The Valhalla Saga Read online

  *

  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.’

  ‘I’m … sorry, Jorn,’ Havar muttered, staring at his toes.

  ‘So you should be,’ Jorn snapped.

  ‘Still,’ Runar piped up. ‘You p-p-put on a very con-uh-convincing show. He was f-fuh-furious at the King.’

  ‘For sending a boy,’ Birkir rumbled, eyes twinkling. ‘A boy who knows nothing.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Jorn. ‘Glad you liked it. Now we need to build on this without going too far. We do what Sigurd says, report in and fight with the locals. We hold off these stinking northerners long enough to allow King Olav to get here and trounce whatever is left, by which time I fully expect something accidental to have happened to, say, a third of their grain stores? Just don’t get yourselves killed, you idiots.’

  ‘P-p-please, Jorn. Just once. C-can I? Just once?’ Runar pleaded as Birkir and Havar smirked.

  Jorn frowned in mock annoyance. ‘No, Runar. No dying.’

  ‘Wh-what if I get Havar killed?’ Runar ventured.

  ‘That’s another matter entirely,’ Jorn replied.

  ‘Hey! I’m right here, you stuttering little weed!’ Havar exclaimed as the four men left the longhouse, grinning among themselves.

  OUTSIDE STENVIK

  ‘ROW! ROW, YOU STINKING, DRIBBLING SHIT BABIES! ROW! COME ON!’ Thora screamed at the men, who smiled through gritted teeth. The ships had fanned out and were heading at full speed towards the beach. The other half of the crew was armed to the teeth, ready to jump overboard and hit the defenders hard the moment they touched land. To the north, past Stenvik harbour, Skargrim could see Ingi, Thrainn and Hrafn directing their ships to do exactly the same.

  That had been the plan, at any rate.

  But the beach was empty. The ships zoomed in, skimming across the water, powered by strong arms and broad shoulders.

  Skargrim looked at the collection of hut
s, the longhouse rising above them. Wooden walkways, deserted. Behind the old town, a fortress rising.

  Stenvik.

  He smiled a feral smile. ‘Not bad, Sigurd. Not bad.’

  Thora’s scream cut through everything. ‘OARS IN!!’

  As one, thirty-six oars lifted up out of the water and the Njordur’s Mercy knifed through the water.

  The last thing Skargrim saw before the ships beached at speed was a pole, set in the square by the harbour.

  A nag’s head was impaled on it, facing out to sea.

  STENVIK FOREST

  They’d fought.

  Oraekja had ended it, lying on his back on the forest floor. A handful of mud and leaves flung in his opponent’s eyes had bought him time enough to get up and close enough to do the knife work. He’d clutched the gangly fighter with his left arm, stabbing repeatedly into the soft belly and twisting the knife in the dying man’s guts. His right hand was covered in blood and the stench of the outlaw’s innards was still all over the front of his clothes. He reeked, but the fight had shaken Oraekja out of his misery.

  He had to find her.

  All aches and pains forgotten, he started inching towards the sea.

  STENVIK, THE OLD TOWN

  ‘MOVE!’ Skargrim’s voice boomed. Three hundred hardened raiders roared an assortment of battle shouts and headed at speed towards the deserted old town. Skargrim ran with them, keeping pace despite his age and bulk.

  ‘Seems a little too quiet,’ Thora said, running up alongside him. ‘And look. Their southern gate is open.’

  Behind him he could hear Egill Jotunn shouting at his men. He stole a quick look and saw the black-clad raiders striding purposefully along, the giant at their point. He shook a massive, slab-like fist in greeting. Skargrim saluted in return.

  Looking back at the Stenvik houses, something stirred in Skargrim. He turned to Thora. ‘You’re right. This stinks.’ The command voice boomed again. ‘SLOW DOWN, we’re walking in! Eyes!’

  The men responded at once and slowed to a walk, shields up. On the other side of town Ingi had already called for caution, with Hrafn following his lead. Across the harbour Skargrim saw young Thrainn watch in desperation as a sizeable group of his men disobeyed his order, broke free and set off at a dead run towards the houses outside the wall, screaming obscenities and battle cries. Skargrim also noted that Ingi’s contingent made up the rearguard and were slowing down in their approach, if anything.

  Thrainn’s runaways arrived at the houses and swarmed over the walkways, still shouting.

  Nothing happened.

  Cutting through into the middle of town, the bloodthirsty raiders hooted and hollered.

  Above Stenvik’s southern gateway a lone figure stood up, horn in hand. He blew three short blasts, then one long note. The younger of Thrainn’s warriors turned and hurled insults back towards the man with the horn.

  All around the raiders, walls silently collapsed inwards.

  Armed men in twos and threes, shortswords, hand axes. No shields. One cut to injure, two to maim, three to kill. Screams of pain erupted from within the old town.

  Then, as swiftly as they’d appeared from the huts, the ambushers were sprinting for their lives back towards the southern gateway, swerving across the southern road in strange lines.

  A brace of flaming arrows flew from the top of Stenvik’s walls, thudding into wattle walls, wooden roofs. Houses that burst into flame surprisingly quickly.

  ‘No, no, no …’ Skargrim muttered.

  Infuriated, Thrainn’s renegades had regrouped and were giving chase with swords raised.

  STENVIK

  Harald’s hand-picked raiders sprinted into town in small groups, their triumphant whoops echoing through the gateway. One of Harald’s raiders strode through into the market square and let loose a primal roar.

  Valgard called to him across the square from his makeshift aid station. ‘Are you hurt? You’re covered in blood!’

  The powerful young fighter turned and grinned. ‘Hah! If so, it’s not mine!’ A roar of approval went up from the men in the square, soon echoed from the southern wall.

  STENVIK, THE OLD TOWN

  Afterwards Thora swore she’d heard the snap as the first man’s leg broke. Within a couple of breaths four more of Thrainn’s men had run at full speed into the trip holes dug into the southern road, set with vicious barbed spikes to punch through feet and stones at the bottom to ensure a broken ankle. They had been picked off easily by the archers on the wall, their corpses stuck in the road, some buried up to mid-thigh.

  Eight raiders dead, another twenty-seven badly wounded.

  The remaining men had retreated quickly out of missile range and returned to Thrainn’s ranks as the southern gate closed with a dull thump. Now the young chieftain sat at the harbour and looked out to sea, ashen-faced.

  ‘Those men will never fight again,’ he muttered.

  ‘No, they won’t,’ Skargrim replied. ‘And not only that – they’re still here. The rest of your men can still look them in the eye. They can still hear them whimpering. It won’t stop your fighters, but even the hardest ones will be a little less inclined to fight. Sigurd knows what he’s doing.’

  Of the twenty-seven, only four had life-threatening wounds. The others had been hit just hard enough to take them out of the fight. Sword arms, knees and shoulders. As Skargrim suspected, the houses hit by fire arrows had been liberally clad with kindling to accelerate the fire, heat the blood and encourage pursuit. The rest of the town’s houses stood firm. A cautious advance had confirmed that the town outside the walls had been deserted in a hurry.

  Hrafn’s men had ransacked the houses. One of them had found a leg of lamb that someone had abandoned and taken a chunk out of it. Skargrim and Thrainn could still hear the poor man’s retching from where they sat. He’d thrown up everything in his stomach and was now vomiting blood. Thrainn watched, mesmerized, as Hrafn walked over to the man and past the pile of poisoned food they’d gathered up. There was no bounce in the captain’s step, not a hint of a smile on his pale face. Just grim determination. Hrafn levered his shoulder gently under the crouching man’s armpit and stood him up. A greenish, sickly face with a thin stream of pink spittle stared at them.

  Hrafn half-led, half-carried the man into a storage hut by the harbour. He came out alone and walked over to Thrainn and Skargrim.

  ‘Fogroot. A lot of it, too. He won’t live through the night,’ he said, matter-of-factly. ‘Serves him right, thinking with his stomach like that. Although I must say,’ he continued, nodding to Skargrim, ‘your friend Sigurd has a nice bag of tricks.’

  ‘He always did. We know what he’s capable of. Nobody thought this would be easy, did they?’ Skargrim looked at Hrafn and Thrainn. Both shook their heads. ‘But clever as all of this is, Sigurd will find out that all he’s done is separate the boys from the men. Soon he’ll find out that he has no water.’

  Hrafn grinned at that. ‘Lovely. Ragnar?’

  Skargrim nodded and smiled proudly. ‘He’s a wily one, my brother.’

  ‘Always has been,’ Hrafn nodded in assent. ‘Is she …’ he gestured towards the Njordur’s Mercy, at anchor in the bay.

  Skargrim nodded. ‘She’s staying on the ship, out of harm’s way. I had four of my men row her out there. She says she won’t step on this ground before the will of the old gods is done.’

  ‘Battleground’s no place for a woman, anyway,’ Thrainn said.

  Hrafn grinned. ‘I’ll be sure to carve that on the forehead of your corpse when the Valkyries come.’

  Thrainn smiled back. ‘If you plan on hiding in the back, old thing, then by all means do. I’ll be up front with the real men.’

  ‘Hah!’ The glint was back in the skinny sea captain’s eye. ‘You could fit Idunn’s tit into that mouth, Skargrim!’ The big grey-haired raider did not respond. ‘… Skargrim?’

  Skargrim faced away from them, looking east.

  Thrainn and Hrafn followed
his gaze.

  Around town the other raiders gradually fell silent as they saw what was happening.

  After a while Hrafn broke the silence.

  ‘Who in Bolthorn’s name are they?’

  STENVIK

  The men of Stenvik were gathered in small groups on the wall, some peering over the edge, whispering and pointing to the east. Others tried their best to catch glimpses of the assembled army to the south. There looked to be nearly four invaders to every Stenvik fighter, and the silent forest loomed with a promise of untold masses of near-invisible outlaws.

  Ulfar didn’t see Sigurd, but he felt his presence. Suddenly the chieftain was there, walking amongst the raiders of the Westerdrake, clapping shoulders, nodding seriously at grizzled old fighters, sparing a smile for the younger men. Sigurd wove through the fabric of Stenvik’s defences, bolstering the men’s spirits simply by being there.

  Sven leaned in and winked. ‘He’s good, isn’t he?’ Ulfar could do nothing but nod. The chieftain of Stenvik was dressed for war, red tunic over a bulky mail shirt, round shield on his back, spear in hand and a broad-bladed battleaxe in his belt. Ulfar watched him walk the wall, stopping to speak and share a private moment with every single warrior – and courage followed in his wake. Frightened boys, doubtful fighters and shaken old men now stood up straight, determined and strong. Thinking back, Ulfar suddenly understood something Geiri’s father had spent months trying to teach him and Geiri. You can’t tell them, he’d said. You have to show them. Looking at the warriors of Stenvik, he realized that Sigurd was not commanding or forcing anything. Walking among them, making them his equals, he simply gave them a choice, a lead to follow.