Knights of the Hawk c-3

by James Aitcheson

  There, taking shelter amidst the hazel and the holly, the oak and the ash, huddled in our cloaks and with our breath misting before our faces, we lay in wait for our prey, taking it in turns to keep watch. There were nine of us in all: Magnus and myself; Serlo and Pons; Godric and Eithne; Ælfhelm, and two of the huscarls under his command, neither of whom seemed to have proper names. The first was known as Sceota, which was the English word for a trout, on account of the fact that he had a reputation as a strong swimmer, while the other was called Dweorg, which meant a dwarf, even though he was a giant of a man and easily the tallest of all of us, taller even than Serlo.

  I lay awake for a long while that night, and not just because of the cold and the damp that was soaking through my cloak into my tunic, but also because my mind was racing with thoughts of Oswynn, of the fastness upon the crag and how we would take the torch to its halls so that the flames would leap high enough to be seen the length of the fjord. I smiled as I closed my eyes and thought, too, of Haakon himself, and how I would take pleasure in gutting him like a fish and watching his lifeblood slip away. Blood that should have been spilt a long time ago. That was the last thing to cross my mind before finally sleep claimed me.

  A sound sleep it was, too, strange though that might seem, since the ground was wet and I never usually rested well when wearing mail. It was filled with dreams of Earnford as I remembered it from the early summer, shortly before we had ridden to join the king’s army in East Anglia, when the wheat was still green and the days were growing long, and for some reason Oswynn was there too, her hair flying long and loose behind her as we rode from the woods down to the river. Her laughter filled my ears as with a spray of sun-glistening water we crashed through the ford, except that when I arrived upon the other side and looked back, there was no sign of her. All was still, the sun had disappeared behind dark, fast-moving cloud that obscured the sky, the crops were withering in the fields, and I was calling her name over and over and over as I whirled about, searching for her. I was still calling when I felt a hand upon my shoulders, shaking them roughly, jolting me from sleep.

  Instinctively my hand leapt to my knife-hilt at my waist and drew it free, thrusting the point in the direction of the blurry shape that was my assailant.

  ‘It’s me, lord,’ said the one standing over me, drawing away from my blade, and as my eyes adjusted to the dimness of the morning I realised it was Serlo. ‘It’s me,’ he repeated.

  A grey half-light filtered through the mist that hung all about, obscuring the trunks of the trees and making it difficult to see much more than a hundred paces.

  My head was spinning, my throat parched, my sight still a little blurry, and under my tunic my skin was soaked with sweat. ‘What-?’ I began as I withdrew my blade and, blinking to clear my eyes, slid it back into its sheath.

  He put a finger to his lips. ‘They’re coming.’

  ‘Already?’

  That was when I heard, somewhere down the slope a short way to the north, the familiar jangle of horse harnesses, a peal of laughter and the sound of voices in a tongue I couldn’t understand but which had to be Danish.

  At a guess I reckoned it was barely after dawn, which meant that they were early, although the enveloping mist obscured everything beyond about forty or fifty paces, even the sun, so probably it was not quite as early as it seemed.

  Without wasting another moment I hauled myself to my feet, at the same time shrugging off my cloak, which was sopping and covered all over with leaves, and letting it lie where it fell. Pons, who had joined Serlo for the final watch of the night, was busy waking Godric and the other Englishmen. I checked to make sure that my sword slid cleanly from its scabbard. How long had it been since last I’d drawn it in anger, since last her edge had tasted enemy blood?

  Eithne, lying wrapped in blankets by the trunk of a wide-bellied oak, was beginning to stir, and I laid a hand on her shoulder.

  ‘They’re coming,’ I said. ‘Hide.’

  She woke with a start, wide-eyed in panic, at first not seeming to understand what I was saying, but then quickly she rolled up the blankets and scrambled for cover. The voices were growing closer with every passing moment, and I knew we didn’t have much time before they were upon us. I crouched down behind one of the frost-covered standing stones. Magnus had taken cover behind a holly bush to my right, and I held up a hand to catch his attention.

  ‘On my signal,’ I whispered, as loudly as I dared, which was not very loud at all. ‘Make sure the others know.’

  Magnus nodded. This was his fight as much as it was mine, but there was no disputing whose sword-arm was the more experienced, and in any case he understood that this was no time to argue. Each of us knew what he had to do. The others took position behind the stones, amidst the undergrowth, in the crevices between the outcrops of rocks and wherever else they could hide themselves. I glanced to my left and my right to see who was beside me, and found Dweorg and Godric.

  ‘Stay close to me,’ I told the latter. ‘Remember everything I told you and you’ll do well.’

  He looked every bit as nervous as when I’d first met him. This would be his first taste of battle since that day in the marshes when he’d slain Hereward. His first fight as a true warrior, as a full-fledged killer. Only too well did I understand the burden of expectation that placed upon a man, and yet I had every faith that his nerve would hold and that he would not fail me. He knew what was at stake, and knew what he owed me, too.

  The voices came again, closer than before, and I risked a glance around the edge of that standing stone in the direction from which they were coming.

  In the dim light I saw their shadows emerging from out of the fog. They came in a line, each following carefully in the footsteps of the one before them, trudging up the stony ground to the summit of that little hill. Four slave-girls, each with two wooden pails that they carried on poles across their shoulders, were in the middle of that column, with two of Haakon’s men leading and two more behind, preventing them from running away. One of the girls yelped as she stumbled and fell, her pails clattering upon the ground, and then a second time as one of the Danes hissed some manner of curse and hauled her up. She rubbed her elbow where she had fallen on it, and gingerly, stifling a sob, proceeded to pick up the fallen containers from where they lay. She was small and slight of stature, about Eithne’s age, I reckoned, although it was difficult to say for certain.

  Keeping still, hardly daring to breathe, I watched as the two leading Danes, swathed in thick cloaks of grey fur clasped at the shoulder with silver disc-brooches, with helmets upon their heads and wearing necklaces made from beads of amber, jet and ivory, approached the spring, murmuring to one another in low voices. One of them gave a curt snort of laughter, although at what I could only imagine. In the belief, perhaps, that our ships and their crews had been fooled into leaving their shores. Their manner and the fact that they wore no mail told me they had come without any expectation of trouble.

  My hand, dry and cracked from the cold, tensed, my numb fingers curling around the corded grip of my sword-hilt. Slowly, so that it made not even a whisper, I slid the steel from the scabbard’s lining of oiled fleece, all the while keeping my gaze on the party of men and girls. They were inside the stone circle now, not thirty paces from where we were hiding. So close, and yet not close enough.

  Beside me, I sensed Dweorg growing impatient as he shifted uncomfortably behind another of the standing stones. The tall huscarl’s sword was in his hand, and he kept glancing at me, ready for the signal, eager to spill some Danish blood. I glared sharply at him, knowing that the slightest sound now could give us away. I wanted Haakon’s men to know nothing of us until we were already upon them, so that they had no time to so much as draw their weapons before we cut them down. We were barely half a mile from Jarnborg’s walls. In the stillness of the morning their cries and those of the girls could easily carry, and it would be unwise to rely solely on the fog to mask the sound. No, we had to pick the r
ight moment to attack, when the guards were least expecting it, when we could be certain of making this quick.

  I kept a careful eye on them as, taking it in turns, the girls knelt down next to the spring. While one of the Danes kept watch, the other three paced about, drawing their cloaks more tightly around them and blowing warm air into their cupped hands, mumbling to one another. They were still more than twenty paces from us, and I knew it would be hard to come upon them by surprise across such broken ground, but it didn’t seem that we had much choice. Already two of the girls had filled their pails. We were running out of time. I had to make a decision quickly, or else squander this chance we’d been given and let our one slender hope of victory slip away.

  It was now, or not at all.

  I glanced to my left, at Dweorg, and to my right, at Godric, nodding to each of them, then gave a wordless roar as I sprang to my feet, scrambling through the mass of branches before me, rushing out from my hiding place with steel in hand and the bloodlust coursing through my veins, pounding behind my eyes.

  ‘Kill them!’ I heard someone call in the English tongue, and it sounded like Magnus, but I didn’t see him or indeed any of the others, only the four Danish men as I, their death-bringer, charged upon them.

  They stood before us, startled and slack-jawed, but not for long. As soon as they realised how many of us there were, good sense prevailed and they turned in flight. One alone remained, his feet seemingly having taken root. He stared at us, unspeaking, as his hand moved to his hilt, but not nearly quickly enough, and he was still staring when I ran him through, plunging my sword deep into his gut. Blood gurgled forth across my hand, dribbling on to the frost-hardened earth. A gasp escaped his lips, his knees gave way, and I kicked him hard in the chest as with a sharp wrench I freed the steel from his belly.

  ‘Go,’ I shouted to the others, who were with me now, and indeed overtaking me in their pursuit of the fleeing guards, and of the slave-girls as well, who were shrieking as they dropped their pails and fled down the rise, deeper into the woods, albeit in a different direction entirely to the men. ‘Don’t let the girls get away. We need them!’

  While Serlo, Pons, Sceota and Ælfhelm went after them, the rest of us charged on after Haakon’s men. Two were making for the edge of the copse where they’d tethered their horses, at the foot of the hill, while the other was striking out through the undergrowth.

  ‘Go after that one!’ Magnus yelled to Dweorg and Godric. ‘Leave the other two for us,’ he added, by which I guessed he meant himself and me.

  Leaving the corpse of that first Dane behind me, we crashed on down the slope after our quarries, between the birches and the elms, hacking a path through the brown bracken, strumbling across the uneven ground. We were gaining on them, and they knew it, too. Each risked a glance over his shoulder, and I glimpsed the whites of their eyes. It was a risk too many for the shorter, dark-haired one. He gave a cry as his knee twisted and he tumbled forward into the undergrowth. He struggled to get up, shouting for help, but either his friend didn’t hear him or else didn’t care enough, and he was still prone on the ground when Magnus’s seax found the back of his skull, silencing him.

  The taller one ran on towards the nearest of the four horses. I wasn’t far behind him. No sooner had he vaulted up on to its back and, red-faced and sweating, pulled his knife from its sheath, ready to cut through the rope tethering the animal, than I was upon him, seizing his leg and with my other hand grabbing his sword-belt, dragging him from the saddle. He landed awkwardly, falling on his shoulder as he struck the ground, and I would have finished him then had not his mount, panicked by the commotion and the sight of naked steel, suddenly reared up, pummelling the air with its forelegs. I threw myself backwards, just in time, as an iron-shod hoof passed inches in front of my face, before landing on my arse on the hard earth.

  Straightaway I scrambled to my feet, expecting to find the Dane striking out across the open ground that lay beyond the woods in the direction of the fortress. But the fall from the saddle must have injured him worse than I’d realised, for he was still on the ground, lying on his back, his chest rapidly rising and falling as softly he whispered words I could not understand. I stood over him, staring into his fearful eyes. Fearful, because he knew that his end was at hand. Blood, thick and dark, burbled from his nose and mouth, streaming down his cheek and his chin. He clasped his hands together, imploring me to grant him mercy, to grant him his life.

  In vain. He must have seen the look in my eyes and realised this, for suddenly he tried to scramble backwards in crab-like fashion. He didn’t get more than a couple of paces before I laid my foot upon his chest, pinning him to the ground, and he had enough time to let out a yell before the point of my sword came down on his neck, piercing flesh and bone. At once his flailing limbs were stilled, his chest ceased moving, his eyes glazed over and his lifeless head lolled to one side.

  Silence. Breathing hard, my lungs burning with the cold air, my sword’s fuller dripping with crimson, I gazed out into the mist in case these Danes had any friends nearby, but no one came to challenge us. Hurriedly I sheathed my blade, although not before wiping it upon the grass to clean the worst of the blood from it, then set about dragging the man’s corpse back into the woods where it would be less easily spotted.

  ‘Help me,’ I said to Magnus, who was with me now. The Dane was heavier than I’d imagined. The Englishman took hold of the feet while I lifted the shoulders. Together we carried him back up the slope a short way into the copse, where no one was likely to happen upon him. We threw him down amidst the bracken so that he was hidden from sight, and there we left him, although not before stripping him of his cloak, his silver brooch, his boots and his necklace of ivory beads. We did the same to the one Magnus had felled as well as the other two, not as spoils but as preparations for the next part of our plan. Having found Godric and Dweorg again, we ventured back towards the hill’s summit, where Pons, Serlo, Ælfhelm and Sceota were already waiting for us with the four trembling slave-girls, who sat around the trunk of the broad-bellied oak, keeping close together, regarding us with wide eyes.

  ‘Did you catch them all?’ Serlo asked when we reached them. ‘Are they-?’

  ‘All dead,’ I replied as I let the collected garb of the Dane I’d slain fall in a heap on the ground. I cast my gaze over the girls, who looked down, doing their best to avoid my attention. They looked pale, and freezing in their thin, mud-stained dresses. Terrified, too, and I supposed they had every right to be.

  ‘Have you told them who we are and why we’re here?’ I asked Serlo.

  ‘Not yet. We were waiting for you and Magnus.’

  I glanced around. ‘Where’s Eithne?’

  She rose from the rock on which she was sitting. For the first time since that day we had met at Alrehetha, the Irish girl was about to prove her worth. This was the reason I’d brought her with me, rather than let her go with Eudo and Wace.

  ‘I need you to speak to them,’ I told her. ‘They’ll understand you.’

  It was a reasonable assumption that they understood Danish, too, if they served in Haakon’s household, so I could have asked Magnus instead, but I thought the girls would be more reassured if Eithne were the one addressing them, not just because she was a countrywoman of theirs but because she was of a similar age.

  ‘What exactly do you want me to say?’ she asked.

  ‘First give them our names and tell them why we’re here,’ I said. ‘Tell them there’s going to be a battle, that we mean to destroy Jarnborg and Haakon too, but that for all of those things to happen we need their help. The rest I leave to you to explain however you can.’

  More than anything we needed a way to gain entry through the gates, but beyond that we also needed a guide, or guides, who knew the fortress and could show us where to go once we were inside. Although they didn’t yet know it, the four of them provided our answers to both problems.

  I waited, watching them closely, while Eithne relat
ed everything to them. At the mention of Jarnborg they all jumped up in alarm. Tears spilt down the cheeks of the youngest. She was probably no more than eleven or twelve summers old, with a thin, pointed face, hair as bright as gold and eyes the colour of sapphires. One of the others got down on her knees before Eithne, clutching at the sleeves of her cloak, while the two elder ones, who with their round, freckled faces and dark, tangled hair were so alike that they were probably at least cousins if not sisters, beseeched her with words I couldn’t understand.

  ‘Quiet,’ I said, marching forward, hoping that even though they might not understand what I was saying, the force of my voice would be sufficient to still them. I wasn’t disappointed. At my approach they quickly fell silent.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ I asked Eithne, although I could readily guess.

  ‘They don’t want to return to Jarnborg, lord.’

  I didn’t blame them, but we didn’t exactly have a lot of choice. Since they were our prisoners, neither did they.

  ‘If they want their freedom, they’ll help us,’ I said, and hoped that would prove incentive enough for them. ‘And not just their own freedom, either, but that of every slave in Haakon’s household. Tell them that.’

  It was a lofty promise to make, and even as the words left my lips I wasn’t sure it was one I could keep. Still, I needed to win them over somehow, and things would go much more easily if we had their willing support and didn’t need to coerce them.