War of the Wolf

by Bernard Cornwell

  And never more so than on that day at Heahburh. He had thought he was dead when the first surprise attack came from the fog and he was almost overwhelmed by Sköll’s men. “I knew I couldn’t reach you, lord,” he told me after the battle, “so I ran down into the valley. I was going to keep running, but heard my name being called.”

  “It was your brother?”

  “Both brothers, lord!” Berg had two elder brothers, Egil and Thorolf, who, on the death of their father, had sent their younger brother to sail with a viking crew so he could learn the business of raiding, an education that had ended on the beach where I had discovered him. The older brothers, in the meantime, made farms on Snæland, that raw island of ice and fire in the stormy waters of the northern ocean, and it was there that they heard stories of a new Norse kingdom being carved from the coastal lands of western Britain. And so, leaving their families in Snæland, they had sailed with two ships and seventy-two men. “They only arrived a fortnight ago, lord,” Berg told me.

  “They want to settle here?”

  “Sköll promised them wealth and land. So if they find good land? Yes, lord, I think they might bring their women too.”

  I was not surprised. I had been to Snæland, and life there was hard, the winters were cruel, and rich enemies were few, which meant plunder was scarce, and so the Skallagrimmrson brothers were restless, bored, eager for the sea and for new lands. Sköll had beckoned, they had come, and at Heahburh they had found their younger brother. “And you persuaded them they were fighting for the wrong side?”

  “Yes, lord,” Berg said, “but I think what really persuaded them was Snorri’s defeat. Egil said that was a sign from the gods.” He hesitated, plainly about to add something, then decided it was best left unsaid.

  I guessed what he was reluctant to say. “And you promised your brothers I’d give them land and wealth if they fought for me?”

  He had blushed. “I just said you were generous, lord.”

  Egil Skallagrimmrson’s men had been charged with defending the northern section of the wall, from the gate to the tower, and they had let the úlfhéðnar loose by opening the gate after Snorri’s defeat. “If the wolf-men defeat your Lord Uhtred,” Egil had told Berg, “we will know what the gods want.” And it had become clear that the gods did not want the úlfhéðnar to win, and so Egil had shut the gate and kept it barred as my son’s men hacked and speared their way through the survivors of the crazed charge. Sköll realized too late what was happening, but as soon as he understood that Egil’s men had turned on him he began the fight I had seen on the ramparts. And while Egil fought off Sköll’s men, Thorolf Skallagrimmrson opened the gate to mine.

  We were inside Heahburh. My son was first. His men pulled away the bodies that blocked the gate, then helped to haul the great gates open before bursting into the fortress. We followed, climbing over the úlfhéðnar corpses that were strewn on the causeway, then going into the narrow lanes between the Roman barracks. I could hear women screaming, children crying, dogs barking, and horses whinnying. The barracks still mostly had stone walls, though the walls were much patched with timber and all were now roofed with turf rather than tiles. Some were being used as stables, others were sleeping quarters, one was a storehouse of grain, another was heaped with silver ingots, and we now fought past all the buildings and through some, though Sigtryggr, his left arm lamed, and I with my blurred sight and wounded leg could not keep up with the younger men who were surging through the alleys and screaming like fiends as they cut down an enemy who had never expected us to pierce their defenses. I found one of Sköll’s men dying in a doorway, his guts spilled onto horse dung. “Lord, lord,” he called to me, and I saw that his sword, a cheap blade, had fallen from his hand. I edged it nearer him with my foot and his hand closed around the hilt. “Thank you, lord,” he said. Oswi, coming behind me, slashed his sword across the man’s throat.

  “He was dying,” I said.

  “That’s seven, lord,” Oswi had not heard me, and would not have cared if he had. He ran past me, eager for his eighth victim.

  “Lay down your weapons!” Sigtryggr shouted, and some of his men took up the shout. Berg’s brothers and their Snælanders had stayed by the gate, anxious not to be mistaken for Sköll’s men by our vengeful warriors. Discipline had let our men defeat the úlfhéðnar, but that order now vanished in a horror of slaying. Our men filled the alleys with rivers of blood. I smelled the stink of gore. I saw men hacking at corpses, screaming as if they were themselves úlfhéðnar. I called on them to make shield walls, to defend themselves against a desperate, panicking enemy, but they were men who had expected to die, and they took revenge for that despair by killing in a fury.

  Most of Sköll’s warriors were still on the fighting platforms of the ramparts, above the slaughter in the fort, but even those men began to surrender. Berg, who was known to my men, had left his brothers and was shouting at the enemy to drop their shields and swords, and Sigtryggr was calling the same encouragement. Some men leaped from the walls onto the outer ditches, but Sihtric of Dunholm, whose men had been on the far left of our shield wall during the failed assaults, had stayed outside the fort, and those defenders who tried to escape were either killed by the men of Dunholm or else meekly gave up their weapons.

  I remember my father saying that nothing is certain in battle except death, which makes battle resemble life itself. Be ready for surprises, my father had preached. Be ready for the spear thrust that comes under the shield, be ready for the ax blade that hooks over the shield’s rim, be ready for everything, he liked to say, and you will still be surprised. I had been surprised by Berg’s survival, by the unexpected help of the Snælanders, and now I was surprised by the speed with which Sköll’s vaunted army collapsed. The fighting died suddenly, as if men were exhausted by the slaughter. The killing-fury of my men was sudden and vicious, but then they began to realize they had won and that to go on killing was to risk being killed themselves. Sköll’s men laid down their shields when they sensed the fury was past, and men from both sides greeted each other. Many of Sigtryggr’s warriors and a good few of mine were Norsemen, and, like Berg, were finding men among the enemy that they had known years or months in the past. I saw Vidarr Leifson embrace a bloodied enemy who, moments before, had been trying to kill him.

  Only Sköll, his sorcerer, and his closest household warriors were left, and most of those men, some of them wearing the gray cloak of the úlfhéðnar, showed little desire to fight. They had lost and they knew it. I knew Sköll himself would not give up, but the only remaining thing worth fighting for was to make Snorri’s prophecy come true; that two kings must die. Sköll might have lost this day, but he could still retrieve some pride and make a reputation out of the disaster.

  And so he came to find us. To find us and to kill us.

  Sigtryggr had joined me at the center of the fort where an open space made a wide square in front of the largest building, which I assumed had been the Roman commander’s quarters. He had grinned at me. “How’s the leg?”

  “Stiffening. Your arm?”

  “Numb.” He turned and frowned as men started to shout. The sound grew louder, and it could only mean that Sköll was coming and that to the Norse this was more than a contest, it was an entertainment.

  Finan led his men into the square and frowned when he heard the shouting. “They’re drunk,” he said.

  “Probably.” Sigtryggr watched the alley opposite us. More and more men were coming from its shadows to line the edges of the open space. “He’s coming for a fight, isn’t he?”

  “He is,” I said.

  “And you let me fight him,” Finan insisted.

  “No,” Sigtryggr said.

  “Your shield arm, lord King—”

  “I fight with a sword,” Sigtryggr interrupted him, “not a shield.”

  “Stiorra!” I said, and they both looked at me. “For my daughter’s sake, he’s mine.”

  “No, lord!” Finan said, and just then
men parted on the far side of the square and Sköll appeared with Snorri. The blind sorcerer was plucking at Sköll’s arm, talking low and insistently. Sköll seemed to be listening, but then saw us, stopped, and put a hand over Snorri’s mouth to silence him. He stared at us for a moment, and then, very slowly and very deliberately, he drew his great sword, Grayfang.

  The excited shouts died. Sköll, aware that every man watched him, stepped into the center of the square. He wore his great white fur cloak over unscarred mail. His helmet shone, ringed with the gold of the kingship he claimed and crested with a wolf’s tail. He held Grayfang in his right hand, and with his left he guided Snorri so that the two of them stood at the center of the circle of men. He looked at Sigtryggr, then at me. “Who do I give the sword to?” he asked.

  We were all so surprised by the offer to surrender that, for a heartbeat, no one answered. Then I found my voice. “To King Sigtryggr,” I said, “of course.”

  “Lord King,” Snorri said, pawing at Sköll’s arm, “lord King!” The sorcerer’s eye sockets were shadows.

  “Quiet, my friend,” Sköll said, patting Snorri’s shoulder. The sorcerer was shaking slightly. He wore long, grubby white robes. He had lost his wolf’s skull and seemed bereft without his small dog. “All will be well,” Sköll told him, then looked at Sigtryggr. “I have one thing I must do before I give you the sword.”

  “One thing?” Sigtryggr asked, puzzled.

  “Just one,” Sköll said, and with that he took one pace away from Snorri, turned quickly, and struck with Grayfang. Snorri had no warning. One moment he stood, frightened, then Sköll’s blade slashed across his throat with sudden savagery. Sköll kept the sword moving, driving it and pulling it back to saw Snorri’s gullet, and he opened the sorcerer’s neck to the spine. Snorri’s long white hair and plaited beard turned red. He made no noise, he just fell, crumpled, a mess of blood, hair, and robes. An astonished gasp went up from the men watching. For a moment Snorri’s body twitched as his blood soaked into the earth, and then he was still. “He failed,” Sköll said. “What use is a sorcerer who fails?”

  “Give me your sword,” Sigtryggr said coldly.

  Sköll, who seemed to be the calmest man in Heahburh, nodded. “Of course,” he said. He took Grayfang into his left hand, holding her by the blade just beneath the hilt, and walked toward Sigtryggr. And I could see the treachery. He was right-handed, yet he held the sword with his left, leaving the hilt free and his right hand empty. A drop of blood fell from Grayfang’s tip as he walked toward us. He was smiling. “You won,” he said to Sigtryggr, who took one pace forward to accept his enemy’s sword.

  And Sköll snatched the hilt with his right hand and swept Grayfang in a mighty back-handed slash that should have broken Sigtryggr’s one good arm, except that the instant I saw Sköll’s hand take Grayfang’s hilt I stepped forward and shoved Sigtryggr hard so that he fell to his left, and I kept moving so that my borrowed shield crashed into Sköll and drove him back so forcefully that he tripped, and suddenly both he and Sigtryggr were on the ground.

  And I drew Serpent-Breath, her long blade hissing as she came from the scabbard’s throat. “He’s mine!” I shouted, because both my son and Finan had started forward, and Sigtryggr, recovering from his surprise, was climbing to his feet. I stepped forward, ignoring the pain in my left leg, and I kicked Sköll’s booted foot. “You’re mine,” I said.

  “Stupid old man,” he snarled. He was still on the ground, but tried to swing Grayfang at me, but only hammered her into my shield’s iron rim. “You want to die here?” he asked.

  “You will die here,” I said, and stepped away from him, letting him stand.

  And I remember thinking that maybe Sköll was right; that this was stupid. I had dozens of young sword-skilled warriors who were faster and maybe stronger. Finan was old too, but he was still one of the most feared fighters in Britain. But I was Uhtred of Bebbanburg, and I had reputation, and the vanity of reputation made me want to kill Sköll. And I would kill him for Stiorra’s sake. For my daughter, and the memory of her face gave me an anger that overcame the stupidity. It was a cold anger, underlaid with fear. Sköll was formidable, and, as he scrambled to his feet with the bloodstained Grayfang in his hand, he looked confident. “Keep your shield, old man,” he sneered.

  He had no shield. I let mine hang at my side, exposing my body, and stepped backward, away from him, as if I feared him. I exaggerated my limp. My mail coat was torn, and the bloody bandage around my left thigh showed, and I wanted Sköll to see it. I kept Serpent-Breath low.

  “Your daughter screamed when she died,” Sköll said. He was circling to his right, my left.

  “I hear your son drools now,” I said. I had heard no news of the son whose skull I had broken, but it seemed I touched a raw place in Sköll because he looked furious for a heartbeat and took three quick paces toward me. I did not move, reckoning his steps were a feint, and he went back again, but still moving to my left. I turned, deliberately wincing when my weight was on my left leg. My vision on that side was still blurred, but it was clearing. “Can your son speak?” I asked. “Or does he just make noises like a pig farting?”

  Sköll said nothing, but I could see my words were hurting him. I could also see him trying to calm himself, trying to plan an attack that would devastate me. “Can your son control his bowels?” I asked. “Or does he spew shit like a drunken goat?”

  “Bastard,” was all he said, and he sprang at me, sword swinging from my left, and I simply stood and let the shield hang on my left and Serpent-Breath on my right, and because his swing had been aimed at my left leg and my shield now protected it, the blow was wasted. Grayfang crashed hard against the shield’s iron boss, but did no damage. The blow had been struck in anger, which made it futile, and Sköll knew it. He tried to disengage the sword from my shield by stepping backward, but I moved with him, then feinted myself by bringing Serpent-Breath up, and he twisted away from the threat, going back fast, and I laughed at him.

  “When are you going to begin to fight?” I asked. Men at the edges of the square echoed my laughter, and that mockery galled Sköll, who came at me fast and angry, again swinging from my left, and the years of sword practice took control of me so that I did not need to think, but just parried with my shield or else with Serpent-Breath as he hacked again and again. I did not try to counterattack, but just defended, trying to judge his skill. I fought with the sword every day, matching myself against the best of my warriors, and Sköll, although he was fast and he was strong, was not nearly as fine a swordsman as Finan or Berg. He stepped back after six or seven massive blows. “Was that your best?” I asked him.

  “You’re a coward,” he spat, “who fights with a shield against a man who has none.”

  “You told me to keep it!” I said. “But I don’t need it.” I let go of the handgrip so that the heavy shield fell from my arm onto the ground. “Is that better?”

  Instead of answering, he attacked again, and again on my left, though both blows were easy enough to parry, then he attempted a lunge, quick and low, which I only just avoided by stepping to my right. Grayfang’s blade slid by my waist, I heard it scrape on my mail’s rings, and he jerked the blade up as if to sever my left arm, but there was not enough force in his outstretched arm and my mail stopped his blade. I turned away from the blow and stepped a pace back. “If you want the shield,” I said, “pick it up. It’s yours.”

  He took two paces back. He was breathing hard, watching me from beneath the gold-edged rim of his helmet. I had been judging his skill and he had been judging mine, though he must have realized that I had not yet made one offensive stroke. The watching men had begun to cheer as we fought, and they were cheering me, even some of the men who had been fighting for Sköll were joining those cheers. He was feared, not loved, and his terrifying sorcerer was dead, and Sköll himself would soon be dead. He knew it. Even if he killed me, his life would not be spared. The best he could hope for was a quick death and a reputat
ion as the man who overcame Uhtred of Bebbanburg.

  We were four or five paces apart as Sköll caught his breath. His attacks had driven me close to the southern side of the open space so I walked back to the square’s center, again exaggerating my limp. He followed me, eyes narrowed, both hands on Grayfang’s hilt, and I saw him glance at my leg. The watching crowd had fallen silent, but one man, an úlfheðinn judging by his gray cloak, called out for Sköll to kill me. “Slaughter the old bastard, lord!” he shouted.

  “Lord King!” Sköll corrected him, and my men began jeering.

  “Lord King!” they shouted mockingly. “Lord King!”

  And I took one pace forward, lifting Serpent-Breath, and Sköll came for me. He roared a great challenge, a wolf-howl of defiance, and he put all his strength into a swinging cut that should have struck my left side, and I watched his eyes, saw them glance at my waist, and I guessed the massive swing was a feint, and, suddenly, with a quickness I had not seen in him before, he turned the sword in his hands so it was not coming in a wild hacking cut, but was a lunge to my right that would force me onto my weak left leg if I wanted to avoid it, and it did force me onto my left leg, but I had seen the feint, my leg was not as weak as Sköll believed, and I lunged in turn.

  Sköll’s lunge missed. Mine pierced his mail at his bottom rib. I felt Serpent-Breath break the links of his armor, felt her burst through the leather beneath, felt her grate on and then break the bone, and then I twisted her as she went deeper, and Sköll’s face was already grimacing, he was trying to wrench his body away from the pain, and I kept Serpent-Breath twisting and turning, ripping flesh and bone, and then I barged him with my right shoulder and he went down. I let go of Serpent-Breath and let her fall with him. Sköll tried to bring Grayfang back in a cut, but I stepped on his right arm, then stamped my left foot on his face. He was shuddering, and Serpent-Breath, still buried in his body, quivered.