The Valhalla Saga 01 - Swords of Good Men Page 19

  But he wasn’t watching.

  And increasingly, it seemed he wouldn’t be. Harald had seemed different in the last few days. It was as if he wasn’t quite … there. He’d looked like he’d lost interest in her after the last beating, when she’d seen him cry. There had been a couple of flashes of temper, but even then he’d looked like he was holding back for whatever reason. She couldn’t fathom what it was that had changed him, nor did she want to. She was too busy staging her own modest escape, breaking free from her captor.

  In the five years since she’d arrived she’d made few friends, but Inga was one of them. She was blonde and slim, with big blue eyes and a seldom seen, crooked smile. A little younger than Lilia, but already a widow at seventeen, she had lost her husband to a Saxon arrow on a raid last year. On the few occasions when Lilia had dared to go out – to wait for Harald, of course – Inga would come and stand beside her down at the harbour. There they’d stand, one waiting for the man who’d never come again, the other hoping that hers would not return. They had not exchanged many words in their respective vigils but their friendship was a solid thing, a quiet bond reinforced through pain and desperation. After ably serving as lookout yesterday in Lilia’s daring trip to see Ulfar, Inga was her closest ally and co-conspirator by default. So when Harald did not return or demand anything of her, Lilia went outside to seek her friend.

  Stenvik was buzzing.

  It sounded different, though.

  These were sounds of purpose, intent and intensity.

  She saw young boys carry spears up onto the walls. Behind them came women with slop buckets half-full of water. She could see little girls running around, picking up stones from the side of the roads and throwing them into small sacks.

  As she turned onto the road from the western gateway her stomach lurched as if she’d been hit, her vision blurred for an instant and her whole body tingled.

  A moment later, her brain told her what it was.

  It was him. Ulfar. Standing by the door of the longhouse. Intent, sharp, focused and beautiful. Talking to someone old, and pointing a lot. Sven, her brain whispered in the background. He’s talking to Sven.

  She watched them, transfixed, breathing quickly.

  ‘Lilia?’ There was a note of surprise in Harald’s voice. ‘Where the hell do you think you’re going?’

  ‘I—’ she began, scrambling. She turned to find him standing between two houses by the side of the road, looking at her. ‘I went to get some water.’

  ‘You can’t. They poisoned the well.’ She stared at him, paralysed with fear. He simply looked back blankly. ‘Go home. You shouldn’t be out.’

  With great effort she broke the hold, nodded quickly, turned and ran.

  *

  Ulfar caught only a brief glimpse of Lilia as she ran away, but it was enough to make his heart jump. He was about to set off after her when a young boy came running.

  ‘He’s awake! Your friend is awake!’ The boy barely managed to stop himself before crashing into Ulfar and Sven. ‘Audun says you’re to come quick! He’s speaking!’ With that, the boy ran away again.

  Torn, Ulfar cast a longing glance towards the place where Lilia had disappeared in between the houses, then turned and set off swiftly towards the healer’s house, followed by Sven.

  Up the road towards the western gateway Harald emerged. He watched the two men walk away, an unreadable expression on his face. When they’d gone he turned and headed south.

  STENVIK FOREST

  A subtle change in the sounds of the forest was enough to wake Oraekja. His back hurt, his knees hurt and he had to try very hard to keep his teeth from chattering.

  Someone was very close to his hiding place. He could smell it. Inching forward, he caught a glimpse of the man.

  He was a scrawny bastard, dressed in rags and wielding a battered old shortsword. He didn’t look like much, but Oraekja had learned not to judge fighters by their looks. A powerful longing gripped him then, an urge for someone to take the lead. Someone to tell him what to do. Someone like Skargrim. He thought of Ragnar and blinked furiously. Still, the scrawny man looked nothing like the people from Stenvik. That had to mean he was one of theirs, right? The people from the forest had attacked the caravan so they were on the same side. Had to be. The more Oraekja thought about it, the more it made sense. He’d explain who he was and what he’d done, and be taken to their camp where he could wait for Skargrim and Skuld to arrive.

  He rose.

  ‘Hello, friend,’ he said, raising his hands.

  The scrawny man twirled around, shock and surprise on his face. He bared his teeth and launched himself at Oraekja.

  STENVIK

  ‘You bastard! I thought you were good as dead and it turns out you were just having a rest!’

  Geiri mustered a tired smile. Ulfar’s words said one thing but his face said something entirely different. ‘Sorry about that. Next time you go get the ale.’

  Ulfar smiled sheepishly. ‘Maybe next time I will.’

  Behind him, Sven cleared his throat. ‘Now, son. Move over and let me have a look at the man. See if he’s still in one piece.’ Ulfar moved out of the way and Sven knelt over Geiri, touching his scalp and feeling for injuries.

  ‘I checked. There’s nothing on the outside,’ Valgard said. He was standing by the door, looking down on Sven crouched over Geiri with the two newcomers. ‘I think he’s safe from bleeding on the inside. Some bruises, but his skull looks fine.’

  ‘That it does,’ Sven muttered, without taking his eyes off Geiri. ‘You’ve done well with our wounded men, Valgard. And speaking of which – where is the pig farmer? He was bundled up in a heap over in the corner last time I saw him.’

  ‘He was going to find Sigurd and talk about his … rights,’ Audun said, choosing each word carefully. ‘But that was yesterday.’

  There was a brief silence in the hut. Then Sven spoke. ‘It’s amazing that that man isn’t dead yet. Considering his sense of timing, we might see him back in here sooner rather than later.’

  STENVIK, THE OLD TOWN

  ‘Out!’ Harald banged again on the shutters of the little hut. ‘Get out! Now!’ Sigurd’s instructions had been simple enough. Go to the shacks and huts of the old town, round up the stragglers and bring them in behind the walls.

  A thin, nervous man scurried out, carrying a bag on his back. Behind him a scrawny woman holding a snotty, whimpering child manoeuvred herself out of the hut, blinking and looking around. Harald pointed wordlessly at the town walls. They got the message and hobbled towards the southern gate. He moved on. Get everyone out of there and move them into town. Those were his orders. And then there were more of Sigurd’s little surprises to arrange. Already he could hear shouts and hammering sounds. Valgard had walked off into the old town with a big sack on his back, picking huts at random and disappearing inside. But Harald struggled to keep his mind on the task at hand. His head hurt. Gliding along in some kind of odd half-sleep, he felt strange inside. Like something was melting, leaking, giving way. The vision from yesterday morning taunted him and kept coming tantalizingly close, staying just beyond his reach. Suddenly a flimsy hut would grow bigger before his eyes, so much so that he felt he was knocking on the vast doors of Valhalla. Thor would pass him in the street and clap him on the shoulder like a war-brother and his heart would swell. Freya would wink at him through various women and he would feel the blood rush to his groin. And sometimes it felt like shapes in the shadows were … watching him. Watching and smiling.

  Still, the work got done. He dispensed commands, praise and threats where needed. And it worked. The men with the shovels had done their jobs, the men preparing the huts equally so. There was a steady trickle of people with bedrolls and whatever meagre possessions they could scrounge trickling into town through the southern gateway.

  He took no pride in it. He just wanted to lie down.

  He wanted to lie down and sleep and wake and drink some mixture and sleep again. He wanted
to go to Valhalla, to speak with the gods. To eat and fight. Go somewhere where things were simple again, where he did the right thing. Where the thing he did was the right thing.

  ‘Like if you were the chieftain,’ a dry, cold voice whispered from the shadows, smirking. Harald’s heart thundered in his chest, but he didn’t show it. You never show your fear. That much he knew. It had been beaten into the very core of him.

  ‘Chieftains. Men with power. Mmmm.’ The husky notes of a woman somewhere, gliding over him like warm honey, infiltrating his head, surrounding him. Visions of Freya’s curves danced before his eyes. Harald could feel his body stirring and drew a deep breath, trying to push the images away. He was not well. There was something wrong with his head. Maybe he should tell someone. But that would mean abandoning his post. And Harald would not shirk his duties, regardless of how he felt or what he thought of Sigurd. Not now. This was war and he needed to be reliable. Reliable and solid. So he continued and tried his best to ignore it when his head changed things around him.

  And soon enough the voices of the gods stopped bothering him. As Harald walked through the old town banging on shutters and ordering people into the fort, the visions became his friends and companions through the preparations. He made sure he didn’t talk to them, though. Not here. Not now. But as he grew more familiar with Freya’s eyes, Loki’s shadow-smirk, Thor’s curt nods, his head cleared again. There was nothing wrong with him. Quite the opposite. It was all beginning to make sense.

  He had been chosen by the gods.

  Now he only needed to find out why.

  STENVIK

  Sven found Sigurd walking the wall, looking towards the woods. ‘Did the pig farmer come to see you for a ruling on his rights?’ he asked without preamble.

  Sigurd looked at him, briefly puzzled. ‘Oh. That. That’s today. No, I haven’t seen him. Why?’

  ‘It seems he left the hut yesterday to go find you.’

  Sigurd shook his head. ‘I cannot keep track of everyone within our walls, Sven. Maybe he’s changed his mind. I’ve seen neither of his kinsmen either since last night.’ He shrugged. ‘I guess that means Harald is safe.’ Moving slowly among the men, he nodded at a fair few, clapped backs and clasped hands.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Sven. ‘He is still responsible for Geiri’s wounds, is he not?’

  ‘He might be, yes. But if the boy lives it’s not that bad, is it?’ Sigurd looked at his adviser with a critical eye. ‘I promise you that if we survive this we’ll lean on Harald. The boys will get their worth and everyone but him will be happy. Then we’ll send him out to raid somewhere else and take it out on some Saxon farmers. Is that acceptable?’

  ‘I guess that is our only option,’ Sven replied.

  Sigurd smiled. ‘One is better than none, my friend.’

  *

  The raiders of the Westerdrake had followed orders and spread the word – prepare for war. Everywhere Audun looked, Stenvik obeyed. People worked with steely determination. Harald’s raiders had rounded up all the people in the old town and escorted them inside the walls. The fast-approaching line of enemy ships was spur enough.

  Thorvald’s men were coming in from the outside carrying pails of water quickly drawn from irrigation ditches, animal troughs and anywhere else. Some of the scouts were wounded from skirmishes with the outlaws.

  The town bristled with weaponry. An old man walked past Audun, a fierce glint in his eye and a rusty sickle in his hand. Kids were running up the steps to the top of the wall, carrying bags bulging with stones. By the southern gateway Harald stood at the head of a group of ten raiders, all armed and ready to go. Audun watched as the big captain put on his helmet in silence. As the metal guard cloaked his eyes, the big raider checked the axe in his belt, the sword sheathed on his hip, and pointed silently towards the southern gate. The raiders followed him without a sound. Looking around, Audun noticed three other ten-man groups, all heading towards the southern gateway.

  *

  Up on the wall, Ulfar and Sven watched as the enemy fleet split in two. Still a fair distance out, a large group of ships seemed to double back and hold, reefing sails and working oars. Meanwhile, twelve ships in the vanguard appeared to set a course to the south of Stenvik, skirting past the harbour. Five sleek black-and-silver vessels peeled off from the bulk of the fleet and followed.

  Around them fighters manned the walls under Thorvald’s control. Dressed in mail shirts and helmets, armed with spears and axes, two raiders would line up on the wall. Between them an old man or young boy would stand armed with whatever he could find, several bags of small stones by his feet. Over on the far side of the wall Ulfar saw Valgard laying out cloth to use as bandages.

  ‘This is going to be one hell of a scrap,’ Sven remarked. They stood in silence for a while. Then he added: ‘You’re not half bad at Tafl, son. So tell me, what are they doing?’

  Ulfar found to his embarrassment that the compliment made him blush. ‘Well, if you’re outmanned you wouldn’t split up – the larger force would murder first one half of your troops, then the other. So odds are Skargrim knows he’s got the numbers. Maybe that’s what he’s showing us. It depends on what happens with the outlaws, but I’d expect him to have his men form a loose circle around the town, focusing on the four exits. Then he’d wait us out.’

  Sven grinned. ‘Not bad, son. Not bad. But what do you know about Skargrim?’

  Ulfar scratched his head. ‘Not much, I must admit. I’ve heard his name mentioned, but detailed news of his conquests hasn’t quite spread down my way.’

  ‘Well – I’ll tell you this for nothing. He is smarter than you’d think, absolutely merciless and fond of the unexpected. That’s why he’s coming in now.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’d think he’d want to approach under cover of night and hit us just before dawn, surprise us and hack us in our beds. It’s the way we usually raid, it’s smart and it saves on men.’

  ‘You’re right,’ said Ulfar, frowning. ‘So why is he coming in now?’

  Sven smiled through his white beard. ‘He wants to soften us up nicely first. He figures we’ll be staying and fighting, so he wants us to see him coming. He wants us to know and have a good long think about it. If you add that to the poisoned well and the outlaws, you get defenders with death on their minds who are therefore twice as likely to run away or break down.’

  ‘M-hmm,’ Ulfar replied, lost in thought and examining the terrain. ‘And how do you know what he’s thinking?’

  Sven’s face turned hard.

  ‘Because Sigurd and I used to sail with him.’

  *

  ‘But what about grain? Meat?’ Jorn tried to keep pace with Sigurd, who was marching towards the longhouse.

  ‘We have enough.’ Sigurd’s reply was clipped, offhand.

  ‘For how long?’ Jorn followed the chieftain as he opened the doors to the longhouse and stepped in, hardly breaking his stride. He didn’t reply. ‘For how long? And where do you keep it?! Tell me! I have to know!’ An edge of hysteria crept into Jorn’s voice. ‘King Olav told me that I had to find out! Prepare for the coming of the holy army! The word of God!’

  Sigurd turned on Jorn, eyes blazing. ‘We have enough grain, the sheds by the animal pens are full of bloody grain, and your King Olav can bloody come here and ask me himself instead of sending some wet little boy to do the work! How far away is he? Come on! How far away? Tell me that, Jorn of the bloody Dales!’ Sigurd advanced on the young man, radiating fury.

  Shocked, Jorn took two steps back. ‘I – I—’

  ‘You don’t know. And how could you?’ Sigurd sighed and turned towards the dais. ‘You’re just boys who know nothing,’ he muttered, stepping up to his chair. Instead of taking a seat he moved behind it, reaching for the big axe mounted on the wall.

  It came down easily.

  Turning towards Jorn and his men the old chieftain hefted the menacing weapon, weighing it in his hands, looking at it like he’d
never seen it before. ‘You were never going to stay on that wall, were you?’ he said quietly, looking at the worn wood in his hands. ‘You were always coming down again.’ Looking up, he seemed to realize where he was. ‘Stop gawping,’ he snapped. ‘Make yourselves useful. Jorn and you’ – he pointed to Runar – ‘report to Thorvald. Tall, skinny. Scout master. You two’ – pointing at Havar and Birkir – ‘report to Harald. You’ve met, I believe.’

  ‘I don’t mean to complain but you can’t—’ Havar began. Sigurd turned and looked at him as if noticing him for the first time. The fat man yelped involuntarily. Ramrod-straight, strong and lithe, holding the massive axe as though it weighed nothing, the years seemed to drop off Stenvik’s chieftain. A slow, wolfish smile spread on his weathered face.

  ‘… Can’t?’ he prompted.

  ‘I beg your pardon. So, so much,’ Havar bubbled nervously. ‘I meant to say that you can’t ask for more than to fight beside yourself against – against the … the others. The enemies. The enemies of Stenvik are the enemies of King Olav and oof—’ A well-placed elbow from Runar silenced the fat man.

  Jorn seized the opportunity. ‘Sigurd. We’re about to be besieged. If King Olav knew of this army of raiders coming in, he told us nothing. We must send your best runner out past the outlaws to alert the King!’

  The old chieftain headed for the door without looking back. ‘We must do nothing but survive. However, your suggestion has merit. Ask Thorvald whether he will send Sigmar. It is his decision. Now go find your commanders, get orders and get rest if you can. They’ll be here soon and then there’s no telling.’ With that he left, the slam of the door spreading silence in the longhouse like rings in a pool. The first noise to breach the quiet was Havar’s outraged voice. ‘That was unnecessary!’ he whined at Runar.

  ‘Yes, it was,’ Jorn replied, all trace of nervousness vanished. ‘Runar should have left you to blabber to the man with the big axe. He should have let you tell him more about what he can’t do. Maybe tell him that he couldn’t lop off your fat, yammering head with one stroke and watch him prove you wrong.’