The Valhalla Saga Read online

  He pushed onwards to the exit, through the raucous crowd. The house was so crammed that even poor Audun couldn’t get his privacy, he mused.

  That was unusual.

  *

  In the corner by the door, Audun found that much to his surprise he didn’t mind the younger man’s company. He suspected he’d already talked more than he’d done since arriving in Stenvik. That kid knew his way around a smithy and seemed genuinely interested in what he had to say. He was getting gently drunk now too, the mead settling in nicely.

  ‘How did you figure that out?’ Geiri asked.

  ‘Well,’ said Audun, slightly lost for words. ‘When you’ve heated the ore enough so that it runs clear, you can mix things in. I’ve been experimenting, but I’ve found that coal dust produces stronger iron. Lasts longer, bends but doesn’t break, and sharpens up easy.’

  ‘I’ve heard tell of things like these, but that was in Rus, stories coming all the way from Miklagard. They have people from all over the world there, apparently – the finest blade-smiths come all the way from the Far East to hawk their wares. It’s amazing that you should have worked this out yourself without any access to peers, or books—’

  ‘Can’t read.’

  ‘— or a master.’

  ‘Never had one.’

  ‘That is fantastic,’ Geiri gasped. ‘So you’re self-taught?’

  Audun frowned. ‘… Yes?’

  ‘I am impressed, Audun. You must be the great-great-grandson of Wayland himself!’

  A rare surge of pride shot through Audun. He wasn’t often compared to the Master Smith.

  ‘One thing you’ve done wrong, though.’ Confused, Audun frowned. A serious expression clouded Geiri’s face. ‘Yes, Audun. It seems you’ve failed in your smithing.’

  ‘What did I—’

  ‘You’ve left us with defective mugs!’ With that, Geiri grabbed his and Audun’s empty mugs and upended them with a huge grin.

  Audun tried his best to scowl but couldn’t quite make it convincing.

  ‘I’d best go get more to make up for my filthy foreigner’s manners and those of my friend, who should have replenished us a long time ago instead of sneaking off to play after the first round. When I come back, I need to ask you more about Stenvik. The women in particular,’ and with a wink Geiri was off, shaking his head as he walked past his friend at the games table.

  *

  Ulfar struggled for breath. His head was pounding. The air in the longhouse mixed with the smoke of the cauldrons, the smell of mead and the sweat of too many people too close together.

  This guy was good.

  Already they’d launched stabs and jabs, feints and counter-feints, opened doors for each other that seemed promising but ended in horrific death down the line, sometimes slow and painful, sometimes quick and painful, but always painful. This was the way the game was meant to be played. At first Ulfar had been able to gauge how he was doing by the reactions of the group around them, but as the tension rose he’d blanked them out, losing himself in the symmetry of the board, the possibilities of the assembled armies. They had spent a lot of time preparing but now it was time. The forces were primed, lined up and ready to go.

  ‘Cowards!’ The shout rose above the din of the longhouse. ‘You are worthless and unmanned, and we demand honour for our cousin, set upon by you two in the market today! We demand restitution!’ Something in the tone of the voice made Ulfar tear himself away from the game and have a look.

  Standing on a table opposite were the angry farmers he’d seen, now furious and drunk. They pointed at the two fighters he’d noticed, who summarily stood up a couple of tables away.

  ‘Who are you calling cowards, you lamb-shit gobblers?’ the broader one shouted. ‘Here’s payment for your cousin’ – he hawked and spat. ‘You might want to scrape up half and give it back to me, because I doubt he was worth that much!’

  All hell broke loose.

  Screaming obscenities, the two men launched themselves off the table.

  Ulfar’s world slowed down.

  He saw Geiri making his way through the crowd towards the corner, blissfully unaware of the source of the shouting.

  He saw the two enraged men charge through the crowd and storm the warriors’ table. One of them lowered his shoulder and charged into Geiri. The other stepped on his foot.

  Ulfar watched his friend lose his balance and fall, slowly fall, arms flailing. The panic in his eyes. Mugs flying. Geiri’s head hit the corner of a table. His arms went limp and he dropped to the floor like a stone.

  A cold feeling spread through Ulfar. Without thinking he sprang to his feet, stepped nimbly past one man stumbling away from the fight, spun past another and reached Geiri on the floor. He struggled for space to lift him out of the way of trampling feet.

  A big hand was on his chest, pushing him away.

  The blacksmith.

  Scooping Geiri up as if he was a child. Placing him on a table. Two feet away, chaos reigned. Fists flew; someone wielded a chair.

  ‘Knife!’

  The brawlers on the edge pulled away. A knot of men was locked in the middle, punching, grappling, kicking, stomping and doing their best to do their worst.

  Snarling and fierce, Harald waded through the crowd of spectators and charged the fighters. The first man he reached had his head yanked back then slammed into the forehead of the next man. Dropping fistfuls of hair in each hand, Harald pushed the two men away. Both clutched their bleeding faces and sank to the ground. The longhouse grew quiet very quickly. Within a couple of breaths, screams, grunts, six men were on the floor grasping various parts, struggling for breath or curled up, moaning.

  Sigurd strode into the old longhouse, face white with fury. Sven emerged from behind his table looking like a thunderstorm. Harald stood over the fighters, demonic and bloodied.

  The longhouse had fallen deathly silent.

  Sigurd took a deep breath. Then another. He looked at the fighters, some of whom had come around enough to realize their situation. Without looking away, he spoke between clenched teeth. ‘Sven. Any dead?’

  Sven looked around. ‘None …’

  Sigurd looked at Harald, then back at the fighters.

  ‘… yet.’

  Pushing for space in the crowd, Audun and Ulfar tried everything they could think of, but nothing worked. Geiri lay terribly still on the table in front of them. His eyes stayed closed.

  WYRMSEY

  They arrived just before dawn, chased by a cold wind. Fourteen ships, four hundred and twenty raiders. Thrainn’s crew. Vicious bastards to a man.

  Skargrim grinned on the moonlit beach. ‘Welcome to Wyrmsey, my brothers.’

  He watched Thrainn swallow his pride and nod in greeting. He was a rock of a man, Thrainn. Tall, strong, able and a fighter of note. Long blonde hair was braided and crusted with sea spray, beard likewise. He had thought himself a leader of men, and at the tender age of twenty-two was already strong enough to have over four hundred raiders at his beck and call. So when Skargrim showed up with the message from Skuld and said they were to join them in the fight for the Old Gods, Thrainn had laughed in his face. Mocked him in public. Said he was a relic, an old has-been. Said that if anything Skargrim’s and Ormar’s men should come under his own control.

  Skargrim smiled to himself.

  He didn’t mind being called old. He could see the grey in his own beard. But he liked to think of it as experience. And the only way to truly learn the value of experience was to get some.

  He reckoned it had been quite an experience for poor Thrainn to be put on his back twice – hard – wrestling a greying old has-been. First time too, it turned out. Well, there was a first time for everything.

  Already, Thrainn’s sailors were pulling their ships up on the Wyrmsey shore next to Skargrim’s.

  Twenty-six of them, side by side.

  The old Viking captain nodded to himself.

  There was still a lot of space left on the beach.
>
  STENVIK

  Trickles of light changed Ulfar’s world from black to grey, but it made little difference. His eyes were used to the darkness in the hut by now. He’d extinguished the torch at some point during the night. The burning pitch had made it harder to breathe and the big bandaged pig farmer had lain in the corner whimpering and complaining that he couldn’t sleep.

  Ulfar didn’t care.

  He just stared.

  Stared at Geiri, willing him to open his damn eyes. To move, moan, scream, wince. Anything.

  But his friend just lay there. Faintly warm to the touch, breathing regularly.

  Nothing more.

  Dawn crept towards Stenvik.

  EAST OF HARDANGER HEATH

  Around Finn the camp was coming to life. The early morning sun warmed the tents and teased the night chill gently out of his bones. He shook his head again. Orders were orders, but these made little sense.

  After some searching he found the right section of camp, and then the right man. He addressed him as formally as he could.

  ‘Jorn Ornolfsson, Prince of the Dales. The King requests your presence.’

  Jorn looked at him with a mixture of surprise and amusement. ‘Does he? Only he didn’t seem to like us valley boys too much last time we met, Finn. What do you think, my brothers?’ He turned to the three who had gathered behind him.

  ‘Nope,’ said fat Havar, beady eyes peering over his wobbling cheeks.

  ‘N-not at all,’ stammered Runar and went back to stringing his bow.

  ‘Not a bit,’ rumbled big Birkir behind them.

  ‘So why do you think our lord would like to see us?’ purred Jorn. ‘Do you think perhaps he means to instruct us in … the ways of the White Christ?’ Smiling, he drew a finger slowly across his throat.

  ‘Might – m-might come back a head shorter,’ gushed Runar, his slight frame shaking with mirth.

  ‘I’d be glad of the silence,’ Birkir added. There was a hard edge to their laughter.

  Flustered, Finn said the first thing that came to mind. ‘Truth be told, half the time I don’t know what he’s asking for and the other half I don’t know why he’s asking for it. I just carry the message.’

  Jorn shot him a charming smile. ‘That makes you a man of honour, Finn. Unlike these dung heaps and draft horses.’ He pointed to his three men. ‘Just see how they mistreat me. My oldest friends, my brothers in arms. They have none of your … mettle, Finn. None of your courage and loyalty. They’re bastards.’

  Finn struggled for anything to say. Finding nothing, he stood his ground.

  ‘You’re right to stay quiet, Finn – it’s the only way these stray dogs can’t twist your words,’ Jorn added. He placed an arm around Finn’s shoulder, smiled a reassuring smile and steered him away from the tents. ‘I should know more men like your good self, my silent friend. Lead the way. Let us go see what our noble King wants.’

  OUTSIDE STENVIK

  To the east, blood-red clouds heralded the dawn of a new day. Behind him, the sea was shrouded in night. He looked down on Stenvik from his vantage point high on the hillside. The walls, thick and strong, encircled the new town. The longhouse stood proudly in the centre. The market square just inside the south gate was already littered with vendors, even this early. To the east, the road stretched on out of the gateway and through the forest, hugging the coast farther on. The north-east road extended from the main gateway, through meticulously cleared farmland, past the east face of Huginshoyde, up into the big valleys and eventually the highlands. Between Huginshoyde and Muninsfjell the north-west road snaked out of the gateway, up the incline between the two hills and along the coast to the far west. From the south gateway his eyes traced the road down to the old town, the town that had grown out of a handful of hovels. It wound its way through the confusion of tents, huts and small houses scattered like a giant baby’s toys around the old longhouse. South of the old town lay Stenvik harbour, where the fishermen were already working away, readying nets and preparing crates. Their cries drifted upward with the wind. A smile played briefly on his lips.

  If Sigurd noticed Sven approaching him, he gave no sign.

  The old man almost managed to hide his wheezing. ‘I remember thinking this was a bad idea thirty years ago when my beard was only grey. But I suppose you can look on your town however you want.’ He stopped to catch his breath. ‘How will you rule?’

  ‘How can I rule?’ Sigurd replied softly. ‘Tell me first of the boy.’

  ‘I cannot say. He cracked his head badly and has not responded since. He walks in a dark place, but I am not ready to say he won’t come back. I don’t think the gods want him just yet.’

  ‘At least that’s something. If he dies …’

  ‘… if he dies we’ll have made some very powerful enemies in Svealand.’ Sven stepped up beside Sigurd and looked down. ‘He may not have made a good show of himself but his father knows everyone of note to the south and east.’

  ‘So it becomes your responsibility to make sure he lives,’ Sigurd snapped.

  ‘It does indeed. The law says—’

  ‘You don’t need to remind me what the law says, Sven. I know full well. What of the pig farmer’s injuries?’ Sigurd crossed his arms.

  ‘Harald made a mess of him but Valgard did good work and limited the damage.’

  ‘You have taught your boy well.’

  Sven bowed his head. ‘He’s no longer my boy, if he ever was. He is a man now and he has worked hard. I think he knows more than I do. And even if he does, and even if our people suspect he does, they still ask me to confirm everything he says when they think he doesn’t hear. As if he can’t be trusted.’

  ‘Some people are not in a hurry to change their minds.’

  ‘That is true.’

  They stood together in silence for a while and watched the first of Stenvik’s fishermen ready their boats. Smatterings of autumn colours were starting to appear in the forest beyond the town. A gentle breeze carried echoes of birdsong to their spot on the hillside.

  ‘Harald is responsible,’ Sven said finally.

  ‘Naturally. He always is. Always was and always will be.’

  ‘So what is your ruling?’

  ‘We wait for two days and see how the pig farmer’s injuries turn before settling damages. They’re bound to look worse now than what they are. Harald pays half, his crewmen the other half. I will rule for the farmers and rule fairly. I will then charge them for their attack on the boys in the longhouse, but it will be much less.’

  ‘Mead and anger. Not a good mix.’

  ‘Boneheaded, that’s what it was.’

  ‘Still, now it stops.’

  Sigurd nodded. ‘Now it stops, as it must.’

  They stood in easy silence together and looked on as their town was slowly wrapped in sunlight.

  ‘We’ve made this into a good place,’ Sven said after a while.

  ‘I remember every single tree we cleared off that land,’ Sigurd replied.

  Sven nodded. ‘Most of which went into the walls if I remember correctly, and if I’ve forgotten some of the logs my back remembers them for me.’

  ‘Indeed. Something tells me we won’t live to regret that,’ Sigurd added with a grim expression.

  STENVIK

  The sounds of the smithy soothed him. It was his world, a simple world, and that suited Audun just fine. There was no doubt. You needed to do certain things at certain times or the metal would punish you. No uncertainty. There was only failure, which you then turned into success through experience.

  But this one was not going to be a failure. The sword was looking better every day. It was going to be a very good blade indeed.

  Audun sighted one more time along the edge.

  It was formed, pretty much.

  Now it needed sharpening.

  WYRMSEY

  Hrafn’s men were the next to arrive. Ten ships’ worth of frost-hardened raiders from the far, far north where the sun didn’t show
in winter or set in summer. They wore thick sealskin coats over their ring mail and carried long spears along with their swords, hand axes in their belts and shields strapped to their backs.

  Skargrim nodded to Hrafn, who saluted with a grin. A skinny man with thinning hair, he had a hooked nose and tiny black sparkling eyes. He was continually on the move, fidgeting with his hands if he absolutely had to stand still. When asked, Hrafn had been all too happy to come and bring what looked like most of Finnmark with him. Now he was here, on Skargrim’s beach.

  ‘Well met, Hrafn.’

  ‘Well met, Skargrim!’

  ‘It’s been a while.’

  ‘That it has.’

  ‘When did we last have a dance? Vasconia?’

  ‘That we did.’

  ‘Doesn’t look as pretty any more.’

  ‘That it doesn’t,’ said Hrafn. His smile grew into a toothy grin.

  Skargrim nodded.

  Beneath him, many hands helped get the newcomers settled and the ships in line.

  Thirty-six.

  EAST OF HARDANGER HEATH

  King Olav waited for them outside his tent, watching impassively as they approached.

  ‘My King.’ Jorn bowed deeply.

  ‘Stand, Jorn Ornulfsson, Prince of the Dales.’ The King’s voice was calm and commanding, his expression unreadable.

  Jorn straightened up, looking honestly bewildered. ‘I wish to ask your forgiveness, my lord, for the incident involving the behaviour of my kinsmen, which you saw and rightly stopped. They are—’

  King Olav interrupted him. ‘You think quickly and speak well, Prince. Your men obey you. A king needs men to speak on his behalf, for he cannot be in all places at once. If you can give me your oath that your men will abandon the old ways and bring honour to you and thus to me, I have a task for you.’

  Jorn looked stunned. ‘Anything, my lord,’ he stammered eventually.

  ‘Take four horses of quality. Ride ahead to Stenvik. Tell them of our conquests; tell them of the size of our army. Bring word that the White Christ’s host marches and start work to prepare for our arrival in seven days hence. Arrange for supplies. Find a suitable site for our camp. Stenvik is a big town full of able fighters, so I want to be absolutely sure they are all on our side. In short, I need you to be my eyes and ears. I want to know who these men are, what they think, what they feel. The Hardanger Heath will slow us down. I need you to make sure the arrival of the army will be as smooth as possible.’