Fin Gall (The Norsemen)

by James L. Nelson

  “Come along! Can you run?” Thorgrim shouted.

  “Yes, father!” Harald said, but his voice was weak. Yes, father... It was practically the only thing Thorgrim had ever heard from Harald, Harald the Willing, Harald the Eager. Yes, father... A boy worth saving.

  Thorgrim backed away from the tree, sword held ready for the next attack, but the guards there were dead and the rest had not yet discovered where the real fighting was. Not for long. Thorgrim looked at Harald. “Let’s hurry, son,” he said and Harald nodded. Thorgrim turned to run and Harald ran after him.

  They ran into the dark in a straight line away from the camp, but that direction also took them farther away from Ornolf and the others. They would have to circle back around the Irish to get back to their fellows, and that would not be an easy thing.

  Once they were well away from the camp, lost in the dark, Thorgrim turned to lead the way back toward where Ornolf’s men were hunkered down. He could not really recall how far off that was. A mile or five, he could not remember how far he had come.

  He turned to look for Harald but Harald was not there. He looked back. Harald had dropped behind and was stumbling to catch up. Thorgrim met him half way. “Are you hurt?” he asked.

  Harald shook his head. “Nothing,” he said, but the word came out more like a gasp. He was holding his tunic closed with his left hand.

  “Let me see.” Thorgrim pulled the rent edges of the tunic apart. He could see a dark line on the white flesh, seeping blood that was washed away in the rain. It was far from nothing. But if Harald died he would die a warrior’s death, and that was what mattered, because then, if the gods were generous, father and son would feast together in Valhalla.

  The shouting was louder now, and added to that the sound of dogs, barking and howling. Harald looked up sharp. He hated dogs, Thorgrim knew that. “Don’t worry, they will not track us in this rain,” Thorgrim said, but he was not so sure that was true. “Still, we must move.”

  He put his arm around Harald, holding his weight, and Harald draped his arm over Thorgrim’s shoulders. The boy was heavy, heavy as a grown man, and together they limped off, toward the far trees where the Norsemen were hunkered down.

  They were moving around the perimeter of the Irish war camp. Thorgrim could see the big fire now in the center of the camp and the figures of men racing in every direction, orders shouting in the Gaelic tongue, dogs barking.

  Off to the west he could see men mounting up, mounted troops who would sweep along the flanks of the army. Something was buzzing in Thorgrim’s head, something was not right, and then he realized. I can see!

  He looked to the east. The darkness there had softened a bit, the black sky yielding just a bit to gray. Dawn came early at that time of year, and now like an assassin it was sneaking up on them.

  “Now, Harald, we really must hurry,” Thorgrim whispered and he picked up his pace and Harald, dutifully, moved his legs faster, but his breathing was more labored.

  Thorgrim wiped the rain water from his face and his eyes and looked around. It seemed the Irish soldiers were spreading out across the countryside. He could see movement in the dark, and figures just visible in the gathering light. Soon there would be no clear way back to the others.

  They hurried on, foot after agonizing foot, with the sound of the dogs getting louder and Harald getting weaker with every step. They came to a place where the grass grew waist high. Thorgrim stopped. He could hear the dogs hard on their heels.

  “Sit here,” he said to Harald, easing him down into the grass. He pulled his sword and braced himself, looking right and left. He could hear the dogs’ feet, hear their bodies parting the grass as they ran, the chilling sound of animals on the hunt growing louder.

  The first dog seemed to come from nowhere, hurtling though the air, hitting Thorgrim in the chest, burying it’s teeth in his arm and making him stagger.

  “Ahhh!” Thorgrim shouted, hit the dog’s head hard with the pommel of his sword, hit it again and again. Another dog was on him now, teeth ripping into his leg. He could feel the blood running and it made the dog wild, growling and trashing its head.

  Thorgrim hit the dog on his arm again and again and finally it let go and he slashed at the dog at his leg. He felt the sword bite, heard the dog whimper as it released his leg. Another dog came out of the dark and Thorgrim hit it with the flat of his sword, knocking it aside. It backed off, beyond reach of the sword, crouched low and growled.

  Thorgrim was standing over Harald now, turning this way and that, looking for the next attack, man or beast. He could hear the sound of horses riding hard, sweeping out from the camp. In the dim light he could see the mounted soldiers as they followed the baying dogs. They were still some ways away but closing with them, and the dogs were on their trail, despite the driving rain.

  Harald pulled himself to his feet. “I have no weapon,” he said. Thorgrim pulled the small knife from his belt and handed it to Harald. It was not right that a warrior should die with no weapon in his hand. The Valkyries would not look favorably on that.

  “I fear you’ve sacrificed your life to try and save mine, father,” Harald said.

  Thorgrim smiled, a broad and genuine smile. He put his arm around Harald’s shoulders. “Tonight we feast at Valhalla, man and boy, and there is no more we could ask from this life.” The riders were coming toward them now, pushing their mounts fast, and Thorgrim felt a sense of peace more profound than he had ever known.

  He lifted his sword and prepared to meet the first attack when out of the dark, louder than the dogs, louder than the riders and the driving rain, he heard a sound that made the hair stand up on the back of his neck, a sound that sent him whirling back in time to his days a-viking when he was not much older than Harald was now. It was the wild, half-mad battle cry of Ornolf the Restless.

  Chapter Forty

  Not all men

  are matched in wisdom

  the imperfect are easy to find.

  Hávamál

  O

  rnolf had been sleeping, restlessly, his bear-skin pulled entirely over him. It was a noble bear-skin, twenty years old, the hide of the largest bear ever seen in the vicinity of Vik, but it was just barely enough to cover all of Ornolf’s corpulence.

  The rain made a drumming sound on the hide and it might have been soothing if Ornolf was not so wet, cold, miserable and sober. With no drink in his stomach he had to sooth himself to sleep with cursing Ireland and the Irish and thinking on what it would be like to sack a more civilized place.

  He finally managed to get to sleep when he felt a hand shaking him. He came awake slowly. “Ah, may Thor pluck your eyeballs out, you son of a whore!” he shouted at whoever was waking him, once he was awake enough to understand what was happening. “What is it?”

  He tossed the bearskin off and glared at Egil Lamb, who had been shaking him but now pulled his hand away as if from a vicious dog he had tried to pat. “It’s...Thorgrim...,” Egil stammered.

  “What of him?”

  “He’s...gone...”

  “Gone?” Ornolf sat upright. “Oh, you blind, poxed, feeble-minded idiot! Where did he go?”

  “I don’t know. I swear it. I was watching him, never took my eyes away. He was there. There was a flash of lighting, and he was there, and then a thunderclap. Then another flash and he was gone.”

  Ornolf looked out toward the dark place where Thorgrim had been keeping his vigil. He wondered if Thorgrim had shape-shifted. He wanted to ask Egil Lamb if he had seen any such thing, but guessed Egil would have mentioned it if he had.

  Muttering curses on the heads of everyone he could think of, Ornolf the Restless struggled to his feet. Egil handed him his helmet and as Ornolf settled the iron cone on his head Egil draped his cloak over his shoulders.

  “You are very thoughtful Egil Lamb, but it does not excuse your poor job of watching Thorgrim,” Ornolf said, though in truth he did not blame Egil. If Thorgrim wanted to leave without being seen, he would, and n
o human eye would catch him.

  Ornolf stepped around the fire, walked out into the open ground that stretched away to where the Irish soldiers had made their camp, a mile and a half or so to the west. There was nothing to see in the dark and the driving rain, but Ornolf stared off in that direction and thought his thoughts.

  He has gone for Harald... Ornolf sighed a great sigh of self-pity. Things were much easier when Thorgrim took care of everything, leaving Ornolf to just pay for things, and to eat and drink and fornicate. Thorgrim had kept his mind together wonderfully after Harald was taken. The little Irish doxy had helped, no doubt. But now she was gone, Harald was gone, and the crown was gone. It was more than Thorgrim could bear, and now he was gone, too, leaving Ornolf to take command.

  Ornolf thought of his grandson, off there in the dark, held at spear-point by the rutting Irish and it made his blood hot for revenge. That fighting spirit he had known in his youth had not been entirely smothered by an excess of food and drink and he felt it rising now. Time for action.

  “Egil Lamb, get the men up and to arms. Only women and slaves lay around like this, waiting to get buggered.”

  Ten minutes later they moved out, stepping out across the dark, wet ground, grim and determined, clutching the odd assortment of weapons they had picked up since their escape from Dubh-linn. They walked through the rain, stumbling and cursing, but glad for the impenetrable dark that would hide their approach, the rain that would cover their footfalls and their smell. The lightning cracked around them, illuminating the open ground for a fraction of a second, followed by the thunder that made the earth tremble beneath their feet.

  It was slow going in the dark, and they pushed on for close to an hour before a flash of lightning revealed the Irish camp not more than a few hundred paces ahead. The Norsemen dropped to the ground, reflexively, as if on command, and lay still, listening, straining to hear if their presence was creating some alarm.

  They could hear nothing beyond the drumming rain. Minutes passed. Another flash of lighting revealed the Irish camp undisturbed.

  “Come along,” Ornolf growled. He stood in a half crouch and raced forward, keeping as low to the ground as his midriff would allow. He covered a hundred paces and then dropped again and behind him the rest did the same. A stealthy approach. They were vastly outnumbered, and worse, the Irish were better armed, a situation the Vikings did not generally encounter.

  It’s brains that are called for here, Ornolf thought. He turned to Sigurd Sow, crouched beside him. “We need a diversion of some sort,” he said. Sigurd Sow nodded. From somewhere up ahead, a man shouted, and then another one. Dogs began barking. Someone shouted orders in Gaelic. The Vikings cocked their ears as the sound of chaos mounted.

  “Sounds like Thorgrim Night-Wolf has created a diversion for us,” Sigurd said.

  The Vikings rose to their feet. The lighting flash revealed a camp like an overturned anthill, men running in every direction. The clamor was building, men, dogs and horses.

  “First light soon,” Snorri Half-troll said. To the east there was a hint of gray in the black.

  “Let’s move,” Ornolf said. “Form up in a swine array, we’ll hit them where ever seems best. Step aside, Snorri Half-troll, I’ll take the lead.”

  Ornolf stepped in front of his men who were forming up in a wedge- shaped swine array, ideal for punching through a shieldwall if the Irish were able to arrange such a thing in time.

  “Here we go,” Ornolf said and he headed off toward the Irish camp, moving at a quick walk. In the younger days he would have run, running made for a more powerful attack, but he did not wish to collapse from exhaustion the moment he arrived in front of the enemy. He knew the men behind him were chaffing at the slow pace, but he did not care.

  Ornolf felt his muscles warm as he walked, swinging his sword and beating it on his shield. He felt the excitement grow, like a burning coal inside that spreads a flame to everything it touches. It was like the excitement that proceeds taking a woman to bed, that delicious anticipation. This, he remembered, was why he so loved to go a-viking.

  The Irish camp was in chaos. Ornolf smiled. No one man alone, save Thorgrim Night-Wolf, could cause such panic, he thought.

  They were perhaps a hundred paces from the Irish camp when they were finally seen. Ornolf could not understand the words flying around but he could see the men in the light of the fire pointing in their direction, he could see men hustling together, forming a shieldwall, the round shields overlapping each other in a defensive line, and Ornolf’s heart sang. There was nothing like charging a shieldwall to give him back his youth. And with their supply of drink exhausted, and little chance of getting more, the thought of reaching the divine mead hall of Valhalla soon was not at all unpleasant.

  He picked up his pace to a brisk walk and there was a palpable sense of relief from the men behind him. His old legs, which had begun to falter, found a new strength. He felt the energy coursing through him, he felt young and a hundred pounds lighter. He broke into a jog, shield in his left hand, sword held in front of him like the prow of a ship.

  Ornolf had not shouted his battle cry in a long time, not in all the raiding in the past years. He never seemed to have the energy. It was a sound from his youth, an era gone, but he felt it building now, rather like a great belch, building in his gut, crying for release.

  They were twenty paces from the shieldwall and running when Ornolf let his war cry go. He opened his mouth and let the full-throated shout come up from below, that wild, exuberant, animal sound of years past. He shouted and let the madness come out and behind him the forty-odd Vikings under his command did the same.

  A spear came sailing through the rain and hit Ornolf’s shield with a thump. It stuck in the shield and dragged along for a few paces before it fell off. Another flew past Ornolf’s head and he heard it strike someone behind him but he did not slow a bit.

  And then Ornolf hit the shieldwall. He slammed into it shield-first, with all the force of a three hundred pound man running as fast as he can.

  The Irishmen, braced though they were for the impact, never had a chance of standing up to that. The two men that Ornolf hit crumpled like paper and Ornolf ground them into the mud as he stomped over them. He turned left and slashed at the next man in the shieldwall and behind him the Vikings poured through the hole Ornolf had smashed in the Irish defense.

  It was an awkward situation for the Irishmen. Arrayed in a line, shields overlapped to stop a frontal attack, they now had to disengage and turn to meet an attack from behind, and they died as they tried to do it.

  The Vikings, screaming their pagan screams, bloodlust up, driven by the hope of a warrior’s death, poured down the line, meeting spears with swords, swords with battle axes. The Irish were bowled over by the ferocity of the attack and they started to back away, step by step, waving on the point of breaking.

  Ornolf was roaring and swinging his sword in great arcs. An Irishman appeared in front of him, sword raised to deliver a deathblow, and Ornolf drove his shield into the man’s face, sent him staggering, cut him down with a stroke of his sword. He could hear the Valkyrie singing in his ears as his sword ripped though cloth and mail and flesh and the shielded defenders stumbled over themselves to flee before him.

  “Don’t run away! Don’t run away!” Ornolf shouted as his sword sung through the air. He knew he was pushing his luck and his endurance. He didn’t think he had the energy to chase Irishmen all over the countryside.

  It did not seem that the Irish were paying attention to Ornolf’s wishes. They were starting to peel off, to throw weapons aside and race away, one by one, and Ornolf had seen enough battles to know that that spirit would spread quick and soon they would all be running.

  Snorri Half-troll was at his side. He had picked up an Irish shield and he had a wild look in his eyes. “Once these bastards run, we’ll have to find Thorgrim!” he shouted.

  Of course, Thorgrim... Ornolf thought. In all the pleasure of the fight, he ha
d forgotten why they were there.

  And then over the ringing of iron weapons on iron weapons came the drum of horses’ hooves and a mounted rider appeared out of the rain, shouting in Irish and waving his sword, and the men on the edge of panic seemed to find new courage.

  Damn his eyes... Ornolf thought. Now he wanted the Irish to run, now that he remembered Thorgrim.

  “Kill that swine!” Ornolf shouted and pointed with his sword at the mounted man. The man on the horse looked down at him.

  “Ornolf Hrafnsson, you gave your word of honor! I’ll kill you, you treacherous bastard!”

  “Flann mac Conaing, come and get me!” Ornolf roared. Flann dug the spurs in his horse’s flanks, charged through the men, Irish and Norse, sword raised, and Ornolf braced to meet him.

  Flann slashed at Ornolf as he thundered past and Ornolf caught the blade with his shield and thrust his sword at Flann but found only air. Flann reined in hard, spun the horse around. He charged again, sword raised. There was an Irishman beside Ornolf, back to him, fighting with Skeggi Kalfsson. Ornolf grabbed the Irishman by the collar and spun him around and Flann, unable to check his swing, cut the man down.

  Flann rode past again, his face contorted with fury. The battlefield was lit with the gray light of a stormy dawn, and Ornolf realized his Norsemen were being quickly overrun. There were Irish coming from every part of the field, called by the sound of the fight.

  “Skeggi Kalfsson, we might think about retreating,” Ornolf shouted but Skeggi could do no more than nod as he was fighting two men at the same time.

  Flann kicked his mount hard, his eyes fixed on Ornolf. The horse was starting forward again when the morning was ripped by a wild animal cry from beyond the fighting, a wolf howl, but more than that, more frightening than that. Ornolf smiled. Flann jerked his head toward the sound. Thorgrim Night-Wolf came pounding out of the dark.