A Song Of Steel (The Light of the North saga Book 1)

by James Duncan

  Ragnvald nodded to Sebbi and stepped back with a smile. ‘So, my little Christian, now he has no sword, and I still have my old blade. Would you care to see what it can do?’

  Again, Ordulf simply nodded. He could already see where this was going, but the jarl was clearly enjoying himself.

  After his opponent recovered his sword from the ground and made ready, the jarl snapped his sword back and threw it into a series of fast probes, sword flicking out like a snake’s tongue, aiming to go around the other man’s shield. The warrior grunted and took half steps backwards as he blocked and covered and parried, but with his shield much less mobile, he was having to do much of the work with his feet and his sword. One crunching blow from Ragnvald hit the shield while it was braced against the man’s arm, causing splinters to fly and Sebbi to stumble back with a grunt of pain. Finally, the jarl stopped his attack.

  The jarl stepped back to face Ordulf, his face triumphant. Ordulf noticed that the shield warrior was bleeding from a deep slice on his upper arm. He also noticed that Sebbi was ignoring it, even ignoring the splinter protruding from the wound. Ordulf’s eyes widened. He was shocked at how much more effective the Norse weapons had been.

  ‘It is true that my sword cannot be thrust easily through maille, but in a fight such as this it does not matter; you can attack where the maille does not cover.’ He twirled and cut at the air with his sword as he spoke and waited for Otto to relay his words.

  ‘You see, our shields are light, designed for moving, deflecting blows, gaining dominance over another warrior in attack. Our swords are mostly broad, balanced for cutting, and thin so that the cuts are deep.’ Otto was struggling to keep up, but Ordulf managed to fill in the gaps. ‘Our swords and shields are perfect for fighting lightly armoured enemies in the open, for attacking swiftly and with deadly effect. So, as you see, for fighting with sword and shield one-on-one, our way is better. Even with my ruined sword, a sword older than I am, I still beat your new one with ease.’

  Ordulf nodded, trying and failing to hide his embarrassment. His pride had once again made him look foolish.

  The jarl signalled to the injured warrior and snapped an order. Sebbi nodded and handed his weapons to his fellow before turning to leave.

  ‘I have to actually order my men to treat their own wounds,’ he said with a sigh of frustration. ‘One of them ignored a serious wound for so long in the name of honour that it became unhealable, and I lost one of my best warriors. They now compete ever harder to impress me with their bravery.’

  Ordulf nodded. ‘So I heard,’ he said.

  The jarl raised his eyebrows, surprised. ‘Oh, did you?’ He barked a single, short laugh. ‘Otto is teaching you well. I shall have to reward him.’ He paused, smiling at the flustered, nine-fingered slave, who was busy translating his own praise.

  Ragnvald turned back to Ordulf. ‘But now we are fighting Christians in large battles, and we are losing. Our weapons aren’t as good in packed formations. Some of these Christians wear maille from head to toe, which makes our swords near useless in the press of battle. The battles in Denmark showed us this.’

  He rolled his shoulder, stretching out the soreness from the sword demonstration as he continued his musings.

  ‘So it is my opinion that we must learn from your Christians and adapt to their ways in order to fight them better.’ He picked up the Minden blade and inspected it thoughtfully. ‘This is why you are interesting. You are the only Frankish smith in the Norselands, the only one who has made these Christian swords, the ones that can punch through maille.’ He looked at Ordulf and studied him carefully. ‘I wonder what would happen if you combined your Frankish design with our steel.’

  Dengir was standing beside them, his eyes turned upwards, chewing a black fingernail and thinking it over. ‘It can be done,’ Dengir said, after a short while. He nodded to himself as he spoke.

  ‘Excellent. Then, Ordulf, I wish for you to make me such a sword, so that I or one of my men can test it against the Christians, to see if my idea is correct. Use Dengir’s skill with steel and your knowledge of Christian swords and what I have just shown you. Perhaps, if this works, you will prove yourself worthy of staying in my household.’ The veiled threat, delivered with such careless ease, unnerved Ordulf, who nodded furiously and tried to thank the jarl in Norse and, from Ragnvald’s amused expression, clearly made a mess of it.

  The jarl took his new serpent sword from the table and swept out of the yard to take the path back to the hall. The remaining warrior followed close behind with Otto. Ordulf was left examining the damaged swords they left behind, deep in thought while Dengir directed the rest of the workers to clear up the yard and get back to work.

  Ordulf didn’t even consider the implications of the request, that he was being asked to create a weapon to kill his countrymen, even to help the Norse against the crusade. His mind passed entirely over that without notice as he bubbled inside with the excitement of the only piece of information that he cared about, the only thing that mattered to him in that moment. He was a swordsmith again.

  Prove my worth? I’ll do that. I’ll show them who I can be. He whistled brightly as he carried the two blades into the forge and laid them down to begin trying to work out how he would design the new blade. The invisible chains of his slavery slipped away unnoticed from his mind as he savoured the task and the responsibility laid out for him.

  Ragnvald walked back to the hall with Leif, scabbarded sword still in hand, turning it over and admiring its detail.

  ‘Do you really think the boy can make a better sword than that?’ asked Leif, his doubt evident in his tone.

  ‘Perhaps not,’ said Ragnvald with a shrug. ‘But it costs very little to try, and we must try everything possible to gain an advantage over the Christians, to defeat them.’

  ‘You think we will retake Jutland by copying their swords?’ said Leif with unconcealed amusement.

  Ragnvald stopped and turned to look at his young huscarl with a cold expression. ‘I doubt we will ever see Jutland again. No, I am talking about saving the land that is still ours. Protecting our people from this gathering storm. Is there anything you would not try?’

  Leif was taken aback. ‘You cannot think they will invade Scania, Gotland, even Svealand?’

  ‘I cannot believe anything else. They will not be content with what they have, and you saw them – you saw what they are capable of. We must assume they will come for us, even here, and plan accordingly. Why else do you think I would do what we just did? What wouldn’t you do to save our people?’ Ragnvald’s tone was bitter.

  Leif looked away, uncomfortable at the raw memory of their hunt. ‘What will we truly save if we kill our own kin and trust a foreign king, if we put our trust in foreign swords? What else will we sacrifice to stop them?’

  Ragnvald put his hand on the man’s shoulder and smiled bitterly. ‘Let me share the wisdom of a dead man with you, Leif.’ The huscarl turned his head to meet the jarl’s eye. ‘We will do whatever it takes.’

  Jarl Ragnvald Ivarsson, warlord of Sweden, faces Sebbi with Bjóðr in hand

  Epilogue

  Røros, Nordland

  Summer 2015

  Two weeks after the discovery of the sword and the excavation at Bjørsjøen lake had been completed, a team of archaeology students from the University of Lundjen had methodically explored the lake bed around the original finds, recovered all the artefacts they uncovered and taken them back to Lundjen for analysis and conservation. Professor Hallsson had told Halfar they were receiving X-ray results from the sword that afternoon and compiling a review of the recovered artefacts and that he would call to tell him what they had found.

  Halfar was nervous and fidgety, unable to concentrate on anything else while he awaited the review later that day. But then there was a shrill noise.

  His phone. Caller ID said it was Professor Hallsson. He answered and was launching into a cheery greeting when he was stopped by the torrent of words coming the
other way.

  ‘What? Sorry, say that again. I couldn’t make it out,’ he interrupted.

  A terse pause.

  ‘Halfar, check your email. We have made some very significant finds among the artefacts, and you need to see it. We can go over the rest another time.’

  The bemused Halfar tucked his phone under his cheek and opened his email. He found the message. There were two photo attachments. He opened the first one.

  It was an image of a magnificent gold arm band, now cleaned and laid out with measuring sticks alongside. A printed label sat on the bench beneath it:

  Gold arm torc, 11th–12th century Norse

  Outer runic inscription: ‘Born under the cross, live under the hammer.’

  Inner inscription: ‘Bjorn – Vidar – Leif – Gunnar’

  Halfar sat back and rubbed his face with his free hand. Those were the names of the four mythical companions of Gjaldir from the Icelandic saga Ljós ór Norðan. Mighty warriors whose names had lived on alongside the mythical hero. He had never seen their names on any artefact found outside of Iceland.

  ‘That is remarkable, to see a torc with those names on in the highlands of the old kingdom of Sweden. How on earth did that get there?’

  ‘I think the second photograph would answer that question,’ said the professor.

  Bemused, Halfar clicked on the second image and opened it. Immediately, he jolted bolt upright. He stared open-mouthed at the screen for what seemed an eternity, unable to mentally process what he was seeing.

  The image was split and showed both a colour photo and an X-ray of the cleaned sword. The X-ray showed that, indeed, the sword was made from pattern-welded steel. Clearly visible was a uniform central core with a twisted pattern surrounding it all the way around and down towards the tip. The pattern resembled flames eating at the core. Outside that, in the outer parts and at the edge, a roiling, swirling pattern was embedded in the steel.

  But none of that was what really caused Halfar such a shock.

  They had cleaned up the blade and the runic inscription was more visible, although still illegible. But that didn’t matter; the runes were laid out vividly in the X-ray.

  ‘No, it can’t be,’ whispered Halfar in shock.

  ‘I think it might!’ said Hallsson with a burst of excitement.

  ‘It’s impossible. It’s just a story. This must be a fake.’

  ‘The period and design is correct, and all the artefacts found with it are from the correct period too. This cache is from before the saga was written; it predates it.’

  Halfar sat in shocked silence as he went over the implications.

  ‘Hello?’ came the voice from the other end of the line.

  ‘Yes, I’m still here. I just don’t believe it. I always thought it was just a myth.’

  ‘Amazing, isn’t it? When can you get down here?’

  ‘Get down there? What do you mean?’ Halfar answered, befuddled by the idea.

  ‘What do you mean, What do you mean?’ There will be a public statement, a press conference. They will want to hear from the people who discovered it, and you are an expert on Norse mythology, perhaps the leading one in the country. Of course you should be there!’

  ‘I see, yes, I suppose so. I don’t much like the idea of facing the media,’ said Halfar, nervously.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Isn’t the whole purpose of your museum to teach people about Norse history? You have a whole display on this saga!’

  ‘Yes, but that is only for a few people at a time.’

  ‘Exactly! Now you have the chance to show thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands. Halfar, this story needs to be told. Come down and be the one who tells it.’

  ‘Okay,’ mumbled Halfar uncertainly.

  ‘Excellent! Now, I have the deputy minister of culture on the other line. I’ll let you know when the plans are made.’

  Halfar muttered his goodbyes and hung up, putting the phone down and staring once more at the photographs of the artefacts in wonder. He could barely believe it as he stared at the X-ray of the sword and the words engraved into it. The myth he had known for his entire life, studied and taught to generations of students was sitting there in corroded steel, staring back at him in runic script: Ljós a Norðan.

  Afterword and Historical Note

  Writing an alternate reality gives a writer a lot of latitude with events and background but can lead to confusion and blurring as to what is real and what is fantasy. I will try and clear some of that up here. I have tried to maintain a solid level of realism based on the known and implied knowledge of the time. Everything that happens differently in that world is something that I believe makes sense and could have happened. Since the main separation from reality is the rejection of the path to Christianity, the vast majority of historical detail remains unchanged.

  For example, because this alternate reality is separated so narrowly from reality, almost all the high-ranking characters are real. These are men unknown to popular history but who lived fascinating lives that had huge consequences for the Europe we live in today. I have changed details of their lives to match the alternate history, but Adolf, Count of Schauenburg (and later of Holstein and Stormarn), was a real military leader of Saxony who raised himself from obscurity and became a major part of the Germanisation of the northern parts of that land in the 1100s, a campaign that had historical repercussions that last to this day.

  He participated in large parts of the conquest of the base of the Jutland peninsula and the German Baltic shore, changing the face of Europe forever. He would have been a natural choice for this crusade. His son Hartung is also real, although he did not live a life noteworthy enough for us to be left with more than a mere mention of his name. He is a footnote to the history of his father.

  Adolf’s feudal lord, Lothair, the Duke of Saxony, was a skilled and able politician and leader who became emperor after Henry. The Norwegian kings are all historical figures, although the Danish and Swedish are made up, since the real kings were Christian appointments who would not have gained the crown in a Norse society.

  Most of the other great crusader lords are also real, all with lives altered by the differing events of this book but all in ways that I think are realistic. The various jarls are all fictional, sadly, because there just isn’t a lot of information preserved about the Norse lords of this age. So Ragnvald is a work of pure fiction.

  The finding of the sword in the lake is also a fictionalisation of a real event. In 2018, a young Swedish girl called Saga Vanecek pulled a Viking-era sword from a lake near Jonkoping in Sweden. When I read about that sword, I wondered what its story was, where it had been and what it had seen. I decided that story needed to be written, and not knowing what it was, I made it up. The girl’s name being Saga. It was too perfect, a message from the gods, and so the saga of the sword Ljós a Norðan was born.

  I have also paid close attention to and done a great deal of research into the details of Norse life: combat, culture, religion, craft and mythology. I do not pretend to be a historian on these subjects and will characterise my portrayal as ‘reasonable’ but not accurate. Some scholars would no doubt cringe at a few of my simplifications or oversights, but this is a work of fiction and some things did need to be ‘adjusted’ to make a better story. Some inaccuracies are deliberate; others are ignorance. I hope those who notice them forgive me.

  It is pretty clear that pattern-welded swords fell out of fashion around AD 1000. Probably this was because of access to better, more consistent steels that allowed mono-steel blades to be as good or better than pattern-welded ones. However, if the Norse were prevented from trading with western Europe, it is conceivable they would have continued making pattern-welded steel for longer. So this is the kind of logical adjustment to history I have made. If you absolutely have to put me right on something, or just want to discuss something of interest, poke me on Twitter (@JCDuncan7). I welcome the debate.

  One of the things I love about this period of hi
story is the ‘old’ forms of record keeping, legends and storytelling. The preservation and embellishment of stories by word of mouth, visual art and folklore, a lot of it preserved by local people, is so much more interesting to me than much of the sanitised, sometimes falsified, politically and religiously motivated ‘history’ recorded in the Christian kingdoms of medieval western Europe by the elite.

  I love the fuzziness and artistic nature of ‘pagan’ Norse and Saxon stories where fantasy and reality freely mixed and was deeply culturally significant during its own time. The Norse way of telling and recording history is truly fascinating and heavily misunderstood. I want to represent the creation, propagation and evolution of a story over 1000 years. I am trying to bring to life one fictional example in this book series (much more of which will be explored in the sequels), but anyone wanting to know how the Norse lived and told their stories should look to the Icelandic sagas which provide a rich portrayal of Norse life. I am incorporating aspects of those stories into these books: ways of war and ways of life.

  Most people only know of Norse storytelling and beliefs through sensationalised and frankly silly myths and legends. I will try to show in this series why those stories were so exaggerated, and I will delve into my opinion that it is not because they were simply believed but because those stories held deeper meaning or were just outright entertaining. And outright entertaining they were. Films and TV shows are still being made about Thor, Loki, Beowulf, Ragnar Lothbrok, Ivar the Boneless and his brothers, and many other mythical or semi-mythical figures today.

  I have also been studying the historical swordsmithing and weapon-making of the era in great detail. Swordsmithing forms another key theme of this book. There is a fascinating history of different types of bladesmithing in Europe. The internet and common knowledge is full of misinformation about swords: what was good, what was bad, what steel was like in different times. Falsehoods like the idea that Damascus steel was better than anything today, or that Katanas are so sharp and hard that they can cut through (insert improbable object here). There is now a dedicated and growing community of craftsmen and women recreating these lost arts, studying the historical records and conducting forensic recreations, so there is no excuse for these inaccuracies. The truth is that the best smiths in Europe and the Middle East were making steel as good as or better than the steel in a mythologised Katana before the first Samurai ever swung a sword. It was a very advanced craft. There is so much to learn about European swordsmithing. It was a fine and deep art, making some superb weapons (and a lot of basic ones), and I attempt to scratch the surface for the casual reader in this book.