Thorfinn and the Raging Raiders

by David MacPhail

  Percy perched on Marjory’s head and raised his wing as if to say something.

  “Yes indeed, old pal,” said Thorfinn to the bird. “My fellow Vikings are a strange bunch.”

  “ZZZZZZZZ,” Oswald snored.

  Then suddenly the air was filled with a deafening blaring noise.

  “HHHHHHONNNNNNNKKKK!”

  Rodrik the Big-Eyed, who was the village lookout, appeared on the crest of the hill, holding his giant horn.

  “STOOOOOPPPPPPPP!”

  He also had a loud, bellowing voice.

  The fight stopped abruptly, and Harald emerged from the middle of the crowd carrying two men in headlocks. “What is it, Rodrik? What’s the matter?”

  Rodrik pointed down the hillside.

  “ATTTTTAAAAAAAACKKKK!”

  CHAPTER 7

  Harald looked down the hill to see a number of strange longships gathered on the shore. They were Viking ships, no doubt, but their sails were unfamiliar. A pall of black smoke was rising from Indgar’s great hall.

  Harald gasped. “RAIDERS!”

  “Back to the village! FAST!” cried Erik.

  Everyone raced down the hill, but by the time they reached the shore the raiders had already cast off and were sailing down the fjord.

  The village was a mess. Houses had been ransacked and wagons overturned. Cattle sheds had been broken into and there were cows and chickens running around everywhere.

  Harald darted to and fro, shouting orders to the villagers. “Round up the cattle! Put out that fire!”

  Thorfinn and Oswald noticed some graffiti daubed on one of the walls. Big red letters read:

  “Hmm… how rude,” said Thorfinn.

  “Mmmm…” said Oswald the wise man, scratching his chin. “What peculiar things for a ferocious Viking raider to write.”

  It soon turned out that the fire was much smaller than expected. In fact, the smoke wasn’t coming from the great hall but something in front of it.

  “They burned our underpants!” cried Erik the Ear-Masher. “All the underpants in the village!” They’d just been washed and were hanging out on a line in the marketplace.

  There was a horrified glare in Harald’s eyes. “What kind of sick, twisted person would burn another Viking’s underpants!?”

  ***

  Soon, the last wagon was righted and the last animal was returned to its pen.

  “You know,” said Thorfinn, gazing up at the single remaining pair of underpants in the whole village, which the raiders had left flying, flag-like, from the roof of the great hall, “they didn’t actually do much damage. I’m beginning to think this was some kind of practical joke.”

  “You always think the best of people, Thorfinn,” said Oswald.

  “Huh! They just didn’t get the chance,” said Velda. “They must have seen us coming and legged it. Lucky for them.”

  Harald stared out to sea, his face purple, his eye twitching with rage. Harald’s eye always twitched when he was angry. “GRRR!”

  Erik the Ear-Masher joined him, as did Velda and the others. They were all fuming. Vikings spent their whole lives raiding and pillaging other people’s villages. They were mortally offended when someone raided theirs.

  Thorfinn flipped open a pouch on his belt and pulled out the spyglass Oswald had given him. He pointed at the departing longships. The first thing he saw was a man’s face, big and bulgy, with a red nose and ginger hair. He was hanging over the stern, looking back towards Indgar, blowing raspberries at them.

  “How vulgar,” said Thorfinn.

  “What’s that you’ve got?” asked Erik.

  “It lets me see faraway things up close. Look.”

  He offered the spyglass to Erik, who peered through it. “Oh yes! Look at their sails. They’ll be easy to find. There’s a giant skull on the main sail, with a Viking helmet and crossed axes.”

  At that moment Thorfinn’s three brothers came tearing out of the woods from the direction of the house, like a pack of charging elephants. “DAD! The raiders have taken Mum!”

  “WHAT?!” cried Harald.

  “They’ve kidnapped her,” said Wilfred. “So Sven says.”

  “Yeh,” said Sven. “They’re probably going to ransom her and demand all your gold. I did a module on it at university.”

  Hagar scoffed at his brother. “Always going on about ST-UUUU-PID university.”

  “Huh! You can talk,” Sven scoffed right back, “Mr ‘I wrestle polar bears’ – NOT!”

  The two brothers jostled each other and almost came to blows, but Harald stopped them with a mighty roar:

  “SHUUTTT UUUUUUUUPPP!”

  At the sound of this, a frail old man popped his head out from a barrel of pickled herring. It was Ergil the Wood-Whittler, who usually sat in the square all day carving.

  “Help! Please! I’m stuck! They stuffed me in this barrel of stinking fish, the swines!”

  “Did you see my wife?” barked Harald.

  “Yes, I saw your wife struggling with them. They dragged her down to the boats.”

  Harald was like a geyser about to erupt. “They dared to kidnap my wife? MY wife? RAAAR!” He grabbed an axe and launched it in the direction of the raiders’ ships. It didn’t get anywhere near the ships, of course, but it did scatter a flock of seagulls, and it nearly knocked out a poor seal that had just popped its head out of the water.

  “By Odin, I will make them pay.” Harald jumped up onto the barrel of herring, forcing Ergil back down into the fishy goo, and yelled, “EVERYONE, TO THE SHIPS!”

  The villagers roared, “LET’S GET THEM!” and they raced to the pier.

  A soggy head popped up from the barrel again. “Wait!” Ergil called after them. “Is nobody going to pull me out?”

  CHAPTER 8

  “ME FIRST!”

  “NO, ME!”

  The entire population of Indgar raced to the boats, barging past each other to join the pursuit.

  “I’ll make mincemeat out of them!” cried one.

  “PAH!” cried another. “I’ll make mincemeat, then turn it into sausages!”

  “PAH!” snorted another. “I’ll make the sausages into sausage rolls. Then I’ll feed them to a mangy old dog!”

  Everyone, that is, except for Thorfinn, who nipped swiftly back home to pick up some of Percy’s bird food for the journey ahead.

  It was difficult to find anything in the house as the whole place was crammed with his brothers’ stuff. Wilfred had come back from Russia carrying a gigantic stuffed brown bear, which was squashed into the hallway, arms outstretched, jaws open. The bear was dressed in Sven’s university scarf, mortarboard cap and cape, complete with skull and crossbones on the back. Thorfinn nearly tripped over Hagar’s snowshoes and almost impaled himself on his brother’s ice harpoon, which were littered on the stairs.

  He eventually found the bird food, but on the way back out he noticed that his mother’s wolf-skin slippers were missing from the shoe rack in the hall. Perhaps she’d been wearing them when she was taken.

  ***

  Back at the longship, the crew hurried aboard. Oswald had to be lifted onto the boat using a pulley.

  “Move it, you sloths!” he whined at the men hoisting the ropes.

  “Oh, belt up or we’ll drop you in the waves!” the men replied.

  Velda wasn’t part of the crew, but that had never stopped her before. She hid in a barrel which was carried on board by the cook.

  Percy flapped onto a mast to watch as everyone in the village clambered over each other to try and get aboard too.

  “Oh, pick me! PICK ME!” they cried.

  “I’ll clobber ’em with my walking stick,” shouted an old blind man with one leg.

  “Hello there! Could someone help me?” cried Ergil the Wood-Whittler, who was STILL stuck inside the fishy barrel and had somehow managed to waddle to the shore.

  “We already have a full crew,” growled Harald. “The rest of you can guard Indgar while we’re away.” He poi
nted at Erik the Ear-Masher’s son. “Olaf, you’re in charge!”

  “By Odin’s beard!” muttered Oswald under his breath. “Who knows what we’ll find when we come back.”

  The crowd still on the shore groaned. “AWWWW!”

  Harald stepped up to the prow, gazing angrily ahead at the sea. His three eldest sons were at his side, tussling over the weapons they’d had to find for themselves without their mother’s help.

  “That’s my sword!” shouted Hagar.

  “No, Mum forged that one for me!” Wilfred snatched back the deadly weapon.

  “Which one of you good-for-nothing fools has pinched my catapult?” roared Sven, kicking his brothers in the shins.

  Thorfinn was the last to appear, packed and ready for the journey. “Let’s find poor Mother,” he said, patting Percy fondly.

  Erik the Ear-Masher glowered at the crew. “Alright you pig-dogs! Cast off!”

  CHAPTER 9

  Harald and his crew pursued the raiders’ boats out of the fjord and into the open sea.

  “They outnumber us three ships to one,” said Oswald.

  “That’s funny,” said Thorfinn, drumming his fingers on his chin. “I was sure I saw four sails when they were ashore.”

  “Me too!” said Velda, clambering out of the barrel. “There were definitely four.”

  Erik raised his eyes to the heavens. “How in the name of Thor’s breeches did this daft girl manage to get aboard? She’s bad luck! Her father was a ship-sinker!”

  Velda growled at him then smirked. “Same way I always do – by outsmarting you.”

  “Three to one, you say, Oswald?” Harald said, ignoring their stowaway. “Huh! So what? We’re Vikings. We laugh at such odds. I mean, look at the crew; they’re loving it.”

  It was true. The Vikings relished the coming battle and were getting ready – sharpening swords, aiming spears, testing their shields. It didn’t matter to them how many enemies they had to face.

  “I vote we sail right in and board them at sea,” said one lad, fizzing with excitement.

  Oswald was the voice of reason. “Hmm… What if they have bowmen firing arrows, or a catapult, or marine infantry?”

  “Who cares? We’ll thrash ’em!”

  “Let’s split into three groups,” said another. “We’ll take a ship each.”

  “Hmmm… But we’ll be weaker if we divide our forces,” said Oswald.

  “So what? We’ll batter ’em!”

  “YEAAAHHH!” chorused the Vikings. “So what?”

  “We’ll rip their gizzards!” cried one.

  “We’ll splatter their innards!” yelled another.

  “We’ll squash them with our big bottoms!” said a man called Grut the Goat-Gobbler, who was famous for being the hungriest Viking in Norway. He did indeed have a very large bottom.

  “YEA—” the others began, but stopped mid-chorus, screwing up their faces. “Na, you’re on your own there, mate.”

  Thorfinn stepped into the middle of the debate, smiling and doffing his helmet. “Pardon me, dear sirs, but I have an absolutely fantastic idea. Why don’t we just see where they’re headed and follow them? I can keep track of them with my spyglass.” He looked through it at the raiders’ ships and could see men playing pipes and others dancing. In fact, it looked like they were having a party.

  “By Thor! Yes, that is a fantastic idea, Thorfinn,” said Harald. “We’ll follow them home, then attack them in their own village. We’ll see how they like it. RAAAR.”

  “YEAAHHH!” cried the Vikings. “We’ll burn their underpants – see how they like that!”

  “Actually, I was going to suggest having a discussion with them,” said Thorfinn. “There must be a better way to get Mum back than fighting.”

  “DISCUSSION! PAHH!” Erik the Ear-Masher snarled. “We’re ferocious Vikings, boy! We don’t discuss.”

  “YEAH! Stick your discussions!” shouted Sven.

  “Discussions stink!” growled Wilfred

  “Death to all discussions!” roared Hagar.

  “We Vikings charge into action, we don’t have discussions. Understand?” Harald glared at his youngest son, his twitchy eye twitching.

  “Yes, I’d noticed,” sighed Thorfinn.

  CHAPTER 10

  The afternoon wore on, and the sea winds chilled everyone to the bone.

  “The ocean reminds me of the bleak, endless Russian plains,” murmured a grim-faced Wilfred.

  “Huh, what do you know about cold?” growled Hagar. “I had to camp on the Arctic ice pack.”

  “Oh, shut up you two,” roared Sven. “The only thing you brought back from Russia, Wilfred, was a taste for cabbage, and that just makes you fart. As for you, Hagar, the cold has addled your already tiny brain.”

  Wilfred and Hagar rounded on their brother.

  “Well, get you, Mr Smarty Pants, Mr ‘I’ve been to Viking university’,” said Wilfred.

  “Yeh! You think you’re cleverer than us, don’t you?” said Hagar.

  “I am cleverer than you,” replied Sven.

  “Hah! We’ve been fighting polar bears and Russian tribes. The toughest problem you faced was what to eat in the student canteen!” laughed Wilfred.

  “Yeah, or which way round to wear that stupid black cap thingy,” added Hagar.

  Sven shoulder-shoved his two brothers to the ground, and they all started growling and challenging each other to a punch-up.

  Harald grunted. “Save your fighting until we catch up with those raiders, boys!”

  The crew huddled on deck, waiting for the return of the warm sun. Night fell, and by the following morning they found they were lagging even further behind the raiders’ ships.

  “Great Thor! We’ll never catch up with them!” cried Harald.

  “At this rate we’ll lose sight of them within the hour,” said Oswald.

  Sure enough, the raiders’ sails slipped below the horizon.

  The chief assembled his four sons on the prow.

  “You’ve been to university, Sven. You’ve done a kidnapping module. What’s your advice?”

  Sven gulped. “Oh, well, erm, the course didn’t cover what to do if we got kidnapped. It mainly covered kidnapping other people.”

  “Fat lot of good you are,” said Harald. He turned to Hagar. “And you? You’re the tracking expert. What do you say?”

  Hagar coughed and shifted in his furs. “When I was tracking polar bears the sea was all frozen and the bears left footprints. I don’t suppose we’re going anywhere frozen?”

  “What a load of rubbish!” Harald dismissed him, turning to Wilfred. “And you? Any advice from your invasion of Russia?”

  Wilfred looked sheepish. “You see, when I was in Russia there was no sea, just land everywhere—”

  “Can I just stop you there?” Harald said sharply.

  “Yes, Father?” said Wilfred.

  “Nothing. I just have to stop you. You’re talking gibberish, like your brothers.”

  “Oh, don’t be too hard on them, Father,” said Thorfinn.

  “What?!” snapped Harald.

  “Remember, their mother has just been kidnapped. They’re probably not thinking straight.”

  “Yeh! That’s it!” replied Sven and Wilfred, and Hagar nodded too. “We miss our mum.”

  “Bah,” Harald growled.

  Thorfinn was dangling the small metal fish Oswald had given him in the air.

  “What on earth are you up to?” Harald asked.

  “It’s a compass, Father. The fish is magnetic, so the nose always points north. Which means that those ships were heading south-west, away from Norway. I’d say they’re heading for the Orkneys, or even Scotland.”

  Harald gazed out to sea, then back at his son. “By Odin, you’re right, my boy.” He turned to his crew. “Did you hear that everyone? They’re heading for Scotland.”

  “Set a course for Scotland, you pig-dogs!” Velda screamed at the crew.

  “Hoi!” cried Erik, push
ing Velda out of the way. “Barking orders at the crew is my job! Clear off!”He cleared his throat. “Set a course for Scotland, you pig-dogs!”

  CHAPTER 11

  It was another two days before Thorfinn spotted land on the horizon. There was very little food left and everyone’s bottoms had started to itch; they’d all been wearing the same underpants since they left Indgar.

  “It’s the north coast of Scotland,” said Thorfinn, looking through his spyglass.

  They skirted the coast for a bit, searching. Finally they came to a wide bay with a long, white, sandy beach.

  “There they are!” cried someone, pointing to the sails of the raiders’ boats, anchored next to a sleepy village.

  “Excellent!” said Harald, rubbing his hands. “Now we have them.”

  The Indgar longship beached with a huge jolt. Dozens of angry Vikings led by Harald and Erik leapt off screaming, and charged towards the dunes.

  They were expecting a full-scale battle. They were expecting to be met with arrows, spears and a wall of shields.

  And they were certainly being fired at. Erik got whacked square in the face with something squidgy – it was definitely not an arrow.

  “YARRGH! It’s rotten fish!” he cried, scraping a huge splat of brown goo from his cheek. “Vikings HATE fish!”

  Volleys of putrid seafood were being launched at them from catapults beyond the dunes.

  SPLAT! SPLAT! SPLAT! SPLATTTT!

  “Fiends!” cried Sven, batting the slimy missiles away with his shield. “Who fires rotten food at noble Viking warriors?”

  “Cowards!” snarled Wilfred.

  “Renegades!” roared Hagar.

  Harald swiped at the fish with his sword, slicing them in half, and raved, “You devils! You devils!”