STENVIK
The stones in the gateway reeked of death. Every scrape of metal on rock grated on Ulfar’s ears, every squelching sound of bodies dragged through puddles of half-dried blood made him shudder. But they were nearly done. He looked on as Audun leaned up against the wall, breathing heavily.
‘Are you all right?’
The smith levered himself back up and shook his head as if trying to dislodge something. ‘I’m fine. It’s just … I have a bit of a problem with blood.’
‘And that is no bad thing,’ Ulfar replied, as they heaved the last body into place. A pile of Skargrim‘s dead warriors now blocked the southern gateway almost completely. Some had been cut down in the first attack, others shot as they tried to escape. The stone tunnel smelled like a battlefield: blood mixed with sweat and shit.
‘This will slow them down some,’ Audun offered.
‘Or make them all the more furious,’ Ulfar replied. He’d seen more death in the last half-day than he’d heard of in his life, just about. His mind wandered back to his father’s longhouse years ago, and the feasts for Uncle Hrothgar’s return from raiding. When he was a boy he’d admired the massive, scary warrior, pestering him for stories of big raids and the glory of the fight. Hrothgar would simply smile and say Ulfar would understand when he was older. Ulfar understood now. He understood completely. Three years ago he’d been begging to go raiding, see the world and win his honour, but his father wouldn’t let him. Ulfar’s fate was supposed to be that of a country lord. He was to manage filthy farmers and count grains until he was grey. One drunken night, one dumb fight, and suddenly he had no alternative. It had taken the intervention of Geiri’s father to keep the family of the man whose arm he’d broken from exacting the full debt of honour. Instead they’d settled on a substantial sum in restitution and two years’ exile.
Ulfar decided that when they returned home he would give them more. He’d abandon all claims to his father’s estate. Give it to Geiri instead. Come here, maybe. Woo Lilia properly, challenge Harald to a duel. Run away with her and explore beyond the north, find a place where they weren’t constantly trying to kill each other. Lord? Carry his father’s mantle? After what he’d seen here? Not a chance. Not a bloody chance.
‘Ulfar.’
Coming from the gate, Sven’s leaden voice shook him out of his reverie.
‘I’m afraid I have bad news.’
STENVIK, THE OLD TOWN
‘Then so it is.’
‘So it is.’ Skargrim nodded. ‘We attack just before dawn.’
‘Why then?’ Thrainn asked. ‘Why not now? They won’t see us coming.’
‘And how will you see them, boy? How will you tell your men from their men and my men?’ Hrafn asked. Thrainn turned to object but thought better of it. Instead he asked the only man who had been silent since Skargrim came ashore and summoned them to council.
‘What do you think, Ingi?’
‘What do I think?’ The diminutive chieftain looked at them and smiled. ‘I think I would like to pitch a battle where Sigurd Aegisson isn’t fighting. He knows what he’s doing and he can hold that hovel of his for a while without losing many men. Those outlaws will hardly be of great use to us, as you saw on the walls. The gateways are going to cost more than I think we should pay. So if you’re going to persist in this, rather than, say, wait outside until they weaken and need to come out for food and drink, you need more than just a desire to attack. You need a plan. And before I say what I think or move a single one of my men to help I’d like to see it. How are you going to crack Stenvik?’
There was a sense of a shift in the dark as Egill Jotunn moved and leaned in, the flickering firelight painting a demon on his face. ‘I might have a suggestion or two,’ he rumbled.
STENVIK
Stars twinkled overhead. The moon peered from behind the clouds to cast an eerie silver light over the town. Inside the walls, mounted torches created pools of warm, orange light inside a ring of dancing, jumping shadows.
‘Let him go.’ Sven’s voice was calm, reassuring. ‘He needs time. I don’t know if he’s lost anyone close before.’
Audun watched Ulfar as the young man headed north, away from them. He looked listless, head hanging and shoulders slumped. Audun nodded, slowly. ‘It’s a shame. Geiri seemed a good man.’
‘No doubt.’
‘How did he die?’
‘He fell asleep and his heart simply seems to have stopped.’
Audun shook his head. ‘No way for a young man to go. No way at all.’
‘No.’ The two men stood and watched as a cloud drifted across the moon.
Darkness.
VALHALLA
‘What’s on your mind, Harald?’
Freya ran her fingers through his hair, slowly and tenderly, touching him just right. He felt weak with desire.
‘I … I’m just not sure.’
‘What do you mean? You follow your chieftain’s orders, do you not?’ Thor leaned forward, looking concerned. ‘Is he unfit to rule?’
‘Or do you want to do it yourself? Give the command? Lead the troops to glory?’ Loki did not grace him with a look, devoting all his attention to a twig in his hands. Deft flicks of the knife carved impossibly small runes into the wood.
‘No. I follow Sigurd’s orders, he’s the chieftain. We’ve been through that. It’s just …’
‘… just what, my brave warrior?’ Standing behind him, Freya leaned on his shoulders. He could feel her firm, heavy breasts pressing into his back and thought his heart would burst.
‘I … I don’t know how much Sigurd respects the old gods.’ Harald looked around nervously. ‘I mean – all of you. You and the all-father. I don’t think Sigurd is all that faithful. He just wants to keep all of us alive until we die in our sleep. I think he’s growing craven in his old age and I think Sven is at least partly to blame. If there was any sense in them we would be allying with Skargrim and the outlaws and then taking on that upstart king.’
The three deities all looked at him with renewed interest. Harald could have sworn that even in the darkened end of the hall somebody had suddenly started paying attention. The deep shadows seemed to be … listening.
‘You’re saying that Sigurd Aegisson is no longer loyal to us?’ Loki asked quietly.
Thor smashed his fist on the table. ‘WE SAVED YOU!’ he thundered, face suddenly flushed with anger. ‘We held the dark at bay! Sent you weather for crops! Kept you safe from hunger and death! You built this town for us, and THAT is why you’re ALIVE!’
Freya’s face was hard. ‘We gave you the gift of children, and we gave your children the gift of life. Do you know how easily we could take that away? Fill your town with barren women?’ She looked down on him, cold and knowing. ‘You know how that feels, don’t you? Would you wish it upon all your kin, Harald?’
‘See?’ Loki said to Thor and Freya. ‘I told you. I was right all along.’ Neither of them answered him, so he turned to Harald. ‘How long since the last sacrifice, my friend? How long since the last ceremony?’ Somehow Loki, suddenly calm and amicable, was the most terrifying of the three.
‘I – I – don’t know,’ Harald whispered. ‘I’ve been sailing. A year? Maybe … two?’ At the edge of his senses he felt the vision slowly start to unravel. ‘No! Don’t go! Tell me! What do I do?’
Thor, Freya and Loki moved into the centre of the longhouse. United, they looked very much like a family.
‘Set your town to rights, Harald,’ Thor said.
‘For us. For me,’ Freya whispered.
‘I have given the men of Stenvik a chance to live your lives the way we intended. Take it … or face the consequences,’ Loki added, still smiling.
The gods turned their backs on him, walked into the darkness and disappeared. Harald clenched his fists painfully hard as Valhalla faded from view.
STENVIK
Ulfar was numb.
The packed earth wall at his back was cold to the touch, the grass h
e sat on was soft … but he knew it. He didn’t feel it. He had nothing but cold and detached information, from somewhere outside and above himself. It didn’t matter. Nothing really mattered.
Geiri was dead.
Ulfar leaned back and looked up at the stars. The steps up to the wall were just a few yards away, and for a moment he thought he might go up there, walk amongst the men on the night watch and try to make himself useful.
And what good would that do?
They were overmatched. Sigurd knew it, Sven knew it. They were going to get overrun tomorrow and that would be the end of that. He’d seen death enough times by now, sure – but he always thought of it as something that would happen to other people. And still he felt nothing.
He stared out into the middle distance, numb to the world.
It took the heat from her body, the smell of her, the feel of her hair as she nestled against him, to make him react. As her arms pulled him into a soft embrace their bodies twined together instinctively, seeking strength in each other.
Ulfar took a deep breath.
Inside, emotions welled up. He clung to her and trembled silently, shook with the intensity of it as scalding tears flooded down his face. Her hands were on his head now, clutching him to her breast, stroking his hair, murmuring words that didn’t exist. Ulfar struggled to regain control, but everything he’d been a part of since arriving in Stenvik collapsed on him at once, demanding to be let out. And holding on to Lilia was so painfully sweet. He was equal parts proud and happy, mortified and ashamed to be crying in front of her, frightened and small and safe and loved.
‘Everything will be all right,’ she whispered. ‘It will all be right. We will live. Together. It will be all—’
Three yards to their left, the body of a wall guard landed with a thud.
ONBOARD THE NJORDUR’S MERCY
Oraekja felt strange. Cold.
Cold and heavy.
His muscles did not seem to respond like they used to and his skin felt wrong. It felt almost like that time he’d been frostbitten on a hunting trip. Nothing but lumps, blocks of flesh.
Her hand on his chest burned and stung, the feeling of it pumping through his veins. He could feel himself … swell … all over. Panic coursed through him and he wanted to thrash about, but couldn’t. Instead his eyes fluttered open.
She sat beside him, eyes fixed on Stenvik. Her hand passed over his chest and she muttered under her breath, the words indistinguishable to his ears.
He could feel something drift towards them from the shore, over the sea, into the boat, closing in on him.
It flooded into his eyes, ears and mouth, filled him. Oraekja screamed as the silver shimmer encased him. No sound escaped his lips.
STENVIK
The wall was crawling with outlaws.
Ulfar took the last steps three at a time and jumped straight into an uneven fight. Four scrawny men in rags surrounded a young, blond boy swinging an axe in a panic. Ulfar’s borrowed sword took the first forest man in the neck, dropped him at once. Two more snarling heads could be seen emerging over the parapet so Ulfar took a step in towards the dying man’s falling body and hoisted it over the wall, taking the climbing invaders by surprise. They cursed loudly as they tumbled backwards under the weight of the corpse.
The remaining three on the wall turned towards the new threat. One of them had his face shattered by the blade of the youth’s axe for his troubles. Ulfar ducked a quick lunge by the nearest fighter and shouldered him in the sternum. Quick slashes, thrusts and a cut, and the two young men were the ones left standing.
‘That makes two, foreigner,’ said Orn.
‘You’re welcome,’ Ulfar replied, swiftly grabbing a bag full of small stones and throwing it with all his might at the face of a climbing outlaw. ‘TO THE WALL! ENEMY ON THE WALL! ALL TO THE WALL!’ he screamed at the top of his lungs. All he could hear from the darkness was grunts and metal clashing on metal. ‘TO THE BLOODY WALL!!’ Orn echoed. The door to the longhouse slammed open and Sigurd was visible in the pale torchlight. ‘NORTH!’ Ulfar shouted and watched the chieftain set off at a dead run towards them. Raiders piled out after him, carrying an assortment of weapons.
A blood-curdling cry erupted from the outlaws, reverberating around Stenvik.
They were all over the walls.
Orn and Ulfar turned back to back and fought the onrushing invaders. A menacing brute brandishing a thick spear advanced on them from the east, two axe-wielding warriors from the west.
On instinct, Ulfar nudged Orn. ‘I’ve always liked two better than one. What do you think?’
‘Agreed,’ the scout muttered under his breath.
‘GO!’ Ulfar shouted, spinning around to Orn’s side. Taken by surprise, the axemen hesitated for a moment, adjusting to the situation.
They died quickly.
Retracting his bloodied sword, Ulfar felt a firm shove take him off balance, nearly throwing him over the outer wall. The spear passed just under Orn’s arm where Ulfar’s ribcage had been a moment ago. Infuriated by the slip-up he spun around. The spearman behind them had gambled on the lunge and was pulling his spear back when he saw Ulfar’s face. He had managed to drop the spear and draw a dagger when the sword punched through his stomach and upwards into his heart, gutting and killing him instantly. Ulfar used the momentum to toss the man over the wall, where curses and shouts told of more climbers.
Screams drew the two men’s attention, and Ulfar turned to scan the walls.
Raiders of the Westerdrake were charging up the western and southern steps from below, but the outlaws were not giving way as easily this time around. With the high ground and an assortment of spiky weapons, they did not yield an uncontested inch to the defenders.
Only the eastern wall seemed to be won.
Sigurd and a handful of raiders had beaten back the forest people, moving steadily outward, re-manning the wall. Suddenly the outlaws found themselves pinned between advancing blades.
‘STENVIK!’
Pushing his own men aside, Harald stormed up the western steps. A ragged, slim fighter threatened him with a spear, but the captain batted it effortlessly away and brained the attacker with a hand axe. Within a couple of steps he was in the enemy’s midst, snarling and ferocious. He was a sight to behold. Every movement had one purpose and one purpose only: pain. Judging by the rapidly thinning ranks of outlaws on his part of the wall, Harald was doing well.
‘Ulfar!’
The urgency in Orn’s voice tore him away from the hideous spectacle. Another wave of attackers was climbing up the north wall with murder in their eyes.
NORTH OF STENVIK
‘Ready the troops.’
‘At once, your highness.’ Finn was already moving through the makeshift camp, making up a mental list of the chieftains he’d need to find. The scout had staggered into their guards in the middle of the night. Finn had to admire the man’s toughness: he was short and stocky, looked more like a sailor than a woodsman and breathed like he’d run all night and possibly all day, but he still insisted on delivering the message to King Olav in person, muttering something about orders from his captain.
There had been a strange expression on the King’s face when he’d emerged from the tent. He’d only told Finn to ready the troops and bring the commanders to him. With chieftains and warriors of note in tow, he turned back to King Olav’s tent to find the King waiting and ready.
‘We waste no time on big words. Stenvik is under siege. Rouse your men and move out now – we march to their rescue in the name of the Lord.’
Chieftains from the entire eastern half of the country turned silently and set about following the orders of the King.
The army was on the move before sunrise.
STENVIK, THE OLD TOWN
Skargrim was almost invisible in the shadow of the old longhouse. He stood stock-still and listened to the sounds of battle: clashing swords, screams, dying men.
Egill Jotunn approached him from behind
.
‘It seems strange to hold back when there’s killing being done.’
‘I know.’
‘Still, I think you’re right. We can’t see in the dark, we don’t know each other’s men on sight and we’d lose more than we’d gain.’
‘The night is good for many things, but not for this. Not now.’ They stood together in silence for a spell. Then Skargrim spoke again. ‘It sounds like the woodlice are giving them a proper fight this time.’
‘That it does. As for tomorrow …’
‘Yes?’
‘I’d like you to come take a look at something,’ Egill said. Skargrim turned, looked up at the looming giant and nodded. They walked away from the walls, towards the campfires.
STENVIK
The ravens circled lazily overhead, specks of cawing dark in the first rays of the morning sun.
Bodies lay strewn on the trampled grass at the foot of the wall, sometimes piled two or even three high. Women and children moved with purpose on the parapets, scrubbing and cleaning where they could, throwing straw over pools of blood where they couldn’t.
In the market square Valgard worked on. The sounds of last night’s slaughter in the dark had nearly driven him mad at first, but soon even they had faded into ugly background noise. He’d been at his post throughout, with three warriors nominally supposed to assist him. He knew what it was about, though. They thought he was so weak that he would not be able to defend himself if a single outlaw were to get over the wall.
The line of wounded had seemed endless.
He had men with clean wounds, blood flowing freely from gashes in their shoulders, arms or sides. Others came in with broken forearms or limping on one foot. It was an endless parade of horror, pain and suffering.
And through it all Valgard had worked.
Bandages and water. Salve and ointment. Binding, healing, sometimes even passing a hand over a nasty wound and mumbling something incomprehensible if he thought it would make the man feel better. Some he could heal, some he could save. Some were beyond helping.
‘You’ve done well, son.’
His heart skipped a beat. He hadn’t heard Sven come up behind him, didn’t know how long he’d been there. Somewhere in the back of Valgard’s throat a lump started slowly dissolving.
The Valhalla Saga 01 - Swords of Good Men Page 24
