The Midgard Serpent

by James L. Nelson

  There was no one moving that Odd could see, but that was not a surprise. The fleet’s approach had been no secret, and no one there would be foolish enough to wait around to see what the strangers wanted. The shields on the racks, the figureheads mounted on the bows, would tell anyone all they needed to know — that it was time to fight or to flee.

  Odd took the tiller from Ari and steered Sea Hawk toward an empty stretch of dock. He called for the oars to be run in and the ship’s way fell off as she came alongside, the more nimble of her crew leaping off with dock lines in hand.

  One by one the rest of the fleet came up, finding docks of their own or rafting up alongside the ships that preceded them. And then they were all there, all the raiders, with the ships bearing the women and children dropping anchor a hundred feet off shore.

  “Let’s get ashore and make ready,” Odd called. He picked up his helmet and set it on his head and slung his shield over his back. He headed forward and when he reached the place where the ship’s side bumped against the dock he climbed over and stepped ashore, his men making room for him. He strode down the length of the dock toward the beaten ground ashore, and behind him he heard the bustle of the other warriors following. There was nothing else to hear.

  He continued on, thirty paces from the dock, leaving room enough for the men to form up. His eyes were on the walls beyond and the roof of the long hall that rose up behind them, the center and the heart of Halfdan’s massive compound. It was nearly twice as big as it had been when Odd had first seen it as a child, riding with his father and Harald for a visit to Halfdan’s court.

  Smoke from a fire burning in the hearth was lifting up from the peak ends of the long hall, escaping from the holes left there for that purpose. There was another column of smoke to the right, a smith’s shop, perhaps, or a smokehouse for meat. There was nothing to suggest alarm, but then, Odd was pretty sure there were not many men present to raise an alarm.

  Amundi stepped up beside him on one side, Thorgeir on the other, and Ragi, Hakon and the rest gathering around. They had helmets on, but their shields were still slung over their backs, swords still in sheaths. Odd turned around. The rest of the men were in a ragged line. Those who had helmets were wearing them, and most had their shields on their arms and spears and battle axes held loosely in their hands.

  “Let’s go,” Odd said and stepped off again and this time he heard the semi-coordinated sound of the two hundred or more men marching behind him. His eyes remained on the high walls as they approached, his ears open for any hint of danger.

  Should we form a shieldwall? A swine array? Are we fools to approach in so haphazard a way? Odd wondered as he walked. He wished he knew these things. He felt his inexperience, his ignorance, profoundly, and it unsettled him.

  The big oak doors were shut and no doubt barred from inside, but as they approached Odd could see activity on the walls, men watching them, others running here and there, more heads appearing. Forty feet from the base of the wall Odd stopped and held up his hand and he heard the men behind him stop as well: an army of warriors with only the wooden gates and twenty feet of earthen wall, and another five feet of palisade on top of that, between them and nearly all the people and worldly goods that Halfdan held dear.

  “Stop there! Who are you?” a voice called out, and it took Odd a moment to see which of the dozen men on top of the wall had spoken.

  “I’m Odd Thorgrimson,” Odd replied. “And the other freemen of Fevik are with me. We’ve come to speak with King Halfdan.”

  “King Halfdan is not here,” the voice called back. “But I think you know that.”

  “Oh?” Odd said. “Where is he?” But Odd already knew that as well. The man on the wall did not reply.

  “If you’ll open the gate we’ll come in peaceably and await the king’s return,” Odd said.

  There was a pause, and then the man on the wall said, “I think not.”

  This came as no surprise. They would have to fight. Better for the men on the wall to die in battle against Odd and his men than to admit to Halfdan the Black that they had surrendered his hall without even trying to defend it. Death in battle was bound to be quicker, easier, and nobler than anything Halfdan would dole out.

  And the fellow above was in a good position to be obstinate. Not a great position, but a good one. The walls were substantial, and anyone attempting to scale them could be killed with little trouble. If Odd and his men had, say, a half dozen ladders, they might attack the wall in more places than the handful of warriors left inside could defend. But they did not have a half dozen ladders.

  They did, however, have something Odd hoped would be just as effective. He turned to the men behind him. “Bring it up, these fellows want to be stubborn.”

  The crowd of warriors parted and a dozen men came hustling through. They carried a thick section of log, twenty feet long, with handles lashed underneath that would allow six men per side to bear its weight. As they pushed through, Odd stepped in front of the first of them and two dozen more men swarmed up on either side. They unslung their shields from their arms and held them up overhead, forming a roof over the men with the ram.

  They covered the distance to the doors quickly, paused for a heartbeat, then swung the ram back and then forward again. The blunt end hit the oak door with a shuddering impact and the men on the wall above began to yell as they saw what was unfolding.

  The men on the ram swung again and again and Odd could see the oak doors give, just a bit, before the first of the arrows came. He felt the jarring blow of the iron point hitting the wooden face of his shield and imbedding there, and he saw an inch of the arrowhead where it had gone clean through.

  The ram was swinging slower now, and the arrows coming faster. Odd could see point after point sticking through the wood of his shield, and he could see gaps in the boards as the shield began to shatter, and he guessed the other men’s shields were in no better shape. They did not have much longer before the thin wooden slats that stood between them and deadly missiles raining down were torn apart and useless.

  “Come on, come on, swing it, you bastards!” Odd shouted. The faces of the men heaving the battering ram were red and dripping with sweat, their mouths set with the exertion or open and gasping. They swung the ram and the gate jerked under the impact. Toward the back an arrow struck a man’s shield and the shield fell apart over his head and the arrow continued on down, driving through one of the rammers’ chests at a near vertical angle. The man screamed, fell, and the one whose shield had been destroyed threw the useless thing away as someone took his place.

  Another blow from the ram, and then another, and then the bar holding the oak doors gave way. They swung open, just a little, the narrow gap between them revealing the open ground outside the hall beyond. Odd lowered his shield, which was bristling with arrows like some giant sea urchin. He raced toward the doors, kicking them further open as he did and drawing Blood-letter.

  He was the first through and he could feel his blood rising, and he felt the onset of the madness he had only recently discovered was in him. He charged through the doors and into the yard beyond, the others just behind him.

  In front of them stood Halfdan’s warriors. There were about thirty of them, all the men Halfdan had left to protect the hall and the people and the rest of the compound while he went off to run Odd and the others to ground. Thirty men against the two hundred who charged through the gate.

  Odd slowed, then stopped, and he felt the fight drain away. Halfdan’s men were arranged in a shieldwall. It was a brave attempt, and an utterly futile one as well. It would not be a fight or anything like a fight. It would be no more of a fight than when they butchered lambs in the late summer.

  The rest of his men came up on either side, forming a long line facing Halfdan’s men and they, too, stopped. Odd lowered Blood-letter until the tip was just inches off the ground.

  “Bravely done,” Odd called across the thirty feet between the lines of men. “Halfdan could f
ind no fault in how you’ve behaved. But now, I beg you, throw your weapons down. We don’t want to do this. We really don’t.”

  It was quiet for a moment. Somewhere far off a child was wailing in fear. Odd pressed his lips together. He had not lied. He genuinely did not want to kill these men.

  And then the man in the center of the defenders’ line cursed and threw his sword on the ground between them.

  Chapter Five

  Has the sea him deluded,

  or the sword wounded?

  On that man

  I will harm inflict.

  The Poetic Edda

  The wind had come more southerly, which was not ideal, but it was not so bad, either. Sea Hammer had her yard braced hard around, almost fore and aft, with the starboard clew hauled down hard to the end of the beitass and the larboard hauled well aft. If the wind had been stronger the ship would have been dipping her larboard sheer strake under, scooping up great quantities of seawater which the unhappy men aboard would have to fling back where it belonged.

  But the wind was not strong. Six knots or so, enough to push the ship over at an easy angle and drive her along, not terribly fast, but faster than she could have been driven under oar, and with a lot less effort. It was a gift from the gods for which the men were properly thankful.

  They had set off that morning at first light with just enough breeze to make tolerable headway. Thorgrim watched with some amusement as the men glanced impulsively to windward, looking for the tell-tale dark patches on the water that would herald stronger winds. He could practically hear their thoughts as they implored the gods, Please send wind, so that bastard Thorgrim doesn’t make us break out the oars.

  And the gods listened, and let the wind build with the rising sun. The fleet pushed east, across the open water that separated the shore astern, where they had spent the night, from the shore that lay on the horizon. To the north the land tended away in what might have been an enormous bay, but more and more Thorgrim felt that they had actually been on an island for the past week, and what they were seeing now was the water that separated that island from the mainland.

  Interesting, but not of any real concern to him. He felt no need to learn the contours of that coastline. He meant to leave it all in his wake and had no intention of returning.

  The fleet spread out as they sailed, the faster ships — Sea Hammer, Blood Hawk and Oak Heart — opening up some distance from the smaller ships behind. But that did not concern Thorgrim much either. As long as the fleet stayed reasonably close, well within sight of one another, he did not think there would be any problems. No reason to bunch up and risk a collision, which was more likely to happen when conditions were good and vigilance relaxed.

  Thorgrim turned the helm over to Armod, who was a good helmsman, and took his place on the other side of the afterdeck, looking out over his command. There was little to do and little to see, just the open ocean to the south and the unremarkable shoreline to the north and east. There was some activity on the water a mile and a half or so to the north, a cluster of boats doing something or other, though what it was they could not tell. Fishing, most likely. They were not boats of any substantial size, not enough to be of interest to Thorgrim, either as a potential threat or a potential source of plunder. So he ignored them.

  Just a little way forward of where he stood, Failend was sitting on the deck, her back against the side of the ship. Sea Hammer’s motion was easy in the low swell and light breeze, so Failend’s vomiting had been minimal. She did not look good, Thorgrim had to admit, but again, he had seen her look much worse.

  He stepped down to the lower deck and walked over to her, crouching down at her side. Her eyes were closed, her head tilted back, and she seemed to not be aware that he was there.

  “Failend,” he said softly. With some effort she turned her head his way, opened her eyes and looked up at him. She had big eyes, deep brown, like well-oiled wood.

  “Is there anything I can get you? Anything I can do for you?” he asked.

  A hint of a smile seemed to play on her lips, not what Thorgrim would have expected. She shook her head slowly, more as if it was lolling with the motion of the ship rather than moving of her accord.

  “You’re sure?” Thorgrim said, keeping his tone as considerate as he could. “Very well, then. Just call out if you need anything…or wave or some such.” He stood and returned to the afterdeck, somewhat puzzled by that whole exchange.

  And then he remembered something that he had been meaning to give her, something that kept slipping his mind, and he thought this might be a good moment. It might help take her mind off her misery. He dug into the leather bag hanging from his belt until he found it: a small, silver amulet, intricately decorated. Mjölnir, the hammer of Thor. He stepped off the afterdeck and knelt down beside her again.

  “Look, I have something for you,” he said. “I’ve had it some time and I’ve been meaning to give it to you.” He opened his hand. The amulet looked tiny lying on his calloused palm.

  Failend looked down at it and smiled faintly. She looked up at him. “Thor’s hammer?” she asked.

  “Yes. A nice one. Well-wrought,” Thorgrim said.

  “You think I should wear your heathen symbol?” she asked and Thorgrim could not tell if she was teasing or not.

  “Certainly. I wear your Christ symbol,” he said. He pulled the leather thong that he wore around his neck out of his tunic. Hanging from the cord was an image of Mjölnir as well as a small silver cross. The cross had been given to him by another Irishwoman, years before. It seemed like several lifetimes before.

  Failend nodded. She knew perfectly well that Thorgrim wore the two symbols. “You have many gods,” she said. “My God tells us we must have only one God. Just him.”

  Thorgrim frowned. He thought the Christians had three gods but he knew it was not that simple. It had been explained to him several times by several people but he could never remember, so he let it go. “Maybe your God will think of it just as jewelry, and he will not be bothered by you wearing it,” he said.

  Failend smiled a little wider and nodded her head. “Maybe so,” she said. “Thank you.”

  Thorgrim smiled as well. He took the delicate cord that Failend wore around her neck, untied it and lifted it carefully off. He slid the image of Mjölnir on to it and tied it back again. “There, now we match,” he said. He laid his hand on her leg, a gesture of reassurance, then stood and returned to the afterdeck.

  Once there he looked aloft, up at the rigging and sail, then looked astern at the fleet strung out behind them. He ran his eyes quickly over the ships and let them rest on the last in line, Dragon, now a good two miles astern. He considered the set of her sail, her angle of heel. It was Harald’s ship now, his son’s ship. He was proud of the boy, and he was concerned and he was curious as to how he would do with his first real command.

  There had been no grumbling when he had named Harald master, at least none that Thorgrim was aware of, and he did not think there would be. Harald was well-liked, he was competent and he had proved himself many times over.

  Still, if he did poorly, if he bungled his command, made stupid mistakes, it would be a bad thing all around. Bad for Harald and his place among the men, bad for Thorgrim if it seemed he had favored his own son, giving him a command for which he was not ready.

  But so far, all seemed fine. The sail was set well, the ship making as much speed as she could hope to under those conditions. This of course was no real test of Harald’s seamanship, but it was something.

  Thorgrim’s thoughts were interrupted by Starri Deathless’s sharp, barking laugh. “You can stop your constant looking back toward Harald’s ship, Night Wolf!” he said. “It hasn’t sunk yet and it’s not likely to.”

  Thorgrim turned back to look at Starri. “Well, you should know, excellent mariner that you are,” he said. Starri had little understanding of, or interest in, ships and sailing. He considered ships as little more than a means to get him from one figh
t to another, and he let others worry about the actual sailing of them.

  “I’m mariner enough to know what should concern you and what shouldn’t,” Starri said. “You worry about young Harald who’s already a better sailor than you, and you don’t even notice the ships ahead.”

  It took Thorgrim a moment to register Starri’s words. “What ships?” he said at last.

  “There,” Starri said, pointing to a spot just off the starboard bow. “Five ships by my count. Do you see them?”

  Thorgrim squinted a bit, cocked his head to one side. He thought he might see the vaguely square patches of color on the horizon, but he was not certain.

  “Yes, I see them now,” he said, hesitantly.

  “No, you don’t,” Starri said. “No one aboard could see them, save me. I’ve been watching them for some time now and not one other man has noticed.” Starri had keen, sometimes even preternatural eyesight. Hearing as well.

  “Good of you to mention them,” Thorgrim said. “How about you scamper up to the masthead and see what else those sharp eyes of yours can pick out.”

  “Gladly, Night Wolf,” Starri said, and Thorgrim knew he was sincere. Starri liked being at the masthead. It was not an easy climb, going hand over hand up the shrouds, or at least not easy for most men. To Starri it seemed no more burdensome that strolling down a path.

  He jumped to his feet and jumped again and grabbed onto the shroud, then clamped the thick tarred rope between his feet and began to climb. Thorgrim looked off to leeward. The cluster of English boats was still there, which surprised him, since the sight of even one longship was generally enough to make any English race off as fast as they could. But something was occupying them and he wondered if maybe they had not even noticed the fleet sailing by.

  Despite himself he turned again and looked back at the ships astern, at Dragon, but now his view of that ship was blocked by the others ahead of it. No matter. Starri was certainly right. She was not likely to sink anytime soon.