Fenrir

by MD. Lachlan

  Giuki had two swords, parrying with one and attacking with the other in the Frankish style. Three men lay dead at his feet, though he was fighting a wearying encounter with a spearman – unable to get close enough to strike at him, always having to look to defence first, never getting the chance to attack. The battle’s rhythm had changed. Where it had been a frenzy, now it was a sporadic and fitful thing, each man thinking more of his own security than his enemy’s harm.

  On the longship, though, the fight was still fierce. Two men crashed past Aelis down the length of the boat. Both had lost their weapons and were wrestling, kicking and biting. A spear stabbed into the deck by her thigh. A berserker ran through a man right in front of her, and she watched him fall and die at her feet, the berserker cursing as he struggled to free his sword from the corpse.

  There was a judder and the boat tipped sideways. Aelis realised it was almost free of the beach. She forced herself to her feet – she needed to get to Giuki. She leaped for the side of the drakkar but a berserker caught her in one hand despite panting like a dog coming in from the hunt. The berserkers on the boat had finished off Giuki’s men but they had paid a high price. Only four of them were left. The fat Viking had got up from where he’d fallen but he was bent double. At first she thought he was hurt but she saw he was only panting with exhaustion, fighting to regain his breath.

  How long had the fight been going on? It seemed for ever. The beach was strewn with the wounded and the dying. The sides had now parted and stood facing each other, almost too weary to even insult each other. One warrior actually sat down, eyes on his enemy twenty paces away but catching his breath while he had the chance. Then the fight was renewed as if the men were fresh to it. Aelis saw terrible sights: a man impaled by a spear, his legs pumping like a bug on a pin, a man crawling for his weapon despite his hand being cut off.

  Then a voice: ‘Hold! I ask for peace!’ It was Giuki.

  The sides were glad of the rest and backed away from each other. Giuki moved between the warriors. His shield had only one plank remaining on its boss and his remaining sword was bent almost into an L. Other warriors were in the same condition, trying to straighten their weapons with their feet but finding no purchase on the sand.

  ‘Brothers, we have fought a good scrap, but now it seems that the profit in it is over. There’ll be none of us left by morning. Surely this is the time to call a truce. Make peace even. You’re good foes, lads; you could become good friends. Freyr knows we could do with your numbers now.’

  A man from the other side put up his hand, panting and shaking his head. ‘There is too much blood here to forget.’

  ‘On both sides. We have served each other amply.’

  Ofaeti touched Aelis’s arm. ‘We are too few now to sail this boat. Come away. I offer you safety and a guarantee you will not be raped.’ His voice was low but insistent.

  Aelis shook free of him. ‘I will not be sold by pirates,’ she said. ‘I will stay here in the ship.’

  ‘You will be sold, lady, one way or the other, as all women are, high-born or low. You are unusual, however, because you get to choose your seller.’

  Giuki was addressing the warriors on the beach again: ‘We were many men when this battle began. Now we have a hundred men, sixty between us truly able. It’s time to act together brothers, though the blood we have spilled makes that difficult.’

  Aelis spoke to Ofaeti: ‘You are in my grip. Each side thinks you belong to the other. While they do, you live. As soon as they discover you are interlopers you will die.’

  Ofaeti smiled. ‘You would have been a power behind the Frankish throne, lady.’

  ‘I still intend to be,’ said Aelis.

  ‘You have been in my care once and come to no harm. Be in it again.’

  ‘I am going to Helgi.’

  Ofaeti laughed. ‘As are we. Let us guard you. I promise you can choose the king I sell you to. We can even try to ransom you to your brother. Come on. These are wild men and will slit each other’s throats by morning. We can walk off this beach while they are busy with other things.’

  Aelis saw the sense in what Ofaeti said. She looked at the men Giuki was negotiating with. Could he control them as he controlled he own? And Ofaeti had acted with decency in the past – and when he had no profit in so doing. He had thought her a slave and treated her kindly. How much more care would he take of her now her true identity was known to him?

  She let Ofaeti take her hand. Creeping to the side of the boat furthest from the carnage on the beach, they climbed down, Fastarr, Egil and Astarth following, their eyes flicking back to their dead fellows on the boat.

  All the time the two groups of warriors were talking. ‘We must think on this,’ said a tall Viking. ‘You are the aggressors here and owe us compensation. There can be no deal without it, for the sake of our honour.’

  Giuki nodded. ‘We have a girl with us, a Frankish princess. She is worth many pounds of silver in ransom.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  Giuki looked around. ‘Aelis, lady, show yourself.’

  ‘Aelis?’

  ‘Yes, of the line of that bastard Robert the Strong.’

  ‘We’ve been looking for her the length of this coast. Hand her over and you are our brothers. Our seeress will bless you. We travel with Munin, that wide-seeing lady.’

  ‘I have heard of her. It’s painful to part with this girl because Helgi of the Rus wants her for his bride. But ours is the offence and you must have her.’

  Aelis was amazed at the sudden courtesy with which the Vikings addressed each other, though she noticed they still kept a wary distance of thirty or so paces between the bands.

  All this time Ofaeti, Aelis and the other berserkers kept moving. They were fifty paces away from the two sides when Giuki called after them: ‘Do I know you, brothers? You are no Danes and yet you’re not with us, either. Where are you going with the lady?’

  All faces turned to Ofaeti. He drew his sword.

  ‘I am Thiörek, called Ofaeti, son of Thetmar, war chief of the Horda. I have lived well and in many battles, but now, I think, my time is over. Come on, lads, step forward. Let’s take each other to the All Father’s hall.’

  ‘Thiörek? What are you doing here?’

  Aelis could almost touch the dismay in Giuki’s voice. She guessed the fat man had a reputation as a great warrior.

  ‘Ship-stealing, same as you,’ said Ofaeti.

  ‘And making off with our hostage,’ said another voice.

  ‘That girl is promised as weregild,’ said Giuki. ‘She is not yours to take.’

  ‘And yet I’m taking her,’ said Ofaeti, ‘unless you are so jealous of your dead friends here on the beach that you would follow them to the halls of the slain. Step forward. The All Father has a place at his mead bench for you.’

  Ofaeti had three men with him. Those still standing on the beach numbered nearer sixty. They were exhausted from the fighting, a rabble with bent swords, broken spears and shattered shields, but were too many for so few to stand against.

  ‘We will come on,’ said Giuki. ‘What did I tell you, Danes? We are brothers. No sooner do we discuss it than the gods give us a reason to fight together.’

  The Vikings did not charge. The battle had seen them spread across the wide beach and some had sat to listen to their leaders talking. But all now stood, all picked up their weapons, or the remains of their weapons, and came towards Ofaeti and Aelis with purpose in their movement.

  ‘You belong to the vala, girl, to the seeress. There’s nowhere to run,’ said a voice.

  For a second Aelis considered running, but it would have been futile. The beach was too long. The Vikings might be tired but they would catch her sooner or later. The nearest cover was the monastery five hundred paces away or a treeline four times that distance on the headland. The route to the monastery was blocked and she didn’t even know if there was a way off the flats if she ran for the trees. Behind Giuki were some dunes maybe two hundr
ed paces away, but she couldn’t run through the Vikings.

  There was a noise from along the beach, faint, almost like a breath of wind, though there was none. It was like the tug of the wind at an ill-set sail or distant thunder. The Vikings didn’t notice it but Aelis recognised the sound instantly. It was the cry of a horse, but not just any horse. She knew its voice, even from so far away.

  ‘Kill the thieves!’ said a Dane.

  ‘Those are the bastards who’ve been skulking about killing our men in the monastery,’ said another.

  ‘Not me,’ said Ofaeti, ‘but come forward. I’ll kill you without the skulking. You might want to get another sword, though; yours looks like it’s taken a clout too many, son.’ Ofaeti and the three berserkers at his side brandished their weapons. ‘Come on, boys. You can serve me my first drink in the afterlife, because we’re all going there tonight.’

  Aelis’ eyes were drawn to the dark dunes two hundred paces away. At first she thought it was just an effect of the moonlight. The dunes seemed to ripple. Then the horse cried again and there was a sound like thunder, like the beating of many drums. She said a word under her breath – ‘Moselle’ – and the Franks came on at the charge across the hard slick sand.

  52 The Charge

  Men panicked, didn’t think straight. The obvious thing to do was to dive for the water or the boats, that was the best shelter from the charge. But they were spread out along the beach, exhausted from fighting, their minds not quite accepting they had another battle on their hands.

  Some did run for the boats; some ran for the dunes, up towards the monastery; some turned and faced the enemy.

  ‘Together. Shields together! Hold, hold!’ screamed Giuki, but it was no good. The knights were too quick, streaming across the hard sand at a flat gallop, their lances before them. The cavalry crashed into the Vikings like a pulverising wave. Some tried to fight and were taken by the lances, some ran and were smashed down by the flying horses.

  Aelis had the impression of men broken, shattered and pulped.

  The noise of the first impact was awful, like the smack of a hammer tenderising a steak but magnified many times. This was a work of demolition, not war. The knights worked together. Even after the mass charge, they rode in twos and threes. Any warrior who faced them had two lances to deal with, the hooves of two horses even if he was lucky enough to avoid the spears. Few chose to stand. Most ran hard for anything that might afford them protection and they were scattered like field mice before a scythe.

  And then the horses were on Aelis. She was paralysed by fear. She felt the vibration of the hooves through the sand, a deep drumming that seemed capable of casting her to the ground on its own. She saw the crazed faces of the horses, lips pulled back, teeth bared and eyes wide, heard the insane whoops of the riders, and then she was down, rolling in the water.

  ‘Get to the boat! Run!’ screamed Ofaeti.

  He had torn her away at the last second and pulled her sprawling into a deep pool in the sand. She stood.

  The Franks wheeled and charged again. Ofaeti had her by the back of her tunic, driving her towards the shelter of the longship. He lost his grip and she fell headlong into the water. She looked up and saw Moselle lose his lance in the chest of a Viking, its crosspiece breaking with the impact and failing to prevent the weapon going clean through its target. Moselle dropped it, drew his sword and beheaded a fleeing man. Then he turned his horse and, cackling with delight, he spurred it into another confrontation.

  No more than ten paces from her, a horseman had come to a halt, three Vikings around him. One was on his left-hand side, away from the horseman’s sword arm, and leaped on him with his knife, but suddenly he wasn’t there. A horseman had come past at the gallop taking the Viking’s head with the point of his lance as easily as he’d spear a target in the practice yard. In a blink the other two were dead, similarly dispatched by racing horsemen.

  Some Vikings did get away: ten made a longboat and got it out to sea; five climbed the dunes towards the monastery.

  ‘These are your people?’ said Ofaeti. They were crouching in the beached longboat.

  ‘Yes.’

  She read his face. He was going to threaten her, force an oath from her, tell her that if she didn’t promise to save them he would cut her throat there and then. But she saw him dismiss the idea. It was useless, he could see. ‘Can you save us?’ he said.

  ‘No.’

  ‘I got you here. You might have died under their lances too if it had not been for me.’

  ‘I cannot save you.’

  Ofaeti nodded. ‘Then let’s go to them, lads,’ he said. ‘Best die on the attack than cringing here like shrews from a hawk.’

  Aelis looked up at the monastery. A sensation of icy air, the glimmer of hail under the moon that she had seen from across the water, came to her. She said a name: ‘Munin.’ Nothing had changed. She was still pursued by terrible forces, still in the grip of unseen and dangerous enemies. She still needed to get to Helgi. The wolfman had died for her striving to take her there.

  She looked at Ofaeti. ‘Will you take me to Helgi?’

  ‘If he’ll pay the ransom, love, he’s as good as the next king.’

  ‘Is that a yes?’

  ‘Yes. On my oath, if you save us.’

  She nodded. The battle was over. There was laughter. Two Frankish knights were chasing a Viking up and down the beach. The man had no weapon, and the riders kept cutting him off, slapping him with the flats of their swords, making him turn and turn again.

  A rider came alongside the boat and looked in.

  ‘Moselle! It’s me, Lady Aelis. It’s me. Put down your sword.’

  ‘Lady! You’re hard to find! We lost word of you halfway down the Somme. It’s only by the grace of God we came up here. We heard downriver there were Normans at the monastery and thought we might as well take a look. We’ve been watching them here for days looking for our chance and then God gave it to us on a golden plate. It’s good to have seen such a day!’

  His face was flecked with sand and blood, his horse sweating up a lather, but he was grinning like an imbecile on the steps of a monastery.

  ‘Well, you caught them.’

  ‘You’ve seen your error, I take it. Shall I free you from these barbarians? You can die easy or hard, Norman. Touch the lady and you’ll suffer for a month, I vouch that.’

  ‘He doesn’t understand you, Moselle,’ said Aelis, ‘but he won’t harm me. These men are my paid protectors.’

  ‘You have a preference for foreigners over your own men, lady. A Frank would die before he took money to fight against his kin.’

  ‘A wonder then that we find so many of our fine swords sold to the enemy, and that the Norsemen have any spies at all. Let’s thank God for the help these Danes have offered me. They are good men. Look, this one carries the cross chalked on his shield. He is of Christ.’

  ‘Then I can have even fewer qualms about killing him if his soul is sure of heavenly reward.’

  ‘You will not kill him because, by the right of my family, I command you not to. Do you have any food?’

  Moselle nodded and glanced behind him. As a man of the aristocracy he did not find it at all odd that Aelis, from a better family, should demand his unquestioning deference. He would have found it odd if she did not, and would certainly have expected any one baser born than him to obey his orders without question.

  ‘The monastery’s as good a place as any to spend the night. My God, when I think what these heathens have done to this land I should rather crucify the lot of them – make that abbey a new Golgotha – than share my fire with them.’ Moselle’s attention had shifted to shelter and a meal.

  ‘I ask again,’ she said, ‘do you have food?’

  ‘Plenty. Let’s go up to the monastery. They’ll have a warming room, and it’ll be good to sit by a fire and tell the deeds of the day. Not a man of us dead.’ He smiled and pointed his sword at Ofaeti. ‘All my life I’ve dreamed of catching
these bastards in open order, and tonight that dream came true. If we could fight all our battles on sand like this there’d be no Norman threat. I’ll allow myself a cup of wine, I think.’

  ‘Good,’ said Aelis. ‘Lead the way. And tell your men not to harm my Danes.’

  Moselle nodded. ‘I’ll tell them, though the northerners don’t eat with us or share our fire. They can sit apart in their own stink.’

  ‘Very good,’ said Aelis.

  ‘End your game!’ he shouted to the men chasing the Viking along the beach. One of the horsemen drew his sword and tried to behead the tormented man with a stroke. The Viking raised his arms and blocked the blow but at a terrible cost. His right hand was severed at the wrist. He sank to his knees, and the second horseman trotted in behind him, impaling him with his sword by hanging off his saddle and stabbing it through him with a scooping motion. The knight leaped into a dismount to bow to Aelis, then he and his companion joined their fellows looting the dead.

  Ofaeti watched them. Aelis could see he was longing to rifle a few bodies himself but knew it would anger the Frankish knights.

  ‘Keep ready,’ said Aelis in Norse to the big man. ‘We’ll leave tonight.’

  Ofaeti nodded. ‘Might as well be warm before we go then,’ he said and turned towards the monastery. Aelis sensed Ofaeti’s desire for a good fire – more than a fire, for the hearth, for home. He was sick of travelling, this Viking, and wanted to be among his people. That was why he would take her to Helgi and the Rus, the Normans of the east, to sit down in safety for a while among people he understood.