by Robert Jones
Her father’s approval gave Isolde confidence.
“We spoke to Erik,” she said suddenly.
“Who is Erik?” Sigurd asked, his brow raised with the look of concern across his face.
“It doesn’t matter,” Harald cut in. “He is leading the first wave of Hrothgar’s army. They don’t want to fight. He said if he raises a flag as they approach the walls then hold fire. They will fight for us.”
There was a drawn out silence among the men and Isolde felt the doubt churning in her stomach.
“Better to cut them down then take a risk,” Halvar said slowly.
Arvid murmured agreement, but Sigurd shook his head. He looked at Isolde, and she felt the eyes of her father searching her for a childish mistake.
“We could use the men,” he said to everyone, not taking his eyes from her. “But can we trust this Erik?”
Isolde’s tongue was tied in her mouth. All of a sudden she was being doubted by her father in front of people that didn’t see her for who she was.
“No,” Harald answered and Isolde felt a wave of relief at not having to speak, though she cursed herself inwardly for being so worried, now wasn’t the time for doubts.
“He betrayed us once,” Harald said, “but he offers an opportunity we can’t turn away from.”
“Cut him down,” Halvar said suddenly. “Don’t put any faith in a traitor.”
Sigurd hadn’t taken his eyes off his daughter. Isolde could tell that he was looking for the truth about Erik in her.
“Can he be trusted, Isolde?” he asked again.
She took a moment to consider her words and spoke.
“Harald is right,” she said. “I don’t trust him, but I think we have to.”
Sigurd nodded and turned to Arvid and Halvar.
He sighed deeply and spoke. “If we see a flag, let them come to the gates. We can decide then.”
“Be it on your head, Sigurd,” Halvar said and turned to look at the wall.
“It will be on all of ours if I am wrong,” he said under his breath.
***
The city was alive with children and women running to and fro between ranks of armoured men. They whizzed between stations with arms full of arrows and pots of oil which they placed over flaming braziers. The shouts of orders became action and it seemed to Harald that all of Harkham had come out to hold the city. He walked with Sigurd across the cracked and crumbling ramparts of the northern wall, surveying what needed to be done. Isolde was down in the streets somewhere organizing the fletching of more arrows and arming the people.
“These walls won’t hold long,” Sigurd said under his breath to Harald as they passed a couple of sentries who were inspecting their swords. “All these cracks, it's like the damned thing is one great ladder for Hrothgar to climb.”
“Good men will hold it,” Harald replied, but Sigurd snorted.
“Give me enough good men and maybe…”
“We only have to hold it long enough for Skaldi and Wulfric to get here,” Harald said a little too sharply. He hadn’t realised that the Jarl’s pessimism was getting to him so badly. But Sigurd shook his head and looked at Harald.
“Mark my words,” he said, looking back into the city. “The battle will be down there before the first day is out. And when the streets run red, it’s up to you to keep Isolde safe.”
“I will,” he said, “but trust me when I say she is more than capable to do it herself.”
Sigurd nodded and smiled. Harald could feel the old man’s eyes studying the great scar on his face.
“What happened to you two?” he asked.
Harald smiled back, but it was a smile of contentment and before he could answer, there was a cry and a fat blur of yellow storming along the wall toward them.
“Jarl Aba,” Sigurd said contemptuously.
“What are your men doing?” he exclaimed. “Most of them are just milling about down in the streets, do they not know there is a war at my doorstep?”
“They’re doing what you should have,” Harald spat out, and he quickly stepped back as Aba’s thick fingers whooshed past his face.
“Young cur!” Aba spat at Harald, but Harald was too smart to react and just met the man’s gaze with his own steady eyes.
“They’re fletching arrows and repairing the walls where they still can,” Sigurd said quickly.
“The walls are standing and a man fights with an axe,” Aba said as he patted the little hatchet in his own belt.
“Maybe so,” Sigurd said, “and I’m sure they will. But we’re going to keep doing what we’re doing anyway… so long as the city’s Jarl does not mind.”
Aba looked from Sigurd to Harald and back to Sigurd again.
“I’m pulling my guard back to the hold,” he said suddenly.
“We need the men on the wall,” Harald snapped back.
“You have enough to hold it,” Aba growled. “They’re needed to… help the wounded and to… protect the women.”
Harald felt Sigurd put a hand on his shoulder and he knew it was to silence any more debate.
“An honourable plan, Jarl Aba,” Sigurd said and they watched the fat Jarl turn tail and retreat back down from the wall.
Harald went to speak but Sigurd quickly cut him off.
“I’d rather lose a handful of soldiers and know that the coward, Aba, is not going to be in our way.”
Harald nodded and the pair looked back down the wall to the soldiers who were taking their posts. They were a mosaic of colours, their shields a motley of yellows and reds, blacks and whites. They had come from all over the southern lands and many of them had put away their petty land disputes and old feuds. As Harald studied the mismatched soldiers he realised that despite all their differences, this host of warriors were all unified in hope… hope and fear and fury.
“I see no signs of movement from the east or west,” Sigurd said. “We might be alone for some time…”
“We will hold,” Harald said, a new resoluteness in his voice. “We will hold.”
CHAPTER IV
“What do you mean we’re out of arrows?” Isolde shouted.
The heat within the smith’s workshop was unbelievable, it was as though they were standing in the forge itself. The short man standing across the burning embers waved his barrel arms above his head.
“We’re out,” he shouted back over the clinking of hammers on steel. “We got no more shafts to put these heads on to.”
Isolde couldn’t believe it, she had only had the smiths working on them for half the afternoon.
“Swords,” she said, pointing to a rack of half forged weapons. “Swords, axes, shields… I don’t care what it is, keep working, arm our soldiers.”
The smith was wiping his brow as she left the building and went out into the open street. Women and children were standing about, waiting for new orders now that they had no more arrow bundles to run to the walls.
“Stones,” Isolde said to them. “Anything big enough to hurt a man. I want piles of stone all across the northern wall.”
The crowd set themselves to work as soon as the words had left Isolde’s tongue and a flash of yellow caught her eye as it passed along the street opposite her. Aba… but why was he leading men back into town? She went to cry out and catch the Jarl’s attention, but Arvid caught her first.
“How many arrows do we have?” he asked between breaths. He looked as though he had been as busy as her.
“They’re out,” she said. “I’ve got the smiths working on whatever they can and the women are bringing stones up to the walls now.”
“Stones?” he asked with a raised brow.
“To throw.”
“You are hopeful, aren’t you?”
“Look,” she said suddenly serious. “We have maybe ten arrows to an archer and maybe a hundred or so bows along the whole wall-”
“What kind of damage can we even do?” Arvid said cutting her off.
“Not much,” she replied. “But Hrot
hgar doesn’t know that. He doesn’t know what we have, so we have to be smart. Use the rocks and spears when they get close enough.”
She looked up to see a crowd watching them, their eyes full of fear. Children tried to hide behind the skirts of mothers and even some of the soldiers looked as if they were unsure of themselves.
“Don’t be afraid,” Isolde said, walking into the middle of the street. “I have seen our victory already. I have seen Hrothgar’s army scattered in the wind like so many grains of sand sifting through our hands.”
The crowd was silent though they watched her with desperately hopeful eyes.
“We came from the west,” she continued, beginning to walk the circle forming around her to address everyone who was listening. “Every village we passed had been slaughtered. The women and children were taken in chains, and the men were left to rot in the fields.” A murmur spread through the group of people but Isolde went on. “But one mother lived, she fought and she saved her children. And in the next town, we saw the bodies of raiders because the men there had fought. We can fight as well, it is a choice. We can choose to let our fear take us now at the moment of truth, or we can fight! Arm in arm we can throw back the evil that bears down on us-”
Vroooom… The haunting echo of a great horn broke Isolde’s speech and she could see the wild fire of fear flicker in the eyes of all around her.
“We fight!” she cried out. “We fight and the songs will say we never lived with fear in our hearts! Go now!”
Mothers frantically called out the names of children and soldiers barked orders in a scene of pure chaos. Arvid grabbed her by the arm as the people ran to their duties.
“Your father is on the wall,” he said as he dragged her up the road.
Isolde dodged between groups of men forming up lines and small kids squeezing under legs into alleys and homes. She pushed through with Arvid and vaulted up the old stone stairs of the northern wall until she found Harald and her father leaning out over the battlements, trying to see the approach of Hrothgar’s army.
“Where are they?” she cried and looked out to the emptiness of the land before them.
Vroooom… the horn cried again and the dark heads of the enemy rose up over the dip in the land. They were spread out for as far as she could see until the marching men took up the totality of the field before them, with their long shadows in the late afternoon sun stretching out to magnify their numbers. All of Harkham watched in horrified silence as the full force of Hrothgar came into view. They looked like tin soldiers from where they stood on the walls, but as the great machines of war rumbled into view, Isolde felt her breath be taken away. She was looking at huge catapults, bigger than anything she could imagine.
The marching feet rumbled across the ground and beating drums in the ranks kept a time that made Isolde’s heart race. The horn blew again and a great shout went up by the enemy and the marching feet stopped. They were watching each other, eye to eye like a bear staring down a child before it charges. Another horn, this one’s pitch higher, squealed out into the last light of the dying day. A second, third and fourth horn blew in tone with it and Isolde shuddered as the front ranks of Hrothgar’s army lurched forward and began marching toward the city.
“Man the gates,” Sigurd suddenly ordered, and he made for the stone steps with Isolde and Harald in toe.
“Watch for the flag,” she cried out as she ran the steps to keep up.
“They know,” Harald reassured.
“You men with me,” Sigurd barked at some men, and he grabbed a young soldier and looked him in the eye. “Find Halvar, tell him if the walls fall to hold the Jarl’s keep.”
The man nodded and took off as Sigurd released his collar.
“Shieldwall!” Sigurd cried, and the men behind him formed up before the old oaken gates.
Sigurd turned to Isolde and Harald, his eyes ablaze with a sudden burst of life.
“Hold them in the streets,” he said, “limit their numbers and hold the city!”
***
“First mark!” came the cry from one of the guards above.
Isolde couldn’t take it anymore, it felt like Erik’s men were taking forever. She hadn’t noticed her fidgeting fingers or her clenched jaw until she opened it to speak.
“I have to go up and see,” she said.
“No,” her father commanded. “You are needed here more than anywhere.”
She gritted her teeth and accepted her father’s experience.
“Stand in the shadows,” he said.
Isolde gave him a questioning eye and he explained, “if it's a trap, I need you to rally men in the streets.”
She stood for a moment, watching her father’s resolve as he stepped up to the front of the shieldwall, and she suddenly felt a hand on her shoulder. Harald’s hand. He pulled her back and broke the spell, and together they fell back into the shadowy alcove of a building from where they could still watch the front gate.
“Second mark!” was shouted down from the walls.
They were close, one more shout and Erik's men would be in range of the bows.
“Peasants…” the voice cried out. “A thousand or so…”
Isolde watched the men atop the wall like a hawk. She saw the arrows nocked to bowstrings and their arms itching to pull back the strings. Hold your fire… she silently prayed.
“A flag!”
“Hold your arrows!” Sigurd cried, and the command was echoed down the walls.
Isolde sighed and felt the tension in her shoulders physically ease away.
“He did it,” Harald said clapping her on the back, and as he did so she saw her father’s shieldwall break apart and men walking to the great gates.
They hauled away the huge lumber supports that barred its opening and swung the oaken wood outward to Erik’s men. The blonde youth was the first through, a white flag held high in his hand and a smile from ear to ear. The city’s defenders clapped him on the back and a cheer went up as more and more of the turned soldiers streamed into the town. Isolde wanted to run to him, but as though he had read her mind, Harald held her back with a firm hand.
“Watch from here,” he said under his breath.
More and more men came in, they were big and strong as though they had been bred from the mountain folk, with dark beards rolling over their ragged shirts. Isolde studied them as they pushed through and milled about the gate in a mass that kept swelling. Erik was speaking with her father and she watched as another man with a deep red wiry hair stepped up to him and began to talk. He towered over the Jarl by at least a head and Isolde took a step forward as she saw the start of an argument. Erik had slipped away into the mass of men and Sigurd was pointing up to the wall but the giant was shaking his head, smiling with a mouth full of rotten teeth.
“They’re not farmers!” Harald hissed.
A flash of steel glinted out in the sun and Isolde shrieked as the giant thrust his great head into her father face. The blow was hard and she saw Sigurd reel back. Everything happened at once, the newcomers suddenly had axes and swords in their hands, the glint of chainmail gleamed under their farmer’s garb. Blood sprayed into the air and her father was being pulled back by his guard. She hadn’t even realised she was sprinting to him, sword in hand, until her arm jarred back as she brought the blade down against iron armour.
She was in the thick of it, rage pulsing out from deep within her. Soldiers came crashing in from every side until the melee had taken over the front gates. The screams of men drowned out the barking orders from both sides and like thick hail, arrows poured down from above. To Isolde, everything became so very slow, the sounds warped and waned until it felt like she was underwater. Men were pressed so close together that the dead and wounded could not even fall. They were simply propped up like marionette dolls, forced to dance in the shifting tides of the quickly forming battle-line. She kept bringing her arm up above her head and bringing down the blade as hard as she could, but she had no way of knowing who she
was hitting. Sweat and heat fumed and melted away the cool winter air until the very act of breathing became a challenge. More men piled in from both sides and the push and pull of the fight was like the battering of the sea.
A heavy push broke the spell, and she felt the ocean of men shunt her back as the northerners pushed forward. She had lost her footing completely, relying only on the weight of the men behind her to keep her upright. She felt her comrades push forward again and she was pressed so hard into the soldier in front of her that she feared her ribs would crack. Her arm was stuck up high and any hope of a clean fight had turned into utter chaos. A burst of burning flames exploded into the pack in front of her and she felt the wave of searing heat hit her full force before the screaming of men pierced the battle cries. A second explosion flared up and a rough hand grabbed her by the collar and yanked her back through the press of men.
“Pull her back!” cried the Jarl, and she was looking at her father’s broken nose and flowing blood.
“Shieldwall around me!” he cried, and Harald pulled her back to her feet and behind the men forming up.
“The gate has fallen,” he yelled at Harald with wild eyes. “Hold the main street…”
“No!” Isolde cried as the flood of invaders crashed against the thin wall of shields in front of them.
Sigurd put an armoured hand on Isolde’s shoulder and looked deep into her eyes.
“I love you,” he said.
She watched him turn back to the fight, his sword raised high as Harald pulled her into the city. She screamed at them both, she fought against Harald’s grip so she might fight and die with her father, but Harald was too strong. She watched as the shieldwall was strengthened by the mere presence of their Jarl, she saw his soldiers hold the flood at the bay, and before Harald dragged her out of sight, she saw her father turn back and his loving eyes caught her own for the last time.
***
The first of the great boulders from the sky smashed its way through the wall of the building beside them. The dark, jagged stone was larger than any man and rolled harmlessly out into the street with its path of destruction laid out behind it. The thing had torn through the roof and side of one of the inns, leaving a gaping wound in the side of the half-timbered building. Isolde and Harald stood in shock, staring at the dead rock laid out before them as another missile of molten oil exploded against the blacksmith’s home just down the road. The flaming liquid spat up and hissed against the rendered wood and forced the damp building to burst into flames.