War of the Wolf

by Bernard Cornwell

  “You know that?” I asked.

  “We outnumber them,” Osferth said, though he sounded uncertain.

  “We outnumber them,” I agreed, “but they are the úlfhéðnar. They fight for pleasure.”

  “This is true,” Father Oda put in. He made the sign of the cross. “The úlfhéðnar have no fear. Some might even desire death because they believe they will be given a place of honor in Valhalla’s feasting hall.”

  Osferth gazed at the enemy. Sköll was in the center of their line, looking huge in his great fur cloak, and next to him was a slim rider with long white hair and a long white beard wearing a pale robe that fell to his stirrups. It had to be Snorri, Sköll’s feared sorcerer. He stared at us with his empty eye sockets and I felt the unease of that distant gaze, then he turned his gray horse and rode out of sight beyond the horsemen. Those horsemen carried bright-painted shields, their spear-points caught the winter light, and their horn defied us with its harsh notes. They had stopped some three or four spear-casts from us, but Sköll’s younger men, the brave fools, cavorted on their horses nearer to us, calling out challenges and insults, daring us to face them in single combat.

  “Finan?” I said softly, “choose thirty men.”

  “What are you doing?” Osferth demanded with some alarm.

  “Lord Prince,” I said, using the title to annoy him, “might I remind you that you are in Northumbria? That I am an ealdorman of Northumbria? And that if a lord of Northumbria wishes to hunt pigeons in his own country he does not need the permission of a West Saxon bastard?” I smiled at him after the insult, and he said nothing.

  “You are . . .” Father Oda began, then stopped as Osferth held up a hand to check the protest.

  “Lord Uhtred only speaks the truth,” Osferth said coldly, “if uncouthly.”

  “Finan!” I called, and he trotted his horse to me. “Dismount,” I told him, “and lead your horses back to the wood. Do it slowly.” Then I told him what he would discover in the wood and what he was to do, and Finan just grinned because he was eager for the fight to begin. And there would be a fight because to our left the leafless trees stretched to the crest of the western ridge, and halfway up that slope some pigeons had just clattered through the branches to fly in circles. There were men there. I could not see them because the underbrush was thick on the slope, but I knew they were there. Sköll had pulled his scouts off the eastern ridge, but had left men on the western hill, and those men were now coming slowly and cautiously down the long wooded slope. They believed we had not seen them, that we only had eyes for Sköll and his main force, but the startled pigeons had betrayed their presence.

  Osferth was a clever man, as clever as his father King Alfred, but clever is not always cunning. He had formed a shield wall because his scouts had told him I was approaching. He did not make the wall because he expected me to attack him, but because he wanted to look resolute and strong. He evidently had some message for me from Æthelstan, and it did not take cleverness on my part to know what that message was. Osferth had decided that this was not to be a meeting of old friends, but a harsh demand that I submit myself to Æthelstan’s authority, and so the shield wall was meant to impress me.

  Then Sköll’s men had appeared, and Osferth had kept his shield wall in place because no one attacks a shield wall lightly. He expected Sköll to shout a challenge, to taunt us with insults, and then ride away rather than lose men in an assault on a shield wall. Osferth had faith in numbers, and we were the larger force, and clever as he was, Osferth could not imagine that Sköll would dare start a fight he was doomed to lose.

  But Sköll had already lost face by failing to capture Eoferwic. He had led an army east and he had been defeated, and all he had to show for the effort was a few slaves and some skinny cattle. His men were not going to become rich from this expedition, and like all the Northmen, he had promised his followers wealth. That was why they were in Britain. Sköll had vowed to become King of Northumbria, and he would have promised his chieftains land, silver, women, cattle, and slaves. Instead they were retreating back to their steadings on Cumbraland’s western coast. A Norse chieftain who failed to reward his men was a chieftain who would lose his reputation.

  But Sköll had seen the shield wall, and seen a chance to win a victory that would yield horses, mail, saddlery, weapons, and captives. It would not even begin to approach the plunder that he would have gained at Eoferwic, but to retreat from the shield wall’s challenge would brand him as a coward and a failure. He had no choice. He had to attack, and he had seen just how vulnerable Osferth was. And I had tried to think myself into Sköll’s place. How would I attack this shield wall? How would I tear it into red ruin? And the answer was obvious to me, though Osferth, clever as he was, had not seen it.

  A shield wall is a terrifying thing to assault, but Sköll’s men were mounted, and they could ride around the wall and attack it from the rear, especially as Osferth’s wall was straddling the road with its flanks in the open pastureland. I did not doubt that Osferth would take them back to the tree line before that could happen, and Sköll’s horsemen would have a hard time with the tangling undergrowth and low branches, and my horsemen would offer another challenge, but Sköll, I knew, had no intention of letting Osferth fight a messy battle at the edge of the wood. He planned to cut down Osferth’s shield wall in the open country, and to make that happen he had sent a handful of horsemen to circle behind us, and those men were now moving quietly toward us, hidden by the trees on the western ridge, and when they saw Sköll’s larger force was close enough, they would burst from the trees to charge the rear of Osferth’s wall. Even a half-dozen spearmen, mounted on good horses, could tear a shield wall apart if they attacked from behind, and the result would be panic as Osferth’s men turned to fight off the sudden assault, and during that panic Sköll’s main force would charge. There would be a brief fight, a slaughter, then the horror of blood-slicked grass where the wall had once stood.

  By now Finan had walked his men and their horses back to the trees. To Sköll, if he saw them go, it would have looked as though Finan was merely adding his horses to Osferth’s stallions, which had been taken to the wood’s edge and secured there, but Finan, as soon as he was among the trees, remounted. Sköll, I guessed, was taking more notice of my remaining men who were being given shields and spears. I touched Serpent-Breath’s hilt and said a silent prayer before I leaned down and took a spear’s thick ash shaft from one of the servant boys. Then I waited.

  Sköll edged his men forward. The youngest of his warriors were shouting their challenges, riding within a spear’s throw of Osferth’s line, daring us to go forward and fight. I could see Sköll clearly now, a broad-faced, heavily bearded man wearing a helmet with silver cheek-pieces. He was shouting too, but I could not make out his voice among the others. He appeared to be gazing at Osferth, who sat his horse at the center of the wall.

  Any moment now, I thought.

  “Osferth!” I called.

  “Lord?”

  “March your men to the wood’s edge! I want the trees protecting your left flank!”

  “What—” he began.

  “Do it!” I bellowed, and because in the past he had always accepted my command and perhaps because he still trusted me, he obeyed. “Be ready!” I called to the shield wall. “Keep your shields up as you go!”

  And it began. But not as Sköll had planned.

  He had thought to see his men burst from the trees to charge the rear of Osferth’s shield wall. Instead they appeared much higher up the slope where they were being pursued by Finan’s horsemen. I counted sixteen Norse horsemen, their stallions hurling up clods of earth as Finan spurred in pursuit. Not too far, not too far! I muttered it under my breath as Vidarr Leifson, a Norseman himself, back-handed his sword to unsaddle the rearmost fugitive. Beornoth, a Saxon, lunged down with a spear to gut the fallen man, then Finan was bellowing at his men to break off the pursuit and follow him down the slope. A half-dozen riderless horse
s came from the trees and followed Finan’s men downhill. Osferth’s men were almost at the wood as Finan galloped his horsemen along the face of the wall, scaring away two of Sköll’s young warriors who had ridden close to jeer at us. “Now make some noise, damn you!” I shouted at the shield wall.

  “We killed six of them,” Finan said as he reined in close beside me.

  “Now let’s humble the bastards,” I said.

  Osferth’s men had started banging their swords against their shields again. Finan and I rode along the face of the wall. “They’re frightened of you,” I called to Osferth’s men, “so tell them what sons of miserable whores they are!”

  Sköll had not moved, his line of horsemen stood still, their stallions’ hooves pawing the damp earth. He had thought that his surprise attack would panic Osferth’s men and make them easy meat for his blades, but instead they were unbroken and jeering him. His standard-bearer was holding a handsome triangular banner, which, as he waved it slowly from side to side, unfurled to reveal the badge of a snarling wolf. “Rorik!” I called.

  “Lord?”

  “Show them my banner.” The wolf’s head of Bebbanburg would challenge the snarling wolf of Sköll.

  I waited till the banner was flying, then rode slowly toward Sköll. Finan came with me and, when we were halfway between the Norsemen and Osferth’s troops I rammed my spear-blade into the turf and ostentatiously turned my shield so that the wolf’s head was upside down. Then I waited.

  I heard the hoofbeats behind me. “Is that Osferth?” I asked Finan. I did not want to look around, but kept my eyes on Sköll.

  “It’s Osferth,” Finan confirmed, “with his priest.”

  Osferth reined in to my left. He said nothing, just looked at me resentfully. The priest stayed behind him.

  “Sköll sent scouts along the western hill,” I told Osferth, “and they were supposed to come down through the trees and attack you from the rear.”

  “You might have told me,” he said.

  “You mean you didn’t see them?” I asked, pretending to be surprised.

  He scowled, then shook his head ruefully. “Thank you, lord,” he said. He looked at Sköll. “What’s he doing?”

  “Planning our deaths,” I said.

  “He surely won’t fight?”

  “Not now,” I said, “and if your men were mounted I’d attack him.”

  “We could . . .” he began, then paused. He had either been about to suggest that we could advance anyway, but that would take his shield wall away from the wood that protected their left flank, or else he was going to say they could fetch their horses, but that would mean breaking the wall and giving Sköll a chance to charge. “I should have kept them mounted,” he said.

  “I would have done,” I said mildly.

  “My father . . .” he began, and again paused.

  “Your father?” I asked.

  “Always said you were a fool, lord, but a clever fool when it came to a fight.”

  I laughed at that, and just then Sköll spurred his horse forward. We numbered four men, and so he brought three of his own warriors, all riding slowly toward the inverted spear that, with my shield turned upside down, was a sign that we wanted a parley. “He’s not going to fight now,” Finan said.

  “No?” I asked.

  “He hasn’t brought his sorcerer with him.”

  “What difference does that make?” Osferth asked.

  “If he planned to fight,” Finan said, “he’d want us to see his sorcerer and be frightened.”

  And that, I thought, was probably true. I remembered that the sorcerer had advised Sköll not to attack Eoferwic, and that forecast had turned out to be true, and I had just seen Snorri turn his back and ride away from us. “They haven’t used their magic ointment either,” Oda the priest said scornfully.

  “How can you tell?” Osferth asked.

  “They’d be screaming at us, even charging us.”

  We fell silent as Sköll and his companions drew nearer. I stared at him. This was the man who had killed Stiorra, and I felt the rage rise. Finan later said I was shuddering and that I was oblivious to the hand he laid on my arm. I do remember bile souring my gullet as I watched the Norseman approach. He was younger than I expected, perhaps around forty. He was broad shouldered and made even bigger by the heavy white cloak. Beneath it he wore glittering mail and a hammer of gold. There was gray in his beard, but the hair showing beneath the helmet’s chased rim was blond. His face was deep-lined, his nose broad and broken, while his eyes were blue, narrow, and shrewd. He stopped a pace or so beyond the spear. For a moment he said nothing, but just looked at us with what seemed like amusement, and, when he spoke, his manner was surprisingly mild.

  “So,” he said, “we found Enar and Njall’s bodies. Enar was an incompetent fool, but Njall had promise. Who killed them?”

  “I did.”

  “While they were tied to a tree? You are brave, old man.”

  “What is he saying?” Osferth hissed.

  “Nothing important,” the priest said, “just insults.”

  “So who are you?” Sköll asked me.

  “The man who killed Enar and Njall.”

  Sköll sighed, while his three companions scowled at me. All three wore gray wolf cloaks and had weather-tanned narrow faces. One had a black beard plaited into short stubs, a second had a scar that slashed clean across his swarthy face from the left jawbone to the right cheekbone, so that he appeared to have two nostrils, one above the other, while the third smiled at me to show that he had filed his teeth into points.

  Sköll sighed again and looked up into the sky as though seeking inspiration. A heavy ax hung on his right side, held from the saddle’s pommel by a leather harness, while at his left hip was a huge sword, scabbarded in leather. The hilt was dull steel, the grips bound with wolf skin, and I knew that had to be Grayfang, the weapon that had killed my daughter. Sköll looked back to me. “You brought a sorcerer,” he said, nodding toward Osferth’s priest, “you fear me that much?”

  “Why would I fear a failure like you?” I asked. “You ran from Ireland like a frightened child, and I hear that a woman chased you from Jorvik.”

  He nodded as if acknowledging the truth. “But the woman died,” he said, “I killed her.”

  At that moment I just wanted to draw Serpent-Breath and slice him to red ribbons, but I was steeling myself to be calm. “You killed a woman,” I said, “you are brave.”

  He shrugged. “She was brave, certainly, but she should not have fought us.”

  “She was a sorceress,” I said, “who used the skull curse. Is your sorcerer good enough to avert that curse?”

  Sköll gazed at me, judging my words. “If she was so powerful a sorceress,” he said, “why did she die?”

  “The Norns told her she must die,” I said, “that it was her time, but that there was a purpose in her death.”

  “And how do you know that?” he asked. He still spoke calmly, but I noticed how he and his companions had all touched their hammers when I mentioned the skull curse. There was, so far as I knew, no such curse, but it was enough to unsettle Sköll. “How do you know she had a purpose?” he asked again.

  “Because she spoke to me in dreams, of course.”

  “You invent stories like a child, old man.”

  “And the purpose of her death,” I went on, “was to send you to Niflheim where the corpse-ripper will gnaw your flesh through the rest of time. You will writhe in agony, scream like a baby, and weep like a child. The sorceress told me the worm would gnaw the flesh from your bones, but you will never die, and as you suffer, as you whimper, you will hear the laughter of the heroes in Valhalla. All that she told me.”

  He was frightened by that. I saw his hand move toward the hammer again, but he checked the motion, dropping his hand to caress the big blade of the ax instead. “You talk bravely, old man. Do you fight bravely?” He waited for my answer, but I kept silent. “Do you want to fight me now?” he as
ked.

  “I want to kill you.”

  He laughed at that. “Then fight me now, old man.”

  “Why would I sully my reputation by fighting a failure?” I taunted him.

  “You have a reputation to sully?” he sneered.

  “I am the old man who defeated your son in combat,” I said. “Is that not reputation enough for you?”

  And that, at last, roused him. He had been surprisingly restrained, but my words made him spur his horse forward and lean down to snatch my spear from the turf, but before he could level the unwieldy weapon, I had drawn Wasp-Sting, my short-sword, kicked Tintreg, and had lunged the sword’s point into the tangle of his beard.

  His three followers had all half drawn their swords. Finan was even faster, and his sword, Soul-Stealer, was already clear of her scabbard, but he froze just like the others when I rammed Wasp-Sting into Sköll’s beard. Did I mean to kill him? Yes, but the horses moved slightly apart before the blade broke his skin and the stallion belonging to the man with the plaited beard was stopping Tintreg from moving further ahead. Sköll had his head back, held there by Wasp-Sting’s sharp point.

  “Enough!” Osferth snapped in English. “Put the sword down, lord,” he added to me in a calm voice. “Please, lord, put it down.”

  Finan sheathed Soul-Stealer. He did it very slowly, very deliberately, then leaned over, and, still moving with extreme care, pushed my sword arm down. “This is a truce, lord,” he chided me, “a truce.”

  “What are they saying?” Sköll asked me.

  “That you have no honor,” I snarled back.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  “The man who will kill you,” I answered, “and I swear on the gods that you will have no sword in your hand when you die.”

  He sneered at that. “You frighten me, old man.”

  “What is being said?” Osferth insisted.

  “Childish insults,” Father Oda said dismissively.

  Sköll rammed the spear back into the turf and backed his horse away. I also backed Tintreg, who tossed his head and whinnied. Osferth put a gloved hand onto the horse’s bridle as if to prevent me from attacking Sköll again. “You suggested the truce,” he said to me, “why?”