I stopped and strung my bow, then moved cautiously forward, an arrow nocked on the string. The ground changed underfoot, and I found myself walking across the uneven surface of a plowed field. As I drew nearer, I realized that the dim shapes ahead of me must be the remains of buildings from a small village, perhaps ten or twelve houses. They were much smaller than the great longhouse I’d grown up in, smaller even than the compact dwellings in Hedeby. Some must have been little more than hovels.
The village was situated along the bank of a small river. All of its buildings had been burned. Now there were only mounds of ash, with low charred stumps marking where the structures’ corner and door posts had once stood. When I touched the ashes, no warmth still lingered. The remains of a single hut still smoldered, the coals from the long, center ridge beam of its roof having been banked by the collapsing structure’s own ashes. The beam lay across a body. I could not tell if was a man or a woman. Whatever clothing once had once covered it had been burned away by the fire, and the corpse’s skin was black and charred.
I knew this village must have been attacked by one of our raiding parties. The ground in and around the village was covered with the prints of horses’ hooves. I was surprised they had ranged so far from Ruda.
As I wandered through the remains of the village, I passed another body, this one clearly a man. Two dogs feeding at his carcass bared their teeth and growled at me, but when I did not molest them they put their heads down and resumed their meal. Other bodies lay scattered about, too, all showing signs that they had fed the dogs or carrion birds. I passed the body of an old woman lying on her back. Her skull had been split, no doubt by a sword or axe, and the ground around her head was stained in a dark halo. Her eyes, now empty sockets picked clean by the ravens, stared sightlessly up at the sky.
Why had she been cut down? I could not picture this old woman as an enemy who threatened the land of the Danes. None of these simple farmers, lying slain among the ruins of their homes, could have posed any threat to our people. Were these the foe we had traveled so far to fight?
A noise to my right startled me out of my thoughts. Something or someone was moving among the ruins. Was it a man, a beast, or a spirit of the dead? My stomach knotted, and sweat sprang out on my forehead as I spun and brought up my bow.
A chicken strutted forward around the corner of one of the burned houses. How it had escaped the raiders, I could not imagine. Perhaps in the confusion of the attack it had flown away into the fields. I wondered if it approached me now out of loneliness for human contact, or if it just saw me as less threatening than the wild dogs that now roamed the village.
Alas, it had misjudged me. I was a predator, too. I needed more than the dried salted pork in my food pouch to give me strength to travel. I shot the poor bird, gutted it, and tied its body by its feet to my belt. I laid the chicken’s entrails in a small pile on the top of a charred post at the corner of a hut, and said a prayer of thanks to whichever God or spirit had sent the bird my way. Perhaps it was the fylgja.
Leaving the ruined village, I followed the tracks of the raiding party for a short distance. Just beyond the village, they had forded the little river at a rocky shallow where the water was no more than ankle-deep, then headed north and west, cutting across country toward the Seine and Ruda. In the soft, damp earth on the far side of the ford, I could see, even in the dim moonlight, that interspersed among the hoof prints of the raiding party’s mounts were the tracks of cattle, sheep, and swine, plus a number of human footprints. The latter were mostly small in size, probably women and children. These tracks, I realized, represented the raiders’ plunder from their attack on the village, being driven in a mixed herd toward our army’s base at Ruda.
Like the Seine, the small river I’d just crossed was lined with a belt of trees. But beyond, the land again reverted to mostly open plain. I stood at its edge wondering where to head now.
Looking down, I realized I was standing astride a single set of tracks left by a shod horse. They came from the direction of the open plain, and behind me merged into the broad, muddled track left by the party of raiders. Who had this solitary rider been? Stooping low to follow the thin trail left by his mount’s hooves, I backtracked along his path.
I’d traveled less than the distance of a spear’s throw when I found the answer to the mystery. The single rider’s trail led back to a wide, trampled track left by a second large group of mounts. These riders had remained across the river from the village, and a little distance away from the path left by the retreating Danes. Their trail led off across the plain, parallel to the course the raiding party had traveled.
My pulse quickened. This second group of horsemen had to have been Franks. I felt sure of it. The single rider who’d ridden away from their group was following the trail left by the raiders’ passing. The rest of the mounted force of Franks was traveling off to the side, so as not to damage the spoor he followed.
I hesitated. With Frankish cavalry abroad upon the plain, by the time daylight lit these open lands I needed to have reached cover. Yet here was the first hard evidence I’d found of the Franks’ forces. If I followed the trail of this troop of cavalry, they might eventually lead me to the main army. Reluctantly, I set out after them, moving at a brisk trot across the plain.
Because they were driving prisoners and livestock, the pace of the raiding party must have been very slow. The Franks, unencumbered, would have moved far more swiftly. Even so, the Danes must have had a long lead, for the hunters did not catch up with their prey quickly. I wondered whether the Frankish patrol would have found the track of the raiding party at all, had they not burned the village, announcing their presence by the smoke that had no doubt been visible for miles around.
The sky was already beginning to lighten in the east by the time I first saw signs that the Danes had realized they were being hunted. The tracks on the ground bore mute witness to what had happened. Once they caught sight of the pursuing Franks, the raiders had wisely chosen to abandon their plunder and try to save their own lives. Their horses had sped away from the huddled captives and cattle at a gallop. From the chopped and trampled turf, I could see where the main body of Franks had swept past the huddled cluster of livestock and freed prisoners in hot pursuit.
The sky was rapidly growing brighter now. I hurried along the track of the fleeing Danes and their Frankish hunters, increasing my pace to a loping run.
Most of the horses our army had captured were farm animals, bred more for pulling plows than sustained speed. They must have been badly outclassed by the Franks’ mounts. I had not traveled much farther along the path of their flight before I began to pass the bodies of Danes. Most were pierced by spear thrusts, usually in the back—grim evidence of the Franks’ skill and deadliness on horseback.
As with most pursuits, it was a one-sided slaughter. Only once did I come upon any sign of a Frankish casualty, and that was but a horse—clearly a Frankish cavalryman’s mount by its trappings—slain by a sword cut to the head. It was slim and well-muscled, much taller than the horses bred in the land of the Danes.
The sun was edging above the horizon when I reached the site of the raiders’ final stand. Ahead of me on the plain, I could see a dark mound. As I drew nearer, I saw that the Danes, no doubt realizing they could never outrun their pursuers, had chosen to make a fight of it. They’d dismounted and slain their horses, cutting their throats or stabbing them so their bodies fell in a rough circle.
Their final shield-ring had been formed inside the low barricade of dead mounts, in the hope that the bodies of the horses would be enough of an obstacle to keep the attacking cavalry from charging over them. The hacked, bloody corpses of sixteen Danes lay there. The Franks had made no effort to bury their enemy’s dead.
These last members of the raiding party, in their final stand, appeared to have taken some of the Frankish cavalry with them into the afterworld. No bodies of Frankish warriors had been left behind, but several patches of grass outs
ide the circle of dead horses and men were heavily stained with blood, offering mute witness. Four of the fine Frankish mounts lay dead. Also around the outskirts of the ring I found a Frankish helm, cloven through and soaked with gore, and a Danish spear, its shaft snapped but its sharp head covered with blood. Two abandoned Frankish shields had been shattered by mighty blows.
The eyes of the dead Danish warriors were gone, eaten by carrion birds, and the flesh of their faces was pecked and torn. They had died far from their homes and their families, and their bodies would never be buried or burned. I wondered if their spirits were doomed to forever wander this foreign land.
Beyond the site of the battle, perhaps three bowshots away, stood a small copse of trees. I wondered if the raiding party had been trying to reach it. The tracks of the Franks led in that direction. Had they had camped there after the fight, to tend to their wounded? I wondered if they were still there now.
For a moment I considered throwing myself to the ground and lying among the dead, hoping to hide myself among the bodies. I realized as soon as the thought came to me it would be a foolish plan. If they were still within the circle of trees, the Franks would surely have posted sentries. Anyone watching would have seen me standing here beside the pile of dead, for the grassy plain was fully lit now by the rays of the rising sun.
The copse of woods was the only cover in sight. I had to go there. I had to find a place to hide during the daylight hours. If Franks lurked hidden in the undergrowth, waiting—if that was the fate the Norns had woven for me—there was no way to escape. I laid an arrow across my bow, nocked it on the string, and began a slow, cautious walk toward the trees.
12 : Dangerous Sausages
The Franks had been there, but they were gone. The ground in and around the small stand of trees and brush had been heavily trampled by horses and men. Three charred circles surrounded by stones marked where they’d built their cook fires.
I was exhausted, but ravenous, too. My hunger won out over my fatigue. I plucked the chicken I’d brought, cut it into pieces, and roasted them one by one over a tiny fire. I made certain to add only a few twigs at a time to the flames, to prevent creating a telltale plume of smoke. I did not intend to repeat the mistake that had cost the raiding party their lives.
I ate half of the chicken while it was fresh and warm, together with a thick slab of Wulf’s bread. The other half I saved for my evening meal. I washed my food down with a few swallows of water, and thought longingly of ale—the fine ale Hastein had offered me in his quarters, or even the weak ale Wulf had served.
My waterskin was getting dangerously light. I should have filled it when I crossed the river by the ruined village. When night came and I traveled again, I would need to find water.
After I ate, I climbed a tree and surveyed the plain around me. The only movement I saw was back where the Danish raiders had made their final stand. With the coming of day, carrion birds had returned to their grisly feast at the site of the battle.
When I climbed down, I wrapped myself in my cloak, crawled under a bush whose low, overhanging branches would at least partially conceal me, and tried to rest. But although I was weary from my long trek, I chased sleep with little success far into the morning. Every time I began to doze off, some small distraction—the chirping of a bird, the buzzing of a bee, the tickle of a fly landing on my face—startled me awake again.
Exhaustion finally overwhelmed my nerves. But even then, my sleep was not restful. I was visited in my dreams by the spirit of the old woman whose body I’d seen in the village. With the eye of my mind I saw her standing at the edge of the grove where I slept. Though I remained motionless under the bush, hoping she would pass by, she entered the circle of trees and drew closer until she stood over me. Her hair was caked with blood and brains that had leaked from her split skull. I longed to run, but could not move.
“I know you are there, but I cannot see you,” she said, her empty eye sockets gaping as she turned her face toward where I lay. “I cannot tell. Are you a good man, or are you evil? Why are you here? Why have you come to this land?”
I tried to speak, to tell her I was sorry for the attack on her village, but no words would come. Finally a low moan escaped my lips.
The sound woke me. I was gasping for air and drenched with sweat. It was still hours before darkness would fall, but I abandoned further efforts to sleep. I feared the ghost of the old woman would surely come again if I dozed, for even in the bright afternoon sun I could not drive the image of her face from my thoughts.
While I waited for night to arrive I ate the rest of my chicken, and finished my bread, too. The remaining contents of my food pouch—the block of hard cheese and some slices of dried, salt-cured pork—were all the food I had left. Soon both hunger and thirst would become problems.
As I ate, I made plans. Hastein and Ivar would be back on the river tomorrow, keeping watch for the scouts. I wondered if any had been captured or killed yet by the Franks. I wondered where Einar was, and what he was doing.
I stood and began pacing the length of the copse, pondering what I should do. When I passed the site where I’d plucked and cooked the chicken that morning, a swarm of fat black flies, disturbed by my passing, flew up from the small pile of feathers, bones, and skin. I should have buried them, but I’d been too tired that morning to dispose of the rubbish from my meal.
Suddenly I turned and looked around me, searching every inch of the ground within the grove of trees. Nowhere had the earth been dug or disturbed. The same was true of the grassy plain immediately around the grove. I still felt certain, from the split and blood-soaked Frankish helm I’d seen, that at least one Frank, and perhaps more, had died in the final fight. But there were no graves. What had the Franks done with their bodies? And what of the Frankish wounded? Surely there had been some.
After climbing a tree again to scan the plain for danger, I ventured out and examined the trail the cavalry troop had left when they’d headed out across the plain. When I did, I found the answer to my questions.
Among the numerous hoof prints marking the horsemen’s trail, I found four pairs of shallow grooves running in long, unbroken lines. And I’d seen stumps in the patch of woods where the Franks had chopped down saplings—I’d mistakenly assumed to burn on their cook fires. I had been wrong. The Franks had built four horse-drawn litters to carry their dead and wounded.
If these Franks were carrying dead and seriously wounded with them, they would be returning to their camp—hopefully to the main army. Their trail would lead me there.
I set out at dusk. The broad track they’d left was easy to follow, even in the dark. I traveled all night like a silent shadow in their wake.
About midway through the night, the tracks led me to a small river. The Franks had turned there, and followed the river’s course. I hoped they would hold to it. Along the river I would have water and cover to hide in during the day. I might even find game to supplement my dwindling supply of food.
The Franks’ trail was still following the course of the river when dawn forced me to seek shelter in the trees and undergrowth that lined its banks. I stayed awake as long as I could, my bow strung and ready, in the hope that some beast or fowl might make an early morning visit to the river. None did. My fylgja—if indeed I had one—did not provide me with the fresh meat I craved and needed. Perhaps it was as tired as I was, too tired to send good fortune my way. At least I had no difficulty sleeping. The many miles I’d covered over the past two nights had exhausted me beyond dreaming.
I awoke as evening was approaching, and ate sparingly of my small store of dried meat and cheese. Looking out across the plain in the fading light, I realized that the land was becoming hillier, and patches of trees and undergrowth more frequently broke up the expanse of plain. What would this night’s journey bring?
It was still well before midnight when the tracks I was following led me over the top of a low ridge. The grassy plain ended ahead, at a solid line of trees. From
my vantage point atop the ridge, I could see the dark line of a road angling across the plain. The Franks’ trail veered over to the road. I followed, and the rough, dirt track led me into the woods. It was too dark under the shelter of the trees to read the ground for spoor, but it no longer mattered. The road itself was the trail I followed now.
After two nights on the open plain, I found it disorienting to travel through the dark forest with the light of the stars and moon blotted out and the trees pressing in around me. Unable, in the utter darkness, to measure how far I had traveled or how much time had passed, I was uncertain whether it was still early in the night, or if midnight had come and gone unnoticed.
Suddenly, in the distance ahead, I saw the flickering light of a fire—and then another. I ducked off the road and into the trees, strung my bow, then moved ahead again more slowly, slipping from trunk to trunk toward the lights.
Soon I realized that the flames were torches, carried by men pacing back and forth. As I drew nearer and details became discernible, I could see that they were Frankish warriors, for the light from their torches gleamed on the helms and armor they were wearing. Only the upper parts of their bodies—their chests and heads—were visible. The rest was hidden by a barricade built of felled trees. The crude wooden wall spanned the road, leaving only a narrow passageway in its center, just wide enough for a single man or horse to pass through. The ends of the log wall curved away from the road and into the darkness on either side.
Why had the Franks built this fortification here, on this rough roadway through the forest? Did the Frankish army lie beyond? I slipped through the trees, moving farther from the road, and dropped to my hands and knees to creep closer.
The simple fort protected the end of a low, stone bridge. The river I’d been following earlier had veered toward the west, and the road crossed it here.
Dragons from the Sea Page 17