Storm of Steel

by Matthew Harffy

  Chapter 59

  Draca screamed in surprised pain and anger. His beast-skull helm tumbled from his head and was swallowed by the surf at his feet.

  Relinquishing his grasp on Ardith, the pirate leader roared and swung his broad-bladed sword at his assailant. Brinin had pulled back his arm for another swing, but he was not fast enough. The smith’s son was brave and strong, but he was no warrior and had not the skill nor the time to react. Draca’s blade struck him in the face. Blood fountained, bright and horrifying in that grey day, and Brinin lurched backward, splashing into the shallow water and lying still.

  But Brinin’s bravery had broken the impasse.

  Ardith had seized the opportunity to be free of her captor and had run someway up the beach. Even as Beobrand’s heart was filled with sorrow over the loss of the brave boy, he was springing forward, Hrunting swinging.

  There was no time to think. No time to mourn. Brinin’s blood had sparked life into the fire of Beobrand’s fury. Gone was thought. Now was the time for death.

  Beobrand’s gesithas and Brimblæd’s sailors came with him. They let out an animal roar that spoke of their wrath and determination. This one-eyed beast and his band of pirates had stolen one of their own, slain Brinin and caused their ship, their livelihood, to be shattered on the rocks of this cold cove. There would be no mercy shown on this beach now. No surrender would be accepted. Blood would soak the sand.

  Draca, sword now smeared with Brinin’s blood, recovered quickly, turning to meet his attackers. Just before Beobrand reached him, the rest of the pirates arrived to join their leader. A heartbeat later, the two lines clashed and chaos ruled.

  Woden would have his mayhem.

  Beobrand’s band attacked with frenzy, pushing back the more numerous pirates. The salty, iron tang of slaughter mingled with the sea spray as axes, swords, knives and clubs battered and smashed in a welter of blows all along the line of fighting men.

  Beobrand sensed that his gesithas were acquitting themselves well, but he could not look to see their progress. He needed all his concentration and wits to fend off Draca’s blade. The man was fast, cunning and strong. Beobrand was sure he would be able to best him, in time. But he was unsure how much time he would have. It was clear to him now that one side would be totally victorious, the other slain to the last man.

  He swayed to the left and parried a savage overarm swing from Draca. Hrunting quivered under the strength of the blow and Beobrand cursed. Whatever the outcome of the battle, he vowed he would see Draca dead.

  Flicking a riposte at the one-eyed man’s face, he drove him back a step. He stamped forward, his foot splashing into the frothing foam, already turned the colour of sunset by the blood of the fallen. Beobrand pressed his attack with a swing at Draca’s unarmoured chest, but the brute was faster and more agile than he had any right to be and twisted his body, using his own blade to deflect the blow. The swords clanged and Draca aimed a punch at Beobrand. Seeing the blow, Beobrand avoided it easily.

  All around them, the battle raged. Cynan screamed insults in his native tongue as he disembowelled a man. Dreogan hacked into another pirate’s shoulder and blood bloomed, hot and scarlet. Ferenbald lay about him with abandon. He was flanked by Cargást and Sigulf, and the three of them seemed to be untouchable as they cut a swathe through the pirate ranks.

  From further down the beach, Halinard came running into the fray. Gone was his yellow cloak, but atop his head was the simple helm of Vulmar’s guards. Screaming Frankish oaths, he spitted an unfortunate pirate on the viciously sharp tip of a short spear.

  Beobrand felt himself filling with a renewed vigour and energy. He moved in close and shoved Draca backward hard, pushing him off balance. This was it, he knew now that he would slay the bastard and then he would throw himself into the fight alongside his gesithas and Brimblæd’s crew and they would massacre the last of the pirates. All he had to do was batter down Draca’s clumsy defence.

  Draca staggered back, flailing and defenceless. Beobrand swung downward with all his skill and strength. He could almost see the blow already connecting, burying itself in his opponent’s neck.

  And yet the blade did not strike. Instead, it trembled and throbbed, sending a numbing pain up his arm. Somehow, Draca had managed to bring his own blade to bear, parrying what was to have been his death blow. Still, the force of it, delivered as he was stumbling, had driven Draca to one knee. From such a position, it would be easy to finish him.

  Pulling his blade to the left in a feint, Beobrand watched as Draca’s sword was drawn towards Hrunting. Then, in an example of the skill that had brought him such battle-fame, Beobrand shifted the direction of his sword, bringing it slicing down towards Draca’s exposed head.

  Once again, Beobrand’s attack was thwarted. Draca flinched and allowed himself to almost fall into the bloody waves that lapped about them. At the same moment, with animal speed, he lifted his great blade to block Beobrand’s blow. The two swords met, but this time, instead of the quivering clangour of previous collisions, Hrunting let out a sickening cracking and its once fine patterned blade snapped. Beobrand reeled, barely seeing his sword’s blade spinning past Draca’s face to disappear beneath the sea water that churned about them.

  Draca recovered first and surged up, swinging his blade into Beobrand’s stomach. It was a weak blow, delivered from a poor position, but nonetheless, it made Beobrand grunt and fall back. Beobrand stepped on something hard, hidden beneath the surf, a rock perhaps. He stumbled and fell. His belly throbbed where Draca’s sword had connected, but his byrnie had saved him. As he splashed into the now knee-deep water, he knew that what had so recently seemed like victory, would become failure and defeat in a heartbeat. Stupidly, he looked down at Hrunting’s hilt, there was barely three fingers’ width of blade left. He flung the remains of his once proud sword at Draca. The man batted it away with a laugh.

  He stepped towards Beobrand, a savage grin on his scarred face.

  “I told you I would kill you,” he sneered. “Not so mighty now, are you?”

  He raised his sword. The blade was nicked and looked to Beobrand to be slightly warped. And yet, it would do its job, he knew. Beobrand scrabbled around in the water, seeking to be able to get to his feet before Draca ended his life. He knew it was pointless. The pirate leader was upon him. Beobrand was sprawled in the water, soft sucking sand and shingle beneath him. He had no blade. He could see the rest of the fight had moved on, his gesithas and the men from Brimblæd, driving the pirates towards their beached ship.

  So much for my famous luck, he thought bitterly.

  Draca was standing over him now, triumphant and gloating.

  “Look at you,” he spat. “Pathetic. Rolling in the sand like a child.” Beobrand ignored him. Under the gelid water, his hand rested on something unyielding. The thing that had tripped him. He looked up at Draca and his fingers traced the object that was hidden beneath the waves.

  “Speaking of children,” snarled Draca, “where is yours? I would so like for her to see you die. If I am quick, you might be able to watch me pleasure myself with her before you choke on your blood.”

  “You will pleasure yourself with nobody, you one-eyed bastard!”

  The scream came from Ardith, who sprang from behind Draca. He howled as she plunged a small knife into his back. It came away blood-smeared and she stabbed again. Her face was contorted into a mask of anger and despair. No longer the beautiful delicate girl that had attracted Vulmar’s lust, she was transformed into a murderous creature, pale and shivering, hair lank, sodden clothes draped about her like seaweed. She seemed more like a monster from the deep than a human child.

  Her knife came away bloody, but the blade was small and against a brute such as Draca, it would not kill. Certainly not quickly. Draca swung around, catching her tiny wrist as she sought to strike him again. Her eyes were full of madness and her whole body shook, such was the strength of her wrath.

  Draca punched her full in the face an
d she went limp.

  It seemed the Sisters of Wyrd had woven together many a weft and warp of destiny on this beach beneath a steel-grey sky that spat sleet and spite. And Beobrand grinned as his mind finally understood what it was that his hand rested upon beneath the water. He could think of no explanation for it being there in that moment, just when he had need for it, but he laughed to think of Woden and how he loved mayhem.

  Beobrand leapt up from the water, raising the great sword he had taken from Mantican’s hall in his right fist. The sword must have tumbled from the wreck of Brimblæd to await its master’s hand. Water sprayed from the patterned blade. Sharp and sleek, the sword sang in his hand as it sliced into Draca’s flesh. With a roar of such ferocity that it ripped his throat, Beobrand drove the blade deeper and deeper into the one-eyed pirate. Blood gushed over his hand, shockingly hot after the freezing water and wind. With his left, half-hand, he gripped Draca’s sword arm, preventing a final blow, even as death claimed him.

  “Go pleasure your fat whoreson of a brother,” Beobrand spat into Draca’s face.

  He twisted the sword and Draca shuddered, letting out a sighing groan. Then, with a grunt, Beobrand stepped back, wrenching his newly found sword from Draca’s flesh and shoving the pirate away. The light of life fled Draca’s single eye and he splashed into the rising tide. Beobrand watched as the water washed over his staring face. Part of him expected the brute to spring up once more, to take a final swipe at him or Ardith before death claimed him.

  But Draca did not move and Beobrand hurried over to the daughter he did not know. She was bloody-faced, bruised, bedraggled and trembling like a leaf in a storm. But she yet lived and she allowed him to wrap her in his massive arms as he surveyed the destruction on the beach.

  Part Five

  Oaths Fulfilled

  Chapter 60

  Scrydan stepped into the darkness outside the hut and cursed under his breath. God damn that son of a whore, Godstan. He must have been cheating, though how, Scrydan was unsure. He stumbled away from the building. A cold rain swirled in the wind, cooling his face after the clammy heat of the hut’s interior. It was stuffy and overcrowded in there, but what had started out as a good night with the mead flowing, had degenerated into a misery of another succession of failures.

  The stand of oak that overlooked the small house rocked and swayed in the wind that had come with the sunset. Scrydan shivered. He should have grabbed his cloak on the way out. He staggered over a branch that lay in his path and cursed. He should have stopped drinking too, he told himself angrily. He was never any good at knucklebones when he was drunk. He spat into the gloom. His head swam and he gazed about for a moment, wondering where his destination was.

  “Follow your nose,” Godstan had said, when Scrydan had said he was going for a piss. Damn the man and his cheery laugh and strong mead. If he wasn’t cheating, surely he had plied Scrydan with drink in the hope of taking advantage of him. Bastard.

  He fumbled at his belt, feeling absently for the pouch there. It was light. Much lighter than it had been earlier that evening. Still, he had a couple more slivers of silver and a coin from Frankia – the last one he possessed. It would be enough for him to win back what that cheat Godstan had stolen from him. All he needed was to bide his time, stop drinking for a while and allow his head to clear. He grinned in the darkness. Yes, he’d show that friendly fool. But first he had to get rid of some of that mead he had already consumed.

  Another gust of wind shook the trees, driving rain into his face. The cold water trickled down inside the collar of his kirtle. He shuddered. By Jesu’s bones, it was colder than he thought it would be out here. Still, not half as cold as it had been in the winter. His mind threatened to take him back to those dark days when he had been forced to flee from Hithe. He had travelled from settlement to farmstead to hall until he had stopped here, in this small steading near Gernemwa. It was in the land of the East Angels, far enough from Hithe that nobody knew him. He had some silver and had soon fallen in with Godstan and his friends. Scrydan was no fool and knew that come the summer he would need to make himself valuable to them in some way. Especially if his silver had all gone by then. But that was in the future, and until then, he was happy to pay for his keep and to play knucklebones and tafl with the labourers, fishermen and, sometimes, the gesithas from the local lord’s hall.

  Once he’d even managed to get a fuck. In exchange for a few moments behind a cow shed, he’d given some fresh bread he’d bought to one of the goodwives. She was a scrawny young thing, with two grizzling children, but she was glad enough for the food and she did not fight him as he lifted her skirts and took his pleasure. He smiled at the memory of her.

  “Don’t you be spilling your seed in me, you brute,” she’d said. Her husband had died of the pox that summer and he supposed that the idea of another mouth to feed was worse than anything else she could imagine. He’d gripped hold of her shoulders then as his knees had begun to tremble, thrusting into her, panting and groaning.

  “Don’t you do it inside!” she’d said, anguish in her voice. The sound of her fear had brought him to climax and he had not released her, instead pushing deep within her as she struggled and his manhood throbbed, pulsed and pumped.

  When he had pulled away from her at last, she had slapped him. He had merely laughed.

  He finally found the midden pit, its stench dampened by the rain and the wind that gusted its miasma away from his face from time to time. Tugging at his breeches, he was amused to find he had begun to stiffen at the memory of the skinny widow. He tried to think of something else, so that he could piss and be done with it.

  It was cold out here and it stank. At last, after a few moments of trying to conjure up the face of Godstan in his mind and how he would look when Scrydan won all his silver back, a stream of piss spattered into the midden. By Christ, it smelt terrible here. He should just have pissed against the wall of the hut, not walked all this way. Again, he cursed how much he had drunk and how clouded were his wits.

  He burped and spat, then pulled his breeches up.

  The rain was falling more heavily now. In the distance there was a sudden flickering of light. For an instant, the trees where silhouetted, stark and black against the lightning-lit sky. Moments later, thunder rumbled over the land. By Jesu’s cock, he would be soaked out here.

  Turning, he hurried back towards the hut. The wind sloughed through the trees and the rain roared as it pelted down. The world about him seemed darker after the brilliance of the lightning and for a confused, drunken moment he was unsure on which direction he needed to go to get back to the hut.

  Another flicker of lightning showed him the path.

  And something else.

  Was that a figure he had seen under the trees?

  It couldn’t be. Who would be out on a night like this? One of the other gamblers perhaps? Thunder grumbled, closer now. He must have imagined it. He quickened his pace, keen to be out of the rain and suddenly gripped with a great terror. There was someone out there, he was sure of it now. And they meant him harm.

  Lightning filled the sky again. Scrydan looked back under the trees. Nothing. There was no figure. Nobody there. By Christ, he was drunk. Perhaps he shouldn’t gamble again this night. He was imagining things in the darkness.

  Just as the thunder followed the lightning with its distant crash, Scrydan turned to rush back to the hut. A fresh flash of light picked out the features of a man standing only paces away from him.

  Scrydan let out a cry that was lost in the rumbling of Thunor’s hammer in the dark heavens. He took a step back, hoping to flee. But to where? The man was too close. He was tall and looked broad of shoulder. He wore a hood and cloak that shadowed his face, but somewhere, dark and deep within him, Scrydan knew the man had come for him.

  As that thought finally coalesced in his mind, Scrydan turned to run. But he had been right. The man was too close, and too strong. An iron grip grabbed onto his kirtle’s collar, hauling him
back. A heartbeat later, the deadly cold of a blade touched his throat and Scrydan yelped. Absently, with the strange detachment that came with drunkenness, he was glad he had just taken a piss, for if not, he was sure his bladder would have let go from fear.

  Chapter 61

  Beobrand stood in the shadow of the oaks. He pulled his cloak about him, stretching muscles that had grown stiff from inactivity. It was cold and his breath steamed in the cold spring night air. It had been uncomfortable waiting there, but their patience had been rewarded when at last, as the rain began to fall and the wind rustled the trees above them, they had seen the door of the hut open. Warm light from inside had momentarily lit the figure that had staggered out into the darkness.

  Scrydan.

  He had stumbled into the night, weaving and tripping. At times muttering to himself. Beobrand frowned to see the man he had once called a friend so lost to drink. But he felt no sadness or pity for him. That time had long passed. Now all he felt towards Scrydan was loathing and a simmering anger.

  On seeing Scrydan, Beobrand realised with surprise that he had not truly been able to rest these last months. All through the long winter, since the battle in the land of the Dornsaete, he had been awaiting the moment when he could face Scrydan and fulfil his promise to him.

  And to Udela.

  He had been filled with something akin to joy when Ferenbald, now sailing Saeslaga, had come to Ubbanford not two weeks before. Beobrand had not seen the man since before Modraniht and had not expected him until much later in the year, perhaps at Thrimilci when the weather would have been more suitable for travel. But he had been pleased to see him and was glad to hear that his father was hale. Hrothgar had been dismayed at the destruction of his beloved Brimblæd, but Ferenbald had placated him, telling him how well both the ship and the men had performed. Ferenbald had spoken in tones of awed admiration for Saeslaga and how well she handled. Eventually, Hrothgar had gone down to the beach and walked around the new vessel, running his gnarled hands along Saeslaga’s sleek lines, nodding.