Hego gave Gauk a worried glance, but the young blade smith was a Spjotman and would not panic. Gauk offered his friend a brief, reassuring smile. Later, when he had time to reflect, Gauk would realize that this was where he made his mistake.
I should have been praying, Gauk would think. Instead, I was putting on a demonstration of unconcern, pretending that I had invented courage. My cockiness offended the gods.
Yngvar parted his lips in what might have been a grin or a grimace. The sound of the big man’s laughter reached Gauk’s ears—full-chested, boastful laughter—followed by a bear-like roar. The big stranger put on a demonstration of berserker mannerisms, shaking his beard, spit flying. He raised his eyes skyward, invoking the divine.
Hand-to-hand combat had a protocol. A terrified man sang a war song to conquer his fear. Some lyrics mocked the opponent. Others praised the pedigree of the weapon being drawn from its scabbard, usually an heirloom associated with many years of lore. Gauk responded with an attempt at an ursine bellow of his own.
But he forgot to pray. Immediately he was struck by a deep unease. His sound was fake and without power, even to his own ears, a falsetto shriek, lost in the ocean air.
When he tried to roar once again, his voice failing, a sick doubt swept Gauk. He went cold, and his muscles went slack. Too late, he tried to whisper a prayer to the One-Eyed God, but the words would not come.
The fight was already lost.
The armed spectators jeered, observing Gauk’s weakening spirit, marking his fading courage. These shoremen had the look of seasoned fighters, scarred and deep-chested. They’d seen many men die bleeding. They pointed at Gauk, and laughed. One man let out a breathy scream in mockery of Gauk’s bear yelp.
“Odin be my strength,” the young berserker rasped.
Far, far too late—the god had chosen sides.
Gauk shrank inwardly. Odin did not have to be fair. Capricious, even fickle, he gave—and he took away.
As the bearded berserker closed in on Gauk, the young man did not feel his courage quicken. He felt no electric anticipation as he found the pommel of his sword and drew his weapon. Gauk realized that he had tarried too long on this shore, and misjudged his own strength. Now he was as good as dead.
Snorri would have told him as much. Bad sleep, troubled dreams, and days of sailing had made him weak and worse—he was careless. And soon to be humiliated.
Hego pulled Head-Splitter from his belt, but Gauk put a hand on his companion’s arm.
“There’s no use both of us dying,” said Gauk. “Get into the boat.”
Tradition and good sense called for a fighting verse. Hego began the first words of such a song, one of Spjothof’s favorites, Thor climbing the mountain over Spjothof to seize the handle of his great hammer.
A gull overhead laughed, a long, mocking ha! Waves tumbled, weakened by the ebbing tide.
Gauk dies, whispered the winking foam.
Odin, the All-Seeing, gave power and, when he chose, he took it away again. The god knew much, and a young hunter like Gauk knew nothing. He took a deep breath, and let it go.
So be it.
Hego’s song had a certain power to it, and for the moment it gave Gauk the inner fire he needed. The young berserker had no particular fear for his own life, but he regretted bringing Hego to an early demise on this worthless beach.
The big bear-clad warrior warmed up his sword arm with a few passes in the sunny air. Yngvar’s weapon was huge, and decorated with runes. Such magic made a weapon even more deadly.
Gauk positioned his own body between the big berserker and Hego, who continued to sing with increasing vigor. Yngvar had left a set of footprints all the way down from the dry sand to the wet, and now, far from acting out an uncontrollable frenzy, the big man took some time to smooth out the sand. He flicked a piece of driftwood with his boot, clearing a flat fighting space.
Gauk made an effort to portray the same confident, prefight ritual the veteran berserker did, kicking a pebble out of the way, shrugging to loosen his shoulders. The spectators doubled over, laughing.
Yes, thought Gauk, there is much to mock—if only they knew.
Yngvar strode down toward the younger man, showing his many teeth in an ugly smile. The big berserker’s first assault was an overhead swing, easy to see coming. Gauk fended it off with the flat of his blade—it was important to keep the edge of his weapon from being hacked ragged by the heavier sword.
Block, parry, feint—Gauk performed well for a few moments.
Yngvar stepped back, repositioned his feet, and cut a wide, sweeping arc, with no apparent attempt to catch Gauk off-guard. Yngvar’s blade was surprisingly fast, however. Gauk leaped back to keep the point from slicing his mid-section, and brought his own weapon to the attack, a single, chopping blow with both hands on the sword grip.
The blow missed. Yngvar danced away. He was light-footed for such a big man, his bear trophies swinging from his belt.
Gauk knew better, but could not stop himself. He recognized his own foolhardiness even as he lunged after the seasoned berserker. He knew he should remain on the defensive—inexperienced as he was, he would have better luck parrying and giving ground than mounting an attack. And he should keep eye contact with his opponent, read the bigger man’s intentions in his glance.
But he was being drawn into the fight, and sweat stung his eyes. A veteran sword fighter would have stopped, backed up a few steps, and wiped his brow. Gauk’s blade flashed through the air, and he realized too late that he was unbalanced. The sword missed by an arm’s length and plunged into the wet sand.
But Gauk was fast, too, and he wasted no time in recovering. He tugged his blade from the ground, and then warded off a series of blows, each one fiercer than the preceding, until the young man sprawled, his arms numb with the weight of Yngvar’s assault.
The big berserker stepped back to give himself swinging room—a heavy weapon required striking distance. Gauk felt no surge of god-given power as he climbed to his feet, breathing hard. He experienced no transformation from young man to bear-like warrior, as he had in the past, and he no longer expected it. The god had chosen sides in this fight, and Gauk had lost. All that mattered now was preserving Hego’s life. The young fighter dropped his weapon. He staggered forward, wrapped his arms around the larger man, and hung on.
Gauk grappled with the big berserker, pinning his sword arm. He struggled to hurl Yngvar to the sand, and nearly succeeded, lifting the heavier man off his feet. The big man grunted in Gauk’s embrace, and the young man squeezed harder. Years of rowing and walrus hunting had made Gauk strong. If Odin would not help, then love for Hego and Hallgerd, for the brave village of Spjothof, would give Gauk the necessary heart.
He hugged Yngvar until the breath shuddered out of the berserker’s body. He squeezed until Yngvar groaned. Something snapped in the barrel chest of this big man, cartilage or even a rib giving away. The berserker shuddered.
But he punished Gauk with the point of his bearded jaw, roaring, the big man’s chin striking Gauk repeatedly until the young man’s vision began to blur. Odin, father of Thor, prayed Gauk.
Save Hego.
Gauk must have lost full consciousness for an instant. When he was aware of what was happening, the big berserker was dragging him to the lapping waves, and flinging him down. Gasping with pain, grunting not like a bear but like a badly shaken man, Yngvar put a booted foot on Gauk’s chest and cocked his sword arm, raising the blade high.
Gauk saw the blow approaching from an unexpected direction. There was nothing swift about it, and nothing skillful. Yngvar must have seen it coming, too. He looked up to see Head-Splitter held high. But the big berserker was too slow in blocking the ax with his sword, even though there was a long moment when Hego’s weapon did not fall.
Yngvar gave a half-smile, as though still liking his own chances in this brawl. The salt suds at Gauk’s ears hissed a loud and urgent communication. Odin’s favor shifted from one man to another—Gauk
lives!
Hego’s ax split the big man’s head.
Forty-one
Hego was freckled with bits of the berserker, and was moving slowly, cradling the ax in his arms. Gauk saw what had to be done. He gave a command, telling Hego to shove Strider off the shore, speaking right into his face, the way a steersman sometimes has to when his fellow seamen are stunned by a sudden squall. Hego moved toward the boat, but sluggishly, shoving the boat into the water and tumbling into her.
Gauk did his best to act the berserker. He seized his sword from the sand and gave out a roar, cutting great circles in the air. It wasn’t real. It was make-believe—he was still only Gauk, apparently abandoned by Odin, and his right arm was tired.
But his snarling, frenzied display made the men on shore hesitate moments longer. Then, with a show of bravery, like men resigned to a desperate act, they resumed their attack.
They fought the way shield-carrying men so often do, leading with their shields, shoving. Gauk grasped the edge of a shield and pulled the man down, hammering him hard with the butt of his sword.
The crowd closed around Gauk, so bunched together, they couldn’t swing their weapons but could only jab, the points cutting his tunic, stabbing, missing. And not missing—he was hurt. His act, the rolling eyes, the bear-like roars seemed pale and fake to Gauk, nothing like the real surge of courage he no longer hoped for.
But these shorerakers were not as capable as they looked. They slipped and fell in the mess that had been the berserker. Gauk backed away, falling into the water, the salt stinging, the brine blooming red around him as he swam, one-handed. His sword was heavy—far too heavy. A threat to his safety now, it pulled his arm downward, anchoring his body.
Stones splashed around him—jagged cliff rubble, smooth shore stones, a rain of rocks hurled from the beach, distant figures running up and down the tide line collecting yet more missiles.
An oar dipped into the water close by.
Hego’s big hand fell on his shoulder and seized the wool of Gauk’s tunic. A smooth stone, as round as a barley cake, skipped across the water and struck Hego in the face. The young man gave out a gasp and released Gauk, and the young berserker once again felt his weapon dragging him downward.
He thrashed, kicking hard, and won another breath of air.
A few more strokes of the oars, another long reach, and this time Hego had Gauk in a mighty grip that dragged him from the salt sea and all the way into the boat.
They both realized too late that they had left it behind. The great, half-carved yellow thing on the beach beside Yngvar was the wheel of cheese.
Gauk was bleeding hard. He told himself that most of what ran off his body was salt water. He shivered, and let Hego row. The blade smith was good at it, and by the time the shoremen got their boats into the water and worked the oars through the oarlocks, shouting at each other, Strider left them far behind. The voices of the townsmen diminished, farther and farther away, until Hego reached the breeze of the open ocean.
Hego’s eye was swelling shut. It was the same eye that had been injured in a fall, he explained, when he had called the crowded ale hall outside to watch a meteor shower many weeks ago. Far from a sense of self-pity, Hego sounded amused. The eye was determined to go through life swollen shut, he said, and until a medicine woman said the appropriate charm there was little anyone could do.
Hego used the forestay to lift the mast into position. Gauk moved cautiously, his wounds stiffening, and helped raise the mast with the leather ropes. Then, with the sail making the booming, cracking music that brought a shaky joy to his heart, he sank back.
Strider was taking on water. The sleek sailboat needed to be recaulked, her strakes sealed. Even the stoutest ship needed to be waterproofed, sometimes several times during a lengthy, storm-punished voyage.
Gauk fumbled for the bailer, a wooden scoop, and tried not to notice the bloody tint of the salt water he worked over the side.
Forty-two
Hego was chilled through, but he liked the feeling. He was very much alive.
The wind was with them, gale strong and cold. Hego kept a steady hand on the tiller, savoring the salt spray on his lips. From time to time he drank from the skin of Spjothof well water. Gauk rubbed saliva into his wounds and, like any fighting man, said they did not hurt.
They made the crossing from the land of Norway to the kingdom of the Danes in one night, following the route every Spjotman knew by heart. No traveler sailed with a chart or written list of ports, although Hego had heard that kings and tax collectors in distant lands kept such arcane items. Real seamen set their courses by lore alone, telling north and south by the habits of the waves around them, as remembered in way-poems and songs. Boats were rarely lost, although some journeys were easier than others.
Their passage was remarkably swift, but not unheard of. In a gale blowing from the northwest, Errik No-Lip, a legendary boatman who had been scarred by frostbite, had sailed from Akerri to the land of the Franks in the same amount of time, but that was in the era of legends, when such feats were possible. Nevertheless, Hego took their own speedy sailing as proof that the gods favored their efforts.
Dawn sun climbed the sky. The water behind them boiled, the crests of waves stirred by the breeze. Hego could not see the horizon clearly, one eye closed tight again, and the other weeping from the salt waves that had swept the craft all night. Gauk trailed a fishhook on a line in the early morning, when the fish are hungriest, and snagged a large fish of a sort Hego had never seen before—surely another omen.
They ate the raw flesh gratefully, savoring even the innards. The food made them feel strong again. A protocol, unwritten and only half-understood, dictated their near silence on a day like this, battle behind them, and possible bloodshed yet to come. Hego would have to choose his words carefully, or he would offend the divine powers and cause ill luck.
Speaking sparingly, the two young men worked closer to the land as the sun climbed toward noon. Hego could make out the shapes of drift logs, whole trees, that bumped and groaned together in the easy swells.
Hego was concerned about his friend. All morning Gauk moved like a very old man. Sometimes he paused to flex his arms with a gasp.
Gauk caught Hego’s expression of concern and laughed. “I’ll have a few scars to show Astrid,” he said.
Hego wondered if it would be appropriate to share his feelings now. “Do you think,” he asked at last, “a death blow hurts?”
Instantly Hego hated himself for asking such a question, sure he would bring bad luck with his thoughtlessness.
But Gauk considered, licking his lips, blistered from the salt in the air. “Did the rock hurt you,” he asked, “when it hit your eye?”
“Not at first,” said Hego.
“So I don’t think,” said Gauk, “Yngvald lived long enough to feel the blow.”
This reassured Hego. He did not like to think the big berserker had felt great pain. Hego wanted to think that the offensive, unruly berserker had left this life the way a drunken man leaves his senses: confused, muddled, and then at peace.
“You fought well,” said Hego.
“No, I did not.” Gauk grunted and, moving deliberately, he removed the bear pelt from over his shoulders and around his hips.
“You lured your attacker by pretending to be weak,” Hego protested, disturbed by Gauk’s show of humility. “Yngvar put on a brave show, but he was no match for you. You wore him out, so it was easy for Head-Splitter to live up to its name.”
“You preserved my life,” said Gauk, “and your own.”
Hego laughed at this. When Gauk’s saga was woven, Hego would count himself fortunate to be mentioned at all.
“The god took his favor away from me, Hego,” said Gauk.
Hego did not like to hear the gods mentioned, except in song or prayer.
“Who knows what Odin will enable me to do,” said Gauk, “against the Danes?”
“Oh, great deeds,” Hego assured him une
asily.
How could Gauk explain to his old friend and neighbor that Odin had left an empty place in Gauk’s heart, the way a bear leaves a footprint?
Against the Danes, Gauk feared, the two of them would be helpless. It was best, Gauk believed, not to weigh this thought too clearly, unless it become all too true. Hadn’t Thor walked into the Ice King’s cave and, challenged to show his prowess, wrestled with the cat of the world?
And Gauk still possessed sharp eyes, and a hunter’s instinct. When he saw the vessels, and pointed them out, Hego squinted, startled. “I can’t see them!”
“I see well enough,” said Gauk. “Danish ships—they have red-striped sails and bright yellow markings.”
Gauk helped Hego lower the mast, and the two of them lay side by side in the wet bottom of the boat. Drift logs, birch and spruce, lanced the tops of the swells, dangerous to a small boat like Strider, but excellent cover for the vessel, too.
Gauk peered over the side when Strider ascended a wave. It had been a while since he had seen warships, and he was astonished at how large they were, how the oars gleamed in the sunlight, beating in unison through the water.
The ships—three of them, with two more in the distance—crept along the coast as Strider bobbed among the swells. It was like the sorrowful poems recalling the search for missing comrades, the boats nosing every inlet.
“I can see them now,” whispered Hego.
An archer, bow in hand, gazed out, in the direction of their hiding place.
The whispering water slowly leaked into the vessel. Hego let the sun warm him, and told himself he was not afraid of any Danish archer. Spjotfolk used arrows, too, sometimes. The Danes were cunning, but mere men, after all.
When Gauk assured him that Danish ships still coursed the far-off shoreline, Hego began to silently wonder what it would be like to grow old, full of stories, bright faces listening to his voice. Hego was confident, but not as self-assured as the heroes of sagas, who met every challenge with determination. Given a chance to slaughter a shipload of Danes, Hego would rather drift among the tree trunks like this, even the most dangerous logs, with bristling stumps where branches had torn free.
Daughter of the Wind Page 15