Raven

by Giles Kristian

  Slowly, Sigurd lowered the warrior’s now still body to the swirling sand and we turned to Floki, who had shrugged free of Olaf and was glaring at Sigurd.

  ‘That was for me to do, Sigurd!’ he spat. ‘He was my kinsman. He expected me to do it.’ His sword was still raised and for a moment I sensed it still hungered for carnage.

  ‘I am his jarl, Floki,’ Sigurd replied, a snarl curling his lips, ‘he was oath-tied to me.’ Sigurd held up the blade which he had sunk into Halldor’s heart. Its bone handle, like the jarl’s hand, was slick with blood and I could see fog rising from it, vanishing into the night. ‘This was my right. Halldor had faced his own death for long enough and as straight-backed as any man could hope to. He did not need to stand there all night, eyeballing the sword that would bite his flesh. It is over.’ Sigurd looked to the rest of us. ‘We will meet Halldor at the high end of the All-Father’s hall, each in our own time.’ He glanced down at the body, at the puffed-up, dead face of one of his Fellowship. ‘It is over,’ he repeated tiredly, the words granite-heavy.

  Floki loosened the cords in his neck and nodded shallowly, sheathing his sword. Then he went over to his cousin’s lifeless body and Svein offered to help him carry it but Floki would not take any help, lifting Halldor alone and hauling him over his shoulder before taking him off to prepare the corpse for the pyre.

  ‘Back to your beds, ladies,’ Olaf said, hawking and spitting as an end to the whole rancid thing. ‘We’ll be rowing tomorrow if Njörd keeps farting in this direction.’

  ‘And while we’re rowing that whoreson Halldor will already be rinsing his beard with Óðin’s sweetest mead,’ Bram moaned to Svein, who conceded that to be a fair point, as they started back up the beach behind Asgot, Olaf and Cynethryth. Sigurd came over to me, his eyes gleaming dully in the half light.

  ‘Next time I ask you to find something shiny, bring me an arm ring or a handful of silver,’ he said, ‘not an old lump of bone.’

  ‘Yes, lord,’ I said, scratching my beard, but Sigurd was already walking down to the frothing sea to wash away the blood.

  CHAPTER THREE

  AT DAWN SIGURD STOOD AT SERPENT’S STERNPOST AND SAID SOME words about Halldor. Mainly he spoke of his bravery and how well he had died, albeit after suffering the way he had.

  ‘The Norns spun a dark skein for our brother Halldor,’ Sigurd said, to which many murmured agreement, ‘but in the end he died as we all hunger to die, amongst our brothers, with a good sword in our hands. Even the Spinners cannot always cheat us of this right.’

  We made a pyre for Halldor and laid him on it with the things he would need on the other side of Bifröst, the Rainbow-Bridge, and in one hand the corpse gripped his sword and in the other it grasped the Týr carving Sigurd had given him at the end. But even in death poor Halldor could not shrug off his ill-wyrd, for as soon as we had lit the sea-smoothed white driftwood beneath the corpse, the pitch-black clouds overhead began to spill stinging rain, with streaks of lightning and cracks of thunder loud enough to flay the skin from a man’s bones. For a long time the wood just steamed and even when a flame defied the deluge it did nothing more than singe the corpse above it. For all of us gathered round, huddled pathetically in furs and skins, it was a sorry scene and there must have been many warriors there who shivered with the fear that they might one day suffer such a pitiful rite.

  Eventually, though, Bothvar remembered that we still had a couple of pails of seal’s fat somewhere and when these were found we slathered handfuls over the wood and smeared it on to Halldor’s cloak and even into his beard. Olaf added some old dry lumps of pine resin to the flames and eventually the wood caught, for which we were all relieved, as much for the warmth of it as anything. A dirty column of smoke rose to meet the low-slung clouds and the water which had puddled in the sand hissed and steamed where it met the fire’s edge, and we watched from that blaze’s shadow, talking in low voices when the thunder would let us be heard, as the wood crackled and hissed and popped and Halldor’s corpse blistered and burnt.

  ‘If I’m killed you’re to make Father Egfrith say some words over me,’ Penda said, staring into the flames, water dripping from his woollen cloak, ‘and make sure they bury me properly. Nice and deep.’ He grimaced. ‘You can help them with the digging, I don’t want some dog digging me up and chewing on me, but leave the rest of it to Egfrith.’

  I looked at the scar that ran the length of Penda’s face, a wound which could easily have seen him as dead as Halldor.

  ‘I’ll dig you a hole deep enough to bury Svein standing up,’ I said, ‘and screw Egfrith. I’ll speak for you, Penda. It would be an honour.’ He looked at me dubiously. ‘I’ll say, today we bury Penda. He was a bastard.’

  He spat into the rain. ‘That’ll do,’ he said through a half grin, turning back to watch as Halldor’s beard burst into bright orange flame.

  We waited another two days on that miserable beach for the wind to die down a little and when eventually it did, we dug the ships free of the sand we had piled around them to stop them rocking, and prepared to sail. We had managed to catch plenty of fish, mackerel mainly, but also some hooked from the sea-grass beds in the shallows that were flat and shaped like giant’s eyes but which tasted better than any fish I had ever eaten. We hung soaking furs over the sheer strakes to dry in the wind and we took to our benches, eager to put more of that treacherous, storm-lashed coast behind us and find smoother waters. We rowed for a while, until we were out in the depths and clear of the winds that swirled within the shadow of that rocky shore. Then all four ships hoisted their sails and we rested and worked in shifts, bailing or hauling the sheets, or else played tafl or watched wind-jumbled sea birds and the endless coast slip by.

  In the next days we made good progress, mooring in the mouths of sheltered inlets at night and continuing on at dawn or when the wind allowed, thus decreasing the risk of being attacked by rock-hurling locals. At last the weather turned kinder. The grey sea, which had heaved and surged as though the rolling coils of Jörmungand stirred beneath, settled to an ill-tempered swell. The rain that had seemed sharp enough to pierce the skin on your face weakened to a steady drizzle that you hardly noticed, and men began to throw insults around again, which is a sure sign that they are happy. But the end of the storm gave Sigurd time to worry about another problem, and that problem was the Danes.

  ‘They need war gear,’ Sigurd said to Olaf one dusk, watching the sun slip out of reach of Sköll’s jaws behind the rim of the world. We were moored in the shelter of a rocky cove where the water was calm and the fishing good.

  ‘Aye, they do,’ Olaf said, chewing meat from one of the few remaining smoked pig legs. ‘Because at the moment they’re as useful to us as tits on a bull.’

  Sigurd glanced across at the Danish ships, whose crews seemed in good spirits despite what we’d been through. I guessed that to men who had thought they would rot to stinking mush in Frankia, a faceful of storm was an improvement. ‘They’ll stand in the shieldwall if it comes to it,’ Sigurd said with a nod.

  ‘Then they’ll stand in the last bloody row,’ Olaf moaned, ‘and I’ll have their guts for twine if they stick any of us with their rusty bloody spears!’

  For we had seen smoke palling in the sky beyond a promontory swathed in holm oak, yew and willow, and there was enough of it to suggest a large settlement. Sigurd was aware that his men needed something to get their blood pumping hot again and there was nothing that could do that better than a fight and the chance for plunder. But he knew nothing of the land here or its people, and without decent war gear the Danes would be vulnerable if we ran into proper fighting men.

  Olaf’s teeth dragged his beard across his bottom lip. ‘I haven’t seen them in a scrap yet, Sigurd,’ he said dubiously. ‘Even if they had good gear we don’t know if they know how to use it. Thór’s hairy arse! I’ve seen more meat on a sparrow’s kneecap than on most of those Danes. A stiff breeze would carry them off.’

  ‘They’ll stand
, Uncle,’ Sigurd said. ‘But I won’t ask them to fight without swords and helmets. Not until we know what sort of men those hearths belong to.’

  ‘So what’s your plan, Loki?’ Olaf baited, looking back to the Danes berthed the other side of Fjord-Elk. ‘You want to send Floki to sniff it out?’

  Sigurd pursed his lips but said nothing and so Olaf turned to Yrsa. ‘Get off your arse, lad, and fetch that miserable whoreson Floki,’ he said, taking a comb from his belt and dragging it through his beard with a grimace. ‘And fetch us something to wet our throats.’ Yrsa nodded.

  ‘Floki is not aboard, Uncle,’ Bag-eyed Orm said. He was pissing over the side and the hot fluid was fogging the evening air. ‘He was ashore before the anchor thumped the seabed. Haven’t seen him since.’

  The comb went still in Olaf’s hand as his brows arched. And Sigurd grinned.

  * * *

  Floki returned when a thin crimson was all that remained in the western sky. He was announced by the squawks of the black-faced gulls that bustled on the rocks we had moored up to and I knew he would have hated that, for Floki was a warrior who thrived on stealth. He was the kind of man who believed he could steal Óðin’s beard without the All-Father feeling the breeze on his cheeks. Now, he climbed aboard, naked but for his breeks, and shook the salt water from his long crow-black hair. The only weapon he had taken ashore was the long knife he now wiped dry with a linen strip before doing anything else. But even with a knife Floki was someone you would be a fool to take on. He was like the Wessexman Penda in that way: as dangerous as thin ice on a lake. A born killer.

  ‘You greedy snot hogs better have saved me something to eat,’ he said to no one in particular, scrubbing his face with the linen. Arnvid blanched, suddenly realizing he had already shared out the last of the smoked meat and cheese. He would now have to tell Floki that all there was was dried fish and some stale mead. Which was another reason the pall of smoke had tempted Sigurd into that cove – we needed food.

  ‘You rancid goat turd, Arnvid!’ Floki said, fathoming the dread in the man’s face. ‘I’m freezing my balls off out there while you’re tucked up tighter than a hedgehog’s arsehole and when I get back some putrid prick has eaten my share.’ The scars criss-crossing Floki’s torso and arms were puckered and white from the cold water and he shivered, grimacing at Arnvid before turning to bring his report to Sigurd who was waiting, arms folded, his beard hanging in a single thick braid and his golden hair loose.

  ‘You can send someone else next time, Sigurd,’ Floki moaned as he leant against the hull to pull on his boots.

  ‘If I sent someone else you would whine even more,’ Sigurd said, sharing a knowing look with Olaf.

  Floki accepted that with a grunt. ‘Well, you can at least save me something to eat for the love of Eir. My belly thinks my throat’s been cut.’

  ‘A wise man does not overfeed his best hunting dog,’ Sigurd said, winking at Olaf who stifled a grin. ‘But if you have good news for me we shall all have full bellies soon enough.’

  Now it was Floki’s turn to grin, his head appearing from a new, dry tunic.

  ‘We’ll soon be as fat as you, Uncle,’ he said.

  Twenty Danes would be the bait and I suppose that made the others the hook. Sigurd had not used that word ‘bait’ – he had said ‘anvil’. The Danes were the anvil and the rest of the Fellowship was to be the hammer. But I saw them as bait, which was probably because I was amongst them and that is what it felt like to me as we rowed Sea-Arrow out of the gathering dark right up to the jetty, thumping her hull against it. At least Penda was with me, for he relished the chance to wet his sword and had asked to come, and I was glad to have him. We and the twenty Danes had sailed Sea-Arrow round the promontory, leaving the Wolfpack in the quiet cove, and it had not been long before we had come to a wide bay in which a dozen or so fishing skiffs bobbed peacefully. The low shore threw out several wharves along which more boats were berthed, betraying a decent-sized settlement beyond the barren low rise.

  ‘It’s not good fishing around here by the looks,’ Penda had said with a wicked grin as the fishing skiffs scattered from us like fleas from a flame, and now we climbed on to the jetty with what poor weapons we had: spears mostly, though there were some axes and a couple of hunting bows. None wore brynjas but Penda and I had insisted on bringing our swords at least, though our helmets were still aboard Serpent.

  ‘What sort of men are they?’ a Dane named Agnar asked, touching the amulet at his neck and spitting. The locals, who had been waiting to see who we might be, were now pounding away up the wharves and they were like no men we had ever seen. Their skin was bluish black like that of a man who has been a week in his grave. Their beards were black or grey, and they wore what appeared to be piles of linen on their heads.

  ‘I have never seen their like before,’ Rolf, the Danes’ leader, said, hurling a spear after one of them and missing. ‘They look like dead men!’

  ‘Draugar!’ another Dane agreed, ‘risen from the grave.’

  ‘They run well for dead men,’ I said, breaking into a run myself, and we pounded up the wharf after those strange blue men – blaumen – leaving four of the Danes to guard Sea-Arrow under the command of a man named Ogn.

  ‘Bloody legs feel like they belong to someone else!’ Penda shouted as we ran, but he was grinning like me because we were loosed to the hunt and our prey was terrified and we felt the thrill of it coursing in our veins. We were fast, too, even on sand and sea legs. Without brynjas and shields we ate up the ground and I surged with a rare joy from the freedom of not being aboard Serpent.

  A Dane howled in delight as he dragged an old grey-beard to the white sand and I saw a bloom of red amongst undyed robes. We ran on through the deepening night, past discarded fishing nets and baskets of catch and upturned skiffs, up on to a hard-baked scrubland of stunted trees. The ululating cries of the dark men carried into the growing darkness and it was a strange, animal sound. But like hunted animals they were making the fatal mistake of leading us to their lair, which was a great clutter of white stone houses and brushwood lean-tos, patchily lit by torches and bowls of flame.

  An arrow streaked towards us from an unseen archer. Then another shaft whipped through the air an arm’s length from my right cheek and I was tempted to yell ‘Shieldwall’ and seek the safety of cohesion. But we were a raiding party, not a war band, and we had come without our heavy shields. If we made the skjaldborg we would just present a large soft target for arrows and spears.

  In a narrow torch-lit alley a Dane crouched over a dead man, unwinding the linen from his victim’s head and cawing in bewilderment as the shroud kept coming, seemingly endless. The Danes were now amongst the dwellings, their stuttering, misshapen shadows playing monstrously on the white walls as they kicked down doors and dragged dark-skinned women, blauvifs, out into the night.

  ‘Raven!’ Penda yelled, pointing his spear at the north-east. ‘Looks like we might have a fight!’ The Wessexman’s eyes glinted and the scar on his face glistened white in the glow of an enormous moon.

  ‘Here they come!’ I roared and some of the Danes let go of the women they had caught and ran to me, eager for a real fight, which was just as well because among the dark-skinned men gathering some held shields which must have been covered in metal, for I could see flame reflected in them. There were already seven or eight but more were coming and some of these were stringing bows to join the two archers already loosing shafts.

  ‘How can a man be that colour and still breathing?’ one of the Danes asked, shaking his head.

  ‘They want us to come to them,’ Penda said.

  ‘Makes sense,’ I said, for their number was growing and the blaumen must have known that the longer we waited the more of them we would have to fight. ‘We’ll have to go to them,’ I said in Norse to Rolf, ‘and the sooner the better.’

  Rolf pursed his thin lips and scratched a hollow, bearded cheek.

  ‘Makes me wonder what’s inside Ge
rd’s Tit,’ he said, nodding towards a strange building. Some chuckled at that because Gerd is a beautiful giantess whom Frey the god of rain and sunshine humped to the cost of his self-wielding sword. It was a good name, I thought, given the building’s shape.

  ‘That’s what they’re protecting,’ he went on, ‘not their women.’ And Rolf was right, for the robed men seemed reluctant to stray from this stone building that was the size of three or four dwellings put together and whose roof was as round and smooth as Bragi’s head. A wooden walkway encircled the swell of the roof and that was lit by torches, so that you could see the place from far and wide, even at night.

  ‘I’ll wager there’s silver in there, lad. Maybe even gold.’

  ‘Call your men, Rolf,’ I said, eyeing the enemy, trying to weigh up their willingness to take us on. Some of them had decent war gear by the looks of it, but we still outnumbered them overall. ‘We need every Danish spear we’ve got,’ I said. ‘If we don’t strike now they will grow brave.’

  ‘We’ve got to hit the whoresons now,’ Penda hissed, ‘before they find their balls.’

  ‘I know,’ I growled, but a handful of the Danes were still looting the dwellings and from the sound of the screams some of them were getting to know the local women. One of the dark men was encouraging the others, waving his arms towards us and screaming like a madman. It’s got to be now, I thought. So I gnarred at Óðin Spear-Shaker to flood me with the battle frenzy and then I turned to Penda. ‘Are you coming or not, you Christ-loving sheep-swiver?’ I said, a spear in one hand, my sword in the other, and then I yelled as though I wanted to wake the dead and I ran towards my enemies.

  There is a joy in battle: a voracious, reckless, savage joy, which strips us of dignity and care and all of the things that raise us above beasts. There is fear, too, but when the blood starts flying that fear is swallowed by the hunger to kill, because whatever you kill cannot kill you.