by Tim Severin
The savage sight made our foes even more cautious and for their second attack they took their time. They circled our ancient drakkar like a pair of wolves despatching a lame stag. In unison they darted in, one from each side, and then quickly pulled back after the warriors on their bow platforms had thrown a javelin or two and drawn our response of stones and rocks. Three or four times they launched these brief attacks until they saw that our supply of missiles was exhausted, then they came again, this time to close and board us.
I was standing in the waist of our drakkar, facing the starboard side so all I saw was the onslaught from that direction. It was terrifying. Four heavily armed Danes stood in the bows, ready to leap down on us as their vessel struck us amidships. They were big men, and made even bigger by the fact that they had the advantage of height and towered over us. Remembering our war instruction, I stood upon a sea chest and overlapped my shield with the Wend beside me on my left, while the man on my right did the same for me, though it was difficult to find secure footing on the uneven platform. We tried to slant our spears upward, hoping to impale our enemies as they leaped down upon our deck, but our awkward stance made the shield wall ragged and unstable, and the spear points wavered. As it turned out, our preparations were ineffectual. We were braced for the shock of the oncoming bows when, behind us, the second Danish ship rammed our vessel amidships, and our drakkar gave a sudden lurch so that we stumbled and slipped, and our shields separated, leaving wide gaps between them. If our enemies had been alert they could have burst through the gaps, but instead they misjudged. The first of the Danes jumped for our vessel too soon, and only his right foot landed on the edge of our drakkar. He stood there momentarily off balance, and I had the presence of mind to step forward and thrust the metal rim of my shield in his face, so that he overbalanced backwards and fell into the sea. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a spear point come from behind me and pass over my left shoulder to thrust neatly into the unprotected groin of the second Danish boarder. The Dane doubled up in pain and grasped the spear shaft. ‘Like sticking boar in a forest,’ said my companion the Wend with a satisfied grin, as he wrenched the weapon free. He had little time to gloat any further. The Danish longship was well handled. Their oarsmen were already swinging the vessel so she lay alongside us and the rest of their fighting men could board. A moment later there was a thud as the two ships came together and there was a yelling, stampeding rush as our enemies leaped into our ship.
If the Danes had expected an easy victory, they were quickly disillusioned. The Jomsvikings may have been inept sailors, but they were dogged fighters. We held our own, against odds of two to one, and the first Danish onslaught was met with skill and discipline. We remembered our training and we fought as brothers. Shoulder to shoulder with the unknown Wend, I deliberately jabbed my spear point into the shield of the next Dane to charge us, and his onward rush drove the weapon deep into the wood. Then I twisted on the spear shaft so the shield was forced aside. At that instant the Wend stepped forward nimbly with his axe and struck the unprotected Dane at the base of the neck, felling him as neatly as an ox in a slaughterhouse. I heard the Wend give a grunt of satisfaction. I tugged my spear to retrieve it, but the weapon was stuck fast. I abandoned it, as I had been trained to do, and stepped back into line, reaching for the battleaxe that hung by my left shoulder. On all sides men were shouting and roaring, and there was the constant thud of blows and the ring of metal striking metal. Over the clamour I heard the shout of the Danish captain calling on his men to fall back and regroup. Suddenly the enemy were at arm’s length, backing away from us and then scrambling aboard their longship, which was then pushed clear and drifted free.
In the breathing space which followed I turned to see what had happened behind us. Here, too, the initial Danish attack had been beaten off. Several bodies lay on the deck of the other vessel, which had also pushed away from us. Our own losses had been minimal. Half a dozen wounded and one man dead. The wounded were slumped on the deck and their sea chests, moaning in pain.
‘Close up! Stand fast! There’ll be another attack,’ came Thrand’s shout. He was still on the foredeck, the shield on his left arm splintered and battered, and a bloodied battleaxe held loosely in his right hand. Instantly recognisable, he alone of all the Jomsvikings had chosen to wear the old-fashioned battle helmet with its owl-like eye guards, while the rest of us wore the armoury’s conical helmets. Thrand’s antiquated war gear reminded me of our time-honoured battle standard and I squinted aft at Odinn’s banner. The flag was now flapping and snapping in the wind. In the heat of battle I had failed to notice that the leading edge of the storm was now upon us. The sky was black from horizon to horizon. Gusts of wind tore the surface of the sea. I felt the old drakkar swing as the wind buffeted her ancient hull. We were drifting, all three ships, across the surface of the lagoon and towards the shallows. I also caught a glimpse of the third Danish longship. She was arriving with fresh men aboard and soon the odds would be three to one. I knew then that we had no hope. I glanced again at Odinn’s banner, but still saw only the plain white cloth slatting in the gathering gale.
The Danes were shrewd. The crew of the newly arrived longship lashed their vessel to another one and the two ships together formed a single fighting platform. Then they rowed upwind of us, shipped their oars and began to drift down on our drakkar. Now they had no need of oarsmen. Every one of their men was free to fight. Their third vessel positioned herself to attack, once again, on our opposite side.
The crunching impact of the rafted longships stove in our drakkar’s topmost plank. I heard the ancient wood crack as the vessels collided. Our boat heeled with the weight of the sudden rush of the main Danish fighting force as their warriors jumped aboard. Some tripped and stumbled, and these men were despatched with an axe blow to the back of the head. But the sheer weight of comrades piling aboard behind them pushed their vanguard forward and broke our line. We were forced to give way and in a pace or two found ourselves back to back with our comrades who were trying to defend themselves against the attack from the opposite side. We fought viciously, either in desperation or because we believed in our oath to felag. Certainly not a single Jomsviking broke ranks. Spears were useless at such close quarters so we hacked with axes and stabbed with daggers. It was impossible to draw or to swing a sword. Shields were thrown aside as they split or splintered, and soon we were relying on our helmets and byrnies to turn aside the weapons of our enemies.
Gradually we retreated, step by step, towards the stern of our drakkar, our dwindling band packed so tightly that when the Wend beside me took an axe blow in the neck, his body stayed upright for several moments before it eventually slipping down at my feet. My shield arm shook to the impact of blows from the Danish axes and clubs, and the leather-bound shield began to disintegrate. I gasped for breath through the chain-mail curtain which hung across my face. My whole body ran with sweat within the padded jacket under the byrnie. Rivers of sweat ran down from my helmet and stung my eyes. I felt desperately tired, scarcely able to swing a counter-blow with my own axe. From sheer exhaustion I longed to drop my shield arm and rest. My vision blurred with glimpses of open-mouthed, yelling Danes hacking and thrusting and slashing, sometimes the blows directed at me, sometimes at my comrades on each side. I began to stagger and sway with a strange lassitude. I felt as if I was wading through a swamp of mud that sucked at my feet and legs.
I was slipping away into oblivion and a great blackness began to gather around me when an icy stinging sensation flicked at my eyes. Peering past the noseguard, I realised that our battle was shrouded in a sudden summer hailstorm. A clatter of large hailstones struck my metal helmet and suddenly my feet were slipping and skidding on the crunching white surface that covered the deck. It became very cold. The hail was so intense that gusts of the squall blew ice grains under the rims of our helmets and into our faces. It was difficult to see the full length of the drakkar, yet in the distance I glimpsed Odinn’s banner waving at the
stern post. I blinked to clear my eyes, and it might have been my utter exhaustion or the roaring of the blood in my ears that affected my sight, but I saw the raven, black and bloodthirsty, and it turned to look towards me and slowly lowered its knowing, wise head. At that moment a great agony erupted in my throat. My breath stopped.
I woke to a terrible pain in my gullet every time I breathed. I was lying face downwards, wedged between two oar benches. My left arm was trapped underneath something heavy which proved to be the corpse of the Abdorite who had been our instructor at Jomsburg. In his death throes he had toppled across me, pinning me down. Cautiously and painfully, each breath drawn as gently as possible through my tormented windpipe, I wriggled clear and raised my head to look along the length of the vessel. I could hear nothing except the faint slap of waves against the hull. There was no movement, no one standing on the deck. Everything seemed very still, and dark. It was night-time and our drakkar was silent. Pain sliced through me as I shifted my weight and carefully eased myself along the thwart. I heard a groan, but could not tell where it came from. All around me the oar benches were littered with bodies, Danes and Jomsvikings together. Dizzy from the effort, I began to crawl towards the foredeck where I had last seen Thrand.
I found him slumped down on the deck, his back against the bulwark. Even in the dim light I could see the rent in his byrnie over his chest. He was still wearing his antiquated helmet and I thought he was dead until I saw the faint movement of his eyes behind eye guards.
He must have seen my crab-like approach for his voice said softly, ‘Odinn must love you, Thorgils.’
‘What happened? Where are we?’ I croaked.
‘Where we met our fate,’ he replied.
‘Where are the Danes?’
‘Not far away,’ he said. ‘They withdrew to their ships when it became too dark. Nightfall came early in the storm and they dread killing anyone in the dark in case the victim returns to haunt them as undead. At dawn they will return to finish off the wounded and strip the corpses.’
‘Is there no one left?’ I asked.
We fought well,’ he answered. ‘None better. The Jomsvikings are finished.’
‘Not all of them. I can help you get away from here.’
Thrand made a faint gesture and I looked down. His legs were stretched out flat on the deck before him and I saw that his right foot was missing.
‘Always the weak point in a ship battle,’ he said. ‘You defend yourself with your shield and someone crouches beneath a thwart until you are close enough for him to hack at your leg.’
‘But I can’t abandon you,’ I said.
‘Leave me, Thorgils. I’m not afraid to die.’ And he quoted the High One:
‘The sluggard believes he shall live for ever
If the fight he faces not
But age shall not grant him the gift of peace,
though spears may spare his life.’
Reaching forward, he grasped my forearm.
‘Odinn sent that storm for a purpose. He brought the early darkness to preserve you from the final slaughter of the wounded. You must go now and find King Knut. Tell him that the Jomsvikings kept their word. He must not think we failed to honour our hire. Tell him also that Earl Ulf is a traitor, and inform Thorkel the Tall that the dishonour of Hjorunga Bay has been expunged, and that it was Thrand who led the felag to their duty.’
He sank back, exhausted. There was a long silence. I was so tired that, even had I wanted to, I felt I had no strength to leave the drakkar. I only wanted to lie down on the deck and rest. But Thrand would not let me. ‘Go on, Thorgils, go,’ he said softly, and then as if there was no doubt, he added, ‘you saw the raven. Defeat was Odinn’s will.’
Every movement was agony as I took off the heavy byrnie. Its chain-mail throat guard had stopped the sword slash from taking off my head but had left me choking. I dragged off the padded undercoat and pulled myself across to the gap in the bulwark where the Danes had smashed into us. I was too bruised and exhausted to do anything more than lower myself though the gap and into the lagoon. The shock of the cold water revived me for a moment and I tried to swim. But I was too tired. My legs sank downward and I resolved to let go of the boat and allow myself to drown. To my surprise my feet touched the ground. Our drakkar must have drifted far enough into the shallows for me to stand. Slowly, half swimming, half walking, I headed for the shore, until I was able to lurch up the beach. My feet sank into the drier sand, and I stumbled over the first clump of dune grass and fell. I picked myself up, knowing that I had to put as great a distance as possible between myself and the Danes.
As I crossed the first of the dunes I looked back towards the drakkar and saw a point of light. It was a tiny burst of flame. It died down and then flared up and grew brighter. I remembered the pitch which the shipwrights had used to revive our ancient vessel inside and out, and knew that she would burn well. But whether it was Thrand who set the fire, or some other survivor of the fight, it was impossible to tell. I only knew that by daylight the last warship of the Jomsvikings would have burned down to the waterline.
TWELVE
IT TOOK ME nearly two weeks to walk or, rather, stumble to Knut’s headquarters at the town of Roskilde. I was crossing the lands of Earl Ulf, whom I knew to be a traitor, so I avoided human contact, skirting around villages and sleeping under hedges or in the lee of earth banks. I have no clear memory of how each day of that grim journey was spent, only that my nights were filled with terrible visions of violence and death. When it rained, I awoke shivering with cold and fear, the rain drops on my face reviving images of grotesquely swirling storm clouds, the vanquished raven and an image which at the time had seemed so malevolent that I had buried it deep in my thoughts – a black hag riding on the wind. Once or twice I could have sworn that Thrand sat somewhere close to me in the shadows, a pool of black blood leaking from his leg. I lay numb with despair, wondering if my second sight had summoned his ghost from the dead, only to realise that I was alone and close to madness. When hunger drove me to knock on the doors of cottages along my path to beg for charity, my throat was so badly bruised that the inhabitants thought I was a mute. I had to gesture with my hands to make myself understood. They gave me scraps of food occasionally. More often they drove me away with kicks and curses, or set their dogs on me.
In the end it was Odinn who relieved my plight. I crept into Roskilde like a vagrant, filthy and wild-eyed, and was promptly arrested by a sentry. Odinn had arranged that Kjartan, the one-handed huscarl, was commander of the guard that day, and when I was brought before him, he looked at me with astonishment.
‘Thorgils, you look as though you have been chewed over by Nidhoggr, the corpse-tearer!’ he said. ‘What in Thor’s name has happened to you?’
I glanced towards my captor, and Kjartan took the hint. He sent the sentry back to his post, then made me sit down and eat a meal before he heard my story. My battered throat allowed me only to swallow a bowl of lukewarm gruel before I told him of the ambush and destruction of the Jomsviking expedition sent to join Knut.
When I finished, Kjartan sat silent for a moment. ‘This is the first I’ve heard of it,’ he said. ‘Your battle with the Danes was fought at a place so remote that no one knows about it. I presume the victors put to sea after binding up their wounds and, if they were Earl Ulf’s men acting treacherously, then they would have kept quiet because events overtook them.’
‘What do you mean?’ I asked hoarsely.
‘While you and the Jomsvikings were waylaid off Sjaeland, the king and his fleet caught up with his enemies off the coast of Skane. There was a great battle in the estuary of Holy River. Both sides are claiming the victory, and frankly I think we were lucky that we did not suffer a major defeat. But at least the Swedes and Norwegians have been thwarted for the time being.’ Then he paused and asked, ‘I need to be sure about this – when did you say the Jomsvikings were ambushed?’
‘I lost track of time during my journey here,’
I said, ‘but it was about two weeks ago.’
‘You had better tell your story to the king in person. I can arrange that. But don’t say a word to anyone else until you’ve had your audience with him.’
‘I would like to tell Thorkel the Tall,’ I said. ‘Thrand’s last words to me were that I was to inform Thorkel that the dishonour of Hjorunga Bay had been wiped away.’
Kjartan looked at me. ‘So you don’t know about the changes at Knut’s court.’
‘What’s happened?’ I asked.
‘You can’t speak to Thorkel, that’s for sure. He’s dead. Died in his bed, amazingly enough. Never expected it from such an inveterate warrior. So he’ll never get Thrand’s message unless the two of them exchange news in Valholl, if that’s where they have both gone. Thorkel’s death was a setback for Knut. The king had appointed him regent here in Denmark, and when he died Earl Ulf took his place.’
