The Last Viking

by Poul Anderson

  "Bitterest of all to carry that shield on behalf of a king who robbed and bullied and murdered your own folk."

  "Say no more." Haakon's voice was sharp. "I've given oaths."

  He had reached the full ripeness of his manhood, tall and powerful, soft on his feet, the handsome unlined face and curly yellow hair giving him somewhat of a boyish look. Ragnhild was young enough yet to remain fair in spite of childbearing and work. When they rode out together, they were a goodly couple.

  But this time Haakon went alone. He summoned the Upland levies and prepared to take them down to Oslo, where he had gathered a fleet. There was complaint among the yeomen at having to go just when hay harvest neared; Haakon thought that Svein must have planned this when he set the time of battle, but could only obey.

  After he was mounted, Ragnhild came to him with her children about her. "Must you leave so early?" she asked.

  "I want to be waiting for the king," he answered. "It shall not be said I hung back. He distrusts me enough, thinks I have too much strength, and from his own standpoint he is right."

  She looked up at him. This they had talked about many times before. He did not plan rebellion, but he wanted might to withstand the royal power.

  "Go with God," she said, handing him a beaker of mead. He swallowed it at a gulp, leaned over, and kissed her. The taste of the honey was on his lips.

  "I'll bring you home a chest of Danish gold," he said cheerfully.

  "Bring yourself," she replied. "That will be all I want."

  He drew in his reins till the horse reared, swept his hat in a wave, and galloped out to where the men waited. His voice drifted back, a boy's shout:

  "Hey! Off we go! Give us a song!" And the tune he himself struck up was neither hymn nor war verse but a bouncing bawdy ballad from Oslo's alehouses.

  Ragnhild stared after the army till the steep dales hid them. Then she returned to her work.

  Chapter II:

  How They Fought at the River Niss

  1

  As King Harald went south along Norway's coast, and the shire levies joined him, his fleet became a mighty one. The whole sea power of his land was met. From his own Fafnir, with gold-flashing head and tail, down to the lowliest tarred fisher boat, helmets and weapons glittered and shields banged on the sides. To larboard rose the tall shores of Norway, but to starboard the water held ships and ships and ships, as far as a man could see.

  Standing at the steering oar, Harald looked with pride on his crew. They were youthful; his old followers now commanded vessels of their own. Even Magnus was captain in one dragon, with a warrior of experience to counsel him. Here he had the pick of the new generation, young gamecocks in some ways strange to him. They were more vain, more mannerly, more afraid of hellfire to come than men of his age; but they seemed also more reckless and quarrelsome, touchy about a small point of honor, not rooted in some ancient garth but given over to the splendid unrest of the royal service. The brown faces were smooth, unlined, still scant of beard but with heavy locks falling to their shoulders; life had not yet scarred and battered them, they were all mindless leaping flame. He felt a wan envy. So had he been, once.

  "Well . . . what of it?" he asked himself. He could still flatten any of those pups, and he had the dearly bought wisdom of years, and he was the king. After this summer's work, he would be the king of two realms, and then . . .

  As they turned east into the Skaggerak, a wind sprang up against them, and clouds lifted darkly behind it. Thora went over to the side and faced forward, tasting its chill. She had not let her man escape his promise to take her along this year, and the voyage had seemed a wide-eyed drunkenness to her. Now the wind pressed her gown flat to the high breasts and long legs, a stray lock broke away from the ruddy coils of her hair and floated bannerlike; her eyes were half closed and a smile dwelt on her face.

  "I think it blows up to a gale," she said.

  "Aye." Thjodholf, the only one of Harald's nearer friends aboard, scowled. "It could be a stiff one, too."

  "The more sport," she laughed.

  "The more work," said Harald. Wind squealed in the rigging, and the Fafnir began to roll heavily. "Down mast! Out oars! Stand by to bail!"

  The sea was rising, murky, streaked with foam. Scud whipped into his nostrils. As the ship entered a trough, a great wrinkled wave marched past her, overtopping the bulwarks. Clouds sheeted across the sky; ahead lay darkness and rattling thunder.

  Harald gripped the oar, feeling it strain against him, a thrum as of living muscles. The prow dug into a surge, foam spouted up with the dragon head shaking above. Men cursed as their garments were suddenly drenched.

  Now the light was changing, a weird hard brass yellow which seemed to fill the rushing air. Ships climbed for the sky and swooped toward hell, the water was black and steel gray and tattered white. Overhead the lightning began a crazy blink, flashed across miles from cloud to cloud, and thunder rolled.

  Harald felt the wind stand into his mouth like an iron bar. Somehow he filled his lungs and bawled his orders: "Row! Row, you bastards, or you'll not see land again! Ease on the starboard . . . hard alee ... get her bow to the seas or we'll be swamped!"

  There came a swift rain. From afar they saw it rushing down, pocking the enraged waves, and then it was on the fleet. Blindness whirled over them in a thousand sharp lances. The lightning leaped through a howling dark, thunder banged in heaven; ha, Thor drove his goat car to war yonder! Its wheels cracked the vault of cloud, and the sky fell down in a fury of hailstones.

  The ship staggered. A wave smashed across the sides, the hull flurried in bitter waters. Harald felt her groan and roll sluggish. "Bail! Bail her out, for Christ's sake! Are you lame?" The wind hooted and whistled. Fire was in the sky and doomsday below.

  The booming of thunder shivered Harald's teeth in his jaws.

  In a short, blinding whiteness of lightning, he saw Thora. She clung to the racked mast with both hands, knees bent to the pitch and yaw of the ship, standing up and laughing—laughing! The hailstones skittered between the thwarts, they had cut her cheek, her dress was whipped into rags and her hair full of rain. Then darkness clamped down again.

  The ship mounted a wave as if she would be flung into heaven. She poised on its crest, while scud and rain and hail drove across her, and in another flash Harald saw an outlying island. He slammed the helm over and threw his weight upon it. There was shelter, could they live to reach it.

  Down she went, a dive which caught at his throat, and the sea ramped above her. Wind yammered between earth and sky. He heard, through the thunder, how waves snarled and strakes moaned.

  Shaking herself, the dragon rose again, slipped down the side of a billow, bucked like a wild horse, and bit the water in twain. The sea shouted, tossing her from hand to hand, climbed aboard and sucked at men's legs. Thunder beat drums as the wind chanted the Devil's Mass. Hoo, Thor was angry, . . . Crack went his hammer, and fire spurted as it struck!

  The island loomed near, dimly seen through the rain, and Harald cried orders to the crew. "Larboard, get her to larboard!" Surf was piled mountainous on the windward side. He heard it ripping chunks out of the world.

  "Now . . . around . . . break your backs, you louse-bitten rascals!" Waves burst over the starboard rail, one after another, until only the dragon's head and tail rose streaming from them. Harald lost his footing, the gale snatched at him and the sea rolled hungrily; he caught at a thwart, pulled himself back, and got the tiller again.

  Of a sudden they were in the lee of the island. It lifted bleak and stony, the sea tossed and bellowed even here and wind came around the cliffs with claws of rain. But they might be safe. "Out anchors!" Even this small shelter seemed to hold a ringing, shuddering stillness after what they had just weathered.

  The iron hook went overboard, and stone anchors followed. Their cables stretched, drew taut. If the lines broke or the ship dragged there would be an end to Harald Hardrede. Men still clutched their oars, trying to hold the ve
ssel steady while their comrades bailed. It was a weary while before the darkness began to lift and the storm to lessen.

  Thjodholf went up to where Harald stood, Thora by his side. His verse could just reach their ears above the racket:

  "The king now lets his keel boards

  cleave the ground of billows;

  all that tow and tackle

  can take, he sets on trial;

  the heavy storm-blows harshly

  haul upon our cables,

  anchor claws are eaten

  by angry waves and sea stones."

  Harald smiled shakily. "Well, at least you've not had your gifts of speech blown away," he said. Looking about, he saw that two other ships lay close; the rest must be scattered into every shelter for miles about.

  It was not a good sign. "Ill is our luck," he said to Thora.

  She held his arm tightly. Her lips passed over his, a wet cold kiss, to reach his ear, and she answered merrily: "No, this is the best of tokens. If we overcame such weather, we can trample down anything which stands against us."

  2

  The fleet had suffered astonishingly little loss, and rallied itself the next day. Though seas still ran heavy, the Norse reached the Gota mouth in a short time and steered into the bay on the evening. By then there was a flat calm.

  Harald frowned when he saw the water empty of Danish ships. A little smoke rose from the nearby thorp, but no one was in sight, the people must have fled. Foreboding stabbed through him. Did Svein once more mean to avoid battle?

  "They may also have been held up by the storm," said Eystein Gorcock when he met the king on shore.

  "The wind would have favored them," replied Harald. "Even if they waited out the gale, they should be here now. Take some men and go find news. There must be someone about who knows."

  Eystein nodded. His sister asked anxiously: "What if Svein does refuse to meet us?"

  "Then we must seek him out ... or burn his country down around his ears," said Harald.

  "The yeomen will not like a long campaign at this time of year," said Haakon Ivarsson. "Bad enough to call them out just when their hay was getting ready. If their grain rots in the field, we may look for rebellion."

  Harald gave him a cold stare. "So now you too will go home with your belly dragging the ground?"

  Haakon flushed red. "I'll stay, my lord," he responded angrily. "It's not my fault if you won't listen to sensible redes."

  "There's no luck in this voyage," muttered Ulf. "It's what comes of taking a woman along."

  Thora stamped her foot. "And you'd liefer be lounging at home?"

  "Be still, all of you!" said Harald.

  A jag of pain ran over Ulf's ugly face; he turned and walked with faltering steps toward his tent. Harald had half a mind to run after him. It must be lonely to feel death gnawing in your breast. But the bitterness of Svein's betrayal was too thick in his mouth.

  He would scarcely say a word throughout that evening.

  On the morrow he called a Thing of his men and related his challenge to them, bidding Svein be all men's nidhing did he not accept. Thereafter it was a dreary waiting, while Eystein and Gunnar and others were out after word. The thorp saw much carousing, ball games, fights between such horses as had been carried along; but the host was as sullen as its leader.

  Eystein's band came back in three days. The sheriff rode up to the king's tent, and Harald sprang out and almost dragged him from his steed. "Well?" barked the king. "What have you learned?"

  "We stole up on a steading which seemed rich, and took the folk prisoner." Eystein tugged his mustache unhappily. "They said Svein has his fleet out indeed, but far to the south, near Fyen. They know because two of their sons had gone to join him—"

  Harald whirled and grabbed a tent stay. The whole thing came down under that, and he took the ridge pole and broke it across his knee. "God curse that craven," he choked. "Hell take his worthless soul and fry it. That whelp of a mangy dog, that dead and rotting fish, that eater of maggots—"

  Thora listened in awe till he fell silent. Then she said briskly: "Well, put the torch to Denmark."

  "Seek him out," said Magnus. "Hunt him down and spit him."

  Haakon Jarl had come up with the other chiefs and now shook his curly head. "My lord, the yeomen will not stand for such a chase. What boots victory if they starve this winter?"

  "Aye . . . aye ..." Harald's knuckles were white on his fists, he stared before him like a blind man, but his tone came soft: "Yes, I suppose you have right. We'll call the Thing together, offer rich reward to those who'll remain true, and then sail on."

  "Svein will have a larger fleet if our yeomen go home," said Thora. "Is it not so?"

  "Yes," nodded Ulf. "The Danes care less for their crops than for revenge—or for safety. They know we'll fire their fields if we can."

  Harald sighed. "I've a greater foe than Svein Estridhsson," he said. "It is the old woman who wrestled Thor to a fall, the hag who eats years. I'll not waste what's left in this sour corner of the earth. St. Olaf witness, we'll end the war this time, one way or another."

  Thora's nostrils flared. "There speaks Harald Hardrede!" she cried.

  At the Thing, most of the yeomen said stubbornly they would return. "What use is gold? My children can't chew on it this winter." But enough of the younger sons were ready to fight that Harald could man a hundred and eighty ships. He steered from the Gota, southward along Halland, and wherever there was settlement he landed to sack and burn. It was his hope that news of this would draw Svein up to him. But if he must, he vowed, he'd ride into Roskilde and cut the Dane king down in his own hall.

  After a week or so of thus harrying, he entered the shallow curve of Lofufjord, where the river Niss empties into the sea. Hills rolled gently back from the beach, yellow with ripening grain, dark with patches of woods; a sizable hamlet lay under thatch roofs near the shore. As the Norse rowed closer, they saw a line of armed yeomen forming.

  "They haven't the hope of a snowflake in hell," said Thjodholf. Sadness crossed his face. "Those are brave men."

  "They are Danes," said Harald.

  He let the anchor drop and the horns blow to summon his captains for council. Haakon Jarl was first aboard, with troubled mien. "I have a boon to ask of you, my king," he said.

  "Well?" Harald waited, arms folded on his breast.

  Haakon met his gaze steadily, though Harald's eyes smoldered. "When I was serving Svein," he said, "I lay to at this spot for a while, being sick. One of the folk here took me in and treated me kindly—Carl, his name is. It would be an ill repayment to slay him and make his children thralls."

  "Aye, so." The jarl was astonished to get a mild answer; he had been ready to use strong words and even threats. "Well, we can spare this one thorp since you ask it. Go you and tell them we will grant peace if they lay down their arms and give us such provisions as we need."

  Haakon bowed deeply, and sprang into his boat with a joyful face. Thora gave her man a puzzled look. "It's not your wont to do thus," she murmured, "especially when it's a favor to one you distrust."

  Harald stared across the quiet waters. The jarl was in his boat, holding empty hands aloft as he was rowed close to the strand. "That fellow stands by his friends," he replied. "It was well to make him ours, if we can."

  Agreement was quickly reached, and the Norse swarmed merrily ashore. That night there was cheer in the hamlet, and Harald supposed a number of new souls would be added to it nine months hence. He himself tented with Thora on the beach, but Haakon was a guest in Carl's home.

  The next day Harald led his host inland, where they slaughtered cattle and robbed houses as before.

  It was a mighty strand hewing, and the countryside smoked when they came back that evening. Haakon felt that his host Carl's eyes were reproachful, and gave the man a good horse.

  In the misty morning, Harald ordered the fleet to ready itself. That went slowly, for there was much to take aboard, and they were still there after no
on.

  Then a shout rose up. Harald ran from the beached Fafnir and stared west. A bright hard glimmer was on the horizon, sunlight bouncing off gilt.

  "Ships!" exclaimed Ulf. "A whole fleet!"

  "Svein, by God!" Harald whooped it forth. He tossed his hat in the air and hugged his marshal and danced Thora across the sward. "Blow the battle call! On armor, out swords, here comes the end of the war!"

  By the time the chiefs were gathered, it was plain that the nearing force was of overwhelming size, easily twice their own number. The ships spilled over the sea, it was dark with them; against the dazzle of the westering sun they swarmed like midges.

  Eystein frowned uneasily. "So Svein has used his old trick once more," he said, "and this time we cannot escape unless we start soon."

  "Yeomen!" snorted Styrkaar. "We can cut them into flitches and eat them for breakfast."

  "I've seen a pack of dogs pull down a boar," said Haakon. "What think you, my lord? Shall we stand and fight, or shall we take to our heels? It's no dishonor to run from such odds."

  Harald's tawny head lifted as he answered: "Sooner shall we fall man by man, one atop the other, than fly."

  Magnus' eyes glowed.

  3

  Thora refused to stay ashore, and Harald had no time to compel her. "Keep down below the foredeck, then," he said as he put his shoulder to the longship. "The men will have work to do."

  Wading out and pulling himself over the side, he scrambled into helmet and byrnie, hung a sword at his waist, and laid shield and ax nearby. For the shooting that would come first, he had a six-foot bow from Finland and a chestful of goose-feathered arrows, each a yard long with barbed iron head. He told off one of the younger men to steer, while he placed himself in the bows. As they rowed slowly off, he took out his banner and lashed it to the figurehead. A light breeze caught the red and gold, the raven seemed to beat hungry wings, Landwaster was going to sea.