The Last Berserker

by Angus Donald

  He lashed out laterally and carved the jaw from a man. A screaming face slashed at him with a short sword; he ducked the blow, and punched the heavy butt of the axe into the enemy’s mouth; he disappeared in an instant.

  And suddenly there were no more foes before Bjarki’s section of fence.

  He could see the thick scattering of dead and wounded on the ground beyond it, an undulating mass of blood-spattered flesh piled up before the wattle barrier. He looked to his right and saw that one of the young Barda, a man under Ivar Knuttson’s command, was lying on the ground on his back, mewling, his face a mass of wet blood. Another of his men was sitting with his back to the wooden fence, his face pale grey, clutching with both hands his own gory stomach from which a long, slender spear shaft still protruded.

  Yet the rest of his people seemed mostly unharmed. A bloody cut or two here and there. He caught a flicker of movement to his front, ducked instinctively, and was aware of a spear hissing past his face. But the man who threw it was five paces away from the summit, on the slope. It was a half-hearted assault, a gesture; he did not seem inclined to close and fight.

  Bjarki did not choose to come out and engage him, either. There were hundreds of Green Cloaks still milling around on the slope below the fence now, a few still climbing, but more slowly, reluctantly. Their green-plumed officers were shouting, urging the Swabians onwards, upwards, but the energy of their attack was failing, subsiding, its cutting edge blunted.

  He looked left and saw that a knot of five Green Cloaks, under an officer, was trying to creep round the flank where the fence ended on the eastern shoulder of the rampart. He heard Nikka, the nearest section leader, give a blood-curdling scream and hurl away her shield; she now had an axe lifted in one hand and short sword in the other. She charged into the flanking Green Cloaks alone, a plump matronly woman, long past her youth, who had not tasted the blood and filth of war for many a year, but who was now launching herself at the foe, yelling nonsense and frothing like a madwoman.

  He felt a shiver of kinship. He heard his own gandr gibbering, begging to be let in… But he knew he must set his face against it for the time being.

  Nikka ripped into the five Green Cloaks with axe and sword like a whirlwind and literally tore them all into pieces. Her axe cracked down on bone and hacked through skin, ripping into fat and muscle; her sword carved into flesh and sliced clean through limbs. The enemy were transformed into reeking mounds of meat in less than a dozen blood-splashed heartbeats, with Nikka still cutting and capering, leaping, screaming nonsense war cries and slashing at their hacked, fallen bodies long after they’d stopped moving.

  The rest of the Green Cloaks began pulling back in an orderly manner. All along the summit of the west rampart they were peeling away and retreating down the slope. Now that Bjarki was able to draw a breath, he saw that the east rampart, over to his left, had also been attacked with a similar force of these Frankish light troops, which had also been similarly repulsed.

  This had been merely a probing action, he now realised, Karolus was testing their fighting spirit, feeling for weaknesses, and spending the lives of his Green Cloaks to discover that crucial intelligence a little more quickly.

  Bjarki could clearly see Karolus; just there, on a little hillock only about three hundred paces away, a bump in the mostly flat battlefield that lifted him a few feet above the rest of the plain. He was gazing up at the slope, strewn with the broken bodies of his brave light troops.

  Beyond the Black Cloaks of the bodyguard, and the brightly coloured gaggle of priests around the king, Bjarki could make out several new blocks of troops advancing. He thought he counted a full ten scarae of Red Cloaks this time, heavy infantry, coming up the centre of the field from the south – three thousand men – heading for Hellingar Fortress, between the ramparts.

  The attack by the Green Cloaks had just been a skirmish, a feint to test their mettle. Now the Frankish king was taking the fight seriously.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  The price of treachery

  The surviving Green Cloaks were milling around at the bottom of the slope, where the land flattened out before the channel bank, and Bjarki saw that there were still a large number of them alive and unharmed – several hundreds, at least. A sudden thunder of hooves and peal of trumpets heralded the Saxon cavalry. Pounding around the shoulder of the west rampart, between the earth mound and the walls of Hellingar, it slammed straight into the green-clad infantry. It was only a small force of Angrians from the middle of Saxony, perhaps sixty horse, mainly made up of the second sons of jarls and hersirs, who were trained to ride from an early age.

  Yet they were all brave northern boys and girls – and all eager for battle.

  The Angrian cavalry came hallooing around the shoulder and hacked down at the heads and bodies of the lightly protected infantry with their swords, axes and maces. The Green Cloaks responded in the most sensible way imaginable; they ducked away from the galloping horses and their excited riders, dodged the wild sword blows, and dived into the channel, swimming quickly and efficiently to the other side – and to safety.

  The scene reminded Bjarki of a time in Aachen when he had walked beside an ornamental frog pond in the palace complex at night after a late meeting with the king. The frogs had been croaking happily on the edge of the pond, summoning their lovers, perhaps, or boasting of their prowess, but, as he walked along the paved edge of the pool, one by one, the creatures had abruptly plopped into the black water.

  So it was, as the cavalry of the North galloped along the edge of the channel, the Green Cloaks tossed away their equipment, shields and spears, sometimes even their helms, too, and hopped like frogs into the brown water. The bank was littered with abandoned gear but now it was swept clean of enemies, and the exuberant young Angrians began cheering as they rode away westwards, as if they’d won a great victory single-handed.

  Bjarki knew that they had not. If the Swabians had chosen to stand and fight, or if they had received the orders to do so from their officers, they could have made it very hard for these inexperienced young horse troops.

  Nevertheless, the Green Cloaks were now all gone.

  The Red Cloaks, however, were not.

  The Frankish army was advancing on the Dane-Mark with a slow, measured tread, heading directly towards Hellingar. Scara after scara marching forward as one man. Trumpets blared, drums rattled. The Franks were now only three hundred yards from the channel, the first units coming up level to the mass of Black Cloaks clumped around Karolus on his hillock. They saluted him as they passed; thumping their right fists against their metallic chests. Three thousand Red Cloaks: big, hard men in iron mail, with steel swords and daggers, iron greaves, and heavy iron-shod marching boots.

  They’ll not be able to swim, thought Bjarki. They’ll sink like anvils.

  ‘What in the name of Odin’s arsehole are they playing at?’ said Tor from Bjarki’s side, apparently hearing his thoughts. ‘They’ll never get over the water.’ She cupped hands round her mouth and bellowed: ‘Go home, you great fat idiots; don’t waste any more of our time.’

  He glanced down at her and saw that she had a spray of red dots right across her pale little face, a blood splatter. She seemed otherwise unharmed.

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I see it now. That fucker. The weaselly turd. Snorri.’

  She pointed down, to her left, and Bjarki followed her finger. The two heavy wooden gates of the Fortress of Hellingar were swinging open.

  Jarl Snorri Hare-Lip himself was standing on the top of the gatehouse, with one of his hearth-men, a standard-bearer. And the standard that the man bore was marked with a huge black cross on a long pole, adorned with bells and streamers: the Christian flag of their enemies spreading out in the breeze.

  The gates of Hellingar were now fully open and Bjarki could see a knot of Snorri’s hersirs gathered round the mobile drawbridge, kicking away the blocks under the massive wheels and putting their shoulders to the wood. The Red Cloaks were
now a hundred paces from the channel. And closing.

  The truth came to Bjarki all at once, the pieces all falling together: a memory of Livinus and his bodyguards in the hall in Hellingar a year ago, after a private meeting with Jarl Snorri; the scarae of Red Cloaks marching nonsensically towards the deep channel they could not cross in their heavy gear; Snorri’s hersirs beginning to roll the drawbridge towards the bank…

  ‘With me, all of you,’ Bjarki was yelling at the Fyr Skola folk. ‘Now!’

  He looked at the captain of the Storm Company that had supported them during the Green Cloak attack. ‘I need your warriors, sir,’ he said.

  The Storm captain, a dull middle-aged Saxon, frowned back at him.

  ‘I’m going to attack them,’ Bjarki could feel a panic rising in his chest.

  ‘Down there, I mean to stop them before they let the enemy across…’

  The captain did not understand.

  ‘Support me!’ Bjarki said, then turned away, and called the Fyr Skola to him. He saw Tor and Gunnar looking at him, expectantly. ‘On me, all of you, now. Ready? Charge!’

  Bjarki hefted his axe, swept up his shield and started to race down the shoulder of west rampart, skidding on the blood-slippery grass, sliding on his arse most of the way down. He regained his feet at the very bottom, unharmed, and pelted straight towards the drawbridge, which was by now trundling noisily towards the edge of the channel, slowly gathering speed.

  ‘Let me in,’ his gandr was hammering at his heart in time with his own thudding pulse, his own panting breath. ‘Let me help you, I beg you!’

  Bjarki was just yards from the nearest hersir, a big, black-bearded fellow. He let out a scream of battle-rage and, as the fellow turned towards him, Bjarki swung his axe, the blade sinking in and splitting his face in two.

  He was aware that Tor was by his shoulder, and Gunnar was yelling something behind him. There were dozens of enemies all around him now, and they turned on him and his little band as one. He got his shield up just in time to receive a tremendous axe blow from a giant of a man with blond swinging pigtails and a roaring red mouth. The massive blow rattled his teeth in his head, the elm planks of the shield split and splintered into shards, the whole only held together by its circular iron rim. He shook the broken wreckage of the shield off his arm, ducked another colossal swinging cut from the axeman, bobbed up and buried his own axe in the fellow’s belly.

  More of Snorri’s men were pouring out of the gates, scores of warriors, coming to join the fight around the drawbridge. For a fleeting instant, Bjarki wondered how many of them knew about the Jarl’s treachery. He could not have convinced them all to abandon their faith in the old gods. Surely not.

  But two score of Hellingar’s finest fighting men were running at him, nonetheless. He saw Tor effortlessly maim a grizzled Saxon who was shoving at the front wheel. She dealt him a quick sword thrust to his knee, then dodged an axe blow to her own head from a fat man standing atop the vehicle. Nikka the Dreamer was there too, still gibbering and frothing and waving her bloody sword in a loose and terrifyingly unco-ordinated fashion.

  Then someone chopped an axe into the back of her plump neck and she flopped and fell. Gunnar had a spear in his hands and a grim expression; he was thrusting it wildly at a Saxon, who easily fended him off. Bjarki saw Ivar and one of the young Barda clashing swords with two veteran hersirs. Ivar killed his man, but the less-experienced Barda took a thrust through the belly and screamed like a vixen. Ivar took revenge on his killer an instant later.

  The drawbridge was only a dozen yards from the edge of the channel. A couple more shoves and it would be there and the bridge part could be lowered to open the way for thousands of enemies to pour across from the far bank. The Red Cloaks were thirty paces from the edge of the water now.

  Bjarki ducked a sword swing and punched the head of the axe into the face of a skinny bald man, who was looming over him and yelling from the bed of the drawbridge, bloodying the fellow’s nose. Then he reached up and hauled the man off the drawbridge by his mail hauberk, tossing him right over his shoulder to thump down on the turf. He saw Erik, one of his Barda, close in and chop the bald man down with his axe as he shakily tried to rise.

  He could see the Red Cloaks – so many of them – massing on the other side of the channel, waiting right on the lip. He vaulted up on to the vehicle.

  In front of him were the thick ropes that held the bridge part upright. ‘Tor,’ he yelled. ‘I need you, Tor. Ward my back! Keep them off me!’

  ‘You don’t need her,’ hissed his gandr, ‘I am all that you need.’

  Tor jumped up on to the bed of the vehicle: she had a sword in one hand and her seax in the other. Their eyes met in perfect understanding.

  Bjarki turned his back on his swarming foes and swung the axe at the thick, taut rope on the right that held the bridge section upright. His blade sliced into the woven strands, cutting the hawser about halfway through. The strands began to unravel. The drawbridge was still wobbling forward. He heard a bellow of rage behind him, and Tor’s hiss of breath, the clang of steel on steel, and again. But he did not turn. He swung his axe at the last strands and they flew apart. The bridge section lurched to one side, hanging at an angle, and he now had a clear view of the far bank of the channel. He was looking straight into the eyes of an officer who was holding a standard with a black cross like the one Snorri’s man was brandishing on the gate.

  The Frank was gaping at him. Mouth open and as red as his plume.

  Bjarki hurried to the other side of the vehicle, swinging the axe at the second rope, and it bounced right off the taut hemp. Bad angle. He had hurried his stroke. The drawbridge was only eight yards from the edge, now. He could hear the officer on the far bank calling for archers to come up, fast.

  Tor alone was fighting two big, hairy hersirs at the same time, blocking sword cuts with her seax, sliding her slight body under massive blows that would have cut her in half. Bjarki longed to help. He gritted his teeth, focused his strength, and swung the axe at the second and final rope. The blade struck, the angle was true, the cable parted with a mighty crack, and the bridge toppled over the edge of the vehicle, slithered down the muddy bank and splashed into the water, slowly sinking, sliding like a knife blade into the brown silt and finally disappearing from view.

  He distinctly heard the officer say: ‘Fuck me, it’s the Beast-man!’

  Then he turned and saw that Tor had killed one of her opponents and gashed the other deep in the right thigh: he’d be a cripple for life, if he lived.

  Scores of soldiers were streaming down both shoulders of the ramparts now, Theodoric’s men from the East and the captain of the Storm Company, belatedly understanding what Bjarki had been trying to tell him. And there was Widukind, the duke’s eldest son, and his men, joining in the fight. They plunged into the Hellingar men, screaming and slicing, howling and killing. More joined the fight from the slopes, overwhelming the traitors completely.

  Snorri was no longer on the top of the gatehouse – that traitor at least had the sense to realise when his cause was lost. And suddenly it was over.

  All the fighting around the drawbridge somehow magically stopped as if by mutual consensus with the loss of the bridge section. The surviving Hellingar men were throwing down their weapons and raising their hands, some were even kneeling. Bjarki stooped to pick up an abandoned shield.

  And saved his own life.

  A Frankish arrow whizzed over his bent back, and a moment later he was enveloped in a blizzard of shafts, pattering into the turf all around him. He ran then, covering his mailed back with the big round shield, dodging, zigzagging, sprinting up the slope to the protection of the wooden fence.

  And all his surviving Fyr Skola folk ran with him.

  * * *

  ‘It seems that it was Snorri and only about a dozen of his closest hersirs,’ said Valtyr. Bjarki, Tor and he were sharing a skin of red wine at the Fyr Skola post on the west rampart. ‘A few of the hersirs had
converted to the Christ god, as Snorri had; others just took the view that their loyalty lay with their lord, whatever he might do and whichever side he might support. They’ve all been executed, anyway, so it doesn’t matter what they believed.’

  ‘What about Snorri?’ said Tor. ‘I’d like to gut that weasel myself.’

  ‘He’s disappeared,’ said Valtyr. ‘Gone completely. Once he saw you destroy the drawbridge, he fled. We think he went north, through the Saxon refugees’ encampment, but he’ll be taken up eventually and then – phitt…’ Valtyr made a fast cutting motion with a hand across his own neck.

  Bjarki scratched at the bandage on his hand. One of the Frankish arrows had sliced the skin on the back of his fist as he fled the battlefield, the very lightest of wounds, but it hurt more than it should. It throbbed. He wondered if the arrows could have been poisoned. He didn’t know if the Red Cloaks did that… Thinking about his irritating scratch meant that he missed the first part of Valtyr’s speech.

  ‘…so you would have a completely new garrison of Theodoric’s men under you, plus your own Fyr Skola contingent, what is left of it. It was Widukind’s idea. He saw you fight and, apparently, he was impressed. He spoke up for you in the council and suggested that you be given the fortress. They are clearing out all the warriors who were in there under Snorri, just a precaution, they’re probably all loyal but it doesn’t make sense to tempt the gods to mischief, does it? So… I can tell them you’ll accept the position?’

  Tor was beaming at him.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Bjarki stupidly. ‘I wasn’t listening. What position?’

  ‘Men, eh, Tor?’ said Valtyr. ‘Can’t concentrate for three heartbeats!’

  ‘Imbeciles,’ she replied. ‘Particularly this ugly specimen.’

  ‘All right, that’s enough. What is it you want me to do?’ said Bjarki.