‘You must go… save yourselves…enough men have died for me.’ I coughed then vomited blood. My head swam; all I could see was a vision of my mother.
‘Get up, you whoreson! We’ve all followed you this far, we ain’t leaving you to die now!’ Baldo’s words were greeted with a cheer from the Ravensworn that warmed my heart. Tears escaped from my unwilling eyes as cries of ‘Alaric, Alaric,’ went up from my men.
‘How many men have we left?’ I asked in a small voice.
‘About a hundred, I reckon,’ Baldo said, scratching his chin with his axe blade. ‘Oh well chief, none of us live forever, do we?!’
‘SHIELD, WALL!’ I bellowed, one last time at my men.
‘Alaric, do not be a fool! Save your men and lay down your sword!’ Silus pleaded from behind his shield. He spoke in our tongue, I think wanting to make sure my men understood his offer.
I breathed deep and summoned the last shreds of my strength. ‘If you want my sword Silus, then come and take it!’ My men roared, a roar so loud it sounded as if we were a whole Roman legion, and not just a mere hundred men. ‘My Ravensworn!’ I said to them, my voice cracking with emotion. ‘It has been my honour to lead you! Never has there been a finer band of cut throats and mercenaries in all the land!’ My men cheered and laughed, Baldo slapped Otto on the back and whispered in his ear. The two men embraced, and once more tears flowed freely down my face. ‘When they speak of us in years to come, and brothers they WILL speak of us, they will say we were the meanest fighting force Germania has ever seen! They will say we were savages, invincible and immortal!’ Again the men cheered, but there was less heart in it. I think the word invincible had them all thinking about their own mortality, and how they would be sent to their gods in the coming clash of iron.
‘And immortal we are, brothers! As long as Germania is free, as long as our warriors continue to defy Rome, men will remember us! They will try to replicate our valour and fight on, just to equal our legend. They will fail, they must fail, for they are not us! There can be only one Ravensworn, only one immortal war band. We go to our gods, and we go with our heads held high! For surely each man here has earnt his place at the Allfather’s table a thousand times over!’
I all but broke down then. I was ready for death, wanted it. ‘We will feast with Ruric, with Gerulf, with Ketill and his fearsome Harii! Till the end of days the ale will never run dry, out plates shall never empty and a willing woman will always be at hand to warm our beds! Never again will we know hunger or thirst, never again will we feel the cold bite of winter. The end is now brothers, but it is not an end, merely the beginning of our life at the Allfather’s side. Are you with me?!’
With a roar fuelled by passion the Ravensworn charged for the last time. I limped behind them, nothing more than adrenalin keeping me on my feet. Our men struck their shields with a mighty clash of metal on wood. There was no cohesion, no plan, it didn’t matter now. We were dead men, and we knew it.
Otto fell early, a spear piercing his eye and sticking in his brain. I filled his space in the line and waved my sword blindly as I tried to keep focused on the man to my front. I could barely see and my ears rang so loudly I could not hear a thing. I was a spent man, long overdue a death on the field of battle.
Baldo fell from my right side, his throat slashed open. Red cloaked legionaries streamed past me on every side as my men broke off and fought in ones or twos. I staggered, lurched left then right, waiting for the mercy of the death blow. I did not want to stand there and watch my men die, I wanted to be there on the other side, I wanted to hand them their first mug of ale by the warmth of the Allfather’s hearth.
I swung my sword at a faceless legionary, he merely swatted it away and scurried past me. I staggered forwards again, more uncertain on my feet then when I had first learnt to stand on them. Screams of the dying, my men, pierced through the incessant ringing in my ears; I just wanted to die.
A shadow fell across my back and I half turned to see Silus there, a wicked grin sitting between his thin lips. ‘Nighty-night, Oathbreaker.’ He crunched the flat of sword against the top of my helmet; the last thing I remember thinking is that I wished I hadn’t abandoned my father, wished I had gone back to visit, if only to tell him how much I really loved him, how I never truly meant all the horrible things I said to him, before I had marched off that gloomy autumn day.
And then the darkness took me.
FORTY-TWO
It was dark when I awoke. A cold chill ran through me as I laboured slowly to my knees. I wretched then, nothing more than bile mixed with crusty blood. My broken shoulder burned; the wound above my missing teeth had re-opened and stung like a merciless bee each time I moved my mouth. I put a hand tentatively on the back of my head and felt the lump beneath my matted hair. I have gotten myself into some states over the years, I do not think I have ever been as bad as that.
To my dismay I realised I was naked, my manhood shrivelled beneath a clutch of dark hair. There was an iron manacle around my left foot, when I followed the chain it led to a thick round post that had been hammered into the ground. The smell of roasting flesh offended my nostrils, I vomited again when I saw it was my own men who had been unceremoniously piled into the burning pits.
Two legionaries guarded me, though they were too immersed in their game of dice to notice I had awoken. I cursed the gods then. How could the Allfather take my men into his hall and leave me here, on this godless middle earth. How could the great god of war Donar have watched on as the Ravensworn were cut to pieces. Did he not feel the urge to take up his mighty hammer and rush to our aid? Or was he so desperate to see such a fearsome host brought low. Most of all though, I wondered how Loki could have left me at my time of need. All my life I had considered myself a student of his teachings. I had betrayed good men, broken oaths and slaughtered good warriors all in his name. I was The Trickster reborn, or so I had thought. Where was my cunning now? How would I trick myself from this predicament?
Truth be told, I simply did not want to.
All my life I had known it was the spinners that determined the fate of men, that cackled in merciless glee as they destroyed men’s dreams and tore them from this world just at the moment of their greatest glory. I had won great spear fame over the many battles and wars I had fought in. Men knew my name and shuddered at the thought of crossing my blade. All that work, all that bloodshed, all for nothing now.
‘He is awake,’ one of my guards said to the other. I studied them then, as they approached me in the firelight.
‘Calvus, let Vitulus know our guest is back with us,’ the bigger of the two said with a smirk. The smaller man left without a word, leaving me alone with this giant. ‘Your time is at an end, Alaric Hengistson. Soon, you will be with your gods.’ He spat at me and his phlegm nestled into my beard.
‘I will consider it a mercy,’ I said in a small voice. I had no heart for a pointless argument with a nameless soldier.
‘You will die without a blade in your hand, the Hall of Heroes will be denied to you.’
Tears welled in my eyes. All I wanted then was death, but death with my sword in hand. Let the Valkyries take me to the warmth of the great hall, let me taste the ale and hug Ruric, tell him how so very sorry I am.
‘That’s enough, Bucco,’ a short man said from the shadows. He approached and I saw he carried the long wooden staff that marked him out as an optio, the second in command of a Roman century, after the centurion. ‘Go get yourself some food, I will stay with the prisoner. You too, Calvus.’
There was a silence between us as the two legionaries walked off into the night. ‘You hungry?’ the optio asked when they were gone. I just shook my head. ‘Thirsty?’ I nodded and gratefully accepted the skin of wine he passed me. ‘For many years we have waited to bring you low, Alaric. Although I have to admit, I never thought it would end like this,’ Vitulus made an empty gesture with his hands, I said nothing, just continued to empty the skin of wine.
‘All men
die,’ was all I said when I had eventually quenched my thirst.
‘Aye, but there are many ways to die. If I were you, I would have wanted the end to come on the field of battle, a blade in my hand and my enemies to my front. Not stabbed in the back by my own people, left alone to die naked in the dark.’
My head hurt like Hel as I tried to think. ‘Birgir?’ I asked.
‘Aye,’ Vitulus nodded. ‘He had been Warin’s man for some time. He led you into this trap, so you and your men could be killed like dogs.’ He spat then, did Vitulus. It was clear he took no joy from the day’s events.
‘So Warin tells Birgir to lead me here, then has you and your men slaughter the Ravensworn. Bah! The whoreson even lacked the courage to wet his blade himself.’ I shook my head at my enemy’s shameful behaviour.
‘That’s about the long and short of it. And that woman, gods man, but she wants you dead.’
‘Ishild?’ I had almost forgotten about her.
‘Aye, rare you see a woman of that beauty. By Jupiter she sure is one crazy bitch though. What did you do to piss her off?!’
‘Wish I knew,’ I said with a shrug. I was a dead man, I had long since ceased to care what wrong I had done to her.
A huddle of cloaks moved forwards from the shadows. As they approached I saw Dagr led them, a wicked grin fixed upon his face. Warin was close behind, the others I could not make out.
‘Good evening, Alaric,’ Dagr said, holding his hands wide in greeting. ‘A fine day for the crows.’
‘Go to Hel,’ was my only reply.
Dagr cackled: ‘Ha! One day old friend I will leave this world and travel to the Allfather’s bench and be reunited with my father at last. But you, you will not get to see the great hall, to drink the endless ale and feast till the end of days. You will die tonight, without a blade in your hand. You will suffer the same fate you gave my father.’
He wanted a reaction, did Dagr. He wanted to see my strain against my bonds as I raged in vein. He wanted me to shout and curse, to scream empty threats and behave like the barbarian the Romans thought I was. He would be disappointed. ‘Fair enough,’ I said quietly with a shrug. ‘I tire of this life. Let us get it over with.’
‘That’s it, Alaric? No final words of defiance? You will not break free of your chains and slay us all where we stand? Shame, I expected more from you.’ Warin stepped into the firelight, his voice was high pitched and childlike. If ever there was a man that deserved a bad death, it was him.
I sighed. ‘That’s it Warin. It is over, you win. Now come, which one of you curs has the balls to finish me?’
Dagr and Warin both made to draw their swords. ‘I will,’ a voice said before either could take a step towards me.
Birgir lowered his hood and approached me. He knelt in front of me, wiped some dried blood from my cheek with an outstretched hand. ‘Hello, lord,’ he said with a sad smile.
‘Why?’ I felt no rage at seeing the young man’s face. I had no burning desire to throttle him there and then. I pitied him, I realised, and I was tired, so tired of life.
‘Many years ago, lord, you fought in the pit at Goridorgis,’ I nodded. ‘I first came to Goridorgis as part of the retinue of the Quadi king and his son, Areogaesus. Yes, Alaric, I am of the Quadi, not the Marcomanni as you have always believed. I came as part of he retinue, because my father was part of the old king’s guard.’
I studied him then, in a way I never had before. His blonde hair, wispy beard, the frame of his face, the shape of his nose, it was all suddenly very familiar to me. ‘Sisbert…’ I managed to stutter out.
‘Yes. The man you killed in the pit that day, was my father.’ A crushing wave of guilt smacked me straight in the face. Birgir had been four years old when I had slaughtered his father. Forced to watch, utterly helpless. I thought back to that distant day, me on my knees, stunned that I was still alive. Had I seen a small blonde boy in the ranks of the Quadi? I thought then that I had, though it could just have been my mind playing tricks.
‘You have been plotting your revenge ever since?’ It was not really a question; only now was I able to slowly put together the pieces of the puzzle.
‘Not exactly. I stayed in Goridorgis, as the Quadi had all but forgotten about me by the time they left. There was a new king of the Marcomanni, after all. I thought to kill you, and after a time managed to steel a small knife from a blacksmith’s forge. I took that knife and ran straight to your home, only to find you had left for good. After that I thought I would never see you again, and tried to get on with my life. I worked in the kitchens at the king’s hall, slept where I could, ate whatever scraps were thrown my way. And then, one day, this glorious warrior rides through the gates. He has a fine cloak of dark blue, solid looking leather boots and a war host at his back. It was you.’
He paused then, and we both remembered our meeting at those very gates. Him begging me to take him with me, me refusing at first. But he was insistent. ‘So why ride with me?’
‘To kill you of course. But all that time you were so well guarded. I could not do it in daylight, for one of your captains would surely see. Do you know how many nights I lay in the shadows outside your tent, just waiting for your guard to desert his post or fall asleep? They never did.’
‘So you served me faithfully, all the while awaiting your chance. Gods lad, I liked you, do you know that? Ruric suspected, at the end, but I could never allow myself to believe. You fought with me, at Ulpia Noviomagus, and many other nameless places, and fought well, if a little clumsily. I am sorry about your father, for what its worth, he was a brave man.’
‘Keep your worthless apologies, Oathbreaker, it is much too late for that.’
‘I broke no oaths to you,’ I said. And that, for what it is worth, is true.
‘But you broke one to me, and Birgir is my man.’ And there she was, in all her divine beauty. Ishild.
‘You look like shit, which pleases me,’ she said as she pulled a knife from within the folds of her cloak. Her pale skin glimmered in the moonlight, surrounding piercing blue eyes that seemed to lighten the darkness, and despite everything, still melted my heart.
‘Sister,’ I said. I was desperate to know what I had done to deserve this, but I was damned if I was going to let it show.
‘Dear brother,’ she said as she lowered herself to my side; with a flick of head she dismissed Birgir, who moved reluctantly back into the shadows. ‘You really have no idea of the trouble I have gone too to see you laid this low.’
‘You look particularly beautiful tonight,’ I said with a half-smile. Ishild struck me in the face, under my nose on the open wound with the hilt of her knife.
‘Shut your mouth, you worthless piece of shit,’ she hissed. ‘You are not the great lord you would have men think, nor are you the invincible warrior, you are nothing but a traitor, an Oathbreaker.’
I kept my silence. Blood poured from the wound on my face; the gaps where there should have bee teeth ached so much it was all I could do to keep the tears from my eyes. ‘What have I done to you?’ I said eventually.
‘We are of the same blood, you and I, this you know already.’ I nodded. ‘My mother was your mother. But, I was taken, given to another family to raise as their own. My parents were royalty, loyal to Agnarr and his tribe. Until one day my father decided he had had enough of Agnarr’s tyranny and paid a man to have him killed. That man betrayed him.’ My blood immediately turned to ice, my eyes fixed on the knife in her hand, tantalisingly close.
‘My mother was called Frida, and she was the wife of the king Gerhard of the Gythones.’
‘Ahh,’ I said with a slow nod. ‘Agnarr really did clean up well after himself, didn’t he.’
The Gythones had long now been part of the Suebi, but once they had been their own people. Many years ago, when I had just begun to form what would become the Ravensworn, Agnarr had paid me well to end the ongoing war between the Suebi and Gythones. ‘With a single stroke, you can end this struggle,’ were th
e words he had used to me as we whispered over his hearth one winters night. I had taken his silver, and with my faithful Ruric at my side I had sneaked in to their winter camp in the dead of night, and slaughtered good king Gerhard and his queen Frida as they slept.
‘Bah!’ I suddenly blurted out, ‘The Sly One really does know how to play with a man’s life! That was you, you we took from that camp?’
Ishild nodded. Agnarr had been very specific when he had employed me. The king and queen were to die, their daughter, however, was to be brought back to him, and we were not to touch a hair on her head. I had paid no attention at all to the girl that had screamed and wailed throughout the two day ride back to the lands of the Suebi. I had maybe fifty men under my command at the time, I had placed the girl under the command of two men, and left her at the back of our small column. ‘I had no idea,’ I said with a shrug. ‘Doesn’t make me an Oathbreaker though, does it?’ I knew what I had done, of course, I knew full well. I had done what I had done a hundred times over in the following years, it was what I did best. I just wanted to see if she knew.
‘I’ll tell you what does then, shall I? I’ll tell you about a young girl, peeping through the curtains of her fathers’ tent, watching on as he made a deal with some stranger from the west. A chest of silver paid up front, to kill the king of the Suebi as he slept. I looked on in awe and horror as these two men slit the skin on their hands before sealing the deal with blood. You broke a blood oath to my father, to my people!’ She spat on me, then raised the knife.
‘Stop!’ Silus burst from the darkness, he tackled Ishild to the ground before she could bring the knife to my throat. ‘He does not die, not tonight!’
‘Like Hel he doesn’t!’ Warin roared, racing forwards and helping his wife to her feet.
‘He is in the custody of Rome! You have no say in his fate. In fact, your presence here is no longer required, our bargain is at an end, you may leave.’
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