Storm of Steel

by Matthew Harffy

  Beobrand needed all his skill to avoid the warrior’s first swiping blow. Ducking, he threw his new sword upward to parry. The blades met and the shock of the collision made Beobrand’s arm throb. Tidgar was stronger than his wiry frame would have suggested. Neither of them were armoured and without byrnie, helm or shield to soak up damage, any strike would almost certainly end the contest.

  This fight would not last long.

  Without hesitation Beobrand changed his footing and, twisting his blade, he brought it down in a brutal thrust. Tidgar skipped out of reach, grinning, his teeth obscene yellow stumps in his fish-pale gums.

  The hall resonated with the clash of weapons. The roaring gale shook the building, but the men were more concerned with the steel-storm within than the snow and ice. Ferenbald grunted close by, but Beobrand could not turn to see how the skipper fared. His eyes were fixed on Tidgar.

  “I do not need the sea to slay my enemies,” Tidgar hissed and, without warning, he sent another probing attack darting at Beobrand’s unprotected legs.

  Beobrand parried easily, and took a quick step backwards. But Tidgar had anticipated the move and changed the focus of his strike to Beobrand’s face. Beobrand leapt backward. His left foot landed on an overturned drinking horn. It slipped beneath him, skittering across the rushes and Beobrand fell to one knee. The firelight caught in Tidgar’s eyes and Beobrand saw the joy of victory there.

  Tidgar raised his sword and stepped forward.

  “I thought you were a great warrior,” he said, almost with disappointment in his voice, and swung his blade. Beobrand flung his own sword up to meet the attack, but he knew that he was beaten. He would not be able to defend against a swordsman of Tidgar’s skill from a kneeling position. It would be only a matter of time before the viper-fast fighter was able to knock his blade aside and land the killing blow.

  Tidgar chose to swing his blade in an arc aimed at Beobrand’s left side. Without a shield and without being able to manoeuvre, this was the easiest target, against which it was most difficult to parry with his sword. Beobrand threw himself to the right, and swept his sword to the left, but he knew it was useless.

  And yet, Tidgar’s blade did not bite into his side. Nor did their blades collide. At the same instant as Tidgar launched his attack, so Ferenbald shoved his own assailant backward, into the deadly path of Tidgar’s sword. The man grunted as the steel of Tidgar’s blade tore into his shoulder. The glee of victory vanished from Tidgar’s eyes. He struggled for a moment to free his sword from his ally, but it was too late.

  Shielded now by Ferenbald’s wounded opponent, Beobrand surged up and lunged forward with a great bellowing roar. The fine sword blade buried itself deeply in Tidgar’s belly, hardly slowing as it sliced into his flesh as easily as if he had been made of curds. Beobrand’s charge was fuelled by his rage and the fear that he had known moments before. This was the true joy of battle. To feel the breath of death on your neck and then, in a heartbeat, to cheat the end your wyrd had seemed to already have woven into your life threads. Beobrand continued to scream his ire and relief as he pushed forward. Once again he had used the sharpness of a sword to cut the weft of his wyrd. The three Sisters would not put an end to him so easily.

  His charge carried him into Tidgar and his sword sunk ever deeper in the man’s body. With his left, half-hand, Beobrand pushed Ferenbald’s adversary out of his way. His sword trembled as it hit bone within Tidgar’s frame, and then it was through his body and ripping the cloth of his kirtle at his back. By Woden, but the blade was as sharp as it was beautiful.

  They tumbled to the ground, Beobrand allowing his body weight to land heavily upon Tidgar, driving any remaining fight out of him in a great rushing sigh of breath. Tidgar’s sword had fallen from his grasp. He blinked up at Beobrand. For a moment, they were as close as lovers. Tidgar’s mouth was moving. Beobrand pulled back, removing his weight from the dying man. There was no reason to inflict further pain on him now. But as Beobrand’s shadow left Tidgar’s features, Beobrand saw in the flickering light from the burning stool, that the man was not crying out. Nor was he gasping for breath.

  He was laughing.

  “By all the gods, it is true what they say about you,” he chuckled, but his laughter turned to coughing. Blood stained his lips.

  Beobrand pushed himself onto his knees. He was still clasping the sword’s grip. The blade that protruded from Tidgar’s body was strangely clean, catching the firelight in a golden glow.

  “And what is it they say about me?” he asked.

  “That you are a lucky son of a whore,” said Tidgar, and his words choked in his throat as he tried to laugh again.

  Reaching across Tidgar’s prostrate form, Beobrand retrieved his sword and placed it in his hand. The slim warrior’s fingers gripped the hilt feebly.

  “My mother was no whore,” Beobrand whispered and pushed himself to his feet. In the same motion he yanked his sword free of Tidgar’s flesh. Blood gouted, quickly drenching the man’s kirtle. Tidgar’s eyes widened and he grunted. He began to laugh again, blood bubbling at his lips and soaking the rushes beneath him. He was still laughing as death stole the light from his eyes and he became still.

  Looking around the hall, Beobrand saw that the skirmish was over. The white-faced women cowered in a hushed group at one end of the building. His gesithas and Brimblæd’s crew had drawn together into a defensive wedge near the doors. He scanned their number for a moment, and felt a rush of relief to see Coenred’s shaved forehead standing out from the mass of men. Bodies were scattered about the floor, some were dead, eyes open and already dusted with the soot that still shook down from the rafters with each buffet of the storm. Others yet lived, their groaning and crying loud in the sudden stillness of the hall.

  Only Ferenbald and he had remained separated from the rest of the men. Movement nearby made him tense, dropping into the warrior stance, ready to fight once more. But it was no fresh danger. It was Ferenbald. As he turned, Beobrand saw the shaggy-haired seaman bring down his Frankish axe in a crunching blow into the man Tidgar had wounded. The axe caved in the man’s skull and he jerked for a few heartbeats, like a chicken when its head has been severed and it does not yet know it. Then he collapsed and moved no more. Ferenbald spat and came to stand beside Beobrand.

  He was pale and Beobrand saw there was blood running from a gash in his right arm.

  “Bad?” he asked.

  Ferenbald glanced down at his arm and seemed surprised to see the bloody wound.

  “I’ll live,” he said and spat again.

  Beobrand nodded.

  “What is Woden’s tithe?” he called over to the men who stood with shields and weapons still at the ready.

  Cynan stepped forward. There was blood on his face, but he seemed unhurt.

  “Ermenred and Brorda are fallen.” Beside Beobrand, Ferenbald sighed. The two sailors were both good men, with wives and children back at Hithe. “And Dreogan has taken a nasty cut to his leg.”

  Dreogan hobbled out of the ranks. His right leg was dark and glistening with blood. The soot lines on his face were stark against the snow-white pallor of his cheeks.

  “I will live to drink another day,” he said with a grimace. From his bearing and the strength of his voice, Beobrand believed it, but there was a lot of blood.

  “You had better not die, Dreogan,” he said, forcing a smile, even as his hands began to shake. Droplets of Tidgar’s blood showered from the tip of his sword’s blade as it twitched in his trembling hand. Placing the point on the rush-covered floor, he gripped the pommel tightly, in an effort to hide his weakness.

  “Coenred,” he barked, “tend to Dreogan at once. There is much blood and I have seen such wounds claim a man in moments.”

  Coenred hurried forward to help the large warrior, and Dreogan did not protest as he was laid upon the rushes and Coenred began ripping cloth to bind his wounds.

  “There has been much killing tonight in this hall,” said Beobrand. He s
tepped towards the hearth. From a beam above his head dangled a prow carving of interlocking birds and animals, each seeming to bite the tails of the others. With a swipe of his blood-smeared sword, Beobrand cut it down. It clattered onto the floor, Beobrand scooped it up and threw it onto the hearth. It splintered the burning stool and sent up a shower of sparks twinkling between the trophies that yet adorned the roof beams. “But there is yet one who must pay the price for his villainy, for I see not the corpse of Mantican. Cynan,” he snapped, his voice as deadly and sharp as the bloodied blade in his grasp, “fetch the lord of the hall out here to face us. I would show him what becomes of a lord who offers the cup of Waes Hael and then betrays the trust of his guests.”

  Cynan, Fraomar and Bearn strode across the hall. Cynan kicked aside the door to the partition. There was a moment of absolute hush, and then a woman’s wailing filled the air.

  Chapter 36

  “Please, lord, do not slay him.”

  From where she knelt before him, Mantican’s wife clutched at Beobrand’s arm. He pulled away from her. Her pleading both saddened and angered him. Beside her, also kneeling, was Mantican. Cynan had punched him a couple of times to quieten him and blood trickled from the old man’s nose and split lips. But the lord of the hall had not accepted defeat, no matter how evident it was to all those who stood around him. The old man stared up at Beobrand with hope glimmering like a newly kindled flame in his eyes. Four of Mantican’s gesithas knelt alongside their master. They were all injured and pale. Their hands were tied behind their backs. There was no hope in their eyes. Nothing but fury and hatred burnt in their glares. Beobrand and his friends had slain their spear-brothers and they longed to avenge the fallen.

  Beobrand ignored them. They would not be having their revenge in this life.

  “Why should I show mercy?” he asked the lady of the hall.

  “You have killed most of the men. What will we do without them? We need them to protect us.” Her voice took on a whining, tremulous tone that grated on Beobrand’s exhausted nerves. “We need men to hunt for us.”

  “These are no men,” he spat. “These are nithings. You can find better men than these. Perhaps the next ship you seek to wreck on your rocks will bear men with more honour than these.”

  Outside, the storm had calmed, as if the violence within the hall had satisfied the blood lust of angry gods.

  “Lord Beobrand,” said Mantican, “we should discuss this like men of worth. You could—”

  “Silence!” shouted Beobrand, his ire flashing hot and deadly, as fast as lightning from a cloud-laden sky.

  “But lord—” Mantican continued, his voice honey-sweet.

  “Enough!” said Beobrand, his tone hard and sharp as steel. “Cynan, if he speaks again, silence him.” Glowering, his face flecked with dark spots of blood-spatter from the fight, Cynan stepped closer and placed a hand on his seax handle. Mantican fell silent, and some of his bluff arrogance dropped from him like snow from a roof in spring.

  “You are truly a fool,” said Beobrand, “if you believe your words can alter your fate. The time for words fled when blades were unsheathed in the darkness. A man can cut the threads of his wyrd with bravery and a good sword.” Beobrand hefted the great sword he had taken from Mantican’s hanging hoard. “You have neither.”

  He took a deep, steadying breath. The battle-stench of smoke, spilt bowels and slaughter-sweat stung his nostrils. Beobrand had ordered his men to drag the corpses of their enemies into the snow, but the smell of their death lingered on. The hall was well-lit now, bathed in the glow of the fire that had been heaped high with timber. The stark shadows cast on Mantican’s upturned face twisted his features, giving them a bestial aspect.

  Beobrand turned his attention to Mantican’s wife. She stared up at him, her lip trembling and eyes glistening with unshed tears. He reached out a hand. After a moment’s hesitation she took it in hers and allowed him to pull her to her feet. Her hand was small and bony, fragile, dry and cold as autumn twigs.

  “You will be better without this swine and his retinue of pigs,” he said to her. “Dreogan, time now to pay the lord back for his welcome.”

  Dreogan, his soot-black tattoos dark against his pallid skin, limped forward. Coenred had bound his leg tightly. But Beobrand noticed blood was already seeping through the bandage.

  “Make it quick, Dreogan,” he said. “I am tired and you need to rest that leg.”

  Grim faced, Dreogan dragged his sword from its scabbard. Its blade was blood red in the light of the flames.

  “No!” shrieked Mantican’s woman, once again clinging to Beobrand, clawing at his kirtle, her bony fingers scratching his arm.

  As quickly as he had calmed himself, so his anger returned, raging within him, hotter than any hearth fire. He gripped her shoulders and shook the woman until she was still. Her eyes widened, but still her tears did not fall.

  “Would you rather I put your hall to the torch too, woman?”

  “Please,” she pleaded, her voice small and fearful, like a child’s, “let him live.”

  Through the veil of his anger, Beobrand recognised that this woman was braver by far than her treacherous husband. He pushed her away from him, but did not release her shoulders. His head ached.

  “Your husband will die in this hall, this night. It is his wyrd, as sure as the sun will rise in the morning. You will be better without him. I know it. But would you be homeless in the winter as well as husbandless? For know this, I make no battle with women, but I will burn your hall before we leave, if you do not shut your mouth.”

  Despite his words, she seemed about to speak again. Part of him was impressed with her courage. But before she uttered a sound, Mantican let out a mocking laugh, like the bark of a seal.

  “If you can get her to shut her mouth, you are a better man than I!” he said.

  Cynan slapped him hard with the back of his hand, rocking his head back. Mantican fell sideways onto the ground.

  For a long while nobody spoke. The flames crackled on the hearth stone. A knot of wood caught with a popping sound that was loud in the hall and sparks danced in the smoky air. Someone coughed. A child sobbed and one of the women pulled it close to her chest for comfort.

  Mantican pushed himself back onto his knees and spat blood into the rushes.

  His wife broke the silence.

  “You are right, Lord Beobrand.” Her voice was firmer now, harder and colder, like soft snow that has become crusted with brittle, sharp ice. “We women are resourceful. We will manage without men.”

  One of the women huddled in the corner let out a moaning cry.

  Beobrand held Mantican’s wife’s gaze for a long while. Her eyes had turned flinty and dry. Turning to Dreogan, he nodded.

  Dreogan stepped forward.

  “He is,” he growled, his words carrying throughout the hall.

  “What?” asked Mantican, spitting more blood. He was pale now, his bluster fled.

  Dreogan raised his sword.

  “A better man than you,” he said, and sliced downward in a flame-flickered arc.

  Part Three

  Despite and Despair

  Hwær cwom mearg? Hwær cwom mago?

  Hwær cwom maþþumgyfa?

  Hwær cwom symbla gesetu?

  Hwær sindon seledreamas?

  Eala beorht bune!

  Eala byrnwiga!

  Eala þeodnes þrym!

  Hu seo þrag gewat,

  genap under nihthelm,

  swa heo no wære.

  Where is the horse gone? Where the rider?

  Where the giver of treasure?

  Where are the seats at the feast?

  Where are the revels in the hall?

  Alas for the bright cup!

  Alas for the byrnied warrior!

  Alas for the splendour of the prince!

  How that time has passed away,

  dark under the cover of night,

  as if it had never been!

  “The
Wanderer”, author unknown – The Exeter Book

  Chapter 37

  Ardith awoke slowly. Her head was full of fog and for a time she was unsure where she was, or what her eyes were seeing. But with each passing moment her surroundings became clearer, as though she was climbing through thick clouds wreathing a mountaintop, pushing herself ever upward toward the sun, towards light and clarity.

  Blinking, she cast her gaze around the room. She was lying on a soft mattress and the walls around her were smooth whitewashed plaster. Gone was Saeslaga’s ever shifting deck. And in place of the sounds of the sea rushing beneath the keel and the creak of the strakes flexing against the waves was the stillness and hush found inside a solid structure. At the angle of the wall was a pillar that rose into the ceiling. Her eyes widened in amazement. The column was made of cut stone, cunningly crafted and cemented with mortar. She looked at the white wall again. Part of the plaster was cracked, a spider’s web of fine fractures ran up the wall and into the ceiling. Where the plaster joined the stone column, some of it had flaked away. Where she had expected to see mud and straw daubed over a wooden framework she now saw more worked stone. She had never been inside a stone building before. She looked up at the cracks in the plaster and saw how the fingers of those cracks splayed into the ceiling. She wondered how high the building was. How heavy it must be. She shuddered at the thought of the oppressive weight above her.

  She made to rise, but before she had lifted her head more than a hand’s span from the mattress, she slumped back. She was so weak. It was cool in the room and she noticed for the first time that she was naked beneath a linen sheet and a luxuriant pelt. She plunged her hand into the lush fur, relishing the touch despite her confusion and anxiety. It reminded her of Abrecand’s cloak. In a sudden moment of acute terror that twisted her stomach the reality of her situation washed over her. How had she come to this place? Who had undressed her? She could feel the scream welling up inside at what might have been done to her. Had she been violated? Her mind filled with dark thoughts in an icy, heart-wrenching instant. She moved her limbs, ran her hands over her body. There was no sensation of pain. Her breath came in gasps as her fear mounted. Scared of what she might find, she gingerly reached down between her thighs, tentatively touching, probing for bruises, but still she felt no pain. No sign that she had been hurt in any way. Relief replaced her fear, but her confusion remained. Ardith’s head spun. By the Blessed Virgin, where was she and how had she come to this place?