And then, as they entered the pine wood spilling from Sålefjell’s heights like a dark green cloak off a giant’s shoulder, a peal of thunder rumbled across the sky and with it came a seething, wind-making rain.
‘Piss!’ Frothi growled, he and the others holding their shields above their heads as the rain turned to hailstones that bounced off the limewood and the steel bosses.
‘Just in time,’ a thick-necked man called Ulfar said as they moved into the pines whose thick upper branches protected them from the deluge. Normally they would have taken the coastal path all the way to Avaldsnes, but no one questioned their jarl’s decision to take this part of the journey through the trees. There was not a man there who wanted to see the Karmsund Strait at that point, to let their minds fashion again the image of their terrible defeat or let their ears hear again the shrieks of their butchered friends. The wound of that was still too raw and the sea there yet mixed with their brothers’ blood.
Now Sigurd’s mind wandered to his childhood and some ten summers ago when his father had brought him into these woods to hunt for elk at King Gorm’s invitation. The two men, as close as sword-brothers in those days, had laughed and exchanged silver rings and fine blades. They had talked of building ships and of raiding to the north and west and Sigurd had all but burst with pride to see the esteem in which his father was held by the king. They had killed no elk that day but it had not mattered and at the end of it they had feasted in Biflindi’s hall and Sigurd had watched his father swear an oath declaring before all that his sword belonged to the king. The jarl and his men would fight for Avaldsnes whenever King Gorm needed them. In return the king would safeguard Harald’s lands and allow the jarl to keep any plunder he took from his own raids on their common enemies. He would also give Jarl Harald a ship and that ship was Reinen. The oath was sealed by a great silver torc which Shield-Shaker placed around Harald’s neck though Harald rarely wore it these days.
‘Ha, it is not the weight of the silver that your father has trouble with but the weight of its meaning,’ Olaf had slurred in Sigurd’s ear one night in Eik-hjálmr when the mead had greased his tongue. ‘No man likes being under the foot of another, even if that other is a king.’
‘Then why doesn’t my father become a king?’ Sigurd had said with a boy’s unfogged view of the world.
Olaf had chuckled at that. ‘Perhaps he will,’ he said. ‘And then he’ll have some jarl wriggling under his foot, eh?’
And now they were heading to Avaldsnes to learn what had become of that oath sworn ten years ago and whether the king’s hand was open in friendship or clenched round a sword’s hilt.
The floor of the wood was covered in needles and dry underfoot and the pungent resinous smell of the trees filled Sigurd’s nose just as the sudden silence of the place filled his ears. Most of the lower branches were stunted and bare, brown and brittle enough to snap if caught by a shield rim or spear shaft. But from those branches higher up green and silver lichens hung in the shapes of antlers and bones, sea wrack and old rags, and Sigurd felt the old magic of the place raise the hairs on his arms.
They followed an ancient path through the trees and soon the canopy above them defied the grey day utterly so that it was darker than the midsummer nights out amongst the pastures. The only sounds were of their own passing, feet stirring the forest litter and the occasional drip from rain that had seeped through the thick needled branches above.
‘It is strange that there are no birds to be seen,’ Sigurd said to his brother and this caused Sorli to frown as he glanced around to confirm Sigurd’s observation.
‘So, little brother, you see omens in the birds and now you see omens in the birds you do not see?’ He smiled then. ‘You are as bad as Asgot.’
‘Still, there are no birds,’ Sigurd said.
Sorli turned his head up to the heavy branches and after a few paces he lifted his spear and pointed its blade off into the distance. ‘I see one,’ he said. ‘What is that, brother, if it is not a bird?’
Sigurd caught sight of a hooded crow up in the boughs, its breast the colour of cold hearth ash against the darker green of the pines.
Sigurd nodded, a weight suddenly lifting off his chest, though he could not resist telling his brother that perhaps only one bird was even worse than none at all. And the words were still in the air, like ripples from a stone dropped into water, when the first arrow whipped through the trees.
It tonked off Finn Yngvarsson’s helmet and he yelped with the shock of it, no doubt blushing afterwards.
‘Shields!’ Jarl Harald roared and the column shuddered as each man unslung his shield and planted himself left foot forward, hefting his spear up by his right ear ready for the cast. Two more arrows streaked from the shadows, one of them thunking into a man’s shield. ‘Close up!’ Harald yelled and the column drew in like a knotted rope until they made a square with five men in each of its walls, shields overlapping.
‘Show yourself!’ Jarl Harald demanded as men muttered behind their shields of treachery and what a piece of shit this king had turned out to be. ‘I am Jarl Harald of Skudeneshavn and am bound for Avaldsnes at the king’s invitation.’
There was a silence, then the cracking of twigs.
‘I know who you are, Jarl Harald!’ a voice boomed up ahead.
‘Swiving goat’s prick,’ Sorli growled, for it had been a king’s voice, one bloated with the arrogance of power.
‘Show yourself, oath-breaker!’ Jarl Harald shouted, lowering his shield and planting the butt of his spear on the ground. It was a defiant act and worthy of a jarl, though Sigurd and the rest kept their shields up and their spears ready. ‘I would see with my own eyes the man who betrays me.’
Another arrow streaked from the trees and clunked off a shield boss.
‘There he is!’ Agnar called.
‘I see him,’ Asbjorn growled.
King Gorm did not answer and the forest was still, but for the heavy breathing of Harald’s men and a few mumbled words to Óðin or Thór. Sigurd felt a stream of sweat trickle between his shoulder blades, the thump of his heart against the shield of his breastbone. He thought of his dead brothers Thorvard and Sigmund and he willed King Gorm’s men to come for them so that he might kill them.
Someone let out a great fart to split the silence and this got some chuckles.
‘What are they waiting for?’ Orn Beak-Nose said. ‘The sooner they come the sooner we can kill them and get home. I am as thirsty as Styrbiorn used to get after a roll in the straw with that little dark-haired beauty he picked up in Førdesfjorden.’
‘They are waiting for the men they had watching the coast road,’ Jarl Harald said, and Sigurd realized the truth of that. King Gorm had split his force because he had not known which route Harald would take.
‘Then we should run at them now,’ Beak-Nose said, spitting into the forest litter.
‘After you then, Orn,’ Harald said, but Orn stayed as still as a rock.
‘Fucking idiot,’ someone growled at Orn who muttered a curse back in their direction.
Even if Shield-Shaker was waiting for the rest of his men he would still have more than enough to deal with the twenty Skudeneshavn men and all of them knew it. Nevertheless, Harald was reluctant to break up the defence of shields they had created, particularly as they could not yet see the men who had come to kill them.
‘You have been raiding people who I am sworn to protect, Jarl Harald,’ King Gorm accused, the words weaving through the forest, somehow filling it.
It was not true, or if it was then those people had made an alliance with the king which Gorm had failed to mention to Harald. But it did not matter. Biflindi needed the pretence, was simply looking to justify the breaking of their mutual oath.
‘You lie!’ Jarl Harald called, still tall, shoulders square as Reinen’s red sail, his chest inviting the arrow from any with the courage to loose it. ‘You and Jarl Randver are snakes in the same nest. I am wondering, do you use him as a woman or
does he use you?’
There was no sharper insult a man could hurl than this and it brought a silence down over everything as men waited to see what came next.
‘I have come to an understanding with Randver,’ the king said eventually. ‘He has grown powerful. He has given me enough reason to weave an alliance with him.’
‘You mean he has given you silver,’ Harald said. ‘And in return you mean to give him my land. My silver.’
There was the clatter of armed men to their right and voices calling to each other up ahead.
‘Now we see the whoresons well enough,’ Sorli growled, pointing his spear at a line of warriors coming through the trees towards them. They were coming in loose order, perhaps thirty warriors stalking through the trees like wolves.
‘And there,’ Sigurd said, pointing his own spear to their front left where another body of men and shields was appearing.
‘Thór’s bristling bollocks, this will be a hard fight,’ Frothi said, scratching his nose with the rough inside of his shield.
‘Well it’s not my wyrd to die here,’ a bull of a man named Orlyg muttered. ‘I’ll die at sea in a ship fight or not at all.’
‘That old priest who came to Skudeneshavn last winter told him that,’ Finn remarked, ‘and you are a fool if you believe him, Orlyg, for he also said that I would be rich by the time the red hordes turned up, yet I have seen more curlew, sandpipers and red knots than any summer I can remember and I am still silver-light.’
‘That old piss stain told me my toothache would be gone by the time he reached Kopervik and the folk there were pouring him his first ale,’ Orn said. ‘I have heard better foretelling in a dog’s fart.’
‘Well why do you think he wanders from village to village and is not kept by a jarl or a king? You fools,’ Sorli said.
‘Still, I won’t die here. You can be sure of that,’ Orlyg said.
‘Here they come!’ Sorli cried.
‘Gorm!’ Harald yelled as the king’s men came on through the trees, no more than a spear-throw away now. ‘You can hear me, oath-breaker! Let us settle this the old way. My champion against yours!’
There was a shout and the shieldwall coming from the front left halted, its men planting their spear butts on the ground. Then it parted and a huge warrior rode through the breach on a pony, his mail and helmet, belts and scabbard glinting with gold fittings. Sigurd could not help but be impressed by the king who had come to kill them.
‘Your champion was Slagfid and he is lying on a bench in my hall so that my people can see him, though you would not recognize him now,’ King Gorm said. ‘My godi wanted to take his eyes so that he would never see the hall of the slain but I did not let him. He was a great warrior.’ The king leant over and spat onto the forest floor. ‘I afforded your sons no such respect.’
‘You prickless nithing!’ Sorli yelled, the fury coming off him like smoke from a pyre. Sigurd’s belly soured at the thought of some godi prising out Thorvard’s and Sigmund’s eyes and the sudden craving to kill King Gorm engulfed him like a wave so that he could barely breathe.
But Jarl Harald was as a rock, unmoved and unwilling to give his enemy the satisfaction.
‘My champion against yours, oath-breaker,’ he said again.
King Gorm patted his pony’s neck with ringed fingers as he considered this and Sigurd realized that he had some gold rings sewn amongst the grey ones of his brynja.
‘Why not!’ the king announced. ‘My father always said it was a bad thing to rush a good feast. Send forward your champion and I will send mine.’
‘Father,’ Sorli said. ‘I claim the right as your eldest son.’
Jarl Harald turned to Sorli and the smile in his beard reminded Sigurd of past times. ‘No, my son. You are a great fighter but you can still learn a few things from your father, hey.’ And with that Harald drew the pin from the great silver brooch at his right shoulder and took off his blue cloak, letting it fall to the ground. He gave the heavy brooch to Sigurd, winked at him then turned, hefting his spear and shield. He strode forward. ‘Who am I to kill then?’ he roared, and his men cheered their jarl and hurled curses at those facing them.
This was a good insult from Harald for every man in Skudeneshavn knew who King Gorm’s champion was but the jarl had in those six words pissed on the man’s reputation.
King Gorm’s thegns began to thump their spears, swords and axes against their shields and chant ‘Moldof! Moldof!’ as their champion left the line and walked towards Jarl Harald, bending his neck from side to side to loosen it as he came.
‘Frigg’s tits, I wouldn’t ask that ugly fuck to my house to share my night-meal,’ Asbjorn said, and men muttered in agreement with that for the man was huge, as big as Svein’s father Styrbiorn had been. It was one thing to know the man’s reputation as a killer, even to have the memories of him smiting their common enemies. It was another thing to see him in the flesh now, knowing he was against you.
‘Ah, he’s only a head taller than Harald,’ someone said. And only a touch broader, Sigurd thought.
‘But he’s much uglier,’ Orn Beak-Nose said, which was something coming from him.
Harald pointed his great spear at Moldof. ‘This ox of yours will low loud enough to wake our grandfathers when I gut him,’ he said. ‘And yet he is much smaller than I remember him. Have you not been feeding him, Gorm?’
Moldof grinned and it was a gruesome sight. No doubt in his time the man had heard every insult a man could come up with. That he was still alive to enjoy them meant that for plenty of men their insults had been their last words in this life.
‘I pissed on your sons’ corpses,’ Moldof said to Harald, his face as straight as its ugliness would allow, and this statement was worse than any insult a tongue could weave.
‘When Moldof has killed you, Jarl Harald,’ King Gorm said, spitting the word jarl, ‘my men will slaughter yours. And your sons.’ He looked at Sigurd now and Sigurd felt as if his eyes were burning at the sight of the king, as if they had venom in them. ‘You have grown, boy,’ Gorm said. ‘But I see you are not as pretty as your brother there.’
‘I will kill you, worm,’ Sigurd said.
King Gorm smiled at that. ‘I always liked you, boy.’ Then he turned his stare back to Harald. ‘Your bloodline ends today, Harald.’
Sigurd did not need to see his father’s face to know the wolf grin that parted his beard then. ‘Perhaps,’ he said. ‘And we will wait for you in the Allfather’s hall, oath-breaker.’ Oath-breaker, a good play on the king’s byname Shield-Shaker that, and it was not lost on any man there regardless of which side they were on. Such names stick to a man like shit to sheep, Sigurd thought.
‘Do not disappoint me, Moldof,’ the king said through a wall of teeth.
Moldof thrust his spear stave against the back of his shield and his sword-brothers roared encouragement and he came forward rolling his huge shoulders, the rings of his enormous brynja shifting like the grey sea.
‘Open him up, Father!’ Sorli was straining like a wolf on a rope but knew he had no choice but to stand his ground and watch. ‘That ox will tire quickly,’ Sorli told Sigurd, ‘and he will not have the wits to match Father. Men as big as that don’t hone their wits because they don’t normally need them.’
‘It’s the same with pretty men,’ Asbjorn put in, grinning at Sorli who called him a crab-clawed son of a mare.
‘Gut him!’ Frothi yelled.
‘Go for his damned shins,’ Orn Beak-Nose growled. ‘I’d wager he can’t bend down that far to do anything about it.’
‘Aye, piss on his roots while he’s not looking,’ Finn said, for the king’s champion stood there like an oak and despite the advice Jarl Harald’s men gave him, it must have been hard for anyone to see how best to tackle the man.
Keeping his shield up Harald thrust his spear in an attack that would disembowel most men, but Moldof got his shield in the way and jabbed his own spear high and Harald dipped his head so that the bla
de went wide. Then the two warriors circled each other, eyes searching for weaknesses, muscle and sinew taut as a hauled halyard, both men set to strike.
Harald lifted his shield and thrust low but Moldof deflected with his own spear and then the two men’s strength and skill bloomed for all to see as they used their heavy spears almost like swords, slashing and cutting, parrying and twirling them to hammer their opponent with the butt ends. Sigurd imagined the fire in their arms and shoulders from using the spears single-handed, yet neither man showed any sign of it.
Then Harald anticipated a thrust and brought his shield across and it struck Moldof’s spear’s shaft, knocking it aside, as Harald barrelled forward slamming his shield’s rim into Moldof’s face. The giant staggered backwards, spitting teeth and blood, and the men around Sigurd howled in pleasure as Moldof hawked and spat a gobbet of blood at Harald. The jarl strode forward then thrust for Moldof’s face but as King Gorm’s man got his shield up Harald dropped like a rock and thrust up from the crouch, his spear blade ripping into the rings of Moldof’s brynja at his left hip and scattering them onto the forest floor. Moldof roared and Harald swung the spear in a throat-ripping arc but the giant got his shield up in time and Harald’s swing had so much muscle behind it that the marrow in his arm bone must have trembled with the impact. Moldof brought his own spear round and it clunked against Harald’s shaft which he forced down until the blade hit the ground. Then the bigger man brought his knee up and stamped down, snapping Harald’s spear, but the jarl swung what was left in his hand, catching Moldof in the temple with a blow that would have dropped a bull.
Then Harald stepped back, hurling the broken stave which clattered off Moldof’s shield, and the two men caught their breath and Sigurd hoped that Óðin Allfather was watching this fight.
‘This is your champion, oath-breaker?’ Harald called to King Gorm. Two or three of the king’s men bellowed at their champion to have done with the thing and take the jarl’s head from his neck, but most were silent, perhaps not used to seeing Moldof take so long to kill an opponent. The king himself had a face like a bucket full of thunder.
God of Vengeance Page 8