by Jason Born
“Speak,” ordered Gudruna.
“We’re close. Across the river the plain gradually rises up out of this slurry as you move south. There are even some late crops still standing in the field where farmers were able to walk without sinking up to their knees. Then, Dunadd rises up out of the earth. It sits there. It’s a fortress on a rock. It’s got two rows of outer curtain walls made from stone. Inside each of those, I saw simple structures, small houses and the like. Higher up the hill, two more rows of curtain walls act as an open air keep.”
Several men whistled in awe at the description. A harsh glance from Godfrey shut them up.
“Tell me about sentries and activity,” said the king.
“Fires burned brightly throughout the fort. I heard laughter and singing. There were many men, but I have no idea about numbers. I saw sentries walking around the curtain walls. There were a few men walking down the paths of the plain, but I avoided them. We won’t go in unnoticed,” warned Loki.
“We were invited so I don’t think that Maredubb will be surprised if we show up at his doorstep,” said Killian.
“Where are all Maredubb’s ships if he’s here? Wouldn’t he have come in the same way?” I asked.
“Likely no,” said Killian. “We came from Lismore to the north. If he came directly from Anglesey, Maredubb’s vessels are strewn about on the southern coast.”
“If he’s even here,” muttered Godfrey.
“He’s here,” said Aoife. She was blanketed with mud and mosquito bumps from the walk in. The men ignored her. I furrowed my brow at the girl.
Godfrey agreed with her though. “He’s here. The only question I have is how we take that hill without a prolonged siege. We’re not equipped for the coming cold. We’re not a big enough force to encircle it.”
“Aye,” said Killian. “There’s a well on the hill. They could sit there a long while.”
We looked at one another, each hoping the other would have an answer. No one did.
“When I saw Dunadd from a distance long ago, I thought I recall seeing that the River Add passed closely by the fort. But you say that we’ve got to cross a plain,” said Godfrey, trying to find out any way to easily overcome its defenses.
“Add turns. It flows north past the hill, then turns west to wind its way to the sea. The walls of the hill fort directly face that side. The other sides of the hill aren’t burdened with walls, for they don’t need to be. The natural slope of the hill is, well, it’s near vertical. Our heads would be shoved into a rain of steel if we tried any of the ways,” answered Loki.
“Yes, I remember that, now,” the king breathed. Godfrey’s knuckles turned white while he pulled on his beard and thought.
“Assault on two sides,” offered Randulfr. “That way if one of us fails, the other still has a chance.”
Leif shook his red head. “No matter their numbers, they’ll work on their interior lines and support their men wherever they are needed before we can even send word from one of our groups to the other. They’ll chop us up piecemeal. Both teams, in turn, would be defeated.”
Randulfr agreed quietly. He frowned at having been corrected by such a young man.
“The only way is straight on, hard and fast, like we did at Watchet,” said Godfrey, resolving himself to the carnage that would follow such an order. Gudruna gripped her king’s shoulder. She was nodding.
“Unless we did both,” I said.
Confused and more than a little perturbed, the men looked at me in the moonlight. Before anyone could protest, I laid out my plan. Loki, the only one of us who’d seen the fort up close, agreed that it could work. Leif agreed. Killian nodded, so did Brandr and Randulfr. The king and queen furrowed their brows.
Godfrey sucked a deep breath in through his nostrils. He reached into a pouch that hung from around his neck and pulled out his bundle of smooth rune stones. Killian muttered about blasphemy. The king cupped his hands together and rattled them. “Give me a dry surface,” said Godfrey. A man produced a jerkin and we stretched it between us and pulled it taut so that it became a tabletop. The king didn’t hesitate. He scattered the stones. Gudruna peeked over her king’s crouched form.
We had no real soothsayer of old among us so that it was up to Godfrey to read them himself. Two stones with their runes right side up rested directly in front of the king. I knew that upon seeing them, Godfrey would command us forward. We’d follow my plan and attack Dunadd. Evil grins from the king and his queen confirmed this.
The rune stones were gathered and returned to the bag that hung from Godfrey’s neck. He and the others began preparations to immediately move as I suggested. I sank down with my rump in the mud.
You see, Godfrey and Gudruna saw two runes face up. The first, the Teiwaz, told him to allow things to take their course. In other words, he ought to follow my proposals. The second rune, the Fehu, said that he should share his fortune with others. Well, he’d have nothing to share if the result of the battle was anything short of victory.
I had kneeled opposite the king as we stretched the jerkin. I saw the same two runes facing the king as plain as day. From my vantage point, they were reversed. The upside down Teiwaz warned against hasty actions. The transposed Fehu instructed us to avoid premature celebrations.
Which viewpoint was correct? I knew not.
And it mattered not, for my plan was already in motion.
. . .
I suppose it is fitting that I led a group of mostly miscreants across the river that night. What other type of men could I be expected to lead? Godfrey saw my value early on. He gave me a ring-pin for it. Mellow and friendly, quick to laugh, lover of women and ale, all of it described me when peace was at hand and the night surrounded the longhouse. When the dawn broke, however, and brought with it, not its traditional blanket of moisture, but instead a dew of swords, that is when Halldorr Olefsson gained in stature. I was a hard-nosed savage in the shield wall. In those times I had true value, for I gave my actions no thought. My body knew them long before my mind. Training didn’t give me this insight. Battle exercises honed my natural gifts as I aged, but practice certainly didn’t bestow on me my ability to wage war. It was Odin’s gift. That night as we splashed up the other side of the River Add, I asked Thor to thank his father for me.
Gone were my misgivings. What sense would it be to fret? Behind me crouched two dozen men. If I worried about the reading or misreading of the rune stones and the omens they might portend, I would do nothing but get the men killed. Oh, a raven swooped low, what does it mean? There, on the hillside, a stag proudly displayed his rack to us, will we win? Nonsense. We were fighting men, armed for war. We would take the hill fort. Or, we would not take the hill fort. The norns etched out our paths, each man’s different, though that night hundreds of lives intersected beneath the cloudless sky.
We skulked through a field of beans that had lost all of its leaves. Had we passed through during the day, much of our cover was gone. The darkness would have to be enough to hide our tiny force’s advance. The moon shined down on us so I made sure to tell the men to cover their mail and helmets with cloaks and hoods. The dried foliage that littered the ground crackled with each step no matter how careful we moved. The fat pods of dried beans rattled as we brushed past. We were not stealth. I could just hope that the men on the hill were blinded by their torchlight and made deaf by their singing. Even if just one of those were true, our insane plan might work.
I stopped the men. They were obedient to my raised hand and dropped lower. Three sentries passed by on the nearby path that led between two fields. The outer two argued with the first that he hogged all the ale. In answer, the middle guard tipped the pot back even further to chug as much as he could. He received a punch to the stomach, sprayed out his last mouthful, and lost the pot to the other men. They slowly ambled away.
“Why didn’t we kill them?” asked one of the Manx soldiers. His warm breath brushed my ear as he drew near, whispering. It was moist and rank. I pushed
him away.
“Because we don’t want to raise any suspicion if they don’t return. We don’t want to raise any alarm from our quarter,” I said. The alarm would come, to be sure. But Godfrey and the rest would force it to be raised. The king began moving out at the same time my little group left the swamp. Godfrey, however, had to stay in the Moine Mohr awhile longer, taking a circuitous route around the river until he was across from the walls of Dunadd. Once there, he would ford the brook or take a bridge if it was available. Neither Loki nor Godfrey knew what to expect. After getting the army across, with silence if possible, our king would rush the walls and gates. They’d use the ropes and grappling hooks we brought from the ships. There’d be no construction of ladders that night. There was no time. The sounds of a hundred axes felling trees would no doubt alert Maredubb exactly where we were afoot.
“Move,” I groaned as loudly as I dared. Our crackling and rattling resumed.
Godfrey’s was the larger force. It would be the loudest and boldest. It might fail in its attempt to storm the curtain walls. That was all taken into consideration. Our hope was that after many long moments of seeing that nothing came from the west – my small group’s target – that the fort’s commander would shift all but a few men to face Godfrey. My two dozen would scale the steep, rocky side of the hillock in the predawn darkness, find a way in, and create a foothold around the main gate. It seemed like an imprudent idea as I had spoken it aloud in the swamp. But Godfrey liked it. He was king. Gudruna loved it. She was queen. The rune stones guaranteed success in the monarchs’ eyes. The plan would be attempted.
I again held up my hand. We stopped and sank lower amid the dry, vertical stalks. It struck me that the coming winter was turning these late bean plants into skeletons of what they’d been in their prime, just weeks earlier. Those bones now stood in final defiance to the inevitable – their harvest by man or their last demise from the heavy snows of winter. How soon would my corpse be doing the same? Would I even see the next morning’s light?
I had hoped to get closer to the base of the hill, but dared not chance it. The field closest to the western side of the cliffs was long harvested. Short stubble was all that remained. Even a drunk sentry might be able to see us cross if we barreled toward our objective. Not knowing what else to do, I waited.
Patience is not a suit I wear well. Since becoming a follower of the One God, I understand it is a virtue. I truly believe it to be. I’ve even prayed for it on occasion. I wish it would come to me. If I could drink a cup and retain it forever, I would. Countless times, I thought to myself, you’ve got patience now, Halldorr. But all those times were mere fantasy. They occurred during times of plenty or peace. As soon as true patience was required, I wilted like a drought-plagued flower.
I huffed through my nose and gnawed on my cheek. I heard a few of the men chatting behind me. A stern stare shut them up. Other men shifted their weight from one foot to the other. They made a clattering sound of their armor, a crackling sound of the fallen leaves, and rattling sound from the dried beans. Though it was no more racket than we’d made for our entire journey, it was deafening to me. I jerked the Manx next to me and whispered into his ear with my fetid breath, “Tell those newcomers that if I hear one more peep from them, I’ll ram this rusty sword into their bellies before we even cross that field.”
The Manx hesitated, thinking that I wasn’t serious. After all, I had warned them about talking time and again that night. Why would one more warning be any different or more serious than the last? I hammered the pommel of my sword into his boot. He grunted, but immediately conveyed my message. The moving, adjusting, and babbling ceased. I at last felt patient.
The hill loomed fifty fadmr in front of us. I couldn’t make out the exact details of what we had to climb, so as we approached, we would just have to make quick decisions. At the top, I could see the back of a pair of the curtain walls. These would be the ones that formed the Dal Riatan’s version of a keep, open air. But, roofs or not, it would play that part if Godfrey’s battle pushed past the outer curtain walls. We meant to scale that cliff and jump over the walls.
Torches that were raised at intervals along the top of the walls splashed light outward. The light didn’t travel far, however. The bright flames would likely also make the guards, whose heads I could just see sticking above the stone walls, truly blind to our movements. As any lad who has ever peeped into the hall of fair maiden can attest, if a roaring fire is near her, he can approach all the way to the door without being noticed. I had stolen more than a few glances at the bewitching Freydis over the years. I had even peeked a time or two at Leif’s mother. Even though Thjordhildr was nearly old, thirty-five I think, her shape alone gave reason enough to call to me as a young lad. In any event, I hoped that the idiot soldiers of Maredubb’s army would be just as blind to our whereabouts.
My patience was gone again. All was quiet except for the lingering revelry from the fort. It echoed up off the walls and settled down upon us on the low plain. Was the night almost gone? How long had we waited? I looked to the sky to see where the dragon constellation sat. Instead of finding stars, I swore I saw a brightening sky. I mumbled a few curses about the king’s progress and squinted to peer over the fort toward the east and the sun.
No, it was just the light of those damned torches.
A lone shout rang out. Whoever called it had booming lungs. The voice ended in a painful sounding gurgle. More voices erupted, splitting the night. I heard a thunder of hooves, the footfalls of men, warriors who meant to take a hill. Godfrey’s war call wasn’t distinguishable from the hundreds of others, but I could picture him. He would have his shining blade drawn. Godfrey would be screaming with spittle running down his beard. His eyes would be wide. He would be more alive than at any other time in his life, for he was entering battle. I smiled to myself as I thought about my king. Godfrey was made in the mold of Thor. He was not Odin, gifted with a love of poetry and verse. He was a trickster. He was jolly. Godfrey was quick to anger and quicker to forgive his men. I was one of his soldiers and it made me proud. Even the bastards behind me were his men. They were my men, too, and I would lead them to victory.
Only once again, I needed patience.
. . .
The key was to wait just long enough. Sit too long and Godfrey could be wiped out completely. Run too quickly and Maredubb might have too many eagle-eyed guards surveying the west for an army. Wait, I told myself.
Voices from above us called to and fro. Captains barked orders. I heard scrambling feet. The lights became brighter behind the walls. Good, I thought, the buffoons are lighting more fires, ensuring they will be so blind to our approach that victory is already in my jerkin’s pocket.
Then the sky itself belched to life – and light.
Dozens of arrows, alight, sprang over those walls. They arced high up into the sky. It was a beautiful sight and I was struck dumb while I watched. We were in their range. I came to my senses just as they reached their apogee. “Shields,” I grunted. “Quiet. They still may not know we’re here.”
We scraped and clanged. Metal bosses and rims banged against swords and spears as we brought up our bark. We were loud, but this time I had no fear of being heard. Godfrey’s attack on the east was deafening.
The burning arrows began to fall. They landed well short. They clustered in just a few places as if the men had been aiming at designated targets. They were. With the help of the new source of light in the field, I could now see that in the hill’s shadow, the defenders had piled dry tinder in great heaps. The arrows pierced the mounds. Some went deep between branches. Others landed with grand thuds when they struck fat logs. The fires borne by the missiles dispersed. The fodder for the coming conflagration was perfectly set. The vast bundles of wood sparked to life. The field before us would soon be as well lit as midday.
“Back,” I snarled. I drew my shield under my chest and turned my ass to the hill. Under our cloaks we fled from the prying eyes of the fire
s’ light.
We ran thirty fadmr. “Stop,” I said. Each man in our group turned around. But the men had all turned around to look at me, not the growing spectacle of light. What were my orders? They didn’t ask. They didn’t have to. Their faces said it all.
I stuck my head up out of the beans and looked for inspiration. Trees! My homeland was a world of trees. My people were master woodworkers and shipwrights. The trees would work. They’d save us all. “Skirt the field,” I rasped. “To those trees on the south.” I stood and ran before I even saw if they understood.
In short order, I burst into the line of trees. It was made of old growth adders with thick thorns growing at the base. The line was thin and long. It was a boundary between two fields. It was perfect for us. The rest of my men poked through. More than one man lost his cloak to the thorns. Mine remained. It made no matter whether we had them or not. I thought they were no longer needed.
“Follow,” I said. We hunched over and pounded on toward the east and the southern tip of the hill.
By now the fires blazed. Our initial field of approach was impossible if we had wanted to proceed unseen. From our new position, however, we had just a few paces from the edge of the tree line to the face of the cliffs. “Crouch and move fast. We’re so close to the hill now, they won’t see us. They scan the west for an army. They won’t look under their noses for ants.”
I don’t know if my talk made any sense. I just bent forward and ran. I rolled into the base of the cliff and waited for shouts from above or a hail of missiles. None came.
My men looked at me from the tree line. I frantically waved them on. The Manx with the squalid breath took a last glance up to the walls, kissed the cross that hung from his neck, and ran. He made it safely. The rest came in ones and twos. None of us were seen.
I stole a look over a boulder. We could approach the keep walls from where we lay, but the slope was too gentle. They’d see us coming. Three archers or six men with javelins could hold us off for days. We had to crawl northward along the western edge to our original target.