The High King of Montival: A Novel of the Change

by S. M. Stirling

  Artos let the momentum of the strike carry him around. The Seeker of the Church Universal and Triumphant was no threat anymore—just a man, and a dying man with no heart to fight, at that. A spear thrust at him, a length of rusty steel pipe with the end hammered and filed down to a point. The thing was too massive to be agile, but the thick-shouldered savage had already begun a two-handed smash that would have driven the mass of metal through anything a man could wear. It scored across Artos’ shield and left a peeling thread of the facing sheet behind it; the Sword struck upward and the front three feet of the crude weapon went pinwheeling away. There was a tug on his sword-wrist as the Sword of the Lady cut through the tough alloy, like the hesitation he’d feel if he lopped off a dried reed. The thrust that followed snapped out faster than a frog’s tongue, crunching through the thin bones of the man’s face between the eyes and back before he even began to crumple.

  Wheel, slash a man’s legs out from under him, turn another spear-thrust with the shield and smash its facing into the wielder hard enough to crack bone, kick backward against a knee, thrust and ribs parted and the man jerked forward into another Bekwa’s path as Artos wrenched the Sword free—

  Most of his consciousness was in a peculiar and very specialized place, one that saw only threats—spearpoints, blades, the glimmering edge of an ax—and targets, joints, throats, unarmored bellies. Everything else blurred into a mist of irrelevancy. That part of him danced light-footed across the field of war, shield and blade moving in a continuous blurring whirl from which blood splashed in arcs and circles, leaving horror in his wake. Very far away some other part winced when the Sword hammered through metal, a reflex of training that told him he was destroying it.

  It was the first time he’d fought with the weapon the Ladies had given him, and the supernal rightness of it filled a warrior’s soul with wondering joy. As if all other blades were mere children’s copies of lath and rattan, and this was the original pattern as it had been in the mind of the Maker. The Sword was many things, but it was a sword beyond all swords at the very least.

  Yet he could see the whole battle now, as well as his part in it, without breaking the diamond point of concentration that a man required when he fought hand to hand for his life. As if he was more men than one.

  He could see the others following in his wake, the three lances dipping in a synchronized wave, light breaking from the honed steel of the heads, the heads of the horses pumping like pistons in a watermill as their hooves threw divots shoulder-high. See/feel/hear them strike, massive thudding blows, turning in the riders’ hands to pivot free, coming down again. Mathilda releasing her lance when it jammed in a pelvis and sweeping out her sword, her destrier soaring in a capriole that ended with lashing hooves knocking back a whole clot of the enemy as she seemed to hang suspended for a moment. Epona rearing, smashing her shod feet down on faces and shoulders. Abdou al-Naari throwing his spear into the breast of a Bekwa chief with an antlered headdress and drawing and slashing with his scimitar in almost the same motion . . .

  Arrows feathering past as Edain and the others slid free of their saddles and shot in a deadly ripple as fast as they could draw and loose, a bodkin point cracking out through the breastbone of a man about to hit Artos on the back with a sledgehammer filed down to a blunt cone. The Kalksthorpe men scrambling up the hill and slotting themselves breathless into the crumpled face of the Norrheimer shield-wall, pushing it out to stop the breakthrough.

  Suddenly he was in the waking world again, panting beside Bjarni and a brown-bearded man with a dripping ax.

  “And the top of a fine morning to you, blood brother,” he said to Bjarni.

  The Norrheimer grinned at him, through a face spattered with blood that thinned and ran with the sweat.

  “Where’s my signaler!” he cried. “Now, now, without the trollkjerring they’re ours—”

  “Not yet,” Artos said. “Wait, wait. I can feel it, I can feel the balance shifting.”

  Bjarni halted with his hand half-raised. The youth with the banner a few steps behind him suddenly shouted:

  “There, godhi. Behind them! Is it more of them?”

  He sounded frightened and trying not to show it. Bjarni’s face was grim as he stuck his sword point down in the frozen ground and opened the steel-lined case at his belt that held his binoculars. Then the grin came back.

  “The flag of the porcupine! Madawaska!” A slight frown. “And there’s another with it . . . a tree, and seven stars, and a crown.”

  Ingolf let loose with a whoop: “That’s my Mary! Egleria gwenn and all the Elvish bullshit you want for the rest of your life! She found your Madawaska and brought them here right on time.”

  “By Thor’s almighty prick, they’re charging!” Bjarni said. “Right into the rear of the foe . . . stopping for a volley with those crossbows of theirs . . .”

  Artos blew out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. “Then, yes, Bjarni Eriksson, this is the time. And it’s your battle to win, you and your folk’s, and we but helpers.”

  “The spirit’s gone out of them, the main,” Bjarni said thoughtfully, scanning the battlefield. “Signalers! Call number five, the Boar’s Tusk call!”

  He’s right, Artos knew, following his gaze.

  The fight still went on; right here the enemy were giving ground, but he could see the blurred heaving violence of shield against shield to either side, double long bowshot east and west; see it well, since this was the highest spot and at the base of the V of the Norrheimer formation. The noise was stunning, like an avalanche of scrap metal on a concrete floor even through the padded coif and the helm—there was a reason warriors shouted most of the time—but you could sense the realization that . . .

  That they are well and truly fucked, as my blood father would have said, Artos thought.

  . . . as it soaked through the enemy ranks. Then a brabble, and Bekwa even in the front ranks were skipping back a little and looking over their shoulders.

  Several men raised the long horn trumpets to their lips. The call was a blatting bellow that thundered deep, carrying well through the rattle-stamp-crash-shriek sound of war. Other horns took it up, from one end of the line to the other, on all the six hills, until the triumphant braying haaaaah-haaaaah-huuuu-huuuu-huuuu rhythm sounded over and over again. No silence fell when they stopped, but there was a trembling pause where Bjarni’s shout could be heard:

  “Form the boar’s head and forward, Norrheimer men! Kill! Spare none; make safe our land, our homes! Thor with me! Ho La, Odhinn:”

  Epona butted Artos between the shoulder blades. He swung into the saddle; it was harder this time. Mathilda fell in at his left, and Ignatius beyond her, with Ingolf on his right. From the tall horse’s back he could see how each hill’s shield-wall shook and reshaped itself as this one did, the standards of the chiefs coming forward with their armored guardsmen behind them to make the tip of a blunt wedge with the farmers of the levy as the shoulders and base. The light-armed bowmen and slingers fanned out, and now the Norrheimer line had turned from a chain of shield-wall forts into the blade of an inward-curving saw. The men of this land evidently didn’t know many tricks of war, but this was a good one. The Madawaska newcomers were running forward, blocking the only exit from the sickle shape.

  “Forward, Norrheim!”

  A roar: “HO LA, ODHINN!”

  And the saw began to cut.

  Six hours later, Artos reined in below the slope where Bjarni Eriksson stood silhouetted against the quick sunset of early spring; the others were with him, save for where Abdou al-Naari grieved over the body of his blood brother Jawara. Mary and Ritva had the stars-and-tree flag, and a wizened-looking little man came with Madawaska’s porcupine.

  The godhi still had his sword in his right hand, but he’d dropped his tattered shield and found a spear to grip in his left as a walking stick; evidently the bone-bruise was starting to really hurt. His face was drawn, but that was probably just the aftermath of battle, and
realizing what it had cost.

  Less than it might, Artos thought, looking around.

  This fight had been typical in one way; the real killing had started after one side broke and ran. You could chase and strike, but running left your back bare to every point and edge. It was worse this time than most, because the Bekwa had been trapped until they were a mass too crowded to use their weapons; an acre or more was bodies piled two deep. If Bjarni’s people wanted more land, there wasn’t going to be anyone to stop them to the northward for a generation at least. The stink was overpowering, even to someone used to the aftermath of human bodies cut open by desperate strength and edged metal, but at least it was cold—getting very chilly indeed, in fact. Men and the wisewomen were attending to the most urgent chores, getting the wounded gathered in and kept warm by small efficient fires while they bandaged and stitched and splinted; everyone else could roll themselves in their sleeping bags and eat trail food tonight.

  Mathilda muttered: “What are you up to, Rudi?”

  “What needs doing,” he said quietly.

  What Artos knows is necessary. For once, that’s something Rudi agrees with all his heart does need to be done.

  The majority stood or sat or wandered aimless, eyes empty for the moment, or tracking back and forth as if in disbelief over the field of war they’d survived. Some searched for kin or friends; he saw an older man sitting with a youth’s head in his lap, thick blunt fingers inexpertly brushing a lock of hair back from the dead face. More and more gathered as Artos and his party came cantering by. Almost all looked up when he reined in and Epona caracoled; he stood in the stirrups and thrust the Sword skyward.

  Nobody ignored that. It didn’t seem possible. Even the grave chiefs of the tribes—Hrossings, Wulfings, Kalkings, Verdfolings, Hundings—fell silent.

  Artos met Bjarni’s eyes, saw a question there, and smiled, then filled his lungs:

  “Hail, victory!” he shouted.

  Silence echoed. He could feel the pressure of eyes on him, thousands of them; somehow the Sword seemed to reflect them all, glittering itself—with the evening light, and with the fires of their hearts.

  “Hail to the victor! Hail, Bjarni—hail Bjarni, King in Norrheim! Hail Bjarni King!”

  Silence crashed, until another voice took it up. Then another, and another, hoarse from throats raw with the day’s shouting. A spear boomed against a shield, and the flat of a sword, then more and more. The leaden exhaustion left Bjarni’s face, first giving way to alarm, then stiffening as the wave of sound roared across the battlefield:

  “Hail Bjarni King! Hail Bjarni King!”

  After a moment the chiefs took it up as well; last the one under the white horse of the Hrossings, his mouth quirking.

  “Hail Bjarni King!”

  NORRHEIM, LAND OF THE BJORNINGS

  ERIKSGARTH (FORMERLY AROOSTOOK COUNTY, MAINE)

  MARCH 27, CHANGE YEAR 25/2023 AD

  Artos looked at Fred Thurston. “You think it’ll work?” he said.

  “Sir, I know so. Dad . . . the President . . . came up with the tactic and we did test runs. One of them was my Junior ROTC class, and we were just kids, not one of us over fifteen, and we managed it fine in the field. Yeah, the rail lines will be more screwed here than even in the Idaho backcountry, but not that much more screwed. It really is a way to move a medium-sized—up to battalion-sized—unit cross-country fast without being able to forage locally. I can’t guarantee that it’ll work, but it’s a very high probability.”

  “And we’ve scarcely a battalion’s worth of warriors to move,” Artos said thoughtfully. “Less than twoscore.”

  “Well, that may be a problem. You need a certain number to do the work.”

  Artos stripped the flesh off the roast duck drumstick with his teeth and chewed the rich dark meat with relish. The long cavern of Bjarni’s mead-hall was bright tonight, with the circles of lanterns drawn up on the tall white-pine pillars carved with gods and heroes that ran in a double row down the center. Light glinted off curled gripping beasts wrought into the wainscoting, off the painted shields and honed weapons racked against the walls, on tapestries that hung from the railings of the second-story gallery and stirred in the draughts. Blazing logs boomed on the firedogs of the great twin hearths, casting warmth and a scent of pine beneath the smells of roast pork, steaks, blood sausage, mounded heaps of loaves, French-fried potatoes, ripe cheese, dried-fruit pies and ice cream. Barrels stood on X-frames, ready to refill mugs and horns as the appointed valkyries went about.

  Part of it was the ongoing victory feast, part grave-ale for the fallen . . . and to be sure, part was the politicking that Artos himself had started, though he’d kept strictly in the background since. These Norrheimers had a straightforward approach to such things; the battlefield had been a lawful moot like their annual Althing because it held a quorum of their adults . . . and because it would be silly to pretend that a King’s throne didn’t rest on the spearpoints of his people. He’d come to know these folk a little, and they prided themselves on common sense as much as they did on courage or stubbornness.

  So Bjarni Eriksson would be King in Norrheim; Bjarni Ironrede, they were calling him now, Bjarni of the Iron Counsel. Then they’d started the real haggling. He recalled what one of the chiefs had said to Bjarni. It had been Inglief of the Hundings, he thought:

  You’re a man of honor and you’ll be a good King. We have to settle what the King can and cannot do now because someday there may be a King who doesn’t respect our rights of his own will. Then we’ll need a chain of laws to hold him back, as Fenris was chained.

  Right now small groups were huddled together on the benches, chiefs and prominent men and women talking quietly as they ate, a serious thread beneath the boisterous celebration around them. Bjarni had made it plain that after the third day the cost of the roast meat and bread and pastries would come out of their storehouses, not his, which gave an added incentive for haste.

  Whoever had built this hall had understood acoustics; the folk on the dais could hear each other. Bjarni turned towards Artos after Fred spoke, his gold-bound horn in his hand. The fair skin of his face was flushed, but the hard cider had only put a bit of a glitter in his eye.

  They may be solemn in their every-day, these Norrheimers, but by Brigid who makes the grain to grow and by Gobniu who first brewed it into beer, they can drink, and no mistake!

  “Not a battalion? I have something to say to that,” the new-made King said. “Yes, and a few other things.”

  He rose from the High Seat with its curly maple pillars carved in the images of hammer-wielding Thor and Sif of the golden locks, and silence gradually fell through the hall; in one or two cases when heads were rapped sharply against the tables by neighbors more sober. Harberga sat at his side, her long headdress bound with gold as yellow as her hair, love and pride and fear in her gaze on him behind an impassive public face.

  “Abdou al-Naari!” Bjarni called. “Come before me, you and your son.”

  The wiry corsair captain came and bowed slightly before the high seat, his hawk-featured brown face impassive, slimly elegant in the best outfit he’d had aboard his ship, sweeping over-robes of pale blue trimmed with pearls, cut at the neck and chest to show a snowy white beneath, and a turban colored indigo wound around a spiked steel helm. There was no sword at his waist, but a curved dagger in a sheath of chased silver was thrust through the silken sash. He shook back the broad sleeves of his garment and bowed again, touching brow and lips and heart with the fingers of his right hand. It was extravagantly polite and proud as an osprey’s flight, as if he were the one who sat in power dispensing favor, rather than a prisoner on probation.

  “Za’ima-t,” he said in his own tongue, and translated: “Lord.”

  “Abdou al-Naari, you made war on my people. But after war a peace may be made. You and yours have paid wergild duly accepted by the families of the slain. By our law, blood-price freely taken ends a feud, and you have shed your own blood
by our side against a common foe.”

  He laid a hand on Rudi’s shoulder for a moment. “My blood brother made oath that you should go free with your ship if you fought with us. His honor is mine, and his pledged oath; free you shall be, and with provisions for your voyage.”

  A slight pawkiness crept in, and his blue eyes held a hint of cool menace: “Your voyage home.”

  Abdou smiled slightly, the inclination of his head acknowledgment of things that need not be spoken.

  “My great lord is gracious beyond my due.”

  “I will be the judge of what is due; so take this gift of me,” Bjarni said.

  He reached up his thick arm and took a gold arm-ring, graven in sinuous abstract patterns, leaning forward and holding it out.

  “As a mark that you may come in peace to Norrheim to trade, if you will. Let no more blood come between us, but guest-friendship instead.”

  The Moor came forward and took the heavy ring with a graceful gesture; Artos reflected that he knew how to accept like a gentleman. He’d also obviously practiced a store of more formal English for this.

  “My lord is generous as well as gracious!” he said. “May Allah, the Merciful, the Lovingkind, reward him according to his deeds.”

  “And this for your son, who fought bravely in his first pitched battle, so far from his home and kin; he has shed his blood on the soil of Norrheim, and that of my enemies.”

  He held out another, and the young man stepped forward, repeating his father’s gesture with a dignity more self-conscious.

  Still, he carries it off well for a youngster, Artos thought. He’ll be formidable when he has his father’s years.

  The elder Moor spoke: “If I come to these waters again, only in peace I shall be. And my son Ahmed ibn Abdou after me. Also I shall speak of peace between his land and mine with the Emir, though I am not ruler in Dakar. This I swear by God and His Prophet, on my hope of Paradise and on my honor before my shipmates and my kin.”