War King

by Eric Schumacher

  Hakon had spoken his piece. The silence stretched between them. When she finally responded, there was a quiet intensity in her voice that broke Hakon's heart. “I only just found you again, and now this. Do not die, Hakon. Do you understand me?”

  He pulled her close to him and let her rest her head on his shoulder. “I do not plan on dying, Astrid. Not yet, anyhow. Come. Let us find Thora.”

  They walked down to the beach, where men milled about and Unn stood with her hand on Thora's shoulder. “Father!” Thora cried, and ran to Hakon. She wrapped her surprisingly strong arms around Hakon's waist. “That man tells me that I must go with him, but I do not want to. I want to stay with you.”

  Hakon returned the hug. “I know, Thora. And I want to stay with you, but it is not safe here.”

  “Why?” Tears welled in her blue eyes.

  Hakon peeled her arms away and knelt so that his face was level with hers. The tears streamed from her eyes, and he wiped them away with his thumb. His heart broke for the second time that day, and for the second time, he could do nothing to stop it. “Do you remember the bad men that came to Avaldsnes?”

  She nodded fervently.

  “Well, they are on their way here. So it is here we must stop them before they do any more wrongs to this land and our people,” he said, holding her eyes with his in the hope that it would help her understand. “Unn and Astrid will stay with you until I return for you.”

  “When is that?” she asked as she stifled a sob. He could see she was trying to be brave, but her emotions were overwhelming her.

  “As soon as I can, Thora. Now please; time is short. Go.” He stood and nodded to Unn, who took Thora away.

  Astrid embraced Hakon then and, without a word, followed his daughter to the ship where Tosti and Alf waited. He committed their sight to his memory, praying as he did so that he might see them again.

  Chapter 12

  In the end, only seven ships arrived from the neighboring lands, bringing the total, with Hakon's ships, to nine. Nine ships against Gamle's twenty. A few more men came with their rusted helmets and hand axes and spears from the various homesteads that dotted the island, but in the end, it was Gamle's army of a thousand against Hakon's motley hundreds.

  Hakon's army straddled the north side of a plain called Rastarkalv, which was a morning's hike south from Birkestrand. The clouds hung dark and ominous above the plain, remnants of the fierce storm that had blown through the day before and turned the plain into a mire of wet grass and muddy pools. To their left was the gray sea. To their right, the ground sloped upward to a low ridge. On its southern end, the ridge angled sharply down to the bay into which Gamle's ships now sailed — ships filled with sword-Danes with blood and vengeance on their minds. They crowded the decks, their spear tips and helmets gleaming darkly, menacingly, beneath the dark sky. When the men in those ships saw the army that faced them, their shouts of fury rumbled like thunder across the plain.

  Hakon gazed down his lines. To his right, Sigge and his crew, and some of the recent arrivals, stretched to the low ridge. To Hakon's left stood Tosti's men and more of the locals, their numbers reaching to the sea. One of the younger recruits in that group vomited in the grass. Others displayed the raw fear that haunted men before battle. Hakon could hardly blame them, for it was a hard thing to know that the army coming for your blood doubled your own in numbers. He spat into the slick grass, trying to dispel a thought that nagged at his mind like an annoying fly. Why had he not fled? Why had he let an old man talk him into this folly? He should have trusted his own gut rather than the bold words of a man bent on dying in battle.

  “Yell all you can, fools!” bellowed Toralv, tearing Hakon from his reverie. “You'll be wishing you had saved your breath after charging across this field.”

  Some of the men laughed at this, but not many. Down the line, another of the younger recruits vomited. No one teased him, for many of the men had done the same before their first battle. Some still did.

  Hakon turned to Egil, who stood next to him draped in his armor and his signature wool shirt. Long ago, he had worn only the shirt in battle, but with age came wisdom, and now he wore both. “It is time. Do you have the standards we discussed?”

  “Aye.”

  “And your men know their roles?”

  “I have been doing this longer than you have been alive, boy,” grumbled Egil.

  Hakon smiled at Egil's sour rebuke. “Then good luck, my friend. I will see you when this is over.”

  Egil donned his helmet, patted his king's armored shoulder, and without a word, hobbled back to the handpicked group of men waiting behind the lines with the standards of the local chieftains who had recently arrived. Hakon put them from his mind and walked down the line of his army, adjusting their armor and telling jokes to distract the men from the enemy roars rending the air.

  “I'm beginning to wonder about your choice of battles, lord,” called Sigge, though the smile on his face told Hakon he meant no malice. “Will you have us fighting giants next?”

  Some of Sigge's comrades chuckled, but not Hakon. The comment pricked him like the sharp nettle on a pine. “Is this not just another predicament to wiggle out of, Sigge? You of all people should feel at home here.”

  Sigge's comrades hooted at this, but the smile evaporated from Sigge's face.

  “Enough of the jokes,” Hakon called to Sigge's warriors. “Do not be foolish this day. Hold the line with every fiber in your body. If they retreat, do not pursue in haste. If they press, give ground slowly, but stay together. That is paramount. Do you hear my words?”

  The young men acknowledged their king with nods of assent. He had spoken these words to them before, but he knew Sigge and his men were eager and, therefore likely to make mistakes. This was one mistake they could not make. Not today. If they broke ranks, they would not only expose Hakon's right flank, they would cut off Egil. Hakon turned back to Sigurd's son and stared straight into his handsome face. “I am counting on you, Sigge. You are in charge here. Do not let your hounds off their leash.”

  “I will not let you down, lord.”

  Hakon reclaimed his place at the center of the line and studied the force massing on the beach to the south of him. They had disembarked quickly and formed a protective line to give those at the oar benches time to gather their weapons and helmets and fall in with the others. As at Avaldsnes, two banners flapped at the center of the growing line, one displaying the mark of Tyr and the other the mark of Bloodaxe. The distance was too great to see their faces, though Hakon suspected that Gamle took the center with his hirdmen, while Harald and Ragnfred took the flanks. Between them stretched two lines of Fyrkat Danes and behind those, still more men, which Hakon surmised were men conscripted for support.

  “Is that Eldgrim's standard?” Toralv pointed at the area where the reserve troops gathered.

  Hakon followed Toralv's finger to the rear of the enemy line. There, among the men, Eldgrim's raven on a red field snapped in the breeze. Asrod and his small crew had not returned, and Hakon had feared that Gamle had killed them. Now he suspected they had rejoined their lord to fight in Gamle's superior army. “Aye,” Hakon spat.

  “Why would he do that?” Toralv asked. “Did he not send Asrod here to warn us?”

  “That was before Gamle met with Eldgrim,” Hakon said. “It appears that Gamle has turned the weasel to his side.”

  “You did kill his son, lord,” offered Asmund from the second rank.

  “Keep your teeth tight, Asmund,” Toralv warned.

  “Here they come!” yelled Tosti.

  The air reverberated with the pounding of two thousand feet marching forward, blades and axe handles smacking shield rims, and the calls of leaders to their grim-faced men. This day, there would be no prebattle parlay, nor mercy for the losers — just swinging blades and screams and death. Below the din, Hakon could hear men in his ranks praying, like the rustle of leaves in a violent storm — though to which god or gods they offered their
prayers was impossible to say. Mayhap to all of them, or to any one that would listen. Hakon kissed the cross at his neck, then pulled his seax from its sheath. He had planned to say something rousing to his army before the battle, but the time for that had passed.

  The Danes reached the middle of the field and splashed into the pools of mud. Their feet sank to their shins in the muck. It was then that the yells and taunts began from Hakon's men. The fury and fear in their voices sent the birds in nearby trees to the skies.

  Gamle raised his sword at the center of the line. Archers in the rear ranks lifted their bows to the sky. Seconds later, the wicked streaks of arrow shafts filled the gray morning. They fell onto Hakon's men like rain from the clouds above. Most slammed harmlessly into upturned shields. Others went long. A few found their mark. Hakon gritted his teeth at the cries of pain. When the hail of metal stopped, Hakon ventured a glance down his line and caught sight of a warrior who lay dead in the mud. It was one of the vomiters from earlier. Poor child never even had a chance to swing his sword at the Danes.

  A roar rose again as Gamle and his men came on. Another volley of arrows arced over their heads as they splashed through the mud, and again the arrows pattered like rain onto shields and helmets and bodies and turf.

  A third volley hit before Hakon gave his signal. He had not the men to spare and so waited until the enemy was thirty paces distant before calling on his archers. These he had positioned on the rise to the right, and with the wave of his standard, they let loose. The enemy had not expected the arrows from their flank; when they moved their shields left to protect themselves, Hakon's spearmen heaved their weapons, catching Gamle's men in a cross fire of missiles.

  “Come on,” Hakon urged under his breath.

  Gamle unwittingly obeyed. Erik's oldest son shouted his fury and burst into an awkward sprint over the slick ground and sucking mud. His men followed, trying to keep their balance as arrows hit them from their left and spears from their front. Several men lost their footing and were trampled by others now senseless with battle-fury. Hakon surveyed the scene with satisfaction, for it had the intended effect. Gamle's organized charge was now a disorganized mess of men and shields struggling through mud to get to their prey.

  “Shield wall!” Hakon yelled. And as one, his army hefted their shields.

  “Ready with the nets!” he shouted again, and several men at the back of the lines dropped to their knees and reached for the fishing lines at their feet. Before them, the enemy rushed forward. Twenty paces distant. Fifteen. Ten.

  “Now!” hollered Hakon and behind him, the men yanked at their lines.

  Hakon had dug fish netting into the mud along the front of his army. The hapless enemy, who moments before had been splashing toward their prey, suddenly tripped as the buried lines coiled with their feet. They struggled to stay upright as their momentum carried them forward into the blades of Hakon's men. Spear points impaled some. Swords hacked others before they could rise. Behind them, the second rank faltered.

  “Keep moving!” hollered Gamle, who stood off to Hakon's right. He had seen his army lose its momentum and could not afford to have his attack stall.

  His men responded with a roar and pushed onward, over their comrades' fallen bodies and into the press of shields and spears and sword blades of Hakon's men.

  “Kill them!” Hakon shouted above the din.

  Hakon's men had the advantage of height, for they stood on a small dike, but the Danes had the advantage of numbers. For every Dane Hakon killed, another stepped up to take his place with no less fury or determination. Hakon kept his shield low, stabbing and slashing at any opportunity he saw. A blade slid past his thigh. Another glanced off his left greave. To his right, Toralv drove his shield boss into his assailant's face, knocking the hapless man from his feet and driving him backward into two charging Fyrkat Danes. To Hakon's left, Asmund had crippled a man with a spear thrust to the shoulder. At the same moment, Hakon hacked through the arm of the Dane slashing his blade at Toralv's left side.

  Hakon's body did his will as if guided by a force greater than he. Here, he parried a blow. There, he ducked and countered with a jab that burst through his assailant's byrnie in a splash of crimson. An axe blade glanced off his helm, its blade stopping before it reached his shoulder by the upward thrust of his shield. He smashed his shield boss into the axe man's face, then chopped his seax into his neck.

  “Shield wall!” Hakon screamed as he stepped back and regained the shields of Toralv and Asmund, then ventured a quick glance to left and right.

  Tosti seemed to be holding firm on the left, though on the right, the line was bending. Gamle had shifted his attack so that his reserve troops now drove into Sigge's line. It was what Hakon had expected him to do. Thankfully, Sigge's banner still stood, but there was no telling how long that would last.

  “Now!” Hakon bellowed to his standard-bearer, and his boar flag waved again.

  He had no time to see the results. In his mind he envisioned Egil and his chosen men setting off just beyond the ridgeline to his right with their banners raised high and visible to the armies on the field. Even as Hakon parried a strike, he could hear Egil's horns sounding and the din of their blades echoing off their shield rims. The rocky crevices of Freikollen amplified their noise and made it sound as if the force moving to flank Gamle's army was as large as the one he now faced.

  From the rear of Gamle's army, a horn blew and the assault stopped. The man attacking Hakon ventured a glance about and died on Hakon's seax for his carelessness. Men in the rear ranks shouted and pointed at the banners of the new force that had just appeared high to their left, and at that moment, the tide of the battle shifted.

  In ones and twos, and then in groups, those in the rear ranks of Gamle's army peeled away and scrambled across the muddy field to reach the beach. They could not let this new force flank them and attack them from behind or scuttle their ships. Off to the left, Gamle bellowed for his army to fight on, but his men understood the risk and wanted little part in it. In short order, most of the army dissolved into a mass of retreating men.

  Now was the time for Hakon to take advantage of the momentum. With a wave of his standard, his archers let loose, picking off men as they made for the ships. Hakon's army moved forward as one, their pursuit of the enemy across the field rapid, but orderly. That is, until Sigge's men broke ranks and surged ahead. They had passed the fishing nets and were in the open field, and knew that if they used their speed, they could reach the retreating warriors.

  “No!” shouted Hakon, though he might as well have been screaming underwater for all the good it did.

  Through the field Sigge and his men ran with hoots of battle joy on their lips, quickly reaching Gamle's force in their eagerness to kill more Danes. Gamle, too, saw the folly in young Sigge's move and rallied his men. They turned and with surprising alacrity, came together as one so that Sigge now found himself charging headlong into a tight shield wall of seasoned men. Still some fifty paces distant, Hakon could not reach Sigge in time to defend him, or lend muscle to his foolish charge. All he could do was watch as Sigge's warriors smashed into Gamle's shields and died viciously for their mistake.

  Hakon called for his horn to sound the charge, then rushed forward as fast as his legs would carry him. At that moment, all sense of battle order broke. Men pressed forward across the field. Some headed for the fight between Sigge and Gamle. Others ran for the beach and the Danes trying to get their ships into the sea.

  Something flashed from the corner of Hakon's eye, and he turned to see Egil and his knot of warriors rushing down the hill to aid Sigge. They too had seen his folly and had abandoned their standards and their ruse. They charged together with the limping Egil at their head.

  Understanding dawned on Gamle, and he roared his fury. Hakon could see him behind his hirdmen, waving his sword to rally his warriors. Those on the beach turned to survey the battlefield. The more experienced among them ran forward to rejoin their comra
des. Those less committed to the fight kept pushing their ships into the bay.

  At that moment, Egil crashed into the fray and disappeared into the press of warriors. Hakon could hear his breath in his ears as he rushed to reach them. In his peripheral vision he saw Toralv's massive frame. Others splashed behind him. His hird. His oath-sworn.

  And then they were there. Hakon ducked the wild swing of an enemy warrior and stabbed his seax into the man's gut. Toralv took the head off another man who was too slow to defend himself from this new attack. Asmund slung his spear into a warrior's chest. Bard ducked a swing, then thrust his blade under his enemy's shield and into the man's thigh.

  “Shield wall!” yelled Gamle, and those of his hirdmen close enough to obey backed into a defensive line.

  “Back!” hollered Hakon as he pulled away from the fight. “Now! All of you!”

  Slowly, his men backed away and locked shields. The two lines faced each other, red-faced and sweating despite the chill. Behind Gamle's line, more men were running from the beach to his aid. With his own men now scattered on the beach and here, Hakon knew he had to end Gamle quickly or all was lost.

  “Come, Uncle!” Gamle called when he saw who had come against him.

  Asmund responded to Gamle's taunt with the spear he had retrieved from his enemy's chest. The weapon sliced though the air for Gamle, who shifted his body at the last instant and let the spear sail past him and into the stomach of the man behind him. As the man fell, Hakon shouted for his men to attack.

  The king ran straight for his nephew. So vicious was the clash of their shields that both men faltered. Hakon regained his footing before his nephew and jabbed his blade at Gamle's face. Gamle knocked the blade upward with his shield rim and stepped back to regain his balance. It was as Hakon moved in for the second blow that Egil charged forward.