Fin Gall

by James L. Nelson

  “For the sake of your neck, I suggest you follow,” he said, his voice calm as his equilibrium returned. He nudged his horse into a walk. The girl, her face a mask of unadulterated fury, struggled to her feet and followed behind. She had no choice if she did not care to be strangled.

  They headed off across the field, Magnus chaffing at the slow pace, since he could move no faster than the girl could walk, and she was doing nothing to help quicken the pace. He felt very exposed, out in the open, tied to the girl in that way.

  Hostage... he thought. He could not ride up to Máel Sechnaill mac Ruanaid dragging his daughter by the neck. He would not be welcomed as a hero that way.

  So he would have to find a place to stash her, go and find Máel Sechnaill, hope there was someone at Tara who could speak Danish. He cursed to himself.

  He had thought, on finding the girl, that his ill fortune was turning around, but now it seemed it was getting worse. He was not sure what to do with her now. And he couldn’t let her go either, let her go to her father and tell tales of what he had done, not if he wanted an alliance with Máel Sechnaill, which he did. Without Máel Sechnaill he would be alone in Ireland and as good as dead.

  I suppose I could always kill her, he mused. Hide her body, she would play no part in this...

  The more he thought on it, the more it seemed that might be the only way off this bear. He had thought the girl a gift from Odin, but now he wondered if Loki, that cunning trickster, had not arranged this. This was how the gods played with men, handing them a thing that looked like good fortune, then turning it all around.

  Perhaps kill her, bring her body to Máel Sechnaill, tell him I tried to save her from bandits...

  He could not decide, and the cuts on his face from the girl’s nails were starting to hurt. He stopped and slid off the horse and tied the rope that was around the girl’s neck to the horse’s reins. He took a skin of wine from where it hung on his saddle and with the corner of his tunic dabbed at the cuts on his face. The girl glared at him.

  “This is thanks to you,” he said. The girl spit out some words that did not sound like an apology.

  Magnus drank some of the wine, then fished out some of the dried meat he had taken from a traveler he met on the road. He squatted on his heels and ate. He held up a piece to the girl, an offering, and she spit at him.

  Magnus stood and stretched and would have loved to lie down but he did not dare as long as he had this Irish wildcat on her long leash.

  He walked some distance away and sat and pondered his circumstance, how to parlay this girl into the best advantage. After some time he stood again. Continue to Tara, see how things lay, he decided. He could come up with no better plan than that.

  He walked back to where his horse stood nibbling at the green, wet grass and the girl sat slumped on the ground. “Time for us to be on our way, my beauty,” Magnus said and the girl spat out some Irish curse. And then Magnus saw something move, far off, some motion across the field they had just traversed. He stood quite still and looked.

  It was a man. He was running toward them. He was still some ways off, but Magnus could see he had yellow hair and was carrying a staff, perhaps a spear.

  The girl turned and looked in the direction that Magnus was looking. If she knew who it was, she made no indication.

  Now what? Magnus thought. Whoever it was, he was coming for them. Is it her lover? One of her father’s men?

  He could not get away from this fellow at the pace he was moving, all but dragging the girl on the leash.

  Magnus sighed. Very well, I’ll kill this fool, he thought, irritated at yet another delay.

  He unsheathed his sword and worked the kinks out of his arms. The way the idiot was rushing headlong at him suggested that it would not be a long fight, anyway. He swung his shield off his shoulder and worked his hand through the straps and took hold of the handgrip behind the boss.

  No more than a boy... Magnus thought as he watched the attacker come on. He seemed to be dressed in the Norse fashion, which made the whole thing stranger still.

  The fellow was perhaps three perches away when Magnus braced for the attack. He was young and he did look to be a Viking and Magnus knew what would happen next. The fool, in his enthusiasm, would charge with the spear. Magnus would turn the point aside with his shield and extend his sword and the fool would run right on to it. He had done it a dozen times, fighting these untrained peasants.

  Ten paces away and the young idiot was still charging. Magnus smiled, just a bit, at the predictability of the whole thing. He held his shield chest high, braced, and the young fool did something that Magnus never saw coming.

  He stopped, so sudden you would have thought he could never keep his balance, and instead of leading with the spear point he flipped the weapon around like a quarterstaff and brought the butt end up from below, below Magnus’s shield and right between his legs.

  Magnus shouted in surprise. He swept down with his sword, deflecting the spear end before it did serious damage to his genitals. But now his defense was off and the boy pulled the butt end of the spear back and swung it around like a club and would have smashed in the side of Magnus’s face if Magnus had not brought his shield up at the last instant.

  Magnus staggered back to regroup, get fighting room, with a whole new appreciation for his adversary. He readjusted the grip on his shield and circled to the right, eyes on the young man as he followed him with the tip of his spear.

  I have seen this one before... Magnus thought. In Dubh-linn? But there was no man in Dubh-linn who would not recognize Magnus Magnusson. Where, then?

  The young man attacked again, jabbing with the spear and swinging it like a quarterstaff as Magnus deflected the thrusts. He is good, but he is young... Magnus thought. As long as he did not underestimate the boy, he would beat him. Most likely.

  “You’re no Irishman, boy,” Magnus said as they both took a step back, assessing. “No Irishman fights with your skill. Are you a Dane?”

  “I am from Vik, in Norway!” the boy said defiantly.

  “Vik! I am from Trondheim myself, but I have fallen in with these cursed Danes!” It occurred to Magnus that he could use a second, now that Kjartan Swiftsword had doubtless been killed. Maybe the boy would be swayed.

  The young Norwegian attacked again, a furious barrage of dagger point and blunt end that Magnus was just able to fend off, and it gave Magnus the idea this boy did not want to deal.

  Norwegian? Magnus was breathing hard, but so was the boy. And then he remembered.

  The idiot Norwegians from the mead hall! And it suddenly occurred to Magnus that the boy could not be alone, the others must be near by. He glanced over at the distant trees, from where the boy had come, gasped at the sight of fifty or so men racing across the field, and his inattention was rewarded by a hard blow to the side of his head.

  Magnus staggered again, and again he caught the second blow with his shield. But this time he stepped into the boy, shoving him with the shield, trying to get him off balance and far enough away to bring the sword to bear.

  The boy stumbled back and Magnus thrust. The boy twisted out of the way and seized Magnus’s wrist and held it tight.

  Magnus tried to force the sword up, up, to where he could put the point through the boy’s throat, and the boy pushed back with surprising strength. And then the boy looked down and his eyes went wide and he spoke, just one word, “Iron-tooth!”

  And then it was the boy’s turn to pay for his inattention. Magnus jabbed with the boss of his shield and hit the boy hard in the jaw. He lost his grip and staggered back and Magnus slashed with his sword, opening up the boy’s tunic right across his chest and behind it a line of white flesh erupting red with blood. The boy fell back, swinging with his spear as he went down. Magnus stepped up, ready to knock the spear aside and finish the boy before his fellows could overtake them.

  And then, behind him, his horse made a snorting sound, a clomping of hooves in the soft grass. Magnus spun ar
ound. The girl had pulled herself half on the horse, draped over the saddle, her hands still tied. She was kicking the animal, urging it forward. Far across the open ground to the west, Magnus could hear dogs, and they were close.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Myself I know

  that in my son

  grew the makings

  of a worthy man.

  Egil’s Saga

  M

  agnus shouted in rage. He took one last swipe at the youth on the ground, but it was more out of frustration than in any hope of killing him. The boy, bleeding but still in command of himself, turned the sword aside with the spear shaft and thrust the weapon at Magnus, but Magnus was done with him and had already turned and run off, his sword and shield still in hand.

  Magnus had bigger problems now.

  “Get back here, you miserable bitch!” he shouted as he ran after the horse, which was gaining speed with each kick the girl delivered to its flanks. The Norwegians were coming across the field to the east and someone else - he had to guess it was Máel Sechnaill’s men, coming from the west and if he did not catch the horse and ride hard, then one or the other of them would spill his guts on the grass.

  “Stop!” he shouted again, just because he was too angry not to shout. The horse was opening up a lead but the rope which was tied from the girl’s neck to the reins was dragging behind, making a swath through the wet grass, and Magnus set his eyes on that.

  He was breathing hard, and the strength was leaving his legs when he heard the renewed vigor of the barking dogs and he knew they had broken out in the open ground and that spurred him one. A burst of speed and he leapt for the rope, straight out as if he was diving into the water. In midair it occurred to him that if the end tied to the girls came tight, and not the end made fast to the reins, then it would likely break her neck. But there was nothing for it. He needed the horse more than he needed the girl.

  He hit the ground with a thud that nearly took his breath. He felt the rope under him, quickly snaking away, and he dropped his sword and clawed frantically for it. His fingers wrapped around the cordage and he held on, as tight as he had ever held any lifeline in a storm at sea.

  The horse hit the end of the rope and the reins came tight, twisting the horse around and jerking it from it’s feet. With a shout the girl flew from the saddle, hitting the ground hard, unable to break her fall with her hands.

  The three of them, Magnus, the girl and the horse struggled to their feet, but Magnus was up first. He jammed his sword in his sheath as he ran, slung his shield over his back. The girl was standing when Magnus snatched her around the waist and tossed her over his shoulder, so quick her shout of protest came out as no more than a grunt.

  He could see the dogs now, charging across the field, and behind them, men on horses, wearing bright tunics. King’s men. Irish warriors.

  Magnus grabbed the horse’s reins. He tossed the girl over the horse’s neck, her legs kicking hard, trying to make contact with him, but he kept clear. He got a foot in a stirrup, swung up onto the horse. The men and dogs were still a quarter of a mile away - he still had a chance. He kicked the horse hard in the flanks, reined him around. The Irish were coming from the west, the Norwegians from the east. Magnus raced off, due north.

  It was easy enough for Thorgrim to follow Harald’s trail. Even if he had not made it obvious, leaving torn bits of cloth on branches along the way, Thorgrim Night-wolf and his men would have been able to follow the broken twigs, the wet, flattened grass as easily as a beaten path.

  They were armed with everything they had, which was still meager by the Vikings’ standards. They all joined the hunt, all forty-two men, all that was left of the original crew. There were not enough men now to guard the longship and hunt for Harald. They would have to band together if they had any hope at all.

  Thorgrim heard the dogs first, far off but getting closer. “Hold up,” he said, held his hand in the air. He strained his ears against the rustling of trees, the birds in the brush. There were many dogs, and that meant a big hunting party. They might have been driving game, but he doubted it.

  “Come along,” he said, hurrying forward, his pace much faster now and soon he was running over the trampled grass.

  They came to a place where a struggle had taken place, the grass flattened and the turf chewed up, but there was no blood anywhere. Did Harald fight here? Thorgrim wondered. If so, he would have expected to find either Harald or his opponent lying dead. Or at least some blood.

  They raced on, and it seemed that they and the dogs were converging on the same spot. They pushed through a patch of wood and now a new sound came to Thorgrim’s ear. A fight. He could hear the clash of weapons - not iron on iron, but weapons, still - the grunt and thump of combat.

  They broke out of the woods. A quarter mile off, in the middle of the wide open ground, two men were fighting. One was Harald. Thorgrim was certain of it.

  “Oh, by the gods!” Thorgrim shouted. His son, locked in a fight, within his view, beyond his reach. “Come on!” He broke into a run, forcing his legs on, his no longer young legs, he could feel every inch of ground he covered, but he was frantic to get to his boy. Weeks of worry, and now he had found Harald and Harald might be cut down before could reach him.

  The dogs sounded louder, but Thorgrim could not take his eyes from the fight. He saw Harald stumble back, his arms flung out, the one he was fighting making a broad sweep with his sword.

  “No!” Thorgrim shouted. Harald was down, lost in the grass, dead for all Thorgrim knew. And the other one had turned away and was chasing after a horse that already had another rider mounted on it. The horse stumbled, but then it was up again, and the two were mounted and riding off.

  Harald was not dead. Thorgrim knew it, deep inside he was certain of it, and as he ran, his eyes locked on the place where Harald had fallen, he saw his son rise, gripping his chest, saw him stumble towards them, one foot planted laboriously after another.

  And behind Harald, Thorgrim saw the dogs and the riders.

  There were thirty men on horseback at least and they were riding hard. They wore tunics and helmets that shone dull in the overcast.

  Thorgrim saw Harald stop and look over his shoulder. He could taste Harald’s panic in his own throat as his son turned back and redoubled his effort to flee. He knew, as Harald did, that it was too late. The Vikings on foot would not reach him before the Irishmen on horseback.

  “Oh, no!” Thorgrim shouted, a cry of despair, but his pace did not slow, not at all, and he charged with the full intention of throwing himself at the mounted men and dying in defense of his boy.

  The riders were no more than a dozen perches behind Harald but Harald did not slow his limping, wounded gate. Thorgrim reached for the sword in his sheath. He felt strong hands on his shoulders, right and left, and the hands held tight and forced him to slow. He thrashed his shoulders trying to break the grip.

  “Let me go, you whores’ sons!” he shouted. Snorri Half-troll was on his right side and Skeggi Kalfsson on his left. Thorgerd Brak was holding him as well.

  “Damn you, let me go!” Thorgrim shouted, a pleading note in his voice. The riders had covered the distance to Harald and Thorgrim braced himself for the sight of his son run through with a spear or hacked down with a sword. But instead the riders circled him, blocking the boy from Thorgrim’s sight, trapping him like a fox at the end of a good hunt.

  “Bastards!” Thorgrim shouted, the word encompassing everyone, everyone, but his beloved son.

  Ornolf, who had been trailing far behind, came huffing up. “Thorgrim, stop this!” he ordered between heaving for breath.

  “Let me go, Ornolf, you bastard, they’ll kill my son!”

  “They’ll kill him anyway, and you too if you charge blind at them!” Ornolf shouted, then bent over and gasped for air.

  “Let them have me, I’ll set Harald free!” Thorgrim shouted and thrashed and twisted with greater effort. He managed to shake Skeggi Kalfsson loo
se and punch him in the jaw, but left-handed. He did little damage and another jumped in to take Skeggi’s place.

  “You coward, Ornolf, you black-hearted coward!” Thorgrim wailed. Ornolf straightened. He met Thorgrim’s eyes and the two men stared at one another, as if they were the only men on the field. “I will forgive that, Thorgrim Night Wolf, because I know you are sick with fear for your son, as I am for my grandson. We cannot save Harald if we are dead. We must live. We must be smart.” He paused, sucking air into his lungs, then added, “If they did not kill him when they came on him, there is a reason, and we must find it out.”

  A quarter mile away, they could see Harald, hands bound behind his back, hoisted up onto a horse. The rest of the mounts pranced nervously, the dogs raced and yapped and barked. And then the entire war party wheeled around, turning backs to the Norsemen, and rode off, unhurried, the way they had come.

  Thorgrim stopped struggling and the men let him go. He watched Harald as his son was led away. And then Harald turned, twisted in the saddle, looking back at his fellows who had not been quick enough to save him. It was like a dagger in Thorgrim’s heart, only worse, because a real dagger was quick, but this pain went on and on.

  Cormac Ua Ruairc and Niall Cuarán were sitting on either side of a hearth before a blazing fire, eating chicken and tossing the bones into the flames. Off in the dark end of the house, some of the more prominent men of the small army were gaming or sharpening weapons or sleeping. The rest, nearly all of Cormac’s men, were spread out in the yard or the outbuildings of the small ringfort they had taken as temporary dwelling.

  Those not at the ringfort were riding over the countryside. They were looking for information. Where the longship had sailed to. What Máel Sechnaill was about. What monasteries might be worth sacking before they withdrew back to the safety of Leinster. Cormac was still desperate to wear the Crown of the Three Kingdoms, but if the fin gall had carried it off to Norway, he would have to content himself with hurting Máel Sechnaill as best as he could before leaving Brega and considering his next step.