‘DROP SHIELDS AND KEEP MOVING!’ Sigurd screamed. ‘DROP SHIELDS!! MOVE!!’
But the trolls were upon them, and in an instant Ulfar’s world turned to screams, blood and chaos. He caught only a glimpse of Audun, fumbling to pull something out of his bag, before he was shouldered out of the way just as a massive troll club swept past at head-height, fast enough to smash through everything in its path.
‘Move!’ Sven hissed in his ear before darting away again. Something fizzled at the back of his brain, a small spark of lightning; a familiar voice spoke to him and he saw. The trolls had a rhythm to them: swing, pull back; swing, pull back. All he had to do was move with the rhythm, and—
Like a dancer, Ulfar tiptoed backwards in the snow out of the arc of another troll’s club. All around him the Stenvik men had broken their lines and were goading the trolls into individual stand-offs, ten men or more to each troll. Sprawled bodies lay all about but none of the blue giants were down yet.
Ulfar stepped into the reach of the troll he was facing and his blade darted out past the big beast’s knee.
‘Aim for the heart!’ the warrior next to him screamed.
‘No,’ Ulfar hissed between gritted teeth as he slapped the edge up against the troll’s calf muscle and pulled for all he was worth. The edge of the blade sliced into the hard meat and the tension did the rest. When the troll pushed off to prepare for the next swing, the muscle split and the big creature sank down on one knee.
‘Down you go,’ Ulfar snarled, and that almost cost him his life as the club came barrelling past at rib-height on the backswing.
‘CUT THEM!’ he screamed as the men of Stenvik fell on the crippled troll. ‘SLICE THEIR LEGS!’
‘WOLVES!’ Sven screamed back.
Through the chaos of fighters Ulfar could just about see in the distance grey, four-legged shapes running down the hill towards them. ‘Oh, so that’s how you want it to be?’ he snarled, wiping the blade on his tunic.
A roar went up to his right and Ulfar glanced towards the source of the sound just in time to see a thick-bodied troll break and disappear behind Stenvik fighters. There was the sound of dull thuds. Oddly, the hardened Viking warriors all appeared to be inching away. Then the sight-line cleared and Audun rose from the pile of meat and bones that had been a blue-skinned monster just moments ago, holding his hammers and wearing a big belt that Ulfar didn’t recognise.
The smith glanced at him and flashed a lightning smile.
‘TO ME!’ Ulfar shouted, wading through the snow to meet the wolves.
Behind him, Sigurd cried ‘STENVIK!’ and a deep-throated roar followed.
Ulfar glanced back quickly: more trolls were down. Twenty or so warriors of Stenvik followed him to meet their new foes: slavering beasts on four legs with murder in their eyes.
Audun charged through the snow ahead of them, looking like a man among boys. ‘COME ON!’ he roared.
Ulfar’s war-grin froze.
There was more movement behind the wolves: men, moving swiftly – ten, twenty – no, more. It was getting harder to see snow among the trees.
The wolves reached the hard-packed snow out in the open and sped up, launching themselves at the warriors in a blind fury. Reacting before he could think, Ulfar struck with his blade, slicing into dirt- and blood-caked fur. A quick side-step got him away from the reach of snarling teeth, but the wolf was fast too, spinning around the moment it landed, and pain exploded in his calf as jaws locked down on the muscle. Screaming in pain, Ulfar twisted, slicing downwards with a blow that would have felled any normal animal, but the madness in the beast’s eyes only intensified. A dark shape zoomed into Ulfar’s field of vision and smashed into the wolf’s head, inches away from Ulfar’s kneecap. A hammer. The grip on his calf slackened immediately as the animal went still. Ten yards away, Audun nodded at him, then turned and set about with his remaining hammer.
Suddenly alone in the middle of the battle, Ulfar had a moment to look around. The biggest of the trolls was still standing, surrounded by Sigurd, Sven and a handful of Stenvik fighters. Battles between man and wolf raged all around the clearing, while Audun charged through the fray, freeing wolves from their curse through the medium of a hammer to the brain, but he couldn’t be everywhere and far too many Stenvik fighters were already lying unmoving, face-down in the snow. There was movement everywhere on the hillside now, shades of man and wolf among the trees.
‘FALL BACK TO SIGURD!’ Ulfar screamed. ‘GATHER UP!’
‘ULFAR!’ Sven shouted at the top of his voice.
That half-turn of the head saved most of Ulfar’s face.
The wolf’s jaws bore down on the side of his head – scalp, ear and eye – as the beast in mid-leap collided with him. He staggered under the hot breath, the smell and the fury of the growl, and Ulfar heard himself howl to match the wolf’s madness as he felt the meat of his cheek tearing away. His arm felt like someone else’s as it twisted to get the point of his sword under the animal’s ribcage and drove it up, hard, through the heart and into the brain, and immediately the animal was dead weight on him, the teeth scraping down his face, peeling off what it hadn’t got already. Hot blood streamed down to his neck, thickening fast in the cold air. The noises of battle flowed back to him through the numbing pain and he staggered towards Sven, Sigurd and the troll. ‘FALL BACK!’ he screamed, but all that came out was a hoarse whisper.
Half the world was black. Bodies appeared around him out of nowhere: friends.
Strong arms dragged him through the snow, towards the small knot of Stenvik men in the middle. As he slid to the ground in a safe spot, Ulfar saw Audun charge ahead of the warriors and into the group surrounding the big troll. Time slowed as the blacksmith pushed past the blades and hurled himself straight at the blue-skin; he threw his arms open and enveloped the troll’s thick midsection in a bear-hug.
The big troll got two bone-crunching blows in on Audun’s back before its spine broke. Moments later Stenvik blades made quick work of ensuring it stayed down.
Cold on the wound: snow.
‘How are you holding up, son?’
‘Fucking fine,’ Ulfar wheezed. ‘There’s more coming. How many dead?’
‘Too many,’ Sigurd growled.
Ulfar saw some and sensed others; it looked like they’d lost nearly one man in four. There was an odd noise . . . retching? A cold memory settled in Ulfar’s spine and he rose up on his elbow, searching.
A couple of yards away Audun was doubled over, coughing up bile and blood, clawing at the belt, which looked to be strapped very tight around his middle.
‘Sometimes,’ Sven said between gritted teeth, ‘sometimes I really hate my life.’
Tearing his eye off Audun, Ulfar tried to find what Sven was looking at.
Rough-looking fighters, at least two hundred of them, had formed up in wide lines on both sides of the survivors. Wolves stood by their side, their yellow eyes trained on Sigurd’s men.
A gap formed in the lines.
Another ten trolls stepped in on either side.
Chapter 14
KATTEGAT, DENMARK
LATE DECEMBER, AD 996
The cold night air stung King Olav’s face and tingled in his nostrils. They’d left the smell of salt along with most of their ships out at sea and reefed their sails halfway up the river. He turned and looked back at the body of the Long Wyrm. Half of his crew were manning the oars, pulling softly and almost silently. It was hard work, but the heavy ship had kept its momentum well. The rest of the men crouched in the shadows of the Wyrm as it glided upriver, black among the snow-covered trees. He watched the big warriors as they grinned to each other, adjusted their straps and holds, checked their mail shirts and helmets, tested their weapons.
It was the ship he’d been on his whole life, raiding the coast of Britain, praying to the old gods: this was his past an
d his present at once. But this time it’s different, he thought. This time it’s for a worthy cause.
As squat house-shapes appeared up ahead, ugly and dark against the new-fallen snow, a familiar shape approached through the shadows and Finn touched his arm and in a low voice asked, ‘Do you want us to take the riverbank here?’
‘Yes,’ King Olav replied. ‘We’ll hit it first: ten ships behind us; the others go past the village and beach there.’
Finn nodded and walked towards the man at the rudder, stepping nimbly in the dark, and moments later the king could feel the ship shift in the water, leaning in towards the bank on the left. At a softly whistled command from the captain the oars on the left hand side rose from the water.
After the gentle sweep up the river, the landing was quick. The Long Wyrm crushed branches and flattened the mud bank with its weight as thirty warriors leapt over the side and ran towards the first of the huts. Behind them the ten designated longboats unloaded their deadly cargo, one by one, and the other half of the raiding force sailed past the village to do the same from the other side.
King Olav Tryggvason ran at the front, Finn on his right, blood thumping in his ears. It had happened only moments ago, but for some reason he couldn’t remember the leap from the bow; all he could recall were times long past, and another man with the same face, rejoicing in the speed and the power of his body. He looked ahead and took aim at a house close to the centre. In the distance, a wolf howled and a thrill went through him. Here he was, at the head of his own pack, about to make the heathens pay for their sins. He knew that once he’d gone in, with Finn at his back, his men would pick their own houses to attack. The inhabitants of this sad, nameless town would never know what’d hit them, and their false gods would be nowhere near to protect them. Somewhere inside King Olav, fury unravelled and everything came together to light his inner fire: the events of Trondheim, the scheming jarls, the meeting in the forest . . .
When he got to the door, he kicked it so hard it flew off the hinges.
*
The other men got back to the Long Wyrm eventually, flaring torches illuminating teeth flashing in bearded grins.
King Olav searched out Finn in the crowd and beckoned him over. ‘What did we get?’
‘Not much,’ Finn said. ‘A handful of silver. A couple of useable swords, axes and spears. Some furs.’
‘Good,’ King Olav said.
‘Yes,’ Finn muttered.
The king’s anger flared again. ‘Do you have something you wish to say, Finn?’ he snapped.
‘I . . . saw the men.’ King Olav didn’t reply so the big warrior continued, ‘I saw the men take what they wanted. They struck down unarmed villagers – peasants. And they . . . some of them . . . they took women and hurt them,’ he continued.
‘These are Svear,’ King Olav snapped, ‘and mixed-blood Danes. They worship false gods – they deserve no better! This is the will of Christ. We are on the path, and anything that stands in our way must be eliminated. Do you understand?’
Face half in shadow, Finn made no sound.
‘Do. You. Understand?’
‘Yes,’ Finn said, almost inaudibly.
‘Good,’ the king said, turning away. ‘Get the men on the boats. Let’s leave this place and go and bring the word of the Lord to somewhere else.’ With that King Olav stepped back and disappeared into the darkness beneath the carved bow.
*
The waves hissed at the side of the ship, powerless to stop it. Under wind, the Long Wyrm was a real sight to behold: the mast creaked with the force of the sail pulling them forward, and Finn had to be vigilant at all times to make sure they didn’t outpace the rest of their fleet. In the distance he could make out the stocky frame of Gunnar, captaining the Njordur’s Mercy. No mean ship itself, yet the lean raider still had no chance of keeping up with the Long Wyrm at speed. This is a ship that could cross oceans, Finn thought, and battle with the gods themselves. Not for the first time, he thought back on the old shipwright, though try as he might, he couldn’t quite see him in his mind; there was just a vague sense of someone who had been there, teaching and directing – but none of the men remembered anything about him. There was just this feeling of belonging, of doing something right . . .
‘We’re almost there.’ Einar’s voice brought Finn back to the ship, back to the water. The young man had just appeared next to him and was now calmly nocking his bow.
Unlike their previous target, this village was big, a local trading centre, according to one of Gunnar’s men. At least thirty houses sprawled along the coast and up the hillside, organised loosely around what looked like a central market square. This time they didn’t have the cover of night and in the distance they could see the villagers running back and forth, half of them forming into a group of sorts and the other half disappearing up into the hills.
‘Women and children,’ Einar said, still not looking. ‘We’ll have a fight here.’
Around them, the men were readying for battle. Young, strong warriors pulled on leather-padded shifts that offered a good range of movement; older warriors who had survived a few fights went without fail for the discomfort and weight of chainmail shirts.
Finn almost jumped as Einar’s bow sang next to him. ‘What’d you do that for?’ he said, but Einar didn’t answer; he just calmly nocked another arrow. Finn looked around, trying to spot the first shaft, but he couldn’t see it. The bow sang again just as the group of peasants in the distance scattered; in the middle, one of them dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes.
After a third shot, Einar put his bow back down. ‘That should give them something to worry about,’ he said, voice level.
‘SAILS!’ The command went up from the captain and behind Finn and Einar teams of strong-armed sailors pulled on the thick ropes, slowly raising the lower beam. The sail flapped and snapped in the wind, but the tension went out of it very quickly.
‘OARS UP!’
Two hundred and fifty yards away the peasants had gathered back into a group positively bristling with pitchforks, spears and other makeshift weapons. Einar sent an arrow flying their way, but this time they were ready; a shout went out and the group dispersed, reforming as soon as they thought it safe.
Two hundred yards.
The Long Wyrm still had quite a lot of momentum.
‘OARS DOWN!’ the captain shouted, and, ‘HOLD!’
Sixty pairs of muscular forearms strained against the pull as the blades went down into the water and pushed against the waves, turning the Long Wyrm from sleek serpent to bristling hedgehog.
One hundred and fifty yards.
Far behind them, another fifteen ships pulled level and headed towards the shore. Flames burst into life amongst the defenders as torches were lit, unnaturally bright in the sunshine.
A hundred yards.
Ninety.
Eighty.
Finn felt the keel shift under him as the Long Wyrm leaned to port and headed away from the village’s makeshift pier, leaving the defenders wrong-footed, looking flustered by the change.
Fifty.
Einar’s bow sang three more times, and on shore, three men more dropped dead. Spurred into action, the peasants ran towards the place where the Long Wyrm would have to land. The ground split underneath the sheer weight as King Olav’s flagship ran aground and a host of screaming warriors leapt ashore and met the defenders head-on.
The Svear fought like cornered animals, but they were no match for the king and his men. Olav was moving among them, deflecting blows off his shield, shattering faces with powerful swings of his sword, until soon even the battle-crazed Svear were falling over themselves to retreat away from the bloodthirsty man with the crown.
*
By the time Gunnar’s ship was close enough for shouting, the battle was over. Six villagers knelt in the middle of a ring of b
loodied warriors. The gentle sound of the water mixed with the moans of the dying.
King Olav could still taste the blood-lust in his mouth. His arm hurt where one lucky farmer had got in a solid blow with a cudgel and his right hand ached from clutching the hilt of his sword, but there was none of the rage left in him. He just wanted to get back onboard the Wyrm and be away.
‘What do you want us to do?’ Finn said.
King Olav looked at him. ‘You? Get aboard the Long Wyrm and prepare for departure. But first, send Gunnar over.’
The big warrior walked off without a word. A short while later, Gunnar approached.
King Olav looked him in the eyes. ‘Send a message,’ he said. ‘Loot and burn the village.’
‘What about them?’ Gunnar said, glancing at the villagers in the circle.
King Olav shrugged. ‘We will do unto others as they intended to do unto us,’ he said, looking to the skies. ‘And leave the selection to the Lord.’
With Gunnar at his shoulder, King Olav stepped into the ring and reached for the hilt of his sword.
*
‘PULL, YOU BASTARDS!’ Finn roared at the rowers. Even with twice thirty men under oars, the going was slow when the wind died down. The best path to Rus lay through the Sound, through a cluster of islands as close to the coast of Svealand as it was to Danemark, but they found out soon enough that no one had ever tried to take a ship like the Wyrm through. The moment they were within shouting distance of land the wind died down and suddenly the weight and the stability were working against them.
‘I SAID PULL!’ Finn screamed, but it was all for nothing. By the time they were close enough to count the branches on the first island they had slowed down to a crawl. Their fleet had overtaken them, ship by ship, and Finn was pretty certain he’d seen the rowers on the other raiding boats give it an extra bit of power just to make sure the Long Wyrm was humbled. Some of them had even had the nerve to shout insults at them, calling them fat nursemaids out for a swim and all manner of other, less complimentary terms.
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