by Angus Watson
Chnob pushed him two-handed in the chest. He staggered. The little man came at him, fists raised. Finnbogi was not going to take this, not from Chnob. He gathered himself to dive at him, but was grasped from behind by somebody strong.
“What the Hel do you think you’re doing?” It was Garth, towering over both of them by a head, a neck and then some more. His helmet gave him even more height and his mail shirt made him seem, Finnbogi hated to admit, like a warrior hero.
“He came at me, I was just defen—”
“We’ve all lost people, Boggy. And now we’re all mucking in to help. And you’re trying to fight one of our own? One of the few of our own that are left? You’re pathetic.”
“I didn’t start it. It was him. He—”
But Garth was walking away and it was Chnob’s turn to smile.
Bodil Gooseface and Ogmund the Miller arrived at Hardwork safely. Sassa Lipchewer was beginning to worry about Keef the Berserker when he came running back to the square. He’d been to the nearby Goachica village.
“It wasn’t a Scrayling and Hardworker thing,” he panted. “The Goachica Scraylings are all dead, bar a few children and elderly who hid in the woods. The Calnians—are we still thinking they’re Calnians?”
Wulf nodded.
“They must have hit the Goachica first. Lucky for us the Goachica took quite a lot of the Calnians out. Do we know why they attacked?”
“We have an idea, thanks to Frossa. The more important question is what we do now. And I know the answer,” said Wulf. Everybody gathered round him. Sassa was proud.
“There’s no question,” said Keef. He pointed at Ottar. “If you want proof that we should have already done what the little dude told us to do, it’s burning over there.” He hoicked a thumb over his shoulder at the mass funeral pyre. “Let’s go west of west, to The Meadows.” To emphasise this, he swished Arse Splitter in a circle, bisected a make-believe adversary, and stood with the weapon pointed to the west.
“To The Meadows!” Ogmund the Miller raised his spear boldly, winced at the wound in his arm and lowered it again. He took a big swig from an earthenware jug. Sassa didn’t know what was in the jug, but, knowing Ogmund, it wasn’t water.
“No!” said Frossa. “My children, we must stay here.” She smiled benevolently. Sassa was glad Frossa had survived. She was a calming presence, like a mother to the whole tribe, but, spunk on a skunk, why would she want to stay?
“Why?” asked Keef.
Frossa turned to him, her eyes kind. “Dearest Keef. First, thank you and the rest of the Hird for fighting so hard and well. Without your service, we would not be alive to have this discussion. You are heroes.”
“True enough.” Keef nodded.
“I understand the excitement of change, but there are many reasons to stay and none to go. Our ancestors built Hardwork. We betray them if we leave. Hrolf is too badly injured to travel any distance, and Ogmund has lost too much blood to be heading into the wilds. Are we so selfish that we’d leave them behind?”
“No,” said Bodil.
“The real reason that we must remain is what awaits us in the west. I have spoken to Scraylings from as far away as the Mother of the Waters. Once we leave our boundaries, we become prey to bears, lions, wolves, dagger-fang cats, poisonous spiders, snakes, wasps that will kill a strong man with one sting and nature itself—storms, tornadoes, swamps that will suck you down in an instant, rivers too wide and turbulent to cross even in a boat, mountains too high to climb, and plants that kill with one touch.
“If somehow we survived more than a few days, we’d meet other Scrayling tribes a great deal less paternal than our Goachica friends. They would revel in killing us in ways that simple folk like you cannot imagine. If we get past those, the further we go the more dangerous it becomes. We will face giants, three-headed trolls and other monsters more terrifying than anything from your worst nightmares.”
There were murmurs and everybody looked worried.
“Oh, let’s stay here!” cried Bodil. “It was a nice idea to go when it was fun, but it’s not fun any more. Oh, please let’s stay here.”
“We can’t,” said Wulf. “All that Frossa said may be true, but we can deal with it. We can fight wild bears and cats, we can tiptoe around Scrayling villages, we can shelter from weather and we can tread carefully to avoid annoying snakes and all the other dick animals. I suspect the only monsters we’ll meet are the ones in our minds, but if we do meet real monsters they will be made of flesh and bone. We have weapons that can pierce flesh and smash bone.
“But more pressing than the reasons not to go is the reason not to stay. There are many more Calnians where that lot came from. They sent an army to kill us all. How do you think they’ll react when that army doesn’t come home? ‘Never mind, let’s forget about it and put all our focus into next week’s sun festival?’ No. They’ll send another force to finish us off. They might even send their Owsla. If we want to live, we have to go.”
Sassa shuddered. They had all heard of the Calnian Owsla, a squad of ten magic-powered demons, any one of which could slaughter a whole tribe on her own.
“That’s exactly it, I could not have put it much better myself,” said Keef. “Leave and live, stay here and be killed by the Owsla. So who wants to come, right now?” He raised his hand, as did Wulf and a few others. Sassa put her own up, then watched Finnbogi watching Thyri. Thyri raised her hand hesitantly and Finnbogi’s shot up immediately. That made Sassa smile despite it all. She strongly approved of Finnbogi’s infatuation with Thyri, not least because it had drastically reduced the amount he perved at her.
“We do not need to risk the west,” said Frossa. “We can simply move a couple of dozen miles north, up the coast of Olaf’s sea. They will never find us—”
There was a loud pop from the nearby cremation fire and a charred arm fell off. As Keef walked over to prong it back onto the fire with Arse Splitter, everyone else started talking at the same time.
“I’d like to say something,” said Sassa. She put her hand up. The others continued talking over each other. Chnob was chanting: “Stay! Stay! Stay!”
“SHUT UP!” she shouted. They all turned to look at her, amazed. Keef stopped in his tracks back from the fire and raised his eyebrows. Wulf took her arm as if she were ill. She felt herself reddening. They’d never heard her shout before.
“Sorry, but there’s something important I need to say. Olaf Worldfinder and our ancestors left the old world because they didn’t agree with the way the overlords lorded it over them. They braved a sea far larger than ours, crossed an unknown land and faced unimaginable dangers. Why? Because Olaf had foreseen that they’d find sanctuary here, in Hardwork.
“We have exactly that situation again. A larger tribe—an overlord—has killed most of us. We have only two alternatives. Go to Calnia and seek vengeance for the slain, or head west. We have the answer. Ottar predicted the massacre. He was right. And now he says we must go west and find The Meadows. We have to trust him, as our ancestors trusted Olaf. We cannot possibly go to Calnia to fight them. We owe it to our ancestors, we owe it to ourselves, but most of all we owe it to our unborn children, their children and on. We must survive. We must go west.”
Sassa Lipchewer’s speech swung it, and what a great speech it had been. Finnbogi had respected her before, but now he thought she was amazing. She was the wise woman that Frossa claimed to be.
After Sassa’s excellent points, everybody apart from Frossa wanted to leave, even Hrolf. Seeing that everyone was against her, Frossa deigned to accompany them. That was a bit of an arse ache. Finnbogi would have left Hrolf and Frossa behind because they’d slow the rest of them down. Still, if he’d been in their boots he would have gone anywhere rather than be left alone with either of them. Garth and Chnob aside, Frossa and Hrolf were Finnbogi’s two least favourite people in all of Hardwork. It was terrible luck that all four of his least favourite people had survived.
“Good,” said Gunnhild,
“Now, let’s get to planning and provisioning. Remember everyone, there is no better burden on a journey than good sense. In a strange place it is more useful than riches.”
Everybody nodded while Finnbogi groaned.
They spent the day collecting provisions. Finnbogi had thought it wouldn’t take more than an hour, but Wulf the Fat said it would take all day and actually it took a bit longer. It was exciting to really be going, with all of his favourite people as well as his least favourite. Out into the wild! They’d have to take everything on their backs, and Finnbogi’s pack was heavy, but he didn’t think carrying it would be any big deal since they’d have to go so slowly to allow for Frossa and Hrolf.
There were two big highlights of the day.
The first was when Wulf had handed him Brodir’s sword Foe Slicer, along with its silver-studded baldric and scabbard. It was the sword that had been strapped to Olaf the Worldfinder’s hip all the way from the old world and which the late Jarl had looted from his grave. Finnbogi drew it. The polished blade’s iron core was like a fish’s skin, with swirling, dark markings flowing along its length. The edges were hard, shining steel and could chop through any armour. The pommel was jewelled and the grip was carved from the tooth of a great sea beast called a walrus that could swallow a man whole. The more you sweated, the grippier that grip became. It was the best weapon in Hardwork, probably the best weapon for thousands of miles.
“You should have it,” Wulf said.
“Why?” Finnbogi wanted it, but he didn’t have even the beginnings of a claim to the dazzling scabbard, let alone the fearsome weapon.
“Bjarni has his own sword, I have my hammer, Thyri’s got her sax and her axes and her dagger. We Hird all have weapons we know and have trained with for thousands of hours, so we don’t want to change. Plus I reckon that after the Hird, and Sassa with her bow, you’re going to be the most useful in a fight.”
“Not Chnob?”
“Not Chnob.”
Finnbogi beamed. Wulf arched an eyebrow. “Don’t get cocky.”
Finnbogi looped the baldric over his shoulder and Wulf buckled it so the hilt was positioned for a quick grab.
“Will you teach me how to fight with it?” he asked, as Wulf showed him how to draw the blade without chopping his own arm off.
“No, not me. I’m a hammer man.” He lifted his weighty hammer Thunderbolt. It was an iron lump the size and shape of a large clog, moulded around a shaft of fire-hardened oak a pace long and held in place by a tight criss-cross of leather strips. Both ends of the handle were sharpened into points. It looked like something a child might knock together in an afternoon, but the sagas said that it was hundreds of years old, magically preserved, and that it had seen much heroic battling. Wulf swung it, missing Finnbogi’s nose by a finger’s length. “All I know is hit them quick and hit them hard enough that they don’t hit you back. Swords are a bit more sophisticated than that. Ask Bjarni to teach you.”
“Sure,” said Finnbogi, although he didn’t want to ask Bjarni, because, secretly, although he liked him a lot, he thought that Bjarni had only got into the Hird because he was Jarl Brodir’s son and he didn’t rate him as a fighter. No, thinking objectively, the best person for him to ask was Thyri Treelegs. She was amazing with that sax, and a sax was simply a small sword so surely the training would be the same?
The second highlight of the day was even better. It came when they were deciding who’d share sleeping sacks. Frossa worked it all out, so he didn’t think he had a chance. He was pretty sure Frossa didn’t know he was in love with Thyri, but he knew she was mean enough to put him with the person he’d least like to be with—Garth (Garth pipped it over Chnob as the person Finnbogi would least like to share a sleeping bag with because he was so much larger).
But Frossa decided the sleeping bag allocation on size—after taking out Wulf and Sassa who were obviously going together—and it had fallen by luck (or by the plan of the gods!) that he and Thyri were together.
Thyri shrugged at the news as if she couldn’t care less, and Finnbogi tried to suppress his reaction. With so many so recently dead, it was hardly the time for prancing about and grinning like a loon with a bulge in your trousers.
Despite Finnbogi’s suggestion that they try out the sleeping bags, everyone slept on beds in the longhouse, built into the wall way back, when Olaf’s Hird would sleep in his hall with him. When it was all quiet, Gunnhild’s voice rang out:
“Remember: a foolish man lies awake worrying; he will wake tired with his laments unchanged!”
Finnbogi lay awake. His fantasies about Thyri morphed into memories of those who had died, particularly Poppo, Alvilda and Brenna. You die when you die. Hardworkers did not mourn death.
But Finnbogi could not help but sob silently until, mercifully, he fell asleep.
Chapter 16
The Crocodile Tribe
Almost all of the sacrifices who were cajoled at spearpoint onto the Plaza of Innowak knew about Calnian Owsla and were suitably terrified. Every now and then, however, the Owsla got to fight people from backwaters where their fame hadn’t spread.
Sofi Tornado liked it when that happened.
Today’s lot were twenty raiders, all men, from a troop of humans who lived an isolated life in the swamps to the south-east and called themselves the Crocodile tribe. The fools had come north in search of gold and glory, camped without posting a guard and been captured by Calnian farmers. Not so glorious.
The twenty Crocodile tribesmen looked nervous initially, perhaps cowed by the heckling crowd, the great sun crystal and the gold-topped pyramids that surrounded the Plaza of the Sun. However, the moment they saw their opponents were all women, and that they outnumbered those women two to one, they whooped, jeered and slapped each other’s backs.
Sofi smiled.
The Crocodiles lined up opposite her women, some grinning, some striking warrior poses, some pointing their axes and knives threateningly. This was standard battle array. Free-for-alls did happen, especially during raids, but the accepted form of battle throughout the known world was one-on-one combat while the rest watched and waited their turn. It reduced casualties and everybody got to show off their fighting skills.
One of the men pointed at Chogolisa Earthquake: “Look, they’re not all women. They’ve got a buffalo, too! Ugly buffalo at that! She’s not even armed! What’s she planning to do, sit on us? Ha ha!”
The Crocodiles laughed along. The one who’d insulted Chogolisa stepped forward, still chuckling.
“What is your name?” asked Sofi.
“My name is not important, but you may call me Fist of the Jaguar.” He spoke the universal tongue in a tough-man growl, his accent tortured and sharp. “I’m the captain of the Crocodile army and undefeated in battle.” He was beefily muscled, shaven-headed, with the cocksure smile that Sofi Tornado recognised as the smile of someone who’d never lost a fight. “It seems an awful shame to kill women as lovely as you. There are other ways we could tussle that you’d enjoy a lot more.”
“Jaguars do not have fists.”
“Ha!” Paloma Pronghorn barked out a laugh behind her.
“… What?” Fist of the Jaguar’s muscular brow knitted above his small eyes.
“A jaguar cannot bend its paw into a fist. So Fist of the Jaguar is a bad name because jaguars don’t have fists. It’s like being called Tentacles of the Rabbit, or Talons of the Worm.”
“What’s your name?”
“Sofi Tornado.”
“That is quite good,” he said after a pause.
“I can’t claim credit for it, but, yes, I think it is.”
“Perhaps I’ll take it when I’ve killed you.”
“Kill me and it’s yours. First, though, pick any one of my Owsla to fight.”
“Including you?”
“Anyone.” As she spoke she heard the change in his breathing, grains of sand shifting under his feet, skin moving against skin. She stepped back, slipping her obsidian dagger from
its sheath. Fist of the Jaguar’s stone axe flashed through the air where her head had been a moment before.
Leaning to avoid his next blow, she slid her cruelly sharp obsidian blade into his chest, then reached round and stabbed him in the back.
Fist of the Jaguar stepped away.
“I …” He sucked in a long, windy breath, then looked down at his chest, confused.
“I’ve pierced your lungs. You’ve lost a fight for the first time.”
He blinked at her.
“On the bright side, you won’t be losing any more.”
He raised his axe, but the effort to breathe overtook him and he stood sucking in air, shoulders heaving, looking a great deal less cocksure than he had a few moments before.
Sofi smiled at him sadly, then looked along the line of his men. Boastful distain had been replaced by slack-jawed disbelief.
“Chogolisa?” she said.
The giant woman nipped nimbly forward. “Yup?”
“Finish him.”
Fist of the Jaguar raised his stone axe, but Chogolisa Earthquake caught his wrist, plucked the axe from his grip with two fingers and tossed it away. She spun him round so he was facing his men, then crouched and thrust one arm between his legs and another under his arm. She linked her hands and stood, picking him up. He beat ineffectively at her massive arms. She pivoted at the hip, making sure that the Crocodiles all had a good look at their helpless leader. Then she squeezed.
Fist of the Jaguar screamed as his back, pelvis and leg bones cracked, then crunched into his guts. A flush of blood from his mouth silenced him. Still she squeezed. The captain of the Crocodile army’s torso crackled and squelched. One final sad sound gasped from his already dead throat.
Chogolisa opened her arms and dropped him. Fist of the Jaguar slapped wetly onto the arena floor. Moments before he’d been a proud, well-built man with a jutting chin. Now he was a bag of pulp with limbs and a head.
The Calnians watching from the edge of the Plaza whooped and cheered. The remaining Crocodiles stared at their destroyed leader, mouths open.