The Valhalla Saga 01 - Swords of Good Men (30 page)

With few qualms about honour, Ulfar clobbered the outlaw in the back of the head with his shield and watched him collapse like a sack of potatoes.

‘Give me a hand,’ he said to the boy as he grabbed the enemy. Together they hoisted him up to the top of the wall.

‘Wait.’ Ulfar stopped in mid-push as the boy drew his knife and slit the outlaw’s throat before pushing him over. Ulfar’s eyebrows shot up and the boy smiled. ‘Makes it slick and harder to climb. Get down,’ and the boy dived under the parapet, pulling Ulfar with him. In half a breath, three arrows whistled past at chest height.

Standing up, Ulfar nodded at the boy. ‘I owe you my life.’

‘We’re even. Name’s Orn.’

‘Well, Orn – you’ve got good eyes. Thank you for sharing them.’ Orn nodded once, smiled and grabbed his bow. Out of the corner of his eye Ulfar could see Thorvald directing reinforcements to where the raider had fallen, while Sven gestured and sent a group of men with bows, long spears and what looked like scythes away from the eastern steps towards the market square.

‘THEY’RE THROUGH THE OUTER GATE!’

The men on the wall stole looks towards the inner gate on the south wall. Knowing that Skargrim’s raiders were in their gateway showed it for what it was – just a thin layer of timber between their families and death.

‘HOLD, YOU BASTARDS! IF THEY COME OVER THE WALL IT’S OVER! HOLD THE WALL FOR STENVIK!’ Sigurd roared at the top of his voice, leading by example. The blade of his axe, the front of his tunic and his forearms were spattered with blood and gore.

Ulfar saw Sven look down on the south gate, eyes gleaming.

*

It had been hard work, shifting the chopped timber out from under the shield wall by hand. They’d felt every arrow thudding into the wooden barriers between them and certain death, felt the heat of bodies pushed, crushed together under the shields.

But the gate had given way, they’d hacked through and now they were crowding into the gateway. Outside the smell of war and death had mixed with the screams of dying outlaws to boil their blood. In comparison, the stone corridor seemed hushed. The cold stones were a blessing.

‘Fucking tomb,’ Thora muttered next to Skargrim, pulling him to the side to let the gatebreakers through.

The gateway was filling up fast. Warriors eager to get out of the hail of stones and arrows pushed in at the back. Soon there was very little room to move.

‘GET BACK!’ Skargrim roared. ‘GIVE SPACE, YOU FOOLS!’

About three feet ahead of him Skargrim saw a little dirt bounce off a raider’s helmet. Somewhere in the back of his head Oraekja’s words echoed. Ragnar told him he should have looked up …

‘What the—’

The first heavy spear came down like lightning, smashed a clavicle, punctured a lung and disappeared back up into the hole in the roof as the raider ahead of Skargrim sank to the floor, blood pumping out of his neck. The second struck almost simultaneously on the other side of the corridor, skimming a helmet, carving open a raider’s face and punching through his chest beside his sternum. ‘SHIELDS! UP! SHIELDS, YOU BASTARDS!’ Thora screamed at the top of her voice, but it was too late. The spears struck again and there was no space to move, only the screams of dying men.

Fear and blood gave Skargrim strength. He tore the shield off the back of a man in front, pushed two men to the side and
jammed the murder hole. His teeth jarred with the impact as the spear punched into the shield once, twice. Skargrim counted, timed and pulled the shield away at the last moment. The wielder of the spear, expecting resistance, lost control for an instant and the spear slipped out. Skargrim reached up, grabbed the shaft just below the tip with both hands and wrenched with all his might.

The spear was his, along with a very satisfying thud and curse on the other side of the timber.

His victory didn’t last long, though.

Piercing screams came from the gate as the front row, the gatebreakers with their tools, all dropped to the floor. Skargrim could see the pools of blood spreading, the hidden holes in the gate where the spears stuck out.

The command made his mouth taste of bile, but there was nothing for it.

‘BACK! GO BACK! RETREAT! BACK TO THE HARBOUR!’

He turned around, snarled at the men in front of him and led them at a dead run out of the gateway, through the splintered gate, past Ingi’s shield wall and back to the old town. Behind him he could hear the rumble as the south gate opened. The screams of his men, the sounds of murder being done.

Tendrils of shimmering, silver-grey mist streamed with Skargrim, out to sea.

*

There was no order given that Ulfar could understand. One moment the outlaws were all over their walls, snarling and feral. The next they simply turned around and fled.

Not that anyone complained.

The men of Stenvik roared their approval but got little time to celebrate their victory.

Thorvald, Sven and Sigurd moved among them, commanding a clean-up. Planks were scrubbed, weapons checked and bodies unceremoniously dumped to the foot of the wall after being stripped of anything useful. ‘Give them something to clamber over,’ Sigurd had growled.

Down in the market square Valgard and Sven were seeing to a surprisingly short line of wounded soldiers. The southern gate was up and the occasional strangled scream from a gatebreaker being put out of his misery rang out.

No one paid them any heed.

The shields up on the wall rose. Harald and his warriors emerged, bloodied but grinning manically. ‘Shields! Up! Shields, you bastards!’ one of them shrieked, and the others roared. ‘Oi! Where’s your spear?’ Hallmar shouted at one of the fighters. ‘Shut up,’ the tall raider snapped back. ‘Got ripped out of my hands.’

‘You got one, though, didn’t you?’ Harald draped a thick arm around the young raider.

‘Yes I did,’ he replied, grinning. ‘Spitted him like a pig.’

Harald roared and the others joined in.

Moving away from the blood-crazed raiders, Ulfar picked his way down the steps. Glancing into the southern gateway, his stomach churned and his breath caught in his throat.

Corpses littered the stone corridor. There was blood everywhere. The floor was covered, the walls spattered. By the gate a pile of bodies lay, face down, brutally hamstrung. Their throats had been slit. Further down towards the ruined outer gate fighters lay sprawled in various poses, arrows and spears sticking out of their backs.

‘I guess we got this round.’ Audun stood behind him, looking at the carnage. ‘Sven says we’re to pile this up and use it as a barrier.’

Ulfar shuddered involuntarily. ‘If that’s what he says then that’s what we do, I guess.’ He followed Audun, who was already picking his way through the gateway, feet splashing in pools of blood. Somehow some of it had sprayed up on the wall and nearly to the rough timbers in the tunnel ceiling. Ulfar followed the line with his eyes.

‘Murder holes in the roof. There’s just about space enough for a couple of men to go down from the top, stand above the tunnel and stab downwards with spears. They sent—’

‘Harald and his friends,’ Ulfar replied. ‘Through the big shields up there. I saw them come out again.’

‘And then there’s little hidden holes in the inner gate for spears or arrows, and space for swiping a blade down at ankle level. These poor bastards never stood a chance.’

Ulfar cursed softly. ‘Sven wasn’t kidding when he said he had some surprises for the visitors.’ He grabbed a leg and helped drag a lifeless body to the corpse wall Audun was building.

‘No, he wasn’t. Sven and Sigurd knew what they were doing.’

‘Did you take part in building this?’ Ulfar gestured at the stone-masonry.

‘No, not at all. This is from long before my time. Ten summers? Fifteen? I don’t know. Closer to ten, I should think. The story says Sigurd and Sven had raided so much and carried home so much treasure that they needed a fortress to guard it all.’

‘Is it true?’

‘Might be. I’ve never seen any treasures, though. I think it’s a story and I think they simply wanted to keep the people safe. I—’ Audun paused, then pointed at a warrior on the floor. ‘This one is alive.’

‘Not by much, from the looks of it,’ Ulfar replied.

The raider lay on his back, an arrow tip coated in shiny,
brownish black liquid sticking out of his chest. His eyes fluttered.

Ulfar looked at the blacksmith, who nodded once, an odd expression on his face. He then drew his sword and stabbed the man through the heart, a killing blow.

They both shuddered when the light went out of the man’s eyes.

After a moment Ulfar spoke up. ‘Let’s finish the stacking and get out of here.’

‘Very good idea,’ Audun replied, a shade too quickly.

STENVIK, THE OLD TOWN

‘This really is not going to be as easy as we thought, is it?’ Hrafn looked at the other captains sitting around the fire. ‘Am I the only one here who expected a real fight?’

Three pairs of eyes trained on Hrafn.

‘All right, so maybe not. But we’ve tested their strength now. There’s a fair amount of it.’

‘Except in numbers,’ Thrainn interjected.

‘This is true,’ Hrafn acceded.

Ingi cleared his throat. ‘Fine. Then let’s talk possibilities. We’ll have a hard time getting at the inner gate. The outlaws were slaughtered on those walls, so climbing is out. We can hardly sneak up on them from here on in. I say we wait.’

‘What? Where’s the honour in that? Waiting for them to weaken and die?’ Hrafn hissed.

‘Think about it. Skargrim said he’d sent men to poison their water. You’ll get your fight, Hrafn. But it will be on our terms, when they’re weak, thirsty and forced to leave their little fortress. It’s safer, it’s more efficient and it will be a lot easier.’

No one could really argue with that.

Ingi nodded for emphasis. ‘Good. Are we then agreed?’

Hrafn and Thrainn nodded.

‘… Egill? Do you agree, or would you like to continue to throw men at the walls?’

‘We should wait for Skargrim,’ Egill rumbled. ‘It’s not right to decide this when he’s not here.’

‘Well – where is he then?’ Ingi asked.

No one spoke. The answer was written all over the captains’ faces.

THE
NJORDUR’S MERCY

The waves caressed the sleek hull. A chill breeze stroked the mast, searching for sails that weren’t there.

Skargrim knew that he had to report to Skuld, had to tell her what had happened. She would know, of course. There was no doubt about that. But he had to. So now he found himself onboard his own ship, as intimately familiar to him as his own body. Only now it felt … different. A little bit colder than the rest of the world.

A small torch mounted on the mast threw wild, dancing shadows at Skargrim as he picked his way to the stern.

‘Enter.’

He pulled back the hides and stepped inside.

The first thing he felt was a light touch on his forearm. He turned towards her, looked straight into her eyes.

‘Skargrim. Your bravery and loyalty are beyond question,’ she purred. ‘You have done well.’

‘They … they slaughtered us,’ he managed to stutter.

‘Shhh …’ her fingers seemed to walk themselves up his arm, leaving a trail of goose bumps. Her hand was on his shoulder then a finger found his lips, tracing a line before pressing gently. Her eyes never left his.

‘Do not fear, Skargrim. We do not need fear.’

Holding on to the last shreds of self-control, he managed to gently move her hand away from his face. ‘We need … we need to seal them in. Make sure they’re not going anywhere. They’ll run out of water. Maybe there’s a way to get at the gate as well.’

She smiled, a vision of life, youth and beauty. Then she shook her head, raised herself up onto her toes and gently, softly took Skargrim’s head in her hands.

‘No,’ she whispered. ‘No waiting. The gods do not wait. It is not our way. Attack, Skargrim. Attack. No matter what it takes.’

He blinked, his mouth opening and closing.

‘Yes,’ he finally muttered. ‘Attack.’

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.