The Valhalla Saga 01 - Swords of Good Men Page 16

  BETWEEN WYRMSEY AND STENVIK

  Skargrim stared down at the sea foaming around the prow of his ship, the Njordur’s Mercy. The glow inside, the strong sense of belonging, had faded as the morning passed slowly into afternoon and been replaced with a hollow, empty feeling. He frowned and spat.

  ‘What the hell is wrong with you then?’

  Thora stood by his side, looking out at the sea.

  ‘Nothing,’ he snapped harder than he’d intended. Still – it was none of her business.

  ‘Right,’ she said amicably. ‘And I regularly shit a pot of gold. A large one, too. You don’t need to play chief with me, you old fart. What’s wrong?’

  Skargrim grinned despite himself. ‘I should probably behead you for that.’

  ‘You’d have to catch me first, and we both know that’s not happening. So spill your guts. Might stop you walking around like a bear with a boil on its arse.’

  He sighed. ‘I really should have drowned you when I had the chance.’ He shrugged. ‘I always know what needs doing.’

  ‘But now you’re not sure.’ He nodded. ‘I’ve never known you to doubt, Skargrim. And you’d have their heads if any of the men doubted you, I reckon.’

  ‘I … I am just not good at following, that’s all.’

  She snorted. ‘Hah. That’s dipping your oar lightly in the water, I’d say.’

  ‘I just wonder what the gods really want with us,’ he blurted out. Thora remained silent. He turned to her, but she looked resolutely away. ‘Best not talk about it, I suppose,’ he added. ‘Best not think about it at all, in fact.’ They stood together silently. For a while the only sound was the wind in the sails and the waves lapping at the side of the ship.

  Then Skargrim spoke. ‘However, as raids go, this is a legendary one. We are sailing with Hrafn. And young Thrainn. And Egill. We’re seeing Egill Jotunn and living to tell the tale. He is a huge bastard, though.’

  ‘He certainly is.’

  Something in the tone of her voice made Skargrim turn his head and glance at Thora. She looked back at him, raised an eyebrow and smiled sweetly. ‘… What?’ The twinkle in her eye told a different tale.

  Skargrim grinned. ‘You must be Loki’s stepdaughter.’

  ‘Good.’ She gave him an appraising look. ‘Now that you’re yourself again, stay like that. It makes it a little more likely we’ll come through this mess.’ She punched him hard in the shoulder, turned and started picking her way back to her post at the rudder, relieving her cover with a stream of expletives and a slap on the back.

  He turned towards the prow and looked ahead. A day’s sailing lay ahead of them.

  Then, Stenvik.

  Without thinking, he adjusted the axe at his belt.

  Sixty-five ships drove ahead, the wind at their back. Behind them, the sun started its slow descent into night.

  STENVIK

  The furnace glowed red-hot. Audun’s forehead wore a sheen of sweat.

  It had been a bloody affair, quick and brutal. Three men of Stenvik had died along with five farmers, and four were injured, but twenty-two of the men from the forest lay dead outside the eastern gates. Outnumbered and outfought, the enemy had turned and ebbed back into the forest, followed by the jeers of the men on the walls. Then Sigurd’s fighters had returned to him with the killing tools that needed fixing.

  Audun twisted the blade deftly, watching the colour shift. He hadn’t wasted time cleaning the blood off, but even knowing it had been there still made him uneasy.

  When he judged the heat in the blade to be right, he brought it over to the anvil and picked a small hammer from a rack on the wall. A couple of well-placed blows straightened out the dents where the sword had been used to block an attacker’s strikes. With swift and assured movements, Audun plunged the glowing blade into a tub, setting off a plume of steam as the water boiled around the sword. As he waited for the metal to cool down, he looked over at the pile of assorted weapons they’d dropped on him after the clash.

  Death was never as glorious in real life as in the songs, he mused. There was nothing heroic about it, really. You were just alive, and then you died. You were alive, and then you were blood and meat and bones in a slightly different order. His scalp tingled as old memories surfaced somewhere in the back of his mind. Audun pushed them away, put the sword in a bucket by the whetstone, and busied himself with heating and fuelling the furnace. He had a lot of work to do.

  In the noise and heat of the smithy, he didn’t notice Ulfar entering until he heard the grind of metal on stone. He turned around, white-hot blade in hand, only to see the tall, young man standing over the whetstone, sharpening a sword with easy, confident strokes.

  Audun watched for a while. Catching Ulfar’s eye, he nodded once and turned back to the forge. There, he set to hammering swords into shape, fixing broken axes and reattaching spear tips. They worked together without words.

  As the light faded, the last sword clattered onto the pile of straightened, mended and sharpened weapons. Audun brought forward two stools and a sack with dried meat and a flask of mead.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said as he handed Ulfar the food. ‘I would have been working into the night if it weren’t for your help.’

  ‘I just needed to get out of that hut. I was losing my mind,’ Ulfar answered, looking unusually nervous. ‘Look, there’s one thing I want to ask you.’ Gone was the confident young man, in his place an embarrassed, gangly boy. ‘Do you know anything about a woman named Lilia? Here, in Stenvik?’

  Audun’s heart sank. ‘Why do you want to know?’

  Ulfar fidgeted, but did not answer.

  ‘You need to learn to pick your battles, boy,’ Audun said gently. ‘And you need to not pick that battle.’

  ‘So you do know who she is?’ Ulfar replied eagerly.

  He sighed and nodded. ‘How is Geiri?’

  ‘Nothing’s changed. Being so near Geiri when he’s not really there is very hard. But tell me of Lilia. Please.’

  Audun took a deep breath and scolded himself silently. No good could come of this. No good at all. But he’d seen that expression before on a young man’s face, and Ulfar didn’t look like one to give up. Maybe he could explain the state of things to him. Make him see some sense.

  ‘You’ve seen Harald? The guy who beat the daylights out of that pig farmer? Lilia is his wife.’ He glanced over at the young man, who hung on his every word. Audun went on. ‘He brought her over after a raid. She’s his second. He had one before, but she died. No children. Some said she had an … accident … because she was barren.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘He’s not a forgiving man, Harald. If he finds out you’ve even been asking about his wife he will challenge you to a duel of honour, and he’ll take great pleasure in gutting you.’

  ‘Does she love him?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Does she love him?’ Ulfar persisted.

  ‘How should I know?’ Audun shot back, stung. ‘What does that mean? Does she want him? I doubt it. She’s less of a wife and more of a slave, and she has no family here, so no one can do anything for her. Does he treat her right? No. There’s talk, people hear things. They say he beats her, but nobody does anything. Lucky for her he’s away most of the time. But she waits for him on the pier when he’s gone.’ The silence from the other end of the smithy was intense. He felt Ulfar’s stare more than he saw it. ‘Look. I don’t want to tell you what to do. Just make sure you know what you’re up against when you go in. Harald is a vicious bastard by all accounts, and he eats boys like you for breakfast. Judging by your work you’ve seen a sword before. You might even know what to do with it. But you’re, what? Twenty-two?’

  ‘Twenty-three summers after this one.’

  ‘Harald has been raiding for twenty-five years and he’s still alive. Think on that.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Ulfar said as he rose. ‘For the information, and for the warning.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’


  ‘Me?’ Ulfar thought for a while, then replied: ‘I don’t know. But thank you again, my friend. Your words have put me at ease. And don’t worry. I won’t do anything stupid’ – Audun was about to protest that he hadn’t worried at all when Ulfar interrupted him – ‘tonight. We’ll see about tomorrow.’

  With a hint of a smile, he ducked out of the smithy.

  Audun shook his head and frowned. ‘Let’s hope you hold true to that,’ he muttered to himself. Looking around, his eye caught on his most recent sword. Excellent raw material, but in dire need of sharpening.

  He picked up a pail of water and brought the blade towards the whetstone.

  *

  Valgard did a brief inventory in his mind as he walked. Splints, bandages, salves as far as they went. It was all ready, decked out by the station he had created by the longhouse. Sven had suggested it, said an equal distance to all the steps wouldn’t be a bad thing. It was hard to fault the logic in that. It wouldn’t be delicate work, though. And there would be blood. Lots and lots of it.

  ‘Hey! Valgard!’

  He turned and saw Harald bound towards him looking positively cheerful. ‘Come on. Let’s go to your place, you can make me some mixture and I’ll tell you what I’ve done.’ The gleam in the big sea captain’s eye sent chills up and down Valgard’s spine. ‘What are you doing over here? You’re almost at my house.’

  ‘Am I? I guess I am. I was just … walking. Setting up. Clearing my head.’

  ‘’s a good idea, clearing your head,’ Harald nodded. ‘Now how about you make some mixture so I can clear mine? Come on, you scrawny fucker!’ He grinned broadly and slapped Valgard hard on the shoulder. The sheer weight of the blow sent him staggering, but he regained his balance and managed to turn the stumble into two steps towards his own home.

  ‘If you insist,’ he replied, forcing joviality into his voice. ‘You’ve got me all curious now.’

  Beaming, Harald led the way towards the healer’s hut. Valgard had to raise his pace to keep up. Something seemed to be spurring the big sea captain on. He even hummed a melody as they approached his house.

  When they got in, Harald went to his customary corner, leaned back and smiled. ‘Now. Do you have anything ready?’

  ‘Yes I do,’ Valgard replied. ‘Give me a moment.’ Shuffling towards the supplies, he found a portion he’d mixed earlier. It had turned out slightly stronger than he’d intended so he’d kept it in reserve.

  Turning, he handed the leather bottle to Harald. The big man grasped it eagerly and took a swig. His eyes turned vacant as he savoured the taste, the sensation that spread from the mouth to the brain and the body, the warm fuzziness.

  ‘No honour debt, no restitution, no nothing.’ He licked his lips, tasting the last drops of the mixture.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I told the pig man what had happened to his cousins and explained that the same sort of thing might happen to him unless he stayed in his pen. Problem solved,’ Harald said, slurring the last words slightly. ‘I’m off the hook and the gods will be happy …’ As the herbs took hold he relaxed into a happy sleep, eyes closing slowly.

  Valgard looked at the big captain snoring softly in the hut. The mixture was serving its purpose very well now, giving him rest when he needed so he could stay up longer than an ordinary man would. He still remembered the first time he’d made it. Harald had been bent double with muscle ache and needed something to help him sleep. It had worked better than he’d expected. He’d slowly been growing less receptive, so Valgard had had to change the recipe. Sven had once cautioned against using too much of dried hemp flower in anything – said it turned a man’s brain to mush – but what use did an oaf like Harald have for a brain, anyway? Valgard needed him to do what he was told, not to think for himself like this.

  This was very inconvenient.

  Now there would be no trial, Harald would not be forced to pay what he would consider an unfair amount, and there would be little chance of him taking on Sigurd in a leadership battle. Valgard was losing pieces and getting nothing in return. Suddenly nervous, he checked the box underneath the table. It contained all it was supposed to contain. The game was not finished yet.

  Still – something had to be done. But what?

  STENVIK FOREST

  Instinct, Oraekja thought. That’s what that was. He’d made a life-saving decision, just like great leaders do. Some of the useless farmers had died, but that was bound to happen. He was alive and he was going to stay that way. He’d got to the cover of the trees, found thick underbrush to hide in and lain down, aiming to do like he’d seen Ragnar do and stop breathing.

  It had worked. He’d melted into his surroundings.

  He wrapped the cloak tight around himself. Night was coming. It would still be a while before Skargrim arrived. Thinking of Skuld, he drifted off into an uncomfortable sleep.

  HARDANGER HEATH

  The last rays of the setting sun cast a fading light on the field. Tents were lined up in patterns, dotted by campfires being lit. Around the fires, the men of Olav’s army sat and talked.

  ‘Did you see?’

  ‘You’ve asked me three times now. Yes I did. We all did. We were all there.’

  ‘I still can’t believe it.’

  ‘I know. They should have queued up to strike the King down. What I want to know is what manner of god this White Christ is if he could outwit Odin, outfight Thor and ward off the charms of Freya. He must have either defeated them or protected our King.’

  ‘Or both.’

  ‘Or both. There has been no sign of thunder tonight.’

  ‘It makes you think twice, it does.’

  Finn listened to the campfire talk as he made his rounds. The events of the day clearly weighed heavily on the men’s minds.

  The camp looked much better now, he thought. When they started out men had just slung down their packs when it was time to stop. They would wander from their little circles to drink, argue or settle scores with old neighbours. King Olav had put a stop to that on the third day of their campaign, months ago now. ‘These are the old ways,’ he’d said. Finn still remembered the looks on the grizzled old chieftains’ faces as the young King told them how to command their men. The King had created rules. He had told the chieftains where to camp relative to his tent every night. He had shown them where to put sentries, where to place the horses at night. Rotations were drawn up and a division of hunters and gatherers created. Some of them were plainly furious, but none had dared to go up against him. And even the stubbornest chieftain had to admit that the young King seemed to know what he was doing. A few troublemakers had tried to upset the balance a couple of days later. The King had dealt with them fast and without mercy.

  Finn’s musings had brought him towards King Olav’s tent. The flap was open, the hide pinned back to let in air. Or display the inhabitant, he thought.

  The King knelt before a small wooden box or chest of some sort. On it was easily the biggest book Finn had ever seen, open in the middle. The young man seemed to be mouthing words, lost in thought. He fingered some sort of talisman that hung around his neck. All at once his lips stopped moving, and he reached for the book. He touched it tenderly, traced a line on the page. Reaching for the cover, he closed the book slowly and spoke without looking up.

  ‘Good evening, Finn.’

  Finn was taken aback. How could he know? He hadn’t made a sound. At last he managed to stutter a reply.

  ‘Good … good evening, my lord.’

  King Olav got to his feet, his back turned towards Finn. He looked at the ground and seemed deep in thought.

  ‘Tell me of the men. Are they tired?’

  ‘No, my lord. They are well. Most of them are sitting around campfires, talking.’

  ‘What about?’

  Finn paused. What were his options? Keep silent? Hardly. Lie? That didn’t seem very smart.

  ‘They’re wondering, my lord. About the White Christ.’

  Kin
g Olav turned around, raised his head and looked hard at Finn. His expression was very hard to read. ‘Well then. I suppose we should go and do our duty, should we not?’ He strode off without waiting for an answer.

  Finn followed the King. Daylight was fading fast, and he had to watch his step to keep from falling over.

  When they approached the first of the campfires, King Olav slowed down and turned to Finn.

  ‘Those men over there. Do you know them?’

  ‘Yes, my lord. They’re from the east coast. Part of the original group that rose up against Haakon Jarl. They’re trustworthy.’

  ‘So if I were to talk to them, do you think they would run around repeating what I said?’

  Finn answered immediately. ‘No, my lord. Not at all.’

  ‘Then we move on.’

  Thoroughly confused, Finn followed.

  At a distance from the next campfire, King Olav stopped again. ‘How about that bunch over there? Are they less worthy of my trust?’

  Finn peered through the gloom, trying to make out faces. ‘They seem to be from the south. Botolf’s men are there. Some are Skeggi’s. They’re … I probably wouldn’t … I mean …’ He hesitated. King Olav looked at him for a second, then turned and set off towards the campfire, silently and slowly. Strands of the men’s conversation lingered on the night air. What Finn heard set his heart racing.

  ‘… but surely the White Christ cannot have both the strength of Thor and the cunning of Odin?’

  Five soldiers were sat around a campfire. Some argued, others laughed. A fat man with crooked teeth and a bushy beard laughed the loudest.

  ‘What’s next? Does he have the hips of Freya?’ he roared, taken with his own wit. He slapped his thigh, made some very suggestive gestures and laughed heartily.

  Nobody laughed with him.

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’ he shot at his companions. ‘Did the King break your balls on that stone today or something?’ He faced a half-circle of white faces, all staring at a point a little bit above and behind him. Slowly, confusion flowed into realization as silence spread like rings on water around the campfire. Finally, one of his friends spoke up. ‘My lord … we were not … he didn’t mean …’