The Midgard Serpent

by James L. Nelson

  Thorgrim looked at Bergthor, a question on his face.

  “Yes, it’s true, Thorgrim!” Bergthor said. “At least what I saw. When we come up, Harald was on the fish’s back! Right on its back and stabbing away! The boy’s bold as a wolf and fearless as can be!”

  And an idiot, Thorgrim thought. None of what he had heard changed his opinion in the least. Putting himself and his men and ship in danger, ignoring orders, leaving the line with a strange fleet in the offing? Thorgrim did not care how bold Harald’s actions had been, there was no honor in boldly acting stupid.

  And it was not just that. Bergthor had saved Harald’s life. Neither he nor Harald had mentioned it, but it was true and every man there knew it. And because of that, Thorgrim felt that he was in Bergthor’s debt. Bergthor was a friend, and not a man to take advantage, but still Thorgrim did not care to be in another man’s debt. He did not care for it at all.

  He considered pushing his way through the crowd and pulling Harald down off his perch and leading him away, but he knew he could not do that. The boy might have done some stupid things, but he did not need to suffer that degree of humiliation. At least not yet.

  Harald continued, giving due credit to Bergthor and his crew for arriving just as he feared the whale would roll him under for good, and to Bergthor himself for knowing where on the whale to stab his spear so as to actually kill the thing.

  “And that’s why we feast on whale tonight!” Harald concluded with a shout and raised arms, and that in turn led to the others yelling louder still. A gang of men rushed forward and grabbed Harald, lifted him up and set him down on their shoulders. They then proceeded to parade him around the beach, his smiling face sometimes illuminated by the brilliant flames from the massive bonfire, and sometimes lost in shadow.

  Thorgrim could not stand to witness any more of that, so he turned back to Bergthor. “And you, what brings you here?” he asked.

  “It was time to go a’viking,” Bergthor said. “A man can get rusty, just farming, year after year. Some of the men in the neighborhood, they wanted to go as well, so I built this ship, which I call Wave Splitter, and we made ready to sail. The owners of the other ships, they heard about me going, and they knew I had had some good fortune raiding in years past. Back in the younger days when you and me were raiding together, heh, Thorgrim? So they joined in with us.

  “Sailed to Frankia and did some raiding there, and then crossed over to Engla-land. We’ve had some luck, but not what I’d hoped. Of course, we haven’t been here long. We were at a place the English call Dover, or something like that. Met this Englishman, a fisherman with a greater love for silver than for his fellow English. He speaks our language and knows the coast well. He says just north of here is a place called Winchester which is the seat of their high king and the Christ church as well. It’s thirty miles from here, but this fellow says we can get there by ship, or nearly there.”

  “And that’s where you’re heading now?” Thorgrim asked.

  “We are,” Bergthor said. “The raiding’s getting harder, I tell you, not like before. You’ve see it, I’ll warrant. There are so many of these young men who want to go a’viking, and the Danes too. So the English are moving anything worth taking inland. So it’s inland we must go.”

  Thorgrim nodded. That made sense. If he had any intention of staying he might well take that advice himself.

  “May the gods look with favor on you, Bergthor,” Thorgrim said. Harald had been set back on the ground and the riotous voices had quieted considerably. “But tell me, how are things back in Agder? You've not been gone so long, have you? How were things when you left?”

  “We sailed in Sumarmál, just as the weather was turning warmer. And I have to tell you, Thorgrim, things were not good. Not good and seemed ready to get worse.”

  “How so?” Thorgrim asked. This was not what he wanted to hear, not what he expected to hear.

  “Halfdan,” Bergthor said. “King Halfdan, he’s most of the problem. He’s always been ambitious, you know that.”

  Thorgrim nodded. “I know.”

  “Well, age has not made him less so. The opposite. He’s grabbing up land as quick as he can. He’s taken most of Agder and parts of Rogaland to the west and Geirstad to the east, and even looks to Vestfold and Vingulmarken.”

  “And will he take those places, make himself king over them?” Thorgrim asked.

  “He might. He’s spent a great fortune on these conquests, and now he must pay the warriors he needs to keep control of them. He must be stretched thin. I don’t like to think what he’ll do to fill his treasury again.”

  Thorgrim could feel an uncomfortable sensation in his gut, a sick and helpless feeling that such problems should be playing out at home while he was stuck on a beach in Engla-land with five hundred drunken men and a partially eaten whale.

  “What of East Agder?’ he asked. “Our people, our neighbors, any word of them?”

  “Not that I’ve heard. I saw your son Odd…what? A year ago? A year and a half? He seemed well and prosperous, and he said your farm was doing well, too. Waiting your return. He may have been putting on a good show, but I don’t believe he ever thought you were dead.”

  That was good news, anyway, but still Thorgrim felt the nagging in his head, the need to be back. Returning home had been foremost in his thoughts for some time now, but with Bergthor’s words he could feel the need redouble.

  Thorgrim had urged Odd not to go a’viking, not to leave his family, as much as it disappointed and angered the young man. To see his father, his grandfather, and his younger brother set off raiding while he remained behind…Thorgrim could well imagine how Odd felt. But he knew it had been the right decision.

  Ornolf had died on the point of a sword. In more than two years of raiding Thorgrim and Harald might also have been killed a hundred times over. Why the gods preserved them Thorgrim could not imagine. His best guess: the gods found it more amusing to watch him struggle than to end his life.

  But it was one thing for him or Harald to die. They did not have a wife and young children depending on them. Odd did, and he had no business seeking out trouble.

  But if trouble had come to East Agder, then it was quite possible it had found Odd, and that Odd had embraced it. The boy was more like his grandfather, Ulf of the Battle Song, then even he himself realized. It was not something that Thorgrim had ever pointed out, not a similarity Thorgrim was eager to reveal. But neither did he think it would stay hidden forever.

  All of those considerations, and Bergthor’s words, made Thorgrim’s desire to return home build like a rising wind, and it made his eagerness to move even more unbearable.

  East, always east.

  But Thorgrim knew what Bergthor was about to say next. He was going to offer a proposal, Thorgrim was sure of it. A reasonable proposal, a good one, in fact, and one that Thorgrim would feel he could not decline, as desperately as he wanted to.

  “You know, Thorgrim,” Bergthor said. “I’ve been thinking on something. Our men, mine and yours, seem to be getting on famously. All together we make a powerful army. What say we join up, you and me, and together we’ll sack this Winchester right and proper?”

  Chapter Eleven

  Army comes

  hasty running,

  fire they set

  in the king’s castle.

  The Poetic Edda

  Odd Thorgrimson did not wish to confront Halfdan the Black, but that was not what troubled him most. Not at all.

  More than that, far more, he did not wish to confront the men who had joined him in this raid on Halfdan’s home: Amundi Thorsteinsson, Vifil, Ragi, Hakon Styrsson, all his neighbors and the men his neighbors had brought with them. All the men whom he, Odd, had led into this fight. All the men he had assured that his plan — taking Halfdan’s compound, plundering it, sailing off long before Halfdan had returned from chasing ghosts around the countryside — was certain to work.

  But he had been wrong. His arrogance had bl
inded him, their success in fighting Halfdan thus far had deluded him into thinking it would continue. He had led them into a trap, apparently, and his pride would be the death of them all.

  At least the women and children can get clear, he thought. They had left the women and children aboard the ships, riding at anchor, with a handful of men to sail them. The women and children could get away, return to their homes.

  And then what? Starve for want of men to work the farms? Be captured by Halfdan anyway, and sold as slaves? Or worse?

  All this Odd considered as he leaped out of his bed, pulled his shoes on and lashed them tight with the leather thongs. Amundi, who had woken Odd with the news of Halfdan’s return, headed off to wake the others as well. Odd settled his mail shirt on his shoulders and strapped on his sword, Blood-letter.

  Halfdan will never get this sword, he thought. He would break it in two before he let Halfdan take the precious blade. But then he recalled that he meant to die with Blood-letter in his hand, to go down fighting, the blade covered in blood. After that, he would have little to say about what became of the sword.

  At least I will see Ulf in Valhalla, and I’ll be able to look him in the eye, he thought. At least he would die a death worthy of that blade.

  With that he crossed the dim-lit hall and opened the big door that led to the grounds outside. He guessed that the sun had just come up. It was still hidden behind the high walls of the compound, leaving the compound itself still mostly in darkness, with the buildings barely visible like the spirits of giant beasts. Here and there the bright light of a fire stood out as servants stoked up coals in preparation for the day.

  Odd walked quickly across the ground and climbed a ladder that led to the top of the wall. Sentries were posted at intervals all along the perimeter, men belonging to each of the freemen who had brought their own contingent of warriors. Those close to the gate, the first to see the enemy, were Amundi’s men, which was why Amundi had been alerted first.

  “What do you see?” Odd asked the man nearest the top of the ladder.

  “Not much now, Master Odd,” he said, nodding out toward the ground beyond. There was more to be seen outside the walls where the dawn light was not obstructed, but farther off all was hidden in shadows.

  “It was still dark and we heard sounds,” the sentry continued, “like men moving, horses, that sort of thing. A couple of riders come up to the gate. They stopped, just over there.” He pointed to a place forty feet from the wall. “They just stopped and looked. Finally I ask who they are and they say ‘Open the gate for King Halfdan,’ and I say, ‘King Halfdan don’t rule here now,’ and that’s it. They rode off.”

  Odd said nothing but just stared out into the dark. No one had yet seen Halfdan or his army, but it would be foolish to think they were not there.

  “Very well, keep your eyes and ears sharp. Let me know if you discover anything more.” He climbed down from the wall and was heading back toward the hall when he saw the others, Amundi in the lead, coming toward him. They, too, were in mail with swords on their hips.

  Well, there’s no avoiding this in any case, Odd thought. He met them on the grounds outside the long hall and they gathered in a circle, the hauldar, the ten wealthiest and most influential men in Fevik, and a few of the more prosperous farmers of lesser rank, men rich enough or experienced enough that they were welcome to join with other freemen.

  “The sentries didn’t see Halfdan or his army,” Odd started in, even before anyone asked. “And I couldn’t see anything either. But the fellow there told me he heard movement out in the dark, and two riders came up and demanded the gate be opened for Halfdan. He refused them and they rode off.”

  He glanced around. There was light enough to see the looks on the others’ faces. The looks of concern.

  “What do you think?” Ragi asked.

  “I think Halfdan is there. Halfdan and his men. I think the riders were sent to make certain we were actually in possession of the compound. Somehow Halfdan must have discovered what we were planning.”

  The others listened to that and some nodded their heads. Odd braced for the criticism, the reminders that he alone had thought this plan a good one, that he had convinced the others.

  That he had led them, all of them, to their deaths.

  He waited, but no one spoke, and he could see no indication that any of the men were blaming him. He may have been the one to think of this plan, and been the one to advocate for it, but the others had chosen for themselves to go along, and they were honest enough to not blame him now. Odd was not sure if that made him feel better or worse.

  “What next?” Vifil asked. It was the question that Odd had been pondering, and he had some definite ideas, but he was not much in the mood for giving orders that morning.

  “We don’t really know what we’re up against,” Amundi said. “How many men Halfdan has, if indeed he’s out there with his army. What he wants.”

  “Our balls, that’s what he wants,” Hakon said and that earned a few muted chuckles.

  “I say we wait for now,” Amundi continued. “Wait until it’s full light and we can see what’s out there. If Halfdan’s there I don’t think he’ll keep us waiting long to find out his demands.”

  That was met with more nods, and, indeed, there was not much else that they could do.

  “Good, that’s good,” Thorgeir Herjolfsson said. “But see here. We can pretty much guess what Halfdan’ll say. He’ll tell us to open the gates, and tell us if we do he might be willing to bargain, but if we don’t he’ll take the place by force and kill the lot of us.”

  “He might tell us he’s willing to bargain if we open the gates, but can we believe him?” Ragi asked. “Can he just let us go, after us taking his great hall like this? I think he’ll want us dead no matter what we do, or what he says. He’ll feel that he has to kill us all. For honor’s sake.”

  That, too, made sense, and no one argued otherwise.

  “The only other choice is we fight,” Amundi said. Odd said nothing, gave no reaction. Fight. That was exactly what he was thinking, but he did not want to suggest it. He no longer wanted to suggest anything.

  “We have, what, two hundred, two hundred and fifty men?” Vifil said. “Against Halfdan’s…?”

  “Three or four hundred, I would guess,” Thorgeir said. “After what happened at Odd’s hall I don’t think he’d march out with less.” No one disagreed.

  “Let’s remember one thing,” Amundi said. “We’re in a fortification. Halfdan is not. If he attacks he’ll lose a lot of men. A lot. Even if he manages to beat us. He can only attack the walls in a few places at once, if that. And being on the inside we can move men to defend the walls a lot quicker than he can move to attack them.”

  “And we’re in possession of his home,” Ragi said. “His treasure. His wife and children, and the wives and children of all his chief men. We have a lot to bargain with here.” The others nodded at the truth of that.

  We have a lot to bargain with… Odd thought. That was true. But at some point, after a deal was made, they would have to open the gates, and then everything would depend on Halfdan’s keeping his part of the bargain. And Odd was not terribly optimistic about that happening.

  But for the time being, until some word arrived from Halfdan, there was nothing more to do, so Odd ordered the servants to bring them breakfast. Soon after they were seated at the table in the long hall with oat porridge and white bread and butter and honey and fresh berries and ale spread out before them. And they ate with more enthusiasm than one might expect from men who had every reason to believe they would not live to see the end of that day.

  “A fine way to live, being king and all,” Hakon Styrsson noted.

  “Halfdan seems to think so,” Ragi said.

  “I can bloody well see why,” Thorgeir said.

  Hakon was still polishing off what Odd thought was his third bowl of porridge, which actually was equal parts honey and porridge, when Amundi’s man from the wa
ll arrived. Odd could see he had no glad tidings to relay. He spoke loudly enough for all to hear.

  “Riders at the gate, masters,” he said. “A dozen, and King Halfdan in the lead. The king says he would speak to one of you. Or all of you.”

  The men at the table exchanged glances. “The time has come,” Odd said, and he stood and the others stood as well. Amundi’s man led the way across the open ground and up the ladder to the top of the wall. The sun was high enough now that it reached over the palisades, sending long, sharp shadows over the trampled earth in the wake of the buildings and wagons and such.

  Odd stepped off the ladder and made his way along the top of the wall, making room for the others following behind, his eyes on the ground beyond the gate. A dozen riders, just as Amundi’s man had said. They were in two columns, sitting on tall horses, and their mail shirts and helmets seemed to glow like embers in the early morning sun. The rider at the front of the left column carried a pole from which flew a banner, long and pointed like a serpent’s tongue. It was white with a broad red border and at the widest part was the outline of a bird in flight. A bird of prey. This was Halfdan’s hird, his most elite warriors, fitted out in the finest armor and weapons to serve as a reflection of their king’s wealth and power.

  A dozen feet in front of them, alone, Halfdan himself sat his own horse, palms resting on the saddle, the picture of patience and forbearing. He was looking up with his head slightly cocked, a silver helmet framing his face so that his neat beard, more gray than its original brown, seemed to be an extension of the polished iron.

  Odd glanced to his right. Amundi was next to him and the rest spread out beyond him. Vifil, who was last in line, was just climbing up onto the wall. Odd looked back at Halfdan and waited for Halfdan to speak. But he did not.

  For a moment or two they remained motionless, regarding one another across the hundred feet that separated them. Even the horses seemed to recognize the gravity of the moment and remained silent and still.