Behind them, the strait seemed to narrow as soon as they were in. Thick woodland covered the sightlines and Finn felt his chest tighten. It reminded him all too much of the tunnel under the wall in Stenvik.
Einar Tambarskelf vaulted up from his bench to loud curses from his oar-mate. ‘To arms!’ he shouted.
Finn shot a quick glance behind them. They were the last ship in the fleet and there was no threat whatsoever behind them. The next ship was three hundred yards ahead.
‘SILENCE!’ King Olav roared. ‘Sit DOWN!’
Einar froze. ‘My King, we must get free of this place!’ he shouted. Up ahead someone shouted back, but the words got lost.
‘Sit. Down,’ King Olav snarled from the other end of the ship. ‘And everyone else.’
There was no mistaking it this time: another shout from the front, and then screams.
The first sleek raiding ship slid out from an almost entirely tree-covered bay two hundred yards up ahead to their left, silent and purposeful, and quickly followed by another – and another. As three more joined it from the right Finn swivelled and looked behind them to see a row of ships, at least ten wide, had suddenly appeared, some five hundred yards off their stern, blocking the exit.
In between the trees on both sides, shadows moved. Shadows with blades.
They were trapped.
‘ROW, YOU BASTARDS,’ King Olav screamed, ‘as hard as you can! Give me speed! Hit their line!’
Up ahead, past the line of enemy ships, they could hear the first, sharp noises of metal on metal skipping across the sea like flat stones on a lake. The ships in front of them were crawling with activity and Finn noted with a heavy feeling in his stomach that ropes were flying across, being thrown fast and hard by experienced hands. Whoever had them trapped knew their work.
The first thing they heard was a single word.
‘HEAVE!’
The enemy ships shifted to the side as many strong hands pulled them close together.
‘Einar!’ King Olav shouted.
The young man was up like a flash, bow in hand. He moved so fast that he tripped on the bench and stumbled – and just avoided an arrow that flew past him at head-height and buried itself deep in the mast.
A tall man in white stood at the front of the middle boat, holding an impressive-looking longbow. Without any sort of urgency, he nocked another arrow.
And just like that, the spell was broken. ‘COVER!’ King Olav shouted, and as quick hands grabbed the side-mounted shields one man caught the second arrow in his shield. The man next to him struggled and spasmed silently as the third took him in the throat. He rose and toppled over the side.
An arrow whistled past Finn’s head, missing by inches.
‘Finn! Up front!’ King Olav shouted, and pointed to where a handful of men led by Einar Tambarskelf had started firing back. They were crouching behind shield-carriers at the bow, and by the time Finn got there the king had shifted the two rowers on the front benches and was busy hacking at the benches with an axe.
‘What do you want, my Lord?’ Finn asked.
‘Quickly – hack the benches! First three pairs.’
‘Why?’
The king’s head snapped to the side. ‘Just DO IT,’ he growled. ‘Now.’ He craned his neck to look back at the rowers. ‘FASTER, YOU BASTARDS! WE HAVE TO PUSH THROUGH! DO IT FOR OUR LORD!’
Finn dropped to his knees behind the cover of the shields and started working to break the benches free of their bases while the king was issuing orders, all the while pointing and shouting. One man rose to run back towards the mast and immediately hurtled forward, pushed by an arrow punching into his spine.
‘OVERBOARD!’ King Olav shouted and three men immediately leapt towards the fallen man, dragged him to the side and tipped him over.
‘Faster with the benches or we’re all dead!’ he cried, and Finn glanced up: over the edge of the shields he could now see the masts of the other ships. A scream went up from the stern; a screaming rower clutched his shoulder where the arrow had sunk deep into muscle and bone. Finn redoubled his efforts, and smiled when the wood finally gave way and the bench came loose. He yanked it out and thrust it into the waiting hands of the rower waiting there, crouched by his side, ready to shift the planks. Up ahead, the king was bent over some kind of construction, pulling on a rope.
The noise of battle was doubling and redoubling as raw-throated screams melded together with the echo of breaking timber and the clash of steel on steel.
‘Don’t stop!’ King Olav shouted, ‘More! ROW FASTER!’ Then, grunting, he lifted the thing he’d been bent over: he’d lashed the benches together to form the biggest shield Finn had ever seen. It was almost five feet high and the moment it rose, three arrows thudded into it.
‘We need another!’ King Olav roared and Finn glanced to the side as the forests glided past, then looked up ahead. They were no more than eighty yards from the line of ships, and now he could make out individual fighters. The man in white was there, as was a big, broad-shouldered man next to him, and next to him in turn was a beanpole of a man.
‘QUICKLY!’ King Olav screamed, his own knife flashing as he cut rope and tied planks.
Hidden behind the big shield, Finn and another four rowers hacked away at the next set of benches. He didn’t see the signal from their enemies, but he heard it: the first clang of hilt on shield boss, spreading out like a wave, growing and swelling until it was almost unbearable.
‘Fall back!’ the king growled as he finished roping up the final plank. Then, hefting it, he took a couple of experimental steps backwards. ‘Shield-wall!’
The press of heavy bodies created a solid wall across the Long Wyrm, just ahead of the mast. Behind them, the rowers still pulled.
Thirty yards.
Finn finally stood up, his knees creaking and back aching, and looked across the ever-decreasing gap to the ships ahead of them, which had been lashed together and beams placed across their bows to form a solid fighting platform. The men on it were in constant movement; arms, blades, wild eyes, bared teeth.
There was one point of stillness: a man of average build, clear-eyed and calm, surveying the scene that was unfolding before him. Thick beard, woven into two braids.
As Finn watched, the man drew a deep breath and shouted, ‘SPEARS!’
*
Mouthpiece held onto the mast as hard as he could. Forkbeard had split their force in three, setting Jolawer to command the vanguard and Erik to run the rearguard. How he’d ended up on Karle’s boat he could not fathom; that had to be his bad luck. They had been hunkered down, silent as the night, since the news had travelled south: King Olav was burning villages as he went towards Rus. The instructions had come down days before: they’d form a line that would cut King Olav off from his fleet, which would be engaged by Jolawer up front. Following Forkbeard’s commands, the men had loaded ropes, hewn down trees a hundred yards or more from the coastline and prepared to close the trap, waiting for just the right moment.
When they’d seen the Norse fleet a shiver of excitement had run through them. This was it: this was going to be the biggest sea battle in anyone’s memory.
Being part of history did not make Mouthpiece happy at all, he was discovering. The two spear-throwers next to him suddenly rose, clutching their thick, fire-hardened missiles, as Forkbeard’s voice rang out.
‘SPEARS!’ he cried, and a path cleared through the throng as the throwers ran to the bow and launched their missiles towards the Long Wyrm.
Forkbeard’s ships looked like toys next to that bloody thing. It’s too big, Mouthpiece thought. His insides suddenly felt like cold water. It would crush them. Someone yelled at him to move and pushed him into the mast and the pain shook him out of his bemused state. Mouthpiece stepped gingerly away from the safety of the thick timber.
‘HOLD ON!’ someone s
creamed, and moments later his world juddered and shook as the Long Wyrm crashed into the ship in the centre. The whole of Forkbeard’s fleet shifted with the impact and Mouthpiece watched as a wave of men lost their footing, tumbling over in a flurry of limbs. The momentum of the big ship carried it halfway through the line, but there it ground to a halt, timbers groaning against timbers. Someone screamed on the Long Wyrm; halfway down the ship they’d raised huge shields bristling with all manner of blades, shielding the rowers who were furiously trying to push the ship through Forkbeard’s cordon.
Screaming filled Mouthpiece’s ears and it took him a moment to realise that it was his voice. On the inside he felt calm, but on the outside he was finding his feet on the rocking ships, leaping from his own boat to the next, shouting words that meant little to him. He vaulted over the edge of the Long Wyrm and found himself beside Alfgeir Bjorne. The big warrior took one look at him, nudged him hard in the ribs with his elbow, then raised his shield and advanced towards the mast of the huge ship, which was too large for Mouthpiece to fathom. The stumps standing up where the benches had been hacked off looked like broken bones and the sides groaned where the Wyrm was locked in a death-dance with the ships around it, but it was truly majestic: a ship fit for a king.
Mouthpiece squeezed in between Alfgeir and his handful of men as they advanced on the shield-wall, quickly closing the distance. He was rapidly losing his urge to fight.
There was a moment where no one made a move.
Then a spear shot out from the side of one of the shields and retreated just as quickly. Alfgeir Bjorne roared, took a quick step forward and gave the shield closest to him a swift – and very hard – kick with his heel. The men behind the shields shouted back and that was it: battle was joined.
Next to Mouthpiece the press suddenly softened as the man on his left slumped down, silently coughing up black blood. Fear washed over him then and he started laying about him with his cudgel, slapping away swords and spears as they swung towards him, all the while squeezing his eyes shut and screaming as he smashed away at the shields, putting all he had into each blow.
Steel clashed against steel just next to his ear, and Mouthpiece opened his eyes in shock just as he saw Alfgeir Bjorne’s axe swoop past his head and a broken spear-head skitter to the deck at his feet.
‘Keep your fucking eyes open,’ the big warrior grunted.
Behind them a commotion rose over even the battle noises. Mouthpiece hesitated for only a moment, but his nose and mouth exploded in pain and he stumbled backwards, hitting a rower’s bench with the back of his leg. His feet lost touch with the deck and for a moment everything was spinning upside down.
Then there was nothing but black.
*
Finn adjusted the shield. Getting smashed in the mouth was the least that annoying little shit with the cudgel deserved.
‘Gunnar is coming! He’s falling on Forkbeard’s back!’ King Olav shouted, and the men in the shield-wall pushed harder. They had downed two and it was going well on Finn’s side but King Olav’s men were struggling with a grizzled old bear of a man who was laying about him with a hand-axe and a shield.
‘Hold this,’ Finn growled at the man next to him and yanked the man’s arm into the shield-strap. Then he pushed to the side and grabbed an oar. Lifting it like a giant club, Finn found the balance of the thing and raised it high enough to clear the shield. He slammed it down towards the big fighter, but the man’s shield came up just in time to deflect the oar. He was a wily old greybeard; he didn’t leave the opening Finn had hoped for but instead responded to the challenge by deftly taking two steps backwards, moving out of blade range.
‘Die, you bastard!’ Finn roared.
The man looked up at him and grinned. ‘Make me!’
Blades flashed on King Olav’s side and two of the man’s comrades fell, leaving the big warrior the only one of the attackers left standing.
Finn grabbed a shield, drew his sword and pushed past the shield-wall. He bashed the hilt into the boss once for luck, then charged at the big man.
‘I am Alfgeir Bjorne, son of Asvald, son of Eyvind,’ the warrior growled at him. ‘And it will be my pleasure to kill you.’
‘In the eyes of the lord you will be weighed,’ Finn said, stepping in and sweeping the blade upwards in a powerful swing. The scrape as the old man just managed to get his shield in was music to his ears.
Alfgeir kept his balance and stepped backwards over a bench, but Finn pressed the attack. ‘You will be measured!’ Voice rising, he hacked downwards with a most satisfying vibration as his sword smashed into the shield. His shield arm was up and ready to push through with a straight left, but the old man’s shoulder wasn’t there any more. Instead, Finn found himself having to pull his own leg backwards to avoid a murderous axe blow coming in at groin height. ‘And you will be found wanting!’ Finn bellowed now, sweeping his sword downwards. He caught Alfgeir’s axe on the blade and swept it to the right.
The old man looked him straight in the eyes and grinned. ‘Is that what the king whispers to you at night?’ he said. Then the shield blocked out Finn’s vision and a sharp pain pierced his right cheek. A red haze coloured his eye as, stumbling backwards, he sensed more than saw Alfgeir close in for the kill.
But then the old man stopped in his tracks, strong arms grabbed Finn’s shoulders and under his arms and he felt himself pulled in behind the shield-wall just as Alfgeir Bjorne collapsed onto the deck, three arrows sunk deep in his broad back.
Standing in the stern of a ship maybe eighty yards away, the man in white nocked another arrow. Next to him, Forkbeard turned away and looked towards their stern.
A sudden quiet settled over Finn’s end of the Long Wyrm. His forehead throbbed something horrible and he could feel the blood running down his cheek and into his beard, clotting and pulling at the skin.
‘Einar! Get rid of their archer!’ King Olav shouted.
‘He’s gone,’ Einar said. ‘He walked off to the other end.’
‘Put down the shields and lose the dead weight!’ the king shouted, and a handful of men darted past the dropped shields and grabbed bodies.
Finn just heard the splashes as the corpses dropped overboard, then he heard Einar Tambarskelf’s bow, singing just above him.
‘Turn around!’ the young man shouted.
‘Oh for the sake of all that’s holy,’ King Olav muttered. ‘Rowers – to arms! Pass the shields down to the stern!’
Finn staggered to his feet and tried to make sense of what was happening. There were ships all around their stern. He shook his head to clear the fog of pain and regretted it immediately.
The Long Wyrm was rocking as screaming fighters leaped across the cold seas and landed on their deck. Foremost of them was a tall, fierce warrior, swinging his double-bladed battleaxe freely. Anywhere he moved, men collapsed.
‘FINN!’ King Olav shouted and Finn turned, squeezed his one good eye shut and opened it again to see a force slowly advancing from the bow. At the fore was a skinny man at least a head taller than the others who was wielding an oversized shield and the longest spear Finn had ever seen. One of Einar’s arrows caught the man next to him in the shoulder; the injured man was quickly pulled out of the front line and another immediately took his place. ‘Einar! Take him out!’ The sound of snapping wood was painful and sharp. ‘What was that?’ King Olav shouted.
‘The sound of Norway, breaking in your hands,’ Einar said, his voice leaden. Finn glanced at the young archer. Arms at his side, bow by his feet. No tension to the string. Two halves to the bow.
King Olav turned to Finn. The king suddenly looked older, as if a flame within him had gone out. ‘They will kill us if they catch us, Finn,’ he said. ‘If we go, there is a chance our men will lay down their weapons and be spared.’
Finn tried, but the words wouldn’t come.
‘Surrender
.’ The voice was clear and carried remarkably well across the swell of the sea, the cracking of the timbers and the sounds of pain coming from the stern. Forkbeard walked down the centre of the Long Wyrm behind his men like a farmer surveying his field. ‘Surrender, King Olav, and we will spare the remainder of your men. We will also swear to leave Christians to practice their faith.’
King Olav calmly put down his sword, but he kept his shield up. He looked across the Long Wyrm at Forkbeard. ‘There will be no truce. There will be no surrender. You and yours will burn: you will burn in hell.’ Then he took two quick steps to the side and leaped overboard.
*
King Jolawer Scot gritted his teeth, but did not speak. Instead, he waited for Forkbeard to finish his story. ‘What happened then?’
‘We fished out his second-in-command,’ Forkbeard said.
‘But no sign of Olav?’
‘No.’ Beside Forkbeard, Karle shook his head sadly.
Jolawer looked at Erik and his men, sitting and quietly talking. Forkbeard and Karle had dropped their armour and weapons by the fire and pulled him over to talk. ‘Why not?’
Forkbeard smiled. ‘Finn – his man – put the shield over his head to protect from spears, but Olav Tryggvason, the crafty bastard, grabbed his and gripped it between his knees.’ When Jolawer frowned, he added, ‘To sink faster.’
‘And you didn’t find the body?’
‘No,’ Forkbeard said. ‘I told you. There were about thirty ships there. But the sea’s freezing. He’s dead.’
‘I wish I could believe that.’
‘And I wish I could have been there to stop Alfgeir, but he just went straight for them,’ Forkbeard said. ‘There was nothing I could do.’
Karle hung his head.
Jolawer Scot looked away then, grief almost overtaking him, and he saw Sigrid approach from the lengthening shadows. Unusually, she stopped a good thirty yards away. ‘Sweyn—?’ she said hesitantly.
Forkbeard motioned for her to come closer. ‘What?’ he said.
‘We’ve had travellers,’ she said. ‘Norsemen.’
The Valhalla Saga Page 80