by Robert Low
Crowbone tore the headsquare off and flung it away, while the peasants grabbed the hidden axes from the handcart and turned, in that instant, into four rann-sack nightmares, the sort ma tells her bairns to beware of when they get lippy and foot-stamping. Two of them took wooden wedges and hammers and sprinted for the gatehouse. Berto gathered up his skirts and followed the men with hammers into the gatehouse.
They wedged the cogwheels, cut the ropes and pulleys and, even as the garrison started beating metal alarms, the rest of the Shadow’s crew spilled out from where they were hidden and ran screaming at the wide-open gate, across the raising-bridge that could not be raised, scouring the cold out of their mist-frozen bodies in blood and fire while the garrison scattered like crazed geese.
‘Just as well we attacked when we did,’ growled Onund, lumbering up like a sleepy bear. ‘I think that guard with the pretty hair was about to take liberties.’
Crowbone, standing with a seax dripping slow, heavy pats on the hem of his skirt, gave a rueful smile, looked at the handle of the pottery jug still clenched in one fist and tossed it away. The cold dawn wind stroked his freshly-shaved face like a blade. Onund had done it, deliberate and slow and unsmiling while men nudged and jeered at how much of a girl it made their jarl look; Crowbone, as the cold steel had caressed his throat, had never taken his eyes from the hunchback’s face, but had seen nothing there but implacable concentration.
Berto had needed no shaving, but insisted that he keep his breeks on under the skirt. Men jeered at him, all the same and pretended to kiss him, so that he flushed. That changed to pale when Crowbone handed him the seax and he realised what he had to do — Crowbone had not been sure the little Wend would manage it up until he had stuck the blade in the guard’s ribs.
They killed everything that moved or begged, burned what would burn, stacked what could be carried and unlocked all doors until they found the men they sought.
Hoskuld’s crew staggered blinking into the daylight to behold, open-mouthed, the body of Fergus, face as black as Kaup’s own, turning slowly as it hung beneath the arch of the gate while ash and sparks whirled round them. Thorgeir and Bergfinn stared at the ground, shamefaced and scowling.
‘We were tricked,’ Thorgeir told Crowbone and it was Halk the Orkneyman who gave a nervous laugh at that and told Crowbone what Hoskuld had done. Crowbone studied Halk, then the others; Gorm was the only one who returned his stare, eye to eye.
‘Now you can take care of the ones who fooled you,’ Crowbone said to Thorgeir and Bergfinn and handed Thorgeir the bloody seax. Onund, grim as a wet cliff, handed Bergfinn an axe.
‘Do not be tricked again,’ Crowbone ordered. ‘Take them to the ship and watch them — I will have words and questions later.’
They were moving carping geese and blue-glass goblets, bales, barrels and boxes under the dangle of the dead Fergus when Kaup came up, panting fast and so wild his eyes seemed huge and white.
‘Horsemen,’ he said, ‘coming up fast.’
Crowbone felt his belly turn a little, for he had hoped to be away before this Lord arrived with his men.
‘How many?’ he asked and Kaup cursed at not telling this important matter immediately. He flashed both hands four, perhaps five times.
‘Fuck,’ Rovald spat. ‘Horsemen.’
‘Do they fight on horses here, or on foot?’ Crowbone demanded of Murrough, who shrugged and grinned, hefting the long axe off his shoulder and handing Crowbone his sword, rescued from the handcart.
‘No matter,’ he said. Crowbone nodded and sent laden men to the ships, so that Bergfinn and Thorgeir, with four others, found themselves back on the knarr working up a sweat stacking the plunder and shoving her off into the wind. Those with ringmail stayed near Crowbone, moving slowly and standing rearguard, though most of them had plunder, too.
Not for long. Trussed fowls and bread, blue-glass and bales all went one way when the horsemen appeared, milling in some confusion. They had come on at speed towards the smell and sight of smoke, not knowing what to expect; they had not thought to find ring-mailed raiders, so they reined in and waited while a man in a white cloak talked to those on either side of him, waving his hands.
‘Horsemen, then,’ Kaetilmund declared, seeing the men remained mounted.
Not good ones, Crowbone thought to himself, as a man fought his nervous mount and another clattered his long spear off his neighbour’s helmet and had back curses for it. They were clearly new to this business of fighting mounted.
‘Perhaps they will let us go away, seeing as the damage is already done,’ Vandrad Sygni said, nocking an arrow. Murrough laughed.
Berto was the last laden man to reach the Shadow, having ripped off the dress. Now he waded out to the Shadow clutching a new bow and with the yellow dog splashing at his heels; the great blood sail flapped and filled and it stirred, fighting the clutch of mud still under the keel, for the tide was rolling in as the wind was rolling out.
The horsemen shifted at that sight, but the line of men on the sand stood and waited, then Crowbone yelled out an order and they began to step in rowing time, shields up but moving backwards to the shingle and the shallows, where the tendrils of mist trailed like hag hair.
The white-cloaked man saw them sliding back to the water and the dragon-ship, barked an order and the horsemen shifted into a ragged line; bits spumed with slaver, bridles jingled and the horses pawed and snorted, sensing what was coming.
‘Well, then,’ growled Mar, stuffing his helmet more firmly on his head, so that the great froth of his iron-coloured hair stuck out like wire, ‘they will make a fist and shake it at us, it seems.’
He turned to big Murrough who would be on one side of him in this, their first fight together; they slammed helmets together, forehead to forehead, a rough kiss of greeting and farewell.
‘May the Dagda smile on the Ui Neill this day,’ roared Murrough and Crowbone felt the fierce fire of the moment; he had a single crew now.
They were matched fairly in numbers, though the Shadow’s crew were better armed and better men, which Crowbone bellowed out in as deep a voice as he could manage as they slid into a shieldwall. Murrough stepped forward of the front ranks and began swinging the hook-bitted axe in that killing snake-knot that makes it impossible for a man to get near without suffering and the horsemen checked a little at the sight of him, then moved forward again at a walk. Everyone could see how ragged they were, how they waved their long spears like beetle feelers.
Their voices were brave enough, all the same, for they traded shouted insults on the size of balls and bellies — but it was Kaup who undid them, stepping out from the ranks a little and shaking a spear. Then Kaetilmund yelled ‘Oathsworn’ so that the others took up the chant.
The sight of a draugr, a dead man walking, was bad enough, never mind one armed with a spear and followed by fighting men of the Oathsworn, who were known even here. Crowbone, slapping on his horsetailed helmet and tucking his woman’s skirt up into his belt to free his legs, marvelled at how far that fame had reached.
There was a ripple then, a stone of argument in the sure pool of the horsemen. Crowbone could almost hear them thinking — here was something more than some raiders come badly timed to the wrong feast. Here was the iron hand of the Oathsworn, who had fought dragons and half-woman, half-horse steppe horrors and who had Burned Men fighting for them.
For all that, Crowbone and others all agreed later, the Galgeddil horsemen had ridden the great swell of it bravely enough, ridden it right to the top and looked down on their own deaths — and then swooped down, screaming.
‘Hold,’ Crowbone yelled, which was all he had time for before the shriekers crashed on the shieldwall like a raging wave on a rock dyke.
They were too new to the saddle, came in too fast and too loose, desperate with fear; the horses veered or reared for the riders could not press them home, so that those who did not fall off could only throw their long lances, which clattered off the implacable wall
of ring-mailed men like angry dogs clawing at a door.
Murrough’s skill and strength took one loop of the long axe in a downward cut straight through the neck of a horse, then the upward scythe of it took the falling rider and sheared the head and part of a shoulder off him. The Irisher stood like a rock as the headless pair ploughed a bloody furrow through the sand to his left, spraying gore and grit. The other riders, looking only for escape, spilled right and left away from him, heading round the flanks.
Crowbone had been waiting for that, standing calm behind the shieldwall and watching, like a good jarl should; when he saw them stumbling sideways, he sent men left and right from the back rank. He was so intent on that he missed white cloak, urging the shoulder of his mount into Rovald, barrelling him aside.
It was only the desperate howling of the white-cloaked Lord, screaming courage into himself as he bore down, that snapped Crowbone’s head round. An eyeblink later something slammed hard on the side of his shield, half throwing him sideways and whirling stars into him; he knew it was the toppling Rovald even as he heard the grunting man fall. No, he thought, in a strange quiet place in his head that was all the more mad for the stillness there. Not killed in a woman’s dress. I will never live the shame of it down.
Crowbone hardly knew he did it, he dropped in a crouch so low that he felt his arse brush the stiff grass and sand, half spun on one foot and scythed the legs from the horse, even as the rider’s longsword hissed a silver arc over his head, a backward cut that snicked trailing hairs from the horse-plume of his fancy helmet.
The horse shrieked, a high, thin sound, one fetlock cracked, the other severed almost entirely. It drove nose first into the sand, throwing up a bow wave, its screams swallowing the hoarse bellow of the rider as he was hurled to the ground.
Crowbone was up and moving even before the rider had stopped rolling. The Lord Duegald, tangled in his blood-streaked white cloak, staggered to his feet in a spray of wet sand to find a tall, beardless youth standing over him, his odd eyes glaring like burning glass. He had time to wonder why the man wore what appeared to be a dress.
The Galgeddil lord had a long-nosed face, neat with trimmed beard and bewildered blue eyes. Somewhere, a mother loved that face, but Crowbone, shaking with anger and fear, snarled it all out on the long nose and blue eyes in a furious flurry of wet-sounding chops.
When he surfaced from this, it was all over. A few horsemen were bolting for it, riderless mounts following after. A horse hirpled, one leg skewed. A man dragged himself, coughing and cursing, until Kaup, grinning, dragged his head back by the sand-and-blood-crusted hair and slit the terrified screams out of his throat.
The aftermath saw men retching, or panting, open-mouthed with disbelief and mad exultation that they had survived. Some did this after every fight and no-one thought the worse of them for it; the unaffected considered it booty-luck, since they were hunting, unopposed, in crotches, under armpits and down boots for hidden valuables, paddling in blood and all unconcerned. There was a rich choke of spilled shite and new blood.
Staggering a little, Crowbone went to the dead lord’s horse, which was flailing sand and screaming, and cut the life out of it in two weary strokes. The ending of the screams was like balm.
‘Good fight,’ said a voice and Crowbone turned to see the great grinning face of Murrough wandering towards him, hook-bitted axe over one shoulder, tossing a fat purse in the other. He looked at the dead man in the blood-soaked white cloak and nodded admiration.
‘I thought he had you — but you fooled him entirely,’ he added. Crowbone kept his lips sewed on the fact that he had thought the man had him, too. Mar loped up and searched the lord swiftly, came up with hacksilver and trinkets and handed that and Murrough’s fat purse to Crowbone, looked at the sword briefly and left it alone.
That was all a good sign, Crowbone thought. Not that Mar knew how matters worked in the Oathsworn — that they shared all, though looted weapons and ring-coats were the jarl’s to give or keep — but that he did it easily enough. Of course, everyone hid a little, running the risk that they might be found out and pay the price for it, which began with losing all you had and greeting the Oathsworn’s other true friend, pain.
Crowbone tried not to look at Mar, or the ruin of the Galgeddil lord’s face, fought to look smooth as a blue-glass cup as he turned away to bawl at Kaetilmund to leave off plundering and get to the ship.
He picked up the lord’s sword; it was a solid Frankish blade fitted with down-curved iron quillons and a fat three-lobed pommel above a braided leather grip. Basic and workmanlike, it was not the ornate sword of a little lordling, but one used by a fighting man; still a fearsomely expensive item all the same, since it had one purpose only and that was killing people. A luxury, then, to folk who used blades for chopping wood, or fish, or chickens. Beyond that, though, it was the mark of a warrior and increased in worth because of it; men without one watched Crowbone as he hefted it, hoping they had been noticed enough to warrant the gift of such a blade.
They tallied the losses as well as the gain — a man dead and four hurt, one almost certain to lose his hand. The dead man was curled on himself, skewered on a spear, the splintered haft showing ash so white it was almost too bright to look at. His face, half-turned to the last dying light he had ever seen, held only slack jawed astonishment that made him look stupid, which he had not been in life; Crowbone remembered him, shooting wit like arrows and laughing with the joy of what he was and who he was with.
‘Fastarr,’ said a voice and Crowbone turned to see Mar looking at the dead man. He pulled his helmet off, ran a hand through the sweat-damp iron tangle of his hair.
‘His name,’ he explained. ‘Fastarr, by-named Skumr. A boy we picked up in Jutland when we were the Red Brothers. Said he had seen fighting, but I did not believe him. He wanted to go far-faering, all the same, and was pleasant company.’
Crowbone stared. He had never heard his name and that shook him a little, for he knew it was an important matter to know the names of men prepared to die for you. He felt a jolt run through him, like a blow badly blocked, when he realised he had never spoken to this boy, whose by-name, Skumr, meant ‘brown gull’ and was a name given to one who chattered as noisily as that bird.
‘Well, now he is farlami,’ Mar declared. ‘So also is Kari Ragnvaldrsson, I am thinking.’
Faring-lamed — a term used as a wry joke as much as a small comfort of words. Not dead, just farlami, unable to go further on this journey.
When Crowbone went to him, Kari was pale with blood-loss, cradling his smashed hand, which was wrapped in the tail of his own tunic. His sword hand, too. Crowbone offered him thanks and promised him wealth enough and then told him he was done with the Oathsworn and that he would be left on Mann when he found someone to stand in his stead, his oath fulfilled.
Crowbone turned from the stricken look on Kari’s face, knowing the man would have given the other hand to stay, but he was spared the awkwardness of argument by the arrival of Rovald, nursing his shoulder and spitting sand.
‘You have not had a good day of it,’ Crowbone pointed out and Rovald, knowing that he had failed to protect his jarl when he was bundled aside like old washing, flushed a little and went tight-lipped, which at least kept him from saying something stupidly dangerous.
Instead, he nodded to where a lone figure moved steadily towards them, almost seeming to glide because his feet were hidden by the flap of his long robe.
It was brave of this Domnall, Crowbone thought, to plooter through the gore-muddy sand towards snarlers filled with victory and blood-fire. He said as much aloud, so folk would get the point of it; the snarlers grinned their wolf grins, cleaned their clotted weapons in the sand, ignored the priest and hefted their dead and wounded off towards the Shadow.
‘You have slain the Lord Duegald,’ Domnall said and his face was pale. He clasped his hands together and bent his head to pray.
‘Once,’ he heard a voice say, ‘a Raven was ov
ertaken by a Fox and caught. Raven said to Fox: “Please, pray first before you kill me, as the Christmann does.” This was the time when beasts had voices, you understand.’
Domnall, astonished, opened his eyes and stared at Crowbone, who stood with his legs slightly apart and his silly woman’s dress tucked up into his belt at the front, so that it looked as if he wore baggy, misshapen breeks. The priest saw that those odd-coloured eyes were dull, like misted beads.
‘Fox asked: “In what manner does he pray? Tell me.”
‘“He folds his hands in praying,” said Raven and Fox sat up and folded his paws as best he could, which meant letting go of Raven. “You ought not to look about you as you do. You had better shut your eyes,” added Raven and Fox did so. Raven flew away, screeching, into a high tree.
‘“Pray away, fool,” he said and Fox sat, speechless, because he had been outdone.’
Domnall stared. Crowbone blinked and shifted, then smiled at the priest.
‘Pray away, fool. When you open them, your prayers and your prey will both be gone and all this will be a dream.’
‘God is not mocked,’ Domnall said sternly and Crowbone laughed as he turned away, hefting his sword on to one shoulder.
‘Of course he is, priest,’ he called out as he went. ‘His son was sent to promise an end to wicked folk. Odin promised an end to the ice giants. I see no ice giants, priest — but the world is full of wicked men.’
Domnall could still hear the laughter as the swaggering youth reached the tideline and was hauled up the strakes of the Shadow by willing hands.
The embers whirling round their ears from the dying fires of the borg, the people of the White House crept out from hiding to stand at the side of Domnall the priest while the black ship unleashed itself from the land. The blood-red mourn of sail sped it away after the knarr, the plumes of ash and smoke trailing over them both like curled wolf tails.
SIX
Holmtun, Isle of Mann, a day later …