Indignation flared in Torsten, coupled with an unprecedented urge to defend his brother. In all the years Einarr had thrown himself into a conflict that did not seek him in return, in all the years he’d raided and killed mercilessly, justifying his gruesome deeds as necessary to the cause, Torsten had opposed him. But this insult by the Gallach warrior was unfair. Ungrateful.
“Einarr Alfradsson has kept war from reaching your shores for the past three years,” he shouted back, pushing his way to the front of the gathering. “You would all have fallen long ago if it weren’t for the protection of his name.”
The Gallach man began to argue, but Garrett cut him off.
“Sir Torsten is right,” he agreed, resignation weighting his voice. “We’ve had peace these years because of our Norse allies—no matter the reason we’ve found ourselves thrown together. As much as we might wish it, the past canna be undone, no more than our brothers who fell in the raid three years ago can be brought back to life. This is the present, and it is our fight as much as it is Sir Einarr’s. We must fight as brothers now—Celt and Norse—if we are to have a chance of surviving this.”
Einarr’s cold, hard eyes flickered to Garrett, betraying a sliver of shock and humility at the unlikely support. It was a brief slip, one only Garret saw, before Einarr regrouped the strength, courage and fortitude which marked his leadership of his men. With renewed vigour he faced them.
“Freyr, take half our men here now and go find the rest,” he commanded, addressing his captain in the language of their homeland. “And anyone else who can wield a sword. Once you have amassed your forces, meet us in the village and attack in any way you can.” To the Fara men he said, “You will follow me and the other half of my men who are not following Freyr. We must draw these hauknefr brusi into the village where the dwellings will be an advantage to us. They will be obstacles for such a large force, and we will be able to break them up, ja?”
“Can we win wi’ that plan?” Garrett questioned, doubtful.
Einarr hesitated before shaking his head with grim finality. “No, we’ll not win this one, there are too many of them. But with Odin at our backs we can cut into their numbers, and if we fight with honour, then perhaps we’ll secure our places in Valhalla. If we are to die tonight, then let it be with pride. As the warriors we are.”
A valiant round of cheers erupted in response, though against the storm the sound was bleak. Freyr clapped Einarr on the shoulder, nodding his respects to his leader and friend.
“Good luck to you, man. We’ll see you in the village.”
Then the captain led half the Norse warriors away, heading towards the barracks where more of the men were likely resting. When the departing men’s backs were to them, Einarr unsheathed his sword.
“Have courage men,” he declared. “I’ll see you on the other side of death.”
Lifting his weapon above his mighty head, he roared an eloquent Norse insult to the invaders below. As if by divine inspiration, lightning cracked again, flashing against the majestic blade of the great Einarr Alfradsson.
The faces of the invaders snapped towards him in unison. Recognizing the formidable figure above them, they began to lope up the steep incline. As soon as they did, Einarr led the Norse and Fara men west at a run, glancing back over his shoulder only once to ensure the bait had been taken.
It had.
Norah and Torsten remained, gazing after the men as their powerful bodies were swallowed up by the thick blackness of night. Disturbed by the force of the rain the mist rose off the ground. It gave the illusion that the warriors were ascending into the sky on clouded chariots.
An ominous foreshadowing of what was to be.
To Torsten, however, the image was inspiring, rejuvenating. The warrior in him, so many years subdued in slumber, raised his head. Torsten’s muscles flexed, straining to run after the men and partake of the fighting. He was not afraid to die, not afraid of the pain that would precede his death, nor the unknown that awaited him after it. He was only saddened, terribly, deeply saddened by the knowledge that he might be parted from his love once again.
Norah, it appeared, had not considered this outcome. It had not occurred to her that Torsten meant to fight.
“We must run,” she insisted when the warriors were out of sight. Nodding vigorously she tugged at his sleeve, urging him back down the path. “We shall hide at the broch. Perhaps they willna find us there. If we can only make it to the broch we can wait out the attack.”
Glancing to the harbour below to ensure they hadn’t been noticed by any lingering raiders, Torsten allowed Norah to lead him. But once they were out of sight of the harbour he redirected her to the crag. The bundle of her belongings he’d collected were still there, drenched and wholly unimportant now that death was breathing down their necks.
Carefully he helped her down the incline which had become treacherously slick from the storm. He prayed the face of the shallow cliff would conceal them both for a while longer, long enough at least that if they were to die this night, they might say their goodbyes to one another properly.
“We canna stay here,” she gasped when he stopped at the bottom. “We must flee!”
“No, myn svass,” he said sadly. “My beloved, there is no fleeing for me. I must join the men and fight. Surely you know that.”
“No,” she shouted, panicked, “I dinna ken that.” Her face crumpled in agony, and tears welled from her shimmering green eyes. Pounding her fists against his chest like a child she repeated, “I dinna ken that, I dinna ken that!”
Torsten allowed Norah to expel her rage against him, against the invaders in their midst, against cruel fate itself. When the force of it had been spent he drew her to him, enveloping her in his strong arms. Cradling her head to his chest he soothed her as she cried, content to do nothing more than hold her.
Eventually Norah grew light-headed from her exertion and she forced herself to regain her composure. If this was the end, if she was to be parted from Torsten this night, she could not prevent it by giving in to such a tantrum. No matter how strong the urge.
She clung to her love, her warrior, memorizing the feel of his contoured chest beneath her cheek, the scent of him, the ethereal tingling of her limbs and body where it was pressed to his.
“I canna lose ye again; I canna let ye die,” she said, her voice wavering as she looked up at him.
“Ye must, if that is what is meant for me,” he answered. Despite her protest, he saw in her eyes that she knew she was helpless to stop it. “No one understands as you do, my love, that the course of one’s destiny is unalterable. I am a warrior. I have always been a warrior, in lifetimes before this. I will not lay down my sword when I am needed.”
Lowering his head, Torsten pressed a kiss to her lips. It was a gentle kiss, yet one potent with unfulfilled promise and infinite love. Her lips were slick and cold from the rain, but they seemed softer and warmer to Torsten than ever before. He committed them to memory, savouring the taste and the feel of her as best he could.
When he pulled away, he brushed his lips against her ear and whispered raggedly, “We both know the story that has been written for us. We cannot change the end of our tale any more than we can change the tides. What we can do, myn svass, is meet our fate with courage, meet our story’s end with pride and dignity.”
For a measure of time that was both infinitely long and entirely too brief they simply held one another. The thought of letting go was nearly painful to bear for both of them.
“No matter what happens this night,” Torsten murmured, “no matter how many years may pass before we meet again, my love for you will never fade.”
“Nor mine for ye,” Norah whispered achingly.
With a final, tender kiss, Torsten stepped back and drew his sword from its sheath at his back. “Find the broch,” he said before he ascended the crag. “You may be correct, that may be the only place you can hide. With nothing on that side of Fara the raiders might not consider it worth th
eir while to go there. If either of us is going to survive this, it may be you.”
Norah’s lungs constricted painfully as he disappeared from her view. The wind tore at her hair and her tunic, both saturated and clinging to her. Only when she was alone, whimpering to herself in the dark and the wind and the rain, did blood return to her numbed limbs. She shivered against the sudden rush of vitality and her mind began to canter ahead with plans and strategies of her own.
The children—the first thing she must do before she fled to the broch was to find as many of the children as she could and take them with her. They could not be subjected to this brutal slaughter; she would prevent it if she could.
Resolved in her mission she climbed back up to the path. The grass and rock face of the crag was slippery beneath her. Twice she stumbled, scraping the exposed flesh of her palms and her wrists. After a valiant struggle she made it to the top, gasping as much from the adrenaline fuelling her muscles as from the effort.
The harbour was nearly invisible from her vantage point, and as she peered down at it through the slicing rain she determined that there was no movement, no one left to follow her. A jagged blade of lightning confirmed her suspicion: the bodies of the Gallach guardsmen floated in the water and lay motionless on the docks. All killed.
Though distressed by their deaths, it was a whisper of sombre pride which straightened Norah’s spine and raised her chin a notch higher. Her clansmen had stayed and fought to the death to protect their island and their people, instead of fleeing to save themselves.
If she were fortunate enough to meet them again on the other side of this life, she would have to impress upon them her gratitude for their sacrifice and loyalty.
* * *
It had not taken long for the raiding Vikings to catch up with Einarr’s party. They had only just made it to the first dwellings which established the perimeter of the village before they were overtaken, and were forced to turn and fight.
“Draw them deeper,” Einarr bellowed in Gaelic, hoping that Fairhair’s men did not understand the language.
In answer his warriors allowed the raiders to gain ground, pulling them in amongst the buildings with each successive thrust and strike.
The tactic was not as effective as it would have been if the village had been more densely populated. Still, it provided enough of an advantage, for the ground was not entirely open and the raiders were forced to separate. The storm helped; the domestic fires that had been lit by the villagers earlier in the night were now nearly extinguished, providing the added cover of darkness and shadows.
Einarr had been right: they would not win this fight. But neither would it be a decisive victory for Fairhair. It was a small encouragement for the men who defended Fara.
As the battle surged, a large number of the raiders left the village to pursue the fleeing islanders. There were not enough of Fara’s warriors to engage them; those that were not fighting could raid and kill without opposition.
It was a significant discouragement for the men who defended Fara.
Fighting at the centre of the conflict, Einarr found himself facing two raiders with nothing but his sword and a wooden cart between him and them—it was exactly the type of combat the Viking leader thrived on: the kind which required creativity to win. The cart, he discovered, made an effective barricade.
Ducking a swipe from his opponents over the platform of the cart, he dropped to his knees. Before the men on the other side realized he had not come back up, Einarr stabbed through the wheels at the shin bones across from him, striking one bone squarely above the ankle.
The injured man shrieked at the sudden pain and stumbled, landing hard on his wide back.
“Ha!” Einarr shouted, elated by the beautiful opportunity he’d created for himself. Before his second opponent could come to his companion’s defence, Einarr darted around the side of the cart and dispatched the injured man.
“Gaze upon my weapon and know that it is your destiny, you maggot-mouthed swine,” Einarr crowed, indulging theatrically in the tradition of Norse insults.
But before he could put a decisive end to his fight, a scuffle to his right caught his attention. Garrett, who had been locked in battle with a single opponent, had slipped in the mud, losing hold of his sword as he fell. He now lay at his opponent’s feet, helpless to protect himself from the blade suspended above his head.
“Garrett,” Einarr roared.
Thinking of nothing but the need to save the chief’s son he lifted the edge of the cart with a burst of power and launched it at the second of his attackers. The unanticipated manoeuvre caught the man off guard; the cart’s heavy frame crashed on top of him, pinning him to the ground.
Einarr did not wait to see whether his tactic had been effective. He charged towards Garrett’s opponent, and with one mighty swing of his blade he severed the man’s head clean from his neck. It toppled to the ground and out of sight; the decapitated body sank to its knees, collapsing grotesquely into the mud.
Astounded by the fortuitous demise of his opponent, Garrett gazed upwards at the hardened visage of Einarr.
“Behind ye,” he called as another raider moved to strike Einarr’s exposed back.
Twisting onto his stomach Garrett strained to grab a hold of his sword’s handle, and when Einarr dove out of the way he thrust the steel blade upwards, puncturing the raider through the abdomen.
The man emitted a wet, gurgling grunt and keeled over onto the headless corpse of his comrade.
“Thanks for that,” Einarr said, pulling himself to his feet and offering Garrett a hand.
“And to ye, as well,” Garrett returned.
“It is a shame we won’t make it through this. I would have asked you to teach me how you manage to be so ... what is the word—lithe?”
“Not to worry,” Garrett bantered ruefully. “I’ll show ye when we both get to yer Valhalla.”
With that they both threw themselves back into the battle. It would be the last time they’d ever speak.
* * *
Pressing through the wind and rain Norah closed in on the fortress. The clash of steel upon steel, and the screams of the islanders as they fled, mingled horribly with the howling storm. The going was difficult; with so little light she found herself losing her bearings easily, and had to wait from clash to clash of lightning to regain them.
As the fortress loomed into view the lightning flashes were accented by the terrified faces of her clansmen and women as they fled. They ran to the fortress; they ran from the fortress; they ran in any direction that would deliver them from the Vikings who pursued them.
Amid the scurrying bodies Norah spotted Cook. The old man’s wrinkled face was a mask of fear and his withered arms were wrapped around her father’s silver goblets, which he’d always taken such pride in.
But he carried too many; they hampered his speed, already limited by his age.
Norah’s legs froze and she halted in the middle of the chaos, exposed and unable to move. Her brain screamed at her to yell to Cook, to tell him, you fool, leave them. They are not worth your life.
The words would not come.
Lightning speared the sky again, and the impossibly large figure of a raiding Viking appeared behind Cook.
Time slowed.
The Viking raised his axe, his soulless eyes glaring down at the old islander. Then he heaved his axe downward, burying the blade deep into Cook’s back with a sickening thud.
Cook’s eyes found Norah’s in the brief second before they turned heavenward. They begged her forgiveness, begged her to save him even as the light of life left them. When he fell dead into the cold, unforgiving mud, his murderer stepped over his body, a thing that was of no more consequence to him than a split log.
Against the crackle of thunder, screaming reverberated in Norah’s ears. Horrid, ragged wailing. It was several long seconds before she realized that the screams were her own.
It was several seconds more before she realized that a pair
of small hands gripped her shoulders, and were shaking her back and forth like a puppet.
“Move, Norah,” Cinead bellowed, “ye must move. Ye canna stay in one place, screaming yer bowls out. Yer making a target of yerself.”
Norah wrenched her eyes from Cook’s body, and she stared blankly at the boy in front of her.
Seeing that she was unable to move under her own power, Cinead took her by the hand. “Come wi’ me,” he commanded. “Please, Norah, move yer feet. That’s it, keep moving.”
Her wails fading to pitiful bleats, she allowed herself to be pulled towards one of the outbuildings, behind which Cinead concealed them both. It was the security of shadow that helped Norah to regain her senses. She stared at Cinead, observing his rain-slicked hair, his tattered clothing, and the sword tucked into the crook of his elbow which was much too large and heavy for him.
Recognizing the weapon’s hilt, Norah’s heart throbbed with an old ache. It had been the boy’s father’s.
“Cinead, lad, I need ye to round up the children,” she said, focusing on his face. “They canna find safety on their own. Ye must find them. Madeg will help ye, and Greine—”
When Cinead shook his head miserably, she choked on the rest of her words.
“Norah, Madeg and Greine are dead,” he said.
“Dead?” she croaked. “No. No, they canna be.”
“They’re dead,” he repeated.
“H-How?”
The boy swallowed thickly at the fresh memory. He could not bear to tell Norah what he’d seen, how Madeg had tried to protect Greine from that beast of a Viking who wanted to ... who would have ...
Greine ... poor Greine. Too young and pure to be fodder for that kind of vile sport.
“There’s no time,” he said instead. “Norah, ye must run. Ye must be the one to find the children and get them out of here. I will stay and fight.”
“Fight? Are ye mad? Ye’re too small to fight them!”
Cinead smiled sadly. “I hardly think ye’re one to be accusing me of madness, aye?” he teased. Sobering, he added, “I must fight. ‘Tis the only way to honour my da’s sacrifice.”
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