skirt round the tents and fires and warriors of Guthrum’s war host.

  It would have felt less risky to stick close to the borg, but then one of Alrik’s sentries on the ramparts was bound to see them and, thinking they were Guthrum’s men, raise the alarm or rain spears and arrows down on them. So they had to first move away from the borg before walking b
razenly into the enemy camp, and it was as well that the night was black as Hel’s arsehole, as Bram had put it when he had set off to buy more ale from one of Alrik’s men.

  Sigurd glanced up at the night sky, which was hazed by Guthrum’s men’s fires. The sliver of a waning moon that had been visible earlier was now hiding behind silver cloud, so that Sigurd wondered if Óðin was helping him. This was, after all, just the sort of undertaking that the Allfather relished, for it was said that Óðin sometimes came down from Asgard to walk amongst men, disguised as an old wanderer in a wide-brimmed hat.

  Floki hissed and they stopped, eyes sifting the darkness for what the young man had seen. Valgerd was pulling an arrow from the quiver at her waist when Sigurd saw what had alerted Floki. One of Guthrum’s men was pissing against a rock not a spear-throw away. He was swaying like a man adrift on the ale-sea and mumbling to himself. Then he hawked and spat, tucked himself back in his breeks and turned, walking away having never looked up in their direction. Which was lucky, for being seen approaching the camp from that side of the hill would have aroused suspicion even in a drunk.

  Then they were moving again, more or less following the man in amongst the tents and fires, the sounds of a camp at night washing over them, and now Sigurd straightened and threw back his shoulders because he wanted to look like one of Guthrum’s men, full of swagger and ale. Those of Guthrum’s men that were awake, anyway. Most were snoring in their tents and the sentries who could be seen did not expect trouble. Why should they? Alrik had shown time and again that he would not leave the borg. Even Guthrum’s ploy of moving his whole camp up the hill had not drawn Alrik out – for Sigurd was sure that was why the jarl had done it, not simply as a boast or to rub Alrik’s nose in it.

  And so Sigurd was going to Guthrum.

  Yet, even now there was a part of him that would rather be behind those wooden stakes that loomed above them at the top of that steep bank, instead of walking through the heart of the enemy camp.

  ‘Óðin be with me,’ he whispered as somewhere a dog snarled and barked and a man growled at it to be quiet.

  Tents to either side of them, they trudged back up the hill to where they knew they would find Guthrum’s red tent a few feet closer to the borg than any other, and Sigurd’s hand went to the bone grip of his scramasax. He would use that shorter blade to kill Guthrum. Far easier in the dark confines of a tent than a sword like Troll-Tickler.

  If he found Guthrum asleep it would be easier still, though he would wake the jarl up just before he cut his throat, even if it risked the man crying out. A jarl deserved to know who was killing him. Perhaps he and Sigurd would laugh about it together in Valhöll when they met again.

  The three of them stopped again now because they were almost on top of the jarl’s tent and Sigurd knew that after the next steps there would be no going back until the thing was done.

  Off to their left, twenty paces away, seven or eight men lay sprawled round a fire. They were talking in low voices and one of them looked over and raised a hand in greeting, perhaps thinking that Sigurd was someone else. Sigurd pretended he had not seen it, instead looking at his companions to make sure they were ready for what they were about to do. They were standing beyond the reach of the fire’s glow and so he could not see their eyes well, but both nodded which was good enough, and with that they strode on up the hill towards Jarl Guthrum’s tent.

  They expected guards, because they had seen them from the borg ramparts earlier, though it had been too dark to tell how many there were. As it turned out there were just two, sitting on stools in front of Guthrum’s tent. They had a tafl board set up between them on another stool and were playing by the light of an oil lamp, which reached only far enough to illuminate the board itself and the men’s faces.

  Kill the guards. Kill Guthrum. Run up the hill to the borg where Moldof will be waiting. Simple as that.

  Now the three of them split, Sigurd walking down one side of the jarl’s tent, Floki and Valgerd going down the other, drawing their scramasaxes as they went. Then Sigurd came round the end and the two guards looked up at him, their hands falling to their sword grips.

  ‘Who is winning?’ Sigurd asked, but neither man could answer because each had a hand clamped over his mouth and a length of steel slicing through his throat. Sigurd did not wait to see it done, instead pushing inside the tent. Where Guthrum was waiting.

  And the jarl was not alone.

  There were ten warriors crammed into that fug-filled tent, though Sigurd only saw eight at first. They looked as surprised to see him as he was to see them, and they jumped up from their stools, mailed and helmed, swords and axes already in their hands, as a sword struck Sigurd across his back. His brynja stopped the blade biting, yet it still felt like a hammer blow and drove him forward into the press of warriors. Then he was down and they were slamming their shields and sword hilts at him, battering him to the ground when he tried to rise, and he wrapped his arms round his head while the blows rained down, his nose full of the stink of the old animal skins beneath him.

  A trap, then. Even through the pain and confusion of this beating, he was struck by that even more savage blow, that this had all been a trap and he had walked right into it.

  ‘Throw down your blades or he dies,’ a man threatened in a voice that demanded respect. The knot of warriors stepped away from Sigurd, who gasped for breath and tried to turn his head to look up at his enemies. But the point of the sword pressing against the back of his neck, forcing his face back to the ground, made it all but impossible to move. ‘Where are the rest?’ the man standing over him asked. The clatter of arms, along with the cool night air, filled the tent, announcing the arrival of more warriors. ‘Well?’

  Sigurd knew without doubt that it was Guthrum speaking, that it was Guthrum’s sword at his neck now.

  ‘All quiet, lord,’ a newcomer replied. ‘This seems to be all there is.’

  Sigurd managed to squirm round far enough to see Floki and Valgerd standing in the tent’s entrance empty-handed, their faces poorly lit by the lamp hanging from the ridge pole, which was swaying and sputtering having been knocked in the commotion. One of Guthrum’s men, perhaps the one who had struck Sigurd from behind, lay dead at Black Floki’s feet, but the others had greeted Floki and Valgerd with levelled blades. Still more of Guthrum’s spear men stood behind them outside in the shadows.

  ‘Again I find myself disappointed in Alrik,’ Guthrum said. ‘I really thought the temptation would be too much for him. That he would attack.’

  ‘Aye, and we’ve been stuffed in here all night like cats in a sack,’ a black-bearded warrior growled. He was the massive warrior Sigurd had seen from the walls, Guthrum’s champion if Sigurd was to guess. ‘Hardly worth it for these three,’ he said, then he and another warrior bent and relieved Sigurd of his scramasax, his sword and even his eating knife. Then Guthrum squatted beside him, keeping his sword point pressed into the hollow of Sigurd’s neck just beneath the skull.

  ‘At the very least he could have come himself if he intended to kill me in my own tent as I slept,’ the jarl said. He pushed the blade and Sigurd grimaced against the pain. A little more pressure and the sword would break the skin. More than that and it would slice into his brain. ‘Instead he sends two lads with barely a beard between them,’ Guthrum said. ‘And … a woman.’ That last was said with something resembling awe.

  He ordered his men to stay alert and do a sweep of the camp in case any more of Alrik’s men were skulking in the darkness. Then the sword point twisted a little and Sigurd felt the skin break and blood trickle round to his throat from where it dripped rhythmically on to the animal skins. ‘Who are you?’

  Sigurd said nothing. A big hand clutched his hair and hauled his head back.

  ‘I asked you a question.’

  Sigurd could see Guthrum properly for the first time and what he saw in that face was a dangerous combination of cruelty and cunning. If only he could have killed the man before the others had
a chance to stop him. Now he would die for nothing. Floki and Valgerd too.

  ‘Byrnjolf, lord,’ Sigurd said. Even as far from the lands of the Norse as they were, it would not be a clever thing to tell this man who he truly was. If it even mattered now.

  ‘Why did Alrik send you, Byrnjolf?’ Guthrum asked.

  Seeing there was no attack coming from the borg, some of his hirðmen slipped out of the tent, cursing when they saw Black Floki and Valgerd’s handiwork outside.

  ‘He did not send me. He does not know we are here,’ Sigurd said.

  Guthrum’s eyes narrowed. ‘I’ve seen you. Seen your face above the wall. Did you really think I would fall for that trick with the banner? The axe on it did not even look like the one on my own.’

  Sigurd shrugged. ‘Your men in the borg fell for it,’ he said, unable to resist. Guthrum’s face twisted at that. It must have been a hard thing knowing that half of his army had been slaughtered when Alrik took the borg. And yet from the look in the man’s eyes Sigurd knew that he was at least relieved to know now how it had happened, how his men had lost the place.

  ‘You are young to be tired of life, Byrnjolf,’ Guthrum said, letting go of Sigurd’s hair and standing. He gestured at his men who came and hauled Sigurd to his feet, one of them coming behind him to lock his arms round Sigurd’s neck. ‘Did you really think you could kill me and hop back over the wall to claim your reward and boast about what you had done?’

  ‘I thought killing you would be the easy part, Jarl Guthrum,’ Sigurd managed through the choking neck grip. ‘I was having doubts about the wall. The man waiting with the rope has only one arm.’

  Guthrum did not know what to make of this and Sigurd wondered why he was still alive.

  ‘We thought that killing you would end this war,’ Valgerd told the jarl. Guthrum stared at her. He was not alone. Half the men in that tent were staring at her. Had been before she even opened her mouth.

  ‘Who are you?’ Guthrum asked her.

  ‘Does it matter?’ Valgerd said.