The Midgard Serpent

by James L. Nelson

  The men watched in silence as one of their own, a man loved and admired, set off on the journey they all would take. Harald could see Failend standing near Thorgrim, though not by his side. He saw her make the Christian sign, the one in which they touch their forehead, chest and shoulders, an odd gesture but one he had seen many times since arriving in Ireland. He was not certain how he felt about her doing that. The sign would have meant nothing to Fostolf, and might even offend the gods. On the other hand, if Failend was asking her Christ God to come to Fostolf’s aid in the other world, he supposed that was all right. It was possible that the Christ God was a real god, such as Odin or Thor. He did not see how it could hurt.

  Harald considered making the sign himself, but it did not feel right for him to do so. Instead he asked the gods to look with favor on Fostolf and welcome him into the Corpse Hall, despite the manner of his death. He imagined he was not the only one thinking those thoughts.

  The men formed a circle around the pyre and watched as the flames grew smaller and smaller until there was little more than a dark circle on the sand, illuminated by those bits of wood still burning, and pressed in by the dark on all sides. Then one by one, somber and silent, they moved off to find their places to sleep.

  The sun rose the next morning, another fine day in an improbable stretch of fine weather. There was nothing left of Fostolf and the funeral pyre beyond a black oval shape in the sand, littered with bits of charred wood and a few tendrils of smoke rising up. But as the men went about getting their morning meal it was clear their mood was much improved. They had done right by Fostolf, sent him off in a fitting manner. Time for the living to get on with life.

  Thorgrim’s voice came rolling down the beach. “Get these stores and gear stowed away! We’ll get to sea directly! No time to lose.”

  Up and down the beach the men moved visibly faster in reaction to Thorgrim’s words, and Harald wondered if the day would ever come that he, too, could make more than two hundred warriors move faster with the application of just a few sentences. He hoped so. He intended for it to be so.

  And then they were underway again, the ships once more pushed free of the sand, their sails spread to the wind, their bows turned toward the open water. East, always east.

  Chapter Four

  Now something comes

  to the king’s house,

  but no consolation

  to thralls given,

  filth eats the chair;

  a cold wind blows.

  The Poetic Edda

  A scattering of low islands lay half a mile east of Grømstad’s shore. The islands formed a loose, broken peninsula, three miles north to south. They looked as if they had once been a continuous point of land before some god had crushed it underfoot and left the shattered bits where they lay. To the east of those islands was the open ocean, eighty miles of open ocean, that separated that kingdom from the land of the Danes.

  The islands were granite ledge, inhospitable, no place to pull a ship up on shore. But there was water enough between them for a ship to tuck in, sheltered from the waves rolling in from the east. Room, indeed, for a fleet of ships. And it was just that thing, a fleet of ships, that Odd Thorgrimson found himself looking at.

  The fleet was not insubstantial: twelve ships of various sizes, from the thirty-five foot, twelve-oared ship belonging to Ragi Oleifsson, a fishing vessel, really, though still sleek in the way of the Northmen’s ships, to Amundi Thorsteinsson’s stately thirty-oared longship. That ship had been built sometime after Amundi had given up raiding on foreign shores, but he had sent others a’viking in her, and she was well built to that purpose. Now she lay near the center of the rafted vessels with bright-painted shields lining her sides, and she looked every inch the warriors’ craft.

  Sea Hawk, Odd’s own ship, seemed somewhere between Ragi’s and Amundi’s in design and construction. She was recently launched and had been waterborne for only a few weeks. Ari, the shipwright who built her, was an old and skilled craftsman, a man who had built ships for Odd’s father and his grandfather, Ornolf the Restless, as well.

  Odd was not entirely certain why he had Ari build her. Fishing. Hauling the produce of his farm up and down the coast. Travel. He built her because a man should have a ship. And because the gods told him to build her. He knew he could find other, stronger, perhaps darker reasons if he really plumbed the depths of his motives, so he did not think too deeply about it.

  Ari had built Sea Hawk but Odd had been with him throughout, sometimes discussing the properties she should have, sometimes hefting an ax or an adze or a draw knife himself. The ship combined the qualities of a merchant vessel, a knarr, with those of a raider. She was strong-built and wider than most raiding vessels, but she was sharper than most knarrs, her stem and sternpost rising up in stately arcs, ready to take their carved figureheads when and if the ship was needed for more war-like work.

  Which she was now. At her bow, the oak stem arced around and seemed to meld into the shape of a screaming bird of prey, an almost magical transformation, the product of Ari’s skilled hand and chisel. Aft, the tall sternpost looped forward in an elegant curl, crisscrossed with intertwined beasts. Like the other ships, Sea Hawk’s sides were lined with the shields of the warriors she carried aboard. There was nothing of the tubby merchantman about her now.

  All dozen ships of the fleet were tied side by side and floating between two of the larger islands, making an island of their own. They were in two rafts of six ships each, and each six-ship raft was tied stern to bow. A steady stream of people — men, women, even children — moved from one to the other, climbing over the rails where they were not blocked by the shields mounted in their racks.

  “She looks a proper raider’s vessel now, doesn’t she?” Signy asked. Signy, Odd’s wife, stood by his side, their daughter of four months, Hallbera, propped on her hip.

  “She does,” Odd agreed. Sea Hawk was still a bit beamy for a raider’s ship, but with the shields and the figurehead no one could argue with her war-like appearance.

  “Just as you imagined her,” Signy said. She had always been suspicious of Sea Hawk, dubious about Odd’s reason for building her, and had not been shy about saying so. She suspected his real aim was to go a’viking like his grandfather, his father and brother. She feared that the dull routine of life as a farmer and husband made him feel restless and impotent. Whether she was right or not, Odd did not know, because he made an effort to not look too closely at that part of his life either.

  So he shrugged at Signy’s words and said, “Raiding, fishing, cargo. Escape. I built her for all those reasons. And a good thing I did.”

  Escape it had been. Not just himself and his family but all the people on whom Halfdan the Black was likely to pour out his rage. Which was all the prosperous men of Fevik. Odd looked out over the low granite island just to the east of where the rafted ships floated. There were boats pulled up on the ledge and women and children there, a fire burning near the water’s edge, a great iron pot hanging from a tripod. A gang of men had a sail spread out on the warm stone and were mending a seam that had come apart. One of Amundi’s men had set up a small portable forge and was making spear points.

  In the end, Halfdan and his army had come for them all, though it started in a far less dramatic way.

  Halfdan had tried to take the farm that belong to Odd’s father, Thorgrim Night Wolf, claiming that Thorgrim was dead and he had died owing taxes to the king. Odd did not actually know if his father was dead or not, and neither did Halfdan. But Odd was quite certain that no taxes were owed, so he resisted Halfdan’s incursions. Diplomatically at first, and then with sword and shield.

  And his neighbors had joined him, because they understood that if Thorgrim’s farm was not safe then neither were theirs. They were freemen, after all. They owed allegiance to their king, they owned him tribute, but they did not owe him whatever he wished to take.

  The last fight had been at Odd’s farm, when he and the other freemen h
ad gathered to decide on what they would do next. Halfdan and his men had come for them, set fire to the hall in which they were feasting, intent on forcing them out and slaughtering them as they came. But Odd had been ready for that, and he had another way out, and they had instead sprung a surprise on Halfdan and driven him off. They had won the day, but it was not a victory that would last and they all knew it.

  Halfdan would have his revenge. He had to. He could not let such defiance stand, it would strike at the foundation of his rule. He would come for them all, and he would come with more force than they could counter with. So they took to the sea.

  They all had ships, all the wealthy freemen of Fevik, for the same reasons that Odd had built Sea Hawk. Travel was hard enough over land; moving any sort of cargo was impossible at certain times of the year. The sea offered mobility that roads could not. So when word came that Halfdan’s army was on the move, they loaded their families and their warriors, their weapons and what food and drink and goods they could manage into those ships, and they hid the rest out in the countryside, and they put to sea.

  “Here comes Amundi, and the others,” Signy said, nodding toward the big ship in the middle. Amundi, conspicuous in a red tunic, was climbing over the stern of his ship and onto the bow of Sea Hawk. Odd could see the other freemen also coming that way.

  “I had better go,” Signy said. “It’s time for the wise men to decide the fate of us all.” Signy had always had a sharp wit. It was one of the things Odd so loved in her. But it could become uncomfortably sharp when she was worried, which now she was.

  Amundi stepped down the centerline of the ship, his pace brisk but unhurried. Dignified. It was the way he did everything, the air he projected, and it came as naturally to him as breathing.

  “Odd,” he said and nodded his head in greeting.

  “Amundi, welcome,” Odd said. There was a gravity in Amundi’s demeanor that was not always there, and Odd knew he would find it in the others as well. It was born of uncertainty. Fear. There was not a man among them who would ever show fear for his own life, but their families were there now. Wives, children, grandchildren, even. That made things very different indeed.

  The rest gathered around: Vifil, whose farm lay to the south of Odd’s, Thorgeir Herjolfsson, the second most prosperous farmer there after Amundi, Ragi Oleifsson, Hakon Styrsson who was just a few years older than Odd and had a reputation as a hard man in a fight, and the half dozen other farmers who had thrown in with Odd. If they regretted that decision or not, Odd could not tell. But either way it was too late. Halfdan was not a man known for forgiveness.

  Once they were all assembled Odd said, “There’s been no word from Vandrad, as you know. If Halfdan turned back or marched off in some other direction, Vandrad was supposed to bring word back. He knows where to find us. So it seems Halfdan’s either still in the field, still to the north, or Vandrad is dead.”

  “Or he’s betrayed us,” Ragi offered, which brought a murmur from the men and an uncomfortable feeling in Odd’s gut. Signy had earlier expressed her suspicion of Vandrad but Odd had dismissed her. He felt certain that Vandrad could be trusted. But he had been wrong before. Often enough.

  “Well, we can’t spend the rest of our lives sitting here and wondering,” Odd said. “It’s time to move. Are you ready? Your men ready?” He felt his concern ease a bit, with the decision made.

  All around heads nodded. “We’re ready,” a few said out loud.

  “Ready as we’re like to be,” Hakon said.

  “Good,” Odd said. “Sea Hawk will lead the way. We’ll see what we find when we get ashore, base our actions on that. Thorgeir, your men will see to the ships with the women and children?”

  Thorgeir nodded. “They’re aboard already, with the men we could spare.”

  “Good,” Odd said again. He looked around. There was nothing else that he could think of. “Then let us be underway, and we’ll hope the gods give us good luck in this.”

  The men dispersed back to their ships, and Odd called his own men to the oars. A few weeks before they had been the men who worked his farm: Vermund Jurundsson, the overseer, Gnup and Valgerd, the men who did the butchering and the men who did the smithing and the planting and the herding. Even old Ari, the shipwright, was there.

  They had been farmers or craftsmen then, but they were warriors now, and in the way of the Northmen they were trained and experienced in both fields. They all had weapons and shields and armor of some sort, leather mostly, with a few iron helmets among them and a couple who even had mail. There was not a man among them who had not been in one bloody fight or another.

  Odd had donned his own fighting garb earlier. He wore a mail shirt, the links finely wrought and polished until they shone. His helmet sat on the deck at his feet. His sword, Blood-letter, hung from his belt. It had been given to him by his father, Thorgrim, who had received it from his father, Ulf of the Battle Song. Ulf was a legend, as was the sword, and Odd was both honored and hesitant to carry it. It was an honor he was not certain he had earned.

  Not all of the men aboard were farmers, however. Many were the freemen’s sons and men-at-arms, many of whom had gone a’viking and were well used to a good fight. They wore mail and carried swords, as fitted their station. They had come with Odd and the rest when they had first called on Halfdan the Black, when they were still looking for a peaceful resolution to all this.

  And some of the warriors were Halfdan’s men, or had been, warriors who had been taken prisoner after the battle at Odd’s farm and who had elected to join with Odd and the other freemen. Their loyalty was still in question, but if they proved themselves then they would be good men to have when things got ugly. Which they were likely to do, and soon.

  Ari was standing nearby with a gang of men ready to haul the anchor up over the stern. Odd nodded toward them and the men began to pull the dripping rope in, fathom by fathom, and coil it down on the deck.

  “Cast off, there!” Odd called next and the lines that lashed Sea Hawk to the other ships by her bow and either side were untied and pulled aboard and Sea Hawk floated free. Hemmed in by ships on either side there was no room to run the oars out, so the men of Sea Hawk and the ships alongside heaved and pushed and eased her along until she drifted clear of the others.

  “Ship your oars!” Odd called next, and he felt his stomach twist a bit as he did. He was not very experienced at this sort of thing, commanding a ship and so many oarsmen in such a confined space, and that left considerable opportunity to humiliate himself. He thought of his father, as he so often did in such circumstances, and the ease and skill with which he could drive a ship. Odd did not think he would ever achieve that level of competence. It was yet another thing in which he would never be Thorgrim’s equal.

  “Starboard, back, larboard, pull!” he called, and awkwardly the men followed his command. If Odd was not much accustomed to commanding rowers, these men, these farmers, were not much accustomed to rowing. Like fighting, ship work was part of who they were. But they did not do it often, not enough to gain any great skill.

  It had been worse a few weeks earlier, when they had first taken to the sea. Then they had rowed like drunken men, each intent on pulling an oar in his own fashion. Between their inexperience and Odd’s they had nearly wrecked the ship a few times. But they were doing better now, and Odd thought they had a good chance of making it unscathed through the tricky set of islands.

  As Sea Hawk straightened on her course and gathered way the other ships cast off from one another, the artificial island broke apart, and the vessels fell into Sea Hawk’s wake, oars moving more or less together, bright painted shields lining the sides, a long line of swift, silent menace. And making up the tail end of the line, the two least nimble ships of the fleet carrying the women and children, who had no business in this sort of work but who could not be left behind, unprotected.

  They moved south, with the largest of the islands, large enough to sport trees, off their starboard side. They rowe
d through deep water channels which Odd had already explored by boat, sounding as he went. At last they emerged from among the islands and turned north into the wide channel that ran up to Grømstad.

  Near the shores fishermen pulled nets up over the sides of their boats and watched warily as they passed by. Odd could well imagine what they were thinking. They would be hoping that whatever upheaval was going on, whatever struggle for power or wealth, would not touch them or interfere with their precarious existence.

  There was less than two miles of water to cover, and the ships covered it fast, the rowers picking up the rhythm of the stroke until they pulled like men who had been doing that work for years. Odd gave the tiller to Ari and headed forward, climbing up onto the sheer strake at the bow, one hand on the thick, tarred forestay. He could see a headland off the larboard bow, and another beyond it, and he knew that between them was the small harbor to which they were bound.

  He climbed down and went aft again and instructed Ari to turn a bit to the west. He looked astern. The other ships were following behind, figureheads mounted on the stems of those that had them. They wanted to make a frightening, intimidating display, and they pretty much succeeded.

  They rounded the headland and the harbor opened up before them. Not much of a harbor, really, more a deep cut in the shoreline, a half-moon shaped indent a couple hundred yards across the mouth. Various wooden docks jutted out from the shore with some larger fishing boats tied alongside, and a few knarrs and three longships floating at moorings. And set back from the water, a quarter mile away, the high dirt and turf walls, crested by a palisade fence, that surrounded the great hall of Halfdan the Black.