by James Duncan
Bjóðr’s still-sharp tip swung round and sliced through Birkir’s throat. The jarl gasped once before falling to the ground and finally becoming still, nerveless fingers letting go of his sword.
Ragnvald walked to his side as the sword fell to the ground and stooped to return it to the dying man’s grip, face grim and flushed, tears falling unchecked from his face to Birkir’s ‘I’m sorry, brother.’
He waited until the last signs of life were gone and then stood and turned to his men. He looked bitterly at the huddle of prisoners. He was dreading what came next and nodded to the men guarding them. The men turned their weapons on the horrified prisoners, bound and defenceless as the steel tore into them. In a matter of moments, it was over. Sebbi spat on the ground in disgust, touching his hammer, a hopeless gesture to ward off the shame of what he had just done.
Ragnvald saw the disgust written clearly on the faces of his men, only the strength of their bonds forged over years of kinship keeping their loyalty intact. ‘We couldn’t afford to fight them, not so few and with no armour or shields. And we couldn’t take them with us or leave them to arrange an ambush or plot revenge. It had to be done.’ He said this softly, to no one in particular, perhaps mostly to himself. Leif nodded, and Ulf turned away, muttering through his wiry grey beard.
‘It was an ill thing to deprive them of an honourable end. But they had the choice. They should have fought to the death for their lord like him.’ Leif nodded his head at the cooling body of the half-naked axeman. ‘He earned a warrior’s death. The others took the coward’s way out. Don’t let it concern you.’
Ragnvald nodded with no conviction, and Steinar walked over to him urgently, brows furrowed. ‘You will kill the family?’
‘No. I gave my word. No women or children will be harmed. You know this.’
‘You also said those men would live.’
‘I didn’t swear it.’
‘A minor difference, some might say.’
‘Not to me – I made no promise. I let them hear what they wanted. They had weapons in their hands and breath in their lungs. They could have fought, but they made their choice. Leave me what is left of my honour, and don’t question it. Let’s be gone. We have a long way to go, and I can see the dawn coming in the east.’
‘The woman has seen you – you cannot leave her alive!’ Steinar pleaded, anger and worry reducing his words to a hiss.
‘It is dark, and she has never met me. She cannot know who we are. I will not kill a family I gave my oath to spare, and I will discuss it no further,’ Ragnvald hissed angrily, turning his bloodshot eyes on the Norwegian. Steinar exhaled in frustration but bit his tongue. He could see further words would do nothing.
The men quickly staved in the bottom planks of the two ships and a number of smaller boats that were moored at the small dock on the riverbank near the hall, the proud wooden ships gurgling and sloshing as they settled into the mud of the river bottom, masts and figureheads still above the surface, painted white eyes glaring in anger in the darkness.
Then they left the site of the massacre, torches burned out, striding west in single file along the path to Ulfhafen, the first tinges of dawn chasing them as they melded into the forest and were gone. A village of wailing widows left in their wake.
Chapter 17
The Fear in the Forest
‘Harnsted is out hunting.’
‘What? Shit. Where?’
‘Out further west. He left with about a dozen of his men yesterday, and he is expected back tomorrow,’ Hjalmar reported when Ragnvald met the scouts outside the town, the first rays of dawn breaking the horizon.
‘Hmm, perhaps this is a blessing. We can take him alone and far from help.’
‘If we find him. If we miss him in the woods, he will surely return to news of our attack and we will be done,’ Steinar added grimly.
‘Indeed. Hjalmar, how do you know where he went?’
‘We took a man outside the hall, a slave, and questioned him.’
‘And where is this slave?’
Hjalmar shifted uncomfortably. ‘In a ditch in the woods.’
Ragnvald bared his teeth in frustration. ‘By the gods man, we needed to know where exactly he went,’ Ragnvald chided him. ‘He is no use to us dead.’
‘He didn’t know any more.’ Hjalmar shrugged.
‘This isn’t good,’ said Leif. ‘A missing slave will be searched for.’
‘Yes, and dawn is here. People will be rising. Fuck, we will have to go into the woods and hope the gods are with us. We will search out Harnsted’s camp and work out a plan when we find it.’
‘This could go very badly, very quickly. This is an armed, alert group of men searching the woods for prey, and we have no idea where they are,’ Steinar mused.
Ragnvald looked at him, a grim smile on his face. ‘We risk much, but it is for everything. Are you afraid of a little challenge? Let us go and hunt these hunters.’
Dawn was fully upon them by the time they had circled around the small town and were out of sight of it. Behind them, the folk would be rising for the day’s labours, going out to their fields and collecting water and a hundred other tasks. The dead slave would be missed, and perhaps found. Ragnvald could only hope they looked for the killer within the town, not without.
The woods were different in that gently undulating land to the ones in his own lands further south. The trees were taller, with bare trunks twice the height of a man, and there was less undergrowth of small trees. You could see further and be seen from further. His men loped along behind as they followed one game trail after another, seeing signs of recent passage by people often, but nothing they could be sure was their quarry.
Ragnvald grew increasingly worried. The hunting party could have already returned to the town via a different path, discovered the attack on Birkir and even now be arming for war. He would be trapped, cut off from his ship. He considered spreading out his men into multiple groups to search, but it was a desperate plan; they would be impossible to find again in these broad and unfamiliar woodlands. He gathered his men together to quickly discuss their options.
As they gathered quietly in a low depression between two large pine trees, quiet men with strained faces, they all understood the danger they were in. One of the scouts hissed for silence and listened to the wind, slowly turning his head.
There. They all heard it this time. Faint but unmistakable: a horn sounding to their west, away from the town.
Ragnvald smiled, the first time he had done so for days. ‘The gods favour us at last. That is a hunting horn, is it not? They are driving deer, perhaps.’ The scout nodded.
‘Aye, that is no war horn. And it is not close to Ulfhafen.’ He looked up at the sun, filtering as it was through the dark-green canopy of needles. ‘If they are hunting now, they do not mean to return to town before dark. They will return to their camp for the night.’
‘I agree, so we must find it. Let’s go, and hope they keep blowing that bloody horn.’
Ragnvald was lying behind the tree, silent, and listening to the sounds of merriment in the camp hidden below them in a dell by a stream. For half the day, they had carefully tracked the hunting party by the sound of its horns, the bark of its dogs and the voices of men shouting at each other. Now, having carefully followed the trail of drying blood left by the men taking the slaughtered deer back to their camp, the manhunters had gathered together to plan the attack.
Ragnvald crept back from the edge of the small rise that overlooked the camp and quietly returned to his hidden men some hundred paces further down the slope.
‘The report was accurate. There are fourteen of them, including Harnsted. They are eating and drinking and celebrating their success in the hunt. No sentries, no watch. Only men frequently leaving to piss that might spoil an attack. They are completely relaxed.’
His men strained to hear his whispers.
‘Here is what we will do. We have to ensure that none escape. Leif, you will go up o
ver this small hill behind us, cross the stream and cover the camp on the far side. Make sure no one runs across the stream. Take five men. Steinar, take another five and go left, down to where the stream leaves the camp. When the signal comes, you will attack from there. I will attack from here. Questions?’
‘What will be the signal?’ asked Steinar.
‘A lot of shouting,’ replied Ragnvald, grinning. ‘They have bows and spears, and we don’t have shields, so we go in fast and hard and don’t give them time to react, or this will get very messy. No noise until they raise the alarm, and then make them think Ragnarök is upon them. Shock them into inaction. Every moment counts.’
The men quietly split up into groups and moved off. Ragnvald allowed a lot of time. He had to be sure everyone was in position and had no way of checking except giving them all the time they could need. He was nervous. Everyone was nervous. This was the worst part of battle. Waiting, worrying, hoping to suffer neither humiliation nor an agonising and helpless death. Men checked and rechecked weapons. Swords were kept out of the damp tree litter by men who were searching the trees for danger, wide-eyed and alert.
Finally, when he couldn’t take the tension any more, he motioned to the men around him and signalled the attack. They broke into a loping run through the trees, seven of them, swords and spears held out in front. Their mouths were open as they exhaled like men who had run all day, the nerves taking their breath as much as any exercise.
Ragnvald’s shoes swept through the soft litter of needles and the small plants that called the ground their home. They quickly reached the rise and dropped over it, slithering and sliding down the slope leading into the open dell. In front of him, a confused man was pissing onto the last tree, mouth moving like a landed fish as seven armed men, silent as forest spirits, burst out of the woods in front of him with death in their hands. The man desperately tried to fumble his trousers back up as he turned to run, screamed for help and then died with Sebbi’s sword in his back.
Ragnvald’s men started screaming like demons as they burst from the tree cover and crossed the dozen or so paces of open ground to the camp. Ale-fuddled men gaped at them or scattered, running for weapons, for their tents, for the pair of horses. The attackers swept into the camp like a fell wind, running down everyone regardless whether they fought or not. Steinar’s men burst out of the trees on the left, yelling like fiends as they fell on the backs of the terrified men in the camp.
Ragnvald swung his sword at a man who was desperately trying to nock an arrow onto his bow. The man fumbled it and cried out as Bjóðr cut through the bow and through his arm, gashing his chest from breastbone to armpit, the tip scoring off ribs. Ragnvald kicked the man to the ground and speared his sword at his chest, while he twisted and tried to scurry away with his one good arm. His attempt to crawl away and his twisting meant the sword went between the man’s buttocks and sliced into his groin. The wretched man screamed like a wounded deer and scrabbled at the cold blade, ripping his fingers to shreds in his pain and panic. Ragnvald finally managed to free the blade and thrust it again into the wounded man’s throat, ending the horrible screams at last. Ragnvald grimaced with displeasure. It had been a messy death, undeserved. He looked up from the ruined man and saw Sebbi hacking a boar spear to one side and killing the wielder with a perfect thrust to the heart. The clean kill only angered him more.
It was over as fast as it had begun. Men who had been drinking ale and eating in relaxed safety just heartbeats ago were dying on the ground, spitted with sudden steel, merriment still warm on their gasping lips.
Within fifty heartbeats of the first man at the tree dying, the camp was clear, and no enemy was left alive in it.
‘Where is Harnsted? Where is his body? Who killed him?’ Ragnvald asked, looking around at the bodies, bending down to turn over one that lay face down.
‘Eleven!’ cried Sebbi.
‘What?’ shouted Ragnvald, turning around, counting the bodies himself. It was true. There were only eleven bodies on the ground.
‘Leif! What of the stream – did you see anyone cross it?
‘No, my lord, I did not but… Shit. Askund is missing. On the left, he was on the left!’
Ragnvald cursed and started towards the area where the man had been.
‘Askund!’ shouted Leif, crashing through the low branches along the far side of the stream. Ragnvald ran to the stream, crossing it with a single splashing step, his foot struggling for grip on the smooth and jumbled stones on the riverbed. Men were following him.
He caught up with Leif as he found Askund. The young man was lying against a tree, a deep wound in his chest, sucking with his breathing, which was ragged and weak.
‘Three men,’ he forced out, though blood bubbled in his mouth. ‘I hit one. I’m sorry.’ He gasped and started choking. A man rolled him over onto his side, but it was too late for him. He went into the death shakes and then lay still, blood spilling from his open mouth.
Ragnvald let out a string of curses, which would have made any drunkard blush, then calmed himself. ‘Gather half the men and follow me. We must chase them down. It is half a day’s walk to the nearest village we passed. They could run it in less than half of that. Go!’
With that, Ragnvald got up and started running through the trees eastwards with the men who were there with him, following a bright trail of blood. Soon, they came upon the source of the blood: a man sitting against a tree, breathing heavily and bleeding from a gut wound. Ragnvald ignored him and carried on past. Men were spreading out left and right, trying to pick up the trail through the trees.
Their quarry had been in a hurry and was not careful. Despite the end of the trail of blood, the way they had gone was often clear, scuff marks in the dry pine needles showing damp earth underneath, cracks of breaking twigs and snagging branches heard in front of them.
The scout, Inge, passed Ragnvald as he started to slow, age taking its toll on his endurance and his legs as the slight young man hared on. It saved his life. Inge passed a large pine trunk on the trail, and an axe swung out from behind it, catching Inge square in the neck and nearly beheading him. Ragnvald was a few paces behind and swung his sword wildly at the revealed foe, who was still drawing his axe back from the body of the falling scout. Ragnvald made contact with the wild swing, felt the edge bite flesh and then he was past. He kept going. Someone behind would deal with the wounded ambusher.
On and on he went, the trail still clear in the otherwise undisturbed leaf litter. His breath was starting to fail him, throat burning, legs burning with the exertion, sweat running down his face and stinging his eyes.
His quarry, who had been eating and drinking when he was surprised, reached his limit first. Ragnvald stumbled into a small clearing to find Harnsted leaning against a tree on the far side, gasping, vomit dribbling from his chin into a splatter at the base of the tree. He looked up in alarm at Ragnvald’s appearance and started off again, launching his exhausted legs into another effort as his feet struggled for purchase on the soft forest floor.
As his prey disappeared around the tree, Ragnvald wearily started after him, only to hear a shout of triumph from ahead. Reaching the tree, he saw that Harnsted was lying on his back on the forest floor, backed up against another tree, a spear at his throat and terror in his eyes.
Steinar appeared at Ragnvald’s shoulder, and the two jarls caught their breath as they strode over to the prostrate and whimpering man. Hjalmar spoke without taking his eyes off Jarl Harnsted. ‘I got around in front of him. He doesn’t have a weapon.’
‘Doesn’t have a weapon?’ Ragnvald exclaimed in surprise.
‘Who are you?’ blurted out Harnsted. ‘Spare me, and you will be greatly rewarded. I will be the king next year, and I will make you wealthy men.’
‘Silence!’ grated out Ragnvald with a deep growl. ‘We know who you are, coward. Do not disgrace yourself with begging. You will be nothing next year but mud. Your life ends here. Try to die like a man.’
‘You know who I am?’ stammered Harnsted. ‘Who are you? Why do you come for me? I am no coward! I am the rightful king of Sweden!’
‘You are nothing. You lie there unarmed and beg for your life? I am ashamed to even be near you. Where were you in Jutland? Where were you when your king went to fight the crusaders? Where were you when we stood against the Christians and our brothers bled into the damp earth? Where were you when your men died in the forest this day?’ Ragnvald was furious now, and Harnsted tried to shrink from this, the tall old warrior who towered over him with blood all over his sword and arms.
‘Someone had to stay and defend the king’s lands while he was gone!’ protested Harnsted.
‘And of course it was you who volunteered. I wouldn’t leave you to guard a chicken coop.’ Ragnvald shook his head violently. ‘How did we allow the royal line to grow so weak? You and your cousin the king disgraced us. Our people have grown weak since the end of the old ways when a king had to earn his position with blood and iron, not the bleating of old men at the Dísablót and silver quietly filling open hands. No! Enough excuses. Your whimpering embarrasses me.’ Ragnvald cut off Harnsted’s attempt to reply with a foot on his neck.
‘You didn’t even pick up a weapon in your haste to flee, so you can die like a thrall without one, barred forever from Odin’s hall.’ Ragnvald abruptly plunged his sword into the open mouth of his captive, pushing down as it crunched through gristle and then bone, and the man’s wide and desperate eyes glazed over and stilled.
Ragnvald stepped away in disgust, wiping his sword on the dead man’s tunic. ‘And that would have been our king? How did it come to this? Perhaps we have earned this calamity. How the gods must look with despair on our people.’ Men touched their hammer amulets or just stared at the dead jarl, a dark stain spreading on his trousers in a last act of cowardice. ‘Let us head back to the boats before better men than this come to find us.’
