Authors: Giles Kristian
And then he waited, seemingly alone in his enemy’s hall as the wood in the hearth crackled, pulsing grey and gold and bursting into flame with every splash of fat from the spitted pig. And the oil lamps flickered, sending snakes of soot curling up to the low roof where the smoke hung thick as sea fog. And the trenchers of food steamed on the table, giving off scents that made Sigurd’s stomach growl.
And Jarl Randver returned.
First came warriors, still laughing at what they had seen down at the shore.
‘They will be passing Taravika by now,’ a broad-shouldered man with a beard rope halfway down to his belt was saying, cutting a swath through the smoke of the place with two others.
‘They’ll be food for the crabs is what they’ll be,’ a shorter man whose flat nose took up most of his face said. ‘Which is a shame as I would have liked to see this mead-mad boy.’
They had not thought anything of the absence of the spear-men at the entrance then, Sigurd thought, keeping as still as he could as more folk came in, their excited blather flowing through the hall like a frothing wave.
‘This will be a feast to remember, hey!’ someone said.
‘But where are the damned thralls?’ a man said. ‘This meat is burning.’
Sigurd could feel the sweat between his palms and the warm beechwood arms on the jarl’s seat, but he kept them there, clenching the wood, resisting the screaming urge to pick up his shield as more sword-armed men came in. Most leant their spears against the wall near the door but many had swords at their hips and all had scramasaxes or short knives and Sigurd’s mouth was so dry that he feared nothing would come out when he did try to speak.
It was incredible that no one had seen him yet. But then, he was mostly in shadow and their eyes were on the food. Besides which, the last thing they would expect to see was another man sitting in their lord’s seat, especially the man who they thought was being chased west, if he were not already a spear-gored corpse.
A woman, a guest by the look of her brooch and rich gown, came so close that he could almost have reached out and touched her as she took hold of the spit handle and began to turn the pig. He thought his heart would beat a hole in his breastbone and he was silently invoking Óðin because he hoped the god was watching now, when the woman looked up, their eyes meeting through the herb-scented smoke. Her mouth fell open but the sound came from another.
‘Who in Heimdall’s hairy arse are you?’ the warrior with the flattened nose said. Other men and women turned and nailed their eyes to Sigurd though none did any more than that, probably because in his brynja and helmet Sigurd looked like a god of war and assuming he were not a god then he must be someone important.
‘Where is Jarl Randver?’ Sigurd asked, his voice as even as a sleeping sea.
‘Who are you?’ Beard-Rope asked, beginning to smell trouble, right hand moving across to his sword’s hilt.
‘I asked you a question, you swine-headed troll,’ Sigurd said.
Beard-Rope pulled his sword from its scabbard.
‘What is this?’ someone bawled, the voice smothering all others like a pail of water flung over a fire. The throng parted to let Jarl Randver approach, men’s and women’s eyes jumping from him to Sigurd and back again like fleas across a fur. Randver’s son Amleth followed in his wake, one arm around Runa and both of them soaking wet beneath other men’s cloaks. When she saw Sigurd, Runa’s face lit up, eyes wide, hands stifling the gasp that came to her lips, but then she was lost to Sigurd’s sight as the ugliest man he had ever seen moved in front of her. He knew this must be Skarth, the jarl’s champion and prow man, and he stood now at his lord’s shoulder.
‘Who are you?’ the jarl demanded of Sigurd. His eyes held two parts fury to one part curiosity, and he looked like Baldr the Beautiful standing beside Skarth. The champion was not a tall man but he had the shoulders of an ox, a neck as thick as a man’s thigh, and arms like gnarly oak boughs. His head was scabbed and bald but for one braid of white hair that hung from the right side to his shoulder, but none of these things prepared you for the face. An axe, Sigurd had heard.
‘I am Sigurd, Jarl Randver,’ Sigurd said, tearing his gaze from Skarth and fixing it on the man whose seat he had made himself comfortable in, for he did not want to miss the jarl’s expression then. ‘Sigurd Haraldarson.’
The jarl flinched as though struck by an invisible hand. Swords hissed from scabbards but Jarl Randver had the presence of mind to hold up his hand to stay theirs.
‘
You
are Sigurd?’ he said, as a murmur went through the assembly. The jarl’s handsome face seemed to clench like a fist as his mind tried to get a grip on what was happening.
Sigurd nodded and Skarth’s mouth did something that might have been a grin. ‘I have come for my sister,’ Sigurd said, letting his eyes bore into his enemy like a shipwright’s auger making rivet holes to clench down the strakes. ‘And I have come to kill you, Randver.’ He grinned.
Some of Jarl Randver’s warriors laughed at that. Amleth told a man to watch Runa, then came forward, sword drawn.
‘Your skull must have sprung a leak, Haraldarson,’ the jarl said, tilting his own head to one side.
‘And when I have killed you and your sons, you ill-wyrded murderer of women,’ Sigurd said, ‘I will spit on your corpse and throw you to the fish.’
The jarl frowned, knowing that there was more to this than what his eyes could see and his ears could hear.
‘Let me gut him, lord,’ Skarth growled.
Sigurd showed his teeth then. ‘I am waiting, you swine-headed troll.’
Skarth drew his own sword, the serpent in that fine blade alive then in the flame-licked smoky air of Randver’s hall, and Sigurd heard the jangle of war gear and the scuff of feet on the rush-strewn floor. Women screamed, men cursed, and the lamp flames flickered with the tumult of it.
‘You will have to go through me to get to him, Skarth son of Skamkel,’ Olaf boomed. He stood there at the far end of the hall, shield- and spear-armed, his eyes piercing Jarl Randver’s champion like the spit through that glistening pig. Either side of him was a wall of limewood, iron, flesh and blades and all of it strengthened by an oath.
‘Kill them!’ Jarl Randver yelled, spittle flying, eyes bulging.
And Sigurd snatched up his shield and spear and threw himself at his enemy.
But Flat-Nose flew at Sigurd and Sigurd twisted left, getting his spear shaft up to catch the scything sword which bit into the wood, jarring Sigurd’s arm up to the shoulder joint. Flat-Nose drove in with his right shoulder, the solid meat of it punching into Sigurd’s chest and throwing him backwards so that they both landed in a heap, the air driven from Sigurd’s lungs and the stinking spittle from Flat-Nose’s snarl spattering his face.
The man rammed his head down into Sigurd’s eye and Sigurd got his own hands up and dug his thumbs into Flat-Nose’s eye sockets, trying to drive the fibrous balls into the man’s skull as thunder filled the hall. Then Flat-Nose was flying, being hauled up off Sigurd who saw Svein’s teeth and wild eyes as the giant lifted Flat-Nose like a barrel and, roaring, hurled him against the wall. Sigurd rolled over and saw Floki hack a face in half and Ubba drive Rope-Beard back into the press with his shield and Randver’s people were falling before Sigurd’s Wolves like tall barley before the scythe, their death screams like the voice of Hel herself.
‘Runa!’ Sigurd yelled, scrambling to his feet, blinking blood from his right eye. Olaf was fighting Skarth but there was little room for sword work in the press as Randver’s warriors sought to stand and the women tried to flee, crawling over the tables like desperate animals, scattering food everywhere in their panic. ‘Where is Runa?’ Sigurd called, picking up his spear and jumping up onto Randver’s seat to see above the seething, clamorous chaos. He saw Agnar Hunter open a man’s neck with his long knives and Valgerd gore a big, black-bearded man with her spear. Then he saw Runa being hauled towards the door. She was fighting and the man seemed unsure how to deal with her for he could hardly haul the would-be bride out by her golden hair. Sigurd lifted his spear to cast it but decided against taking the risk.
‘The other door, Sigurd!’ Svein said, gripping his long-hafted axe by the throat, its massive blade glinting hungrily.
Sigurd nodded and together they ran to the back of the hall beyond the old sail partition where the thralls still huddled, shining-eyed and trembling like sheep, and Sigurd lifted the small door’s iron latch and they burst out into the wet day, haring the length of the hall.
‘Runa!’ Sigurd called and seeing him she broke free of the warrior’s grip and the man seemed relieved to be rid of her, turning now to face his enemies and do a man’s work. Runa ran to Sigurd and threw herself against him and he held her in his arms, putting his face into her sweet-smelling hair. As Randver’s man held his ground, sword raised, Svein looped his war axe twice through the air and brought it down from a great height into the man’s head, cutting him in half from skull to groin, where the blade slid off his arse bone and came out bloody.
Women were running off up the rocky bluff or down to the sea and now Randver’s warriors were spilling out of the hall like blood from a wound, roaring encouragement to each other, trying to face the wave of steel-edged death that was rolling over them. Out came Randver but he had a knot of brave thegns around him including Skarth and for a heartbeat Sigurd’s blood froze in his veins but then he saw Olaf come out, all teeth and beard, his sword dripping.
‘Stay back, Runa,’ Sigurd barked, then hurled his spear and it flew at Randver but somehow Skarth saw the streak of it and swung his sword, knocking the thing out of the air before it could skewer his lord. Sigurd watched his Wolves emerge and launch themselves at what remained of Randver’s hirð. He saw Torving dart forward, his white braids swinging, and sink his spear into the soft flesh beneath a man’s raised sword arm, and he saw Bram hack off a man’s leg and then turn to Rope-Beard who hammered his sword against Bram’s. Bram took the blow and turned his shield, swinging it edge first into Rope-Beard’s face to send him staggering. Then Bram shouldered Bjarni and Grundar out of the way and hewed into Rope-Beard’s skull, which burst open in a splash of blood, bone and grey brains.
‘Randver!’ Sigurd roared, hauling Troll-Tickler from its scabbard and pointing it accusingly at the jarl who was in the thick of it now, sending splinters flying from Hauk’s shield. ‘Randver, you grasping arse welt! The gods have abandoned you!’ Fighting for his life the jarl had no time to trade insults, as another of his warriors went down under Bjarni’s axe and Floki ducked under Amleth’s wild sword swing and opened his shoulder to the bone. Amleth shrieked and Skarth threw himself at Floki, knocking him back into Karsten and Bodvar.
Sigurd was reluctant to leave Runa but the battle-thrill was in him up to the eyeballs and he craved to sink his sword into his enemy’s flesh like a blood worm. ‘Stay with Runa, Svein,’ he said, and the big man nodded grimly, but then Valgerd yelled Sigurd’s name and launched her spear high over the seething knot of fighting men and Sigurd saw that warriors were coming over the rise from the sea.
‘Thór’s arse! Now we have a fight,’ Svein said, striding towards the newcomers, his axe looping through the rain-veiled air.
‘Skjaldborg!’ Olaf bellowed, but Sigurd was still going for Randver. The jarl had only four bloodied and desperate men with him now including Amleth and Skarth and if Sigurd could kill Randver it might finish it.
‘Skjaldborg, Sigurd, damn your eyes! Here! Now!’ Olaf yelled.
And Sigurd spat a filthy curse because he had been so close to his vengeance but now he would have to wait. Yelling at Runa to stay between his men and Randver’s hall, he and Svein strode up to join the shieldwall as these new men, who must have been the crew from one of the jarl’s other ships which had returned, hurried to stand with the battered survivors facing Sigurd and his Wolves. These fresh men came with shields and spears and some wore mail, so that the scales was beginning to tip, at least in terms of numbers.
Olaf knew this all too well, which was why he roared at those with him to move forwards and close the distance which the jarl and his men had put between them.
‘They’re still coming, the whoresons,’ Ubba growled and so they were, more and more men spilling over the crest, full of fury at seeing their lord beset and so many companions cut down outside their hall.
‘I’m glad of it,’ Bram said. ‘It was too easy before.’ His thick kyrtill slick with blood, he began to beat the inside of his shield with his sword’s hilt and the others took up the rhythm, advancing step by step towards the enemy at whom Jarl Randver was barking his own orders, trying to get them into something resembling a skjaldborg. The axe wound in Amleth’s left shoulder was spilling blood down his side and his face was ashen, but he was still there beside his father, clinging to the wreckage of that day.
Then the shieldwalls struck with a dull thud of wood against wood and the ring of steel on steel, and Sigurd found himself shoving against a newcomer who was mail-clad, thickly bearded and strong. Sigurd swung Troll-Tickler high, twisting his wrist to turn the blade and strike the warrior’s back, but the man’s brynja and the leather beneath took the blow and Sigurd pulled the sword back over swiftly lest someone lop off his arm.
‘You’ll have to do better than that, lad,’ the man spat, shoving his shield into Sigurd’s so that Sigurd had to re-plant his back foot and use all his strength or be shoved backwards. On both sides men were stabbing spears and swords over the tops of shield rims and between them, seeking faces and unguarded shoulders.
Behind Sigurd’s iron and flesh rampart, moving up and down the line like wolves seeking a way into an animal pen, Asgot and Valgerd smashed skulls, opened groins and pierced bellies. But weight of numbers was starting to tell now and Sigurd’s skjaldborg was no longer gaining ground as more of Randver’s men joined the fray, making his shieldwall two men deep.
Sigurd reached behind him and thrust Troll-Tickler into the ground, then pulled his scramasax out of its sheath.