They cheered again, and then again when Slagfid hooked the next man’s shield and leant back, hauling him over the top strake into the sea where he flailed, crushed between the ships’ bellies. But Sigurd held his tongue and looked to Fjord-Wolf’s stern because he knew what would happen then if Jarl Randver was any type of leader at all. Sure enough the jarl was striding forward now, flanked by retainers with shields raised before him as he sought to let the sight of him raise his men to greater deeds.
The other men at the prows were jabbing with spears and probing with long-axes and some archers were climbing up onto the sheer strakes to loose their arrows from deadly range, but it was Slagfid who was doing the real killing. And yet Randver’s other ships were like hounds desperate to get their teeth into the prey and one of them came alongside Little-Elk, hauling in their port-side oars quickly before the hulls banged together and Randver’s men shot arrows and hurled spears as others threw grappling hooks into Little-Elk’s thwarts. These men put the rope around their backs and pulled with all their strength, bringing the ships together in the hope that their weight of numbers would see them clear Little-Elk’s decks.
But Little-Elk’s crew had other ideas and they presented a wall of shields the length of the karvi, a second row thrusting spears over heads and through the gaps. Asgot the godi was aboard her and he was as good with a spear as he was with the runes. Her skipper, a man named Solveig, was probably as old as the greybeard up there on the bluff but he was a solid fighting man who had earned Harald’s trust. The chances were Solveig would need help from Reinen at some point, but he would not ask for it before it was absolutely needed and Harald knew it. If Harald could kill Randver before that happened he might win the battle before King Gorm even had to draw his sword.
Back in the pine wood behind them a raven was croaking and Sigurd felt Svein’s eyes on him because Svein knew Sigurd attached meaning to such things. But Sigurd kept his eyes riveted on the battle below them and Svein let the thing go before giving it voice. Yet the raven kept up its protest, a gurgling croak rising in pitch that had Sigurd thumbing the runes he had etched into his spear’s shaft. Not that the spell, a charm to make the spear fly straight and true, would do much to ward off the ill-omen that Sigurd heard in the bird’s call, tangled like a sharp fish hook in a ball of twine. Not unless he could spear the bird itself, which Asgot would tell him was the same thing as spitting in Óðin’s one eye.
And yet the gods favoured Harald and King Gorm still, for Slagfid had cracked another skull and the dead were piling up at Fjord-Wolf’s prow. Olaf was beside the champion now, thrusting his spear at enemy shields, knocking men back into their companions whilst further back men on both sides yelled encouragement and waited their turn to enter the fray.
On Reinen’s port side Little-Elk was holding its own, the shieldwalls evenly matched, but on the steerboard side the men of Sea-Eagle were enduring a steel-storm from the crews of two more of Randver’s longships which had rowed into position, one prow on to Sea-Eagle, the other coming alongside and grappling the vessels together even as Harald’s men took axes to the ropes or tried to fend the ship off with oars.
Wielding his own hafted axe, Svein’s father Styrbiorn was a giant at Sea-Eagle’s prow, looming there like Thór himself, roaring his challenge at the enemy stuffed in the thwarts of the prow coming at him head on.
Svein reached out again, clamping a great hand on Sigurd’s shoulder, and Sigurd winced at the strength in it but he did not pull away as his friend growled encouragement at his father in the strait below.
‘Your father is as good as Slagfid,’ Sigurd said, which might have been true had Styrbiorn not too often been too drunk to stand so that no one really knew how useful he was in a fight any more. Not that anyone, Slagfid included, would have the balls to tell Styrbiorn that. Since Svein’s mother Sibbe had died the only thing that could pull a smile out of Styrbiorn was mead or murder.
He killed the first man cleanly enough, with an overhead swing similar to Slagfid’s but using the heel of the axe rather than the blade to crush the helmeted head of the man opposite. Now, though, it seemed he could hear his son cheering him on from the cliff above, or perhaps it was Loki who was whispering in his ear the promise of great saga tales, for Styrbiorn pissed all caution into the wind and clambered up onto the sheer strake, his left arm wrapped round Sea-Eagle’s prow beast, his right hand gripping the long-axe low on the shaft. With incredible strength – and no little balance for a drunkard, Sigurd thought – he stepped along the sheer strake and, roaring, scythed the axe round in a great horizontal arc, the blunt side hammering into a man’s shield and knocking him and others down in a heap of chaos. Then he brought the axe up and over for another swing, this time deftly spinning the haft in his hand so that the blade flew first, slicing a man’s head from his neck and seeing others cower down behind their shields.
Those on the cliff roared their approval, none louder than Svein himself, and those aboard Sea-Eagle hammered their shields to let Reinen’s crew know that they were not alone in this fight.
‘I have never seen such a thing!’ the greybeard exclaimed.
Neither had Sigurd ever heard of such. It was the stuff of fireside tales, but so was the next part of it, for all worthwhile tales have their sour parts. Styrbiorn should have climbed down then and got behind a shield for a breath or two and been happy with the fame he had woven for himself. Instead the blood-lust was on him and maybe too much mead was in him for he brought the axe round in another big loop but this time the shaft hit Sea-Eagle’s prow beast, snagged on the creature’s pointed ear perhaps, and before Styrbiorn could correct the swing a man at the other prow reached out and thrust a spear into his belly.
Styrbiorn doubled over and his comrades managed to pull him back into the thwarts and Svein’s hands clawed into his flaming red hair.
‘Damned whoresons,’ the greybeard muttered, shaking his head, and Sigurd wanted to tell Svein that perhaps it was not a serious wound and he looked at Aslak who shook his head. For there had been enough muscle and fear in that spear thrust to stop a charging boar. That had been clear even from the top of the bluff and from the giant’s grunt that had carried across the water even above the battle din. Besides which, Styrbiorn did not wear a brynja because he could not afford to have one made that would fit his massive frame.
Perhaps that was the raven’s omen, Sigurd thought, for the bird had stopped its croaking now. Styrbiorn had woven his last piece of fame as he came to the end which the Norns had spun for him. Either way it was a savage blow for Sea-Eagle whose men were stunned at losing their prow man so early in the fight. Wielding Styrbiorn’s big axe, a fearsome fighter named Erlend muscled up to the prow and looked good for it, cleaving an arm off at the shoulder and doing Styrbiorn proud until an arrow took him in the face and he tipped over the side before the others could grab hold of him.
Randver’s men were like hounds with the blood scent in their noses now and they surged forward and Sigurd knew that trouble was coming because the men of the other enemy ship, lashed to Sea-Eagle’s steerboard side, had seen their fellows doing well at the prow and success begets success.
‘Jarl Harald must send men to help Sea-Eagle,’ Aslak said.
Sigurd shook his head. ‘Not yet,’ he muttered.
‘Why not? And why don’t the king’s ships help?’ Runa asked, teeth worrying at her bottom lip, fingers of one hand peeling the white bark from the birch she clung to, and it was a good question, so good that Sigurd did not know the answer. Yet the fear in his sister’s eyes compelled him to say something.
‘Those two ships are waiting either until all Randver’s men are committed to the fight with Sea-Eagle or until the first of them spill onto Sea-Eagle’s deck, for that will leave the enemy’s ship spear-light and Biflindi’s men will take it easily.’ Runa nodded and Aslak pursed his lips because it was almost a good answer. But Sigurd knew it was an answer as thin as mist and would dissipate at any moment when one
of them asked why King Gorm’s five other ships further off had not fully engaged with Randver’s remaining two. Those held their formations in the strait off the port side of Little-Elk and Harald’s raft of boats, raining arrows on each other but holding their distance. Sigurd could think of no reason why Biflindi’s five had not overrun those two ships by now, or why he had not sent one of his dragons to savage the longship alongside Little-Elk.
Harald sent a knot of men over to Little-Elk perhaps at Solveig’s request, perhaps not. Then the jarl gestured at a man beside him who Sigurd knew to be Yngvar because of his black-painted shield and Yngvar went over to Reinen’s side, took up his horn and blew a long note north up the strait towards Avaldsnes.
‘The king must come now,’ Svein said, those jaw-tight words his first since seeing his father fall.
Sigurd nodded, though in his mind he still heard the rising croak of the raven in the pine wood, the sound like a mockery of the horn which Yngvar was blowing repeatedly.
And King Gorm did not come.
‘Look!’ one of the youths from Kopervik exclaimed, pointing down to the two longships Shield-Shaker had sent round Jarl Harald’s stern to protect Sea-Eagle’s steerboard side.
‘Not before time,’ the greybeard said, turning his sunken eyes on Sigurd. ‘He’s left your father in the fire too long already.’
‘Ha! I’ll wager you wouldn’t say that to King Gorm’s face, old man,’ another youth said.
‘And why not, youngen?’ the old man asked. ‘As you can see I’d be long dead before Shield-Shaker got around to sending someone to kill me.’
This might have got a few laughs had things been going better down in the strait. A warrior named Haki had stepped into Slagfid’s place at the prow now to give Harald’s champion a chance to catch his breath, for axe work will have muscles screaming and a man puffing like nothing else. But though Haki, Olaf, Thorvard and the others were holding Randver’s crew at bay, the rebel jarl’s other crews were pressing their advantage. In making his floating bulwark Harald had drawn the enemy in so that now four of Randver’s six ships were committed. All King Gorm had to do was either deal with Randver’s remaining two or at least keep them out of it while he took Randver’s ship at the stern, cleared its deck and thus put an end to it.
The two allied ships had rowed round Reinen’s stern, but instead of coming alongside those two dragons that were attacking Sea-Eagle they manoeuvred up to that ship, whose crew were yelling at King Gorm’s men to get into the fight.
‘Óðin’s bollocks,’ Svein said, as the first arrows streaked from Shield-Shaker’s ships into Reinen and Sea-Eagle’s thwarts.
‘Treachery!’ the greybeard yelled. ‘You can never trust a king.’ He looked over at Sigurd but Sigurd could not take his eyes from the scene below. ‘Your father is a dead man now, youngen. Best get back to your kin quick as you can.’
‘It’s not over yet, you old goat,’ Aslak said. ‘Not while Slagfid still fights.’
Sigurd spat a curse and hoped the Allfather heard it, for such treachery was lower than a worm’s belly and Óðin should not see it played out. And yet Óðin loved chaos. Had Asgot not told Sigurd that a thousand times? Little-Elk was on its own now and holding its own too, and that was largely down to being so much smaller than the ship lashed against it, for its warriors were concentrated over a smaller area which enabled them to present a shieldwall three men deep. But exposed out there on the steerboard side of Jarl Harald’s raft Sea-Eagle was doomed and everyone knew it. For the most important thing now was to preserve Jarl Harald, which meant his best warriors must stay with him aboard Reinen lest they be overrun by Jarl Randver’s hearthmen from Fjord-Wolf.
Sea-Eagle’s skipper Gudrod was at the centre of the shieldwall bristling his longship’s side, jabbing a spear at those who sought to climb aboard his ship. But men were falling in that rampart now and the gaps could not be plugged. Sigurd and his friends were watching men they had known all their lives die, hacked and stabbed, falling into the thwarts, and Sigurd growled at Runa to look no more but she refused.
Then Gudrod went down from a spear thrust and one of Randver’s brave warriors saw his chance. His shield before him, he threw himself over the top strakes into Sea-Eagle, forcing the breach, and though he undoubtedly died a heartbeat later those behind plunged after him. Once a shieldwall is broken like that it nearly always spells disaster, so Sigurd had been told by Olaf who, in the maw of it at his prow, must have known what was happening aboard Reinen’s sister ship, though he could do nothing about it. Thorvard was still in the thick of it too, fighting like a champion, but now Harald came to the prow himself bringing Sigmund and Sorli, so that Sigurd felt pride bloom in his chest at the sight of his brothers wading into the steel-storm, refusing to accept that they were beaten.
Seeing his jarl striding into the carnage, Slagfid stormed back to his place at the prow and, leaving his axe with Haki, worked with an enormous boar spear, thrusting and cutting, his skill matched only by his strength. When Randver’s men saw Harald’s champion back amidst the blood-fray they raised their shields and pulled heads back into shoulders and a youth near Sigurd exclaimed that Jarl Randver looked like a berserker as he frothed and fumed at his warriors to show more steel and less limewood.
‘We can still win this,’ Aslak said. ‘If the king sides with Harald and brings his ships across.’
‘Fool, boy! The king wants the fishes feasting on Jarl Harald tonight!’ the greybeard said, pointing at the king’s two ships that were raining their arrow storm on Harald’s floating fort. ‘They’ve carved that ambition clear as runes on a standing stone.’
‘Those ships have sided with Randver, that is plain, old man,’ Sigurd said, ‘but that is not to say that Biflindi himself is with the rancid pig’s bladder. The king fights on. See.’
‘You call that fighting, lad?’ the greybeard said. ‘Pah! My wife puts more into it when she scolds me for being drunk or looking too long at some pretty young thing.’
Sigurd felt the grimace on his face but did not bite back, because he knew the old goat saw the truth of it even with those withered eyes. The arrow fight going on between those seven ships was perhaps more dangerous than a hailstorm but not by much. It was a show, like a leashed dog growling at another passing by.
‘See how far they’ve drifted,’ Aslak observed and Sigurd nodded.
‘There’s more current in that sea than you would know to look at it,’ he said, for Harald’s raft of ships and Randver’s lashed to it, having sat in the middle of the strait when the battle started, had now been brought much nearer the shore. ‘They will have to cut themselves free soon. All of them,’ Sigurd said, ‘or risk being smashed on the rocks.’
‘Then Father can escape?’ Runa suggested, ‘if they cut the ropes?’ There was a spear-blade’s glint of hope in her blue eyes.
‘Aye, that’ll be the only thing that saves your men now, girl,’ the greybeard said, ‘but old Njörd has already forsaken them, I am sure of it. He gives thin hope but not the wind or waves that Jarl Harald needs.’
‘Any more talk from you, old man, and we will see how your warped bones fare against the rocks,’ Sigurd growled. Aslak flapped his arms at the old man who must have seen enough steel in Sigurd’s eyes to believe it was no empty threat for he shuddered, hitched lips back from rotting teeth and held his tongue.
‘Bollocks,’ Svein said as a cheer went up from Randver’s men, for the shieldwall on Sea-Eagle had suddenly shattered like a clay pot dropped on a rock and the rebel jarl’s warriors were winning, clearing the deck and washing it in the blood of Harald’s hirðmen. Some of those fought on, trying to link up with their sword-brothers in twos and threes, but more of the enemy were spilling into the thwarts and it was clear that Sea-Eagle was lost. Men were hacked apart and speared in the back as they tried to scramble over the sheer strake onto Reinen, whose men thrust spears or hefted shields to try to protect those seeking refuge.
Over on the port s
ide Little-Elk was a scene of butchery too. The enemy had somehow come aboard at the stern and, with her shieldwall thinned to face this new threat, gaps were not being filled and Randver’s weight of numbers was telling. The scales had tipped and there was no bringing it back now.
Sigurd tasted bile in his mouth, could feel it rising from his stomach and burning as it came. The men from Skudeneshavn were being slaughtered and he could do nothing.
‘Get back to your people, boy,’ the greybeard said, risking Sigurd’s wrath. ‘You need to tell them what is coming. Give them a chance to scarper. For you can mark my words this foul thing won’t end here.’
Sigurd thrust his spear down amongst the birch roots and strode towards the old man whose eyes bulged like boiled eggs. ‘I told you to hold your tongue,’ he growled, grabbing fistfuls of the man’s tunic and hauling him through the long grass to the edge of the bluff so that they could both see the white water churning against the rocks below.
Then Sigurd saw the fishermen and their boat up on the shingle.
‘I meant no harm!’ the old man whined.
‘Sigurd! Let him go!’ Runa screamed. And the others watched, wide-eyed but closed-mouthed but for Svein who had seen his father killed already and so had no care for an old prattler who should have kept his lips together.
Still gripping the man, Sigurd had already forgotten him. In the strait the battle raged, the ring of steel on steel, the thump of blades against shields, the shrieks of the wounded and the roars of warriors, but in his mind Sigurd heard the rising croak of the raven that had watched from the pine wood.
He threw the old man to the ground. ‘What is the quickest way down from here?’ he asked him.
‘There’s a path beyond that rock,’ the old man said, pointing a trembling hand. ‘Leads right down to the water’s edge.’
God of Vengeance Page 4