Berserk Revenge

by Mark Coakley

5: RUNNING AWAY

 

  Eleven years later -- lying on his back on the cold ground in the shadow of King Lambi's hall, not far from where he had undergone the joining-ritual -- Halfdan realized that he was not dying from the arrow after all. He was getting his breath back, and the pain in his gut was getting less strong. Arrow-shots to the belly were known to be extremely painful, not like this. Such hurts were usually accompanied by the smell of shit leaking from a torn-open large intestine. There was no shit-smell now.

 

  Then what had happened?

 

  Halfdan moved a hand to the arrow-shaft and touched it. No jolt of pain. He touched the thin piece of ash-wood with his hand and tried to move it. It was stuck solidly into something, but not him.

 

  He raised his head to look. The belt-buckle. The arrow had stuck into the soft silver of his belt-buckle -- the long-ago gift from King Lambi. It had saved his life. The barbed iron tip of the arrow had stuck into one of the paws of the decorative beast-shape.

 

  So lucky!

 

  He yanked the arrow-tip out of the belt buckle and glanced at it. Just a normal-looking arrow, the sort that could be used for either hunting or war. He tossed it aside.

 

  His skin under the belt-buckle felt sore but unbroken.

 

  Halfdan rolled over and onto his hands and knees, still breathing heavily. He looked around the darkness. Who had shot him? He could not see anybody. The dogs were still eating whatever they had found.

 

  What was going on?

 

  He had to go inside to warn King Lambi.

 

  He pushed himself to his feet and, unsteady from both the arrow-impact and the horns of booze drunk earlier, drew out his sword. His heart was pounding with near-panic. Looking all around for the unfriendly archer, he staggered quickly to the front of the hall. He had to warn them.

 

  With his free hand, he yanked at the handle of the heavy oak door. It should have easily swung open on its greased iron hinges. It had always done so before. But now the door would not open. It was somehow jammed shut. He heaved back with all his strength, tugging at the handle. No use.

 

  The wall-masks of the gods glared blankly past him.

 

  Halfdan was very confused.

 

  Had someone inside barred the door shut?

 

  Why?

 

  Halfdan raised his sword and banged its handle hard onto the thick oak-wood door-planks. He yelled, "Open! Open the door! Someone out here just tried to kill me! Open! Help!"

 

  He stopped banging and yelling for a moment to listen through the door. Had he woken up anybody? Was that a scraping sound coming through the wood, or just his imagination?

 

  Halfdan raised his sword-handle again and was about to bang on the door again when he heard a sound of a bow-string behind him. Halfdan flinched, just as an arrow stabbed into the door, a finger's-length away from his head.

 

  He turned around. A crowd of armed men wearing war-helmets, fifty or sixty at least, were running towards him in a battle-line. Some were being dragged forward by chains attached to big, excited-looking war-dogs. These arriving dogs started barking, which made the hall guard-dogs start barking back. The night filled with barking and growling as the two groups of dogs ran madly at each other.

 

  "Tor's balls!" Halfdan shouted.

 

  Most of the men running towards Halfdan were carrying shields in one hand and a spear or an ax or a sword in the other hand; a few of them were archers.

 

  A bow-string twanged from their direction, and another grey-feathered arrow bit into the door between his legs, a small distance under Halfdan's crotch.

 

  Helpless fear pounded in his chest and neck. Hard to breathe. He had been in many battles, but this was different. He was alone, without a leader giving commands, his thinking slowed by all the beer he had guzzled inside the hall -- Halfdan was not at all ready for this!

 

  An army was running at him from the front; the door to the hall behind him would not open.

 

  There was nothing he could do for those inside.

 

  He would die if he stayed here.

 

  He heard the sound of an archer shooting at him again and ducked. Again the arrow missed. Without a thought, forgetting to check the back door to the hall, Halfdan turned and ran. Back towards the out-houses.

 

  Iron-tipped arrows spat hissing over his shoulders.

 

  He raced past a row of smelly wicker huts and across King Lambi's farm-field, which was covered with barley-stubble from the recent harvest, and towards the town wall. It was made of sharpened pine-logs, held upright and together by iron nails and thick pine-wood cross-beams. He tossed his sword over it and leaped high to grab the top of the fence and threw a foot on a cross-beam and hurled himself over.

 

  He landed on his feet on the ground on the other side, rolling his body onto the ground at the moment of impact, then bouncing quickly up. From the direction of the hall, he heard, mixed with the noises of dogs fighting dogs, the indistinct yelling of men. He could not make out any of their words, but they did not sound friendly.

 

  Who were they?

 

  He was standing near an oak-tree with thick, low branches. He grabbed a branch and pulled himself high enough up to see over the top of the town wall.

 

  King Lambi's hall was surrounded by dozens of helmet-wearing strangers and their snarling war-dogs. And a group of five or six dogs was running towards the part of the fence Halfdan had climbed over, followed by a larger number of the mysterious fighters. One of them pointed at where Halfdan hung from the tree branch. Halfdan's head and the top of his body could be seen from inside the fence. Halfdan heard the man shout, "Look! He's hiding up that tree! Lift the dogs over the fence and they'll trap him up there!"

 

  Halfdan dropped back to the ground, now completely panic-filled, and ran away from the fence, towards the line of trees at the base of the mountain-range in front of him. Despite the light of stars and moon, it was too dark to see the ground well, and he often stumbled. He ran towards some raspberry bushes, tried to jump over them, but one of his feet tripped into a thick branch-loop and he flung forwards and down into the mass of spiky berry-branches. His falling face slid along a thorn-covered branch, ripping skin from his beard-covered cheek and one of his ears. He dropped his sword and peeled the gripping thorns off his face. Blood and raspberry-juice dripped onto his white linen shirt. One of his shoes had fallen off.

 

  Behind him, he heard the deep baying of dogs. They sounded like they were on this side of the wall. He had to get away from their fast, heavy bodies and terrible teeth. He stumbled away in the light of moon and stars. He ran past some big chunks of granite-stone that had, ages ago, rolled down from the mountain. He ran around the boulders and scattered bushes and trees and came to a mud-banked stream. As he jumped over the thin flow of water and used both hands to scramble up the chilly, slippery mud of the other side, Halfdan realized something.

 

  He had forgotten his sword and one shoe in the raspberry bushes.

 

  Halfdan hissed, "Fool!" and slapped his forehead.

 

  How could he fight off dogs or armed fighters with empty h
ands?

 

  He couldn't.

 

  If they caught him, they would easily kill him.

 

  "Fool!" he said again.

 

  The dogs were still barking somewhere in the darkness behind him, and seemed to be getting louder.

 

  He ran.

 

  The ground was now sloping upwards. This was the lowest part of the mountain that brooded over Eid. The birch and pine and occasional oak trees grew closer together here, and the chunks of rock strewn between the tree-trunks were covered with green moss.

 

  Inside the forest, he stopped to listen behind him. Heard the barking dogs -- getting closer?

 

  He looked at his feet. His right one was covered by an untied cow-leather shoe. His left foot was bare. He bent to tie the strings on his right shoe with trembling fingers. Each clumsy knot he tried to make fell apart.

 

  "Tor's balls! Forget it!"

 

  He kicked off the single shoe and ran barefoot into the forest. He followed a rock-strewn trail that twisted up-mountain through the rocks and trees and clumps of low bushes. The dark around him and the confusion inside made it hard to move fast up the mountain-base. His bare feet slipped in the cold gravelly mud of the trail and scraped on small rocks.

 

  He felt an old, familiar pain in one knee (years ago, he had twisted it while jumping off a war-ship to raid a town with King Lambi); it throbbed more and more as he ran.

 

  Breathing hard, he passed under the thick moss-covered branches of a fallen tree and tripped over some tangled roots twisting out of the ground. He ran through piles of rocks from long-ago avalanches. Sometimes he saw patches of clear starry sky overhead through the dim branches overhead.

 

  His face still stung and bled from the thorns of that raspberry bush.

 

  Once he blundered off the trail and felt his feet and ankles burning from the acid licks of stinging nettles.

 

  A short while after, he turned a twist in the trail and his bare foot slipped in some mud. His foot slid off the trail and into a knee-high ant-hill of dry pine-needles. A smell of vinegar rose from the broken-open mound, and the bugs swarmed onto him and bit at his skin until his rubbed them off with a hand.

 

  Now he did not hear the dogs barking anymore.

 

  The forest trail zig-zagged in the shape of a lightning-bolt. He followed it up and up. His legs and back muscles ached from the exertion. Blood pounded in his neck and head. His knee hurt worse with every frantic step.

 

  He had to rest. He stopped on top of rock ledge and put his hands for support onto the rough trunk of a pine-tree. There he rested, in a patch of moonlight and starlight, breathing harshly, staring at the pebbles and little plants around his feet.

 

  Who was attacking the hall?

 

  What was happening to his king and all his friends?

 

  Why?

 

  No sound of barking now. But the dogs must still be after him, running as a pack through the forest, their open mouths full of floppy red tongues and wet white fangs.

 

  Run!

 

  As he started going again, his foot painfully kicked a loose, fist-sized rock. It bounced up to hit a skull-sized rock with a loud, sharp bang!

 

  Behind and below him, the dogs heard the noise and started barking again.

 

  They sounded closer.

 

  He needed some kind of weapon. As Halfdan scrambled up the dark and slippery mountainside, he picked up a broken birch-branch the length of his arm. Then be bent to snatch up a fist-sized rock.

 

  Again, Halfdan slipped on the trail-mud. He fell onto a man-sized pine-tree, one that would be perfect for decorating at a Yule feast. Would he ever enjoy a Yule feast again? He pushed himself away from the half-broken tree, hands now covered with sticky pine-sap and bits of bark and dry needles.

 

  The mountain trail let up to a small waterfall pouring from a rock-crack overhead into a small pool, which was drained by a rocky stream running downhill. The dark waterfall was sided by steep granite cliffs. In the dim light, Halfdan could barely see the hand-paintings that covered these cliffs. He had been to this place a few times before, for religious rituals with all the folk of Eid, and remembered how impressive the cliffs had looked in daylight. The rocks were covered with big, brightly-coloured paintings of wild beasts, war-ships, bolts of lightning and dozens of man-figures with huge, erect penises. Near the cliff-top, over all the other pictures, was the largest of the painted pictures -- depicting the yellow-flamed sun.

 

  The trail got steeper as it went past the tinkling waterfall and twisted around giant boulders towards a steep, jagged-rock cliff-face. The trail went up a natural ramp along the side of the cliff. As Halfdan limped up this narrow path, with a steep drop to his right, he heard the sounds of snarling close behind him.

 

  Halfdan turned and saw two big, grey-furred war-dogs burst out of the forest shadows after him. The loped up past the waterfall and onto the narrow cliff path and up after him.

 

  There was no point in running anymore. Halfdan threw the fist-sized rock at the first dog. It hit the dog's chest and bounced away. The beast seemed not to notice and jumped at Halfdan, its open mouth drooling. Halfdan swung the heavy birch-branch at its open mouth full of spiky yellow teeth. The club knocked the dog sideways off the path. It fell, barking, down to the chunks of rocks below.

 

  The other dog leapt at him. Halfdan swung the stick at it and missed. The dog bit onto Halfdan's sore knee, clamped its teeth tight, shaking its strong neck to rip away a piece of Halfdan's flesh.

 

  Halfdan stumbled back, trying to get a hard strike with the birch-branch on the dogs thick, squirming back. The war-dog tugged hard at his knee, growling deep in its throat.

 

  "No," Halfdan groaned. He toppled backwards. As he fell, the dog let go of his knee and lunged forward towards the soft brown skin of Halfdan's exposed throat. Just before the teeth reached their target, Halfdan punched his right fist into the side of the dog's thick neck, while twisting frantically to one side.

 

  Together, man and dog rolled off the trail and fell down the cliff. As he fell, Halfdan pulled the snapping, kicking beast to his body and twisted in the air so that the dog was below him.

 

  The dog landed on the hard rocks, and Halfdan landed on the soft dog.

 

  The impact knocked almost all the air out of Halfdan's body; for a moment his eyes saw only swirling blackness, and he felt his mind drifting away, towards something like sleep.

 

  He lay on the motionless dog, gasping for breath, trying not to pass out completely. Finally, sight returned to his eyes, and he saw the dog's head resting right beside his own. It was dead.

 

  Halfdan slowly got to his feet. His body was full of pain. He was hurt in many body-parts. His belly was still sore from the arrow hitting his belt-buckle; his face had been scraped by a thorny raspberry branch; his shoeless feet were battered by trail-rocks; the nasty-looking dog-bite on his knee was pouring out blood; his legs and chest were torn by the dog's claws; and his ribs were broken, or at least very bruised, from falling off the cliff onto the dog. He desperately needed to
rest.

 

  A man's deep voice nearby in the forest yelled, "This way! He's over here!"

 

  Halfdan scowled, then ran back towards the cliff and staggered unsteadily back up the narrow path. There was a flat area at the top, a little ledge strewn with gravel and small rocks. He found three bigger rocks, each the size of a man's skull. He picked up each of these, placed them near the edge of the ledge, and crouched. Only the top of his head could be seen from below as he peeked down and waited.

 

  Soon, five armed strangers walked fast out of the forest shadows and along the trail. They strode in single-file past the sacred waterfall. In the dim light, Halfdan could see that the men were all big and yellow-bearded. Four of them carried spears and shields. These men wore helmets and leather body-armour. The tallest man walked in front, without a helmet or shield or body-armour. He carried a long-handled and wide-bladed ax in both hands. He wore a black bear-fur over his shoulders. He looked like a berserker -- a rare kind of fighter with no fear, no mercy, and notorious strength.

 

  Halfdan's unknown foes walked past the waterfall and the cliff covered with religious art, to where the trail started to get narrower and steeper.

 

  One of the four regular fighters pointed ahead and said, "Look. The dogs."

 

  Hiding above, Halfdan watched the group move closer.

 

  "They're both dead," one regular fighter said.

 

  Another said, "Really? How?"

 

  "He must have killed them."

 

  "Killed two dogs after losing his sword? How? Tor's thundering balls -- what kind of man are we after?"

 

  "Shut up," the berserker said. "Come on. Do your job. He is near."

 

  They walked past the two dead dogs, four of the men looking reluctant, and started going single-file up the narrow cliff-side path.

 

  When they were half-way to the top, Halfdan stood up and, with both hands, he lifted one of the skull-sized rocks up over his head. The foes were right under him. They heard him move and looked up. Four of them flinched when they saw Halfdan's dark-skinned face, saw his shredded and blood-soaked clothes, saw him hurling a big piece of mountain-rock down at them, and they heard him grunt.

 

  The thrown rock hit the helmetless head of the berserker in front.

 

  Apparently unhurt, the berserker looked up at Halfdan with a sneer of contempt. After bouncing from the berserker's head, the rock fell down to land near the dead dogs with a sharp click-sound. The berserker did not move. Then his eyes rolled up in his head and the ax dropped from his suddenly-limp hands. The berserker collapsed. He sprawled awkwardly on the rock path, motionless except for one oddly-twitching leg.

 

  The four other fighters saw Halfdan quickly bend down, then stand again, raising another big stone overhead.

 

  "A troll!" wailed one of the remaining foes.

 

  Halfdan grunted with the effort of throwing it down at the fighter standing farthest up the trail. It missed, flying over all of their helmets and bouncing with a loud bang! off a boulder below them, then flying towards the sacred waterfall and splashing into its pool of water.

 

  Halfdan bent to pick up his last rock. After that, he would have nothing left to throw down at them but his exhausted and blood-smeared body.

 

  But the four fighters had seen enough. Cowering under their round shields, they started backing away, shuffling down the cliff-side path and scrambling across the rock-strewn bottom. They all ran away, past the dim waterfall and fast into the shadowy line of trees. They were gone.

 

  Halfdan dropped the big rock to one side. He stepped a bit back from the edge of the cliff, slowly sat down. He could not run anymore. He could barely think or remember why he was there. So he lay on his back on the hard, bare rock of the high ledge -- his confused mind spinning and swirling, pain stabbing all over his body -- until he passed out.