Rune to Ruin, page 24
“Ah, I’ve lost it already,” said Innstein.
“Me too. The sky is even more gray than before,” agreed Utstein.
I had not lost sight of the rock, however. I watched it tumble end over end in a slowness contrasting with its great velocity. I could lift a rock of ten pounds without difficulty. Maybe Svein or Haldor could throw one at an enemy effectively. What I saw this machine do with such a rock defied belief. Or would have if I hadn’t seen the previous four attempts.
In a few breaths, there was a great crashing of sticks and hay, low cheering from the group, and primal shouts of victory from the ‘Steins.
Efraim crossed himself again. He said a short phrase that was nothing like “By the burning balls of Surt” in content. I think that, nevertheless, he meant something quite similar.
Chapter 25
Saxa Ex Machina
“Varg Tiorvi, I am Haldor Skullsplitter!”
There was little else that needed saying. No overt threat or demand was required, just a simple identification. Our numbers and the way we held our weapons said the rest.
It was an overcast spring afternoon when we approached Varg’s gate and made our challenge. Still a ways off from the gate, we did not care to be easy targets for arrows. Varg’s tower guard must have seen us coming for some time as we wound our way around the path in front of the compound. Technically, we were in the range of their bows, but it would be long, blind shooting from behind their walls.
The march from the monastery had been a long and laborious one. Every one of the crew was there. Svein stood at the front with Haldor. Magnus held a shield, though it wasn’t his preference to fight that way. Even Hemming was in formation with us. Huld had marched with us from the monastery early that morning, but there was no telling where she was.
The ‘Steins, normally a great relief to have in the shield wall, were well outside it. Those two manned the new weapon from well behind our line. They had named it “Cow Killer,” our main counter to Varg’s sorcery.
I was not involved in this naming, so don’t blame me.
The stone thrower was mobile, with large wooden wheels built into its base. But we’d had no pack animals to pull it and so had taken it in turns to be our own pack animals. This was easier to do on the dry ground we left behind and more difficult once the overcast weather turned into a light rain, especially given the weight of the ammunition.
We were tired. But we were more tired of waiting.
“Varg Tiorvi,” repeated Haldor. “Stay behind your walls, then! Though we stand in the rain, it is you who is wet. Wet for the jǫtunn that uses you like a woman every nine nights. Some men ride their horses, but Varg Tiorvi, we hear your horse rides you!”
So that was between two and three insults Haldor had made for which Varg Tiorvi could legally kill him. Being called “wet” by itself was borderline, a good ramp-up to the other insults.
“Perhaps it is best we go tell the Swedes in Uppsala of your cowardice,” Haldor continued. “Surely, you would prefer that to facing me in the open.”
That was a serious threat.
We wanted open combat to have a clear shot at the cow. If we didn’t get it, we were too small a group to scale the walls successfully. If he wanted to, Varg could sit in behind his walls and do nothing. Then we would leave, telling about how we’d challenged Varg the Charmer and lived to tell about it, that Varg had been too afraid to fight.
That would forever damage his reputation. His trade would suffer, and suffering trade meant unpaid and, therefore, unhappy warriors. Unhappy warriors were the kind who took matters into their own hands and killed lords before suffering too long under their ill luck.
That was the internal threat. The external threat was from Uppsala. The king there liked expanding his treasure hoard and his lands. If he sensed weakness in Varg’s hold on Gotland, he might take the opportunity to break that hold completely.
Varg’s power was based on the fear that anyone who challenged him, even with greater numbers, was doomed to a terrible defeat. And to maintain that brutal reputation, we knew he would have to come out.
That was the reasoning behind the plan as we’d talked it through the day before. Ketill’s contribution had been a lot of head-shaking. When Haldor finally demanded he speak his mind, the wizard replied, “No battle plan survives the first arrow’s flight.”
I thought about that when somewhere behind that wall, a woman screamed. It was a language I did not recognize. I could hear a scuffle of some sort, and then the woman’s cries turned into a long, slow wail.
I heard nothing for a while after that. Then the gates opened, and it was time to apply my ear protection as the others had. Somebody had to keep their ears open—up to a point. Haldor had chosen me for that job. Meanwhile, everyone else had their ears stopped up with Huld’s mix of tallow and wheat. Tallow to blunt the noise, wheat because it was strong against sorcery.
The mixture applied, I stepped over to Ketill. The wizard stood behind the shield wall, his bow strung. I bent down a bit so that he could etch an inverted uruz rune into the mixture I’d just applied to my ear. The tallow, wheat, and rune together should, we were told, stop the worst effects of the cow’s mooing.
Once applied, even my keen hearing was almost completely gone.
It was hard to speak without being able to hear. There was little for me to do, anyway. Haldor had already gotten out most of the good insults.
The rest of us stood in a loose wedge angled back from Haldor and Svein. I was holding a shield, so I felt stupid. Never could get the hang of shields. The wedge was part of the plan, though. If the enemy closed ranks and protected the cow, we would charge, part their shield wall, and send Kraki through the middle to kill the cow. Assuming Cow Killer had not got it first.
If they charged us, the plan was much the same, only it involved more of a melee to approach the cow. Which is exactly what Magnus wanted to happen.
That was the plan anyway, and no plan survives the first arrow. I suspected our “plan” would turn into a general melee, for which I was ill-prepared. Need was a long but well-balanced spear in my hand, the simplest and best weapon I could have in an open fight.
Six champions walked through that gate. Or so I took them to be because they had good, steel helmets and shiny chain shirts. Expensive arms and armor were not so common for wandering mercenaries, of which there were also more than a few. These all spilled out little by little, all men staying behind that little land bridge. To cross that would be to give up an excellent natural defense.
An older man, not as ancient as Ketill but more bent, held the cow’s reins and brought it right up past the champions to be front and center. He had been the minder I saw days earlier, but he had no ear protection this time. A cruel smile curled on his lips as he scratched behind the cow’s ears, and I saw that his hand was bloody. He looked rather bovine himself, his mouth moving in a slow grinding motion as if he had cud to chew.
He motioned for some of the less armored men to form up with shields around the cow.
I looked behind me at Ketill, who had already nocked an arrow on his bow. He shook his head as if I even needed to ask. It’s not easy to shoot straight in a wet fight, especially targeting a tiny opening among all those shields. Depending on how the fight went, he might need to start shooting anyway.
“Where is Huld?” I asked. She was supposed to be somewhere nearby, ready to heal the wounded. I suppose I was worried about my prospects in the coming fight to even think about her.
Ketill shook his head, and then I remembered nobody would be able to hear me through the tallow mixture. It was certainly effective, though I could still hear a bit. It mostly felt a bit itchy, and not just to me. Svein, too, was scratching at his ear.
A man appeared just behind the palisade, standing on some fortification, no doubt. A pink smile curved into a high forehead, which rose into white hair. Not gray or silver, but really white. He had gained some weight since the memory I had seen him in, but that was Varg Torfi for certain. His cheeks bulged sideways while a short beard betrayed a second chin.
“It has been a long time since a group of fools like yourselves tried such a thing,” he shouted. Though muffled, I could still hear him a bit and read his lips for the rest. “Do you not know me and mine?” He exchanged a look with two of the best-outfitted warriors below, who raised their swords—his sons, no doubt. “Surely those stories are common enough that you would know what happens to those who attack me, even in numbers much greater than yours. You are on a fool’s errand. It is a pity you will be unable to tell Arrow-Odd of your failure.”
I nodded at Haldor to indicate I had understood him and shouted the man’s words inches from Haldor’s ear.
Svein looked over and tried to listen, then scratched at his ear again.
“What a random thing to say, referring to Arrow-Odd,” Haldor replied to Varg. “Dropping unrelated names won’t distract us or help you. Come out and fight me one on one, and your men can keep their lives. I will face you bare-handed against whatever weapon you choose. Few men find better offers than that.”
Varg laughed outright at that and looked at the cow’s handler. The smaller man gave him a nod and kept moving his mouth. Something about the handler unnerved me. Though I knew Varg to be a villain, he still looked like many other jarls. The handler, however, had an ill look to every part of him, from his shabby leathers to his grimy teeth to the cruel look in his eye.
I caught the scent of blood and rust on the air. I knew the smell of that sort of seiðr on a battlefield. Lejre was coated in its mist when we fought Alfhild, her sacrifice of Leif augmenting her already considerable power. It had flowed around and beneath us, dragging at our very feet.
Judging from the look on Ketill’s face, he smelled it, too. Perhaps it was the cow, or perhaps the screams I heard had been a sacrifice to the cow, and the air of it only now wafted down. It did not seem quite right in that way I often find myself sensing something is very much not right but unable to find anything out of place.
Svein scratched at his ear, harder this time. We would need to fight soon instead of just stand around.
“‘Random,’ says the sea-king!” bellowed Varg, pausing for his men to laugh. “Either you are a most unnecessary liar or a most ignorant fellow! There are but two sides to choose, and a man who chooses neither walks toward his own death.”
I again related Varg’s words to Haldor as he inclined his head toward me. At the end of it, I thought I heard something else, something in the background. A low hum, not the cow. What was it?
“Every man walks the path toward his own death,” said Haldor. “Some carry their courage with them and leave the same in their wake, though they have lost nothing. But you left your balls behind long ago, and it is no wonder you walk with a pain in your ass.”
Varg’s smile fell. Something about this insult had cut deeper than the others, and I tensed for a potential charge. Ours or theirs, who knew? We drew into a tight wedge, shields up, weapons ready. The hum increased and my face twitched from the itching at my ear. To my right, Haldor was holding steady, but Svein had put his axe into his shield hand and was aggressively scratching at his ear.
In the instant before the clouds burst, I saw the handler one more time. He was not chewing. He was chanting.
In the next moment, the demon cow raised its glowing yellow eyes to moo.
As we had drilled, Haldor raised his axe and our crew began to make as much noise as they could. The cow’s moo rolled into that wall of shouts. The angry challenges from our side lessened at that thing’s power. In the midst of all this din, I was desperate to get a message to the wizard.
“Ketill!” I screeched after turning around, “The handler is a sorc—” but I was cut short. Svein’s shield boss had collided with the side of my face.
I went down seeing stars and twisting the shoulder of my shield arm in the wrong direction. When I rose, it was to see the reason for Svein’s behavior. He had clawed away too much of the ear filling on one side, and he was taking the full force of that cow’s power, swinging wildly at our own people.
Our wedge was in disarray. Haldor bade the others stay away and engaged Svein himself, banging his shield against the fat man but avoiding lethal strikes. He shouted for Svein to regain his senses, but for once, Haldor’s command went unheeded.
For the others, it was confusion, especially those new to the crew: Where to stand, who to fight. Haldor pushed Svein back until he was far from the rest of the group while Ulf shouted at him to regain his senses. But I could see Svein’s face when I rose, and whatever madness that cow could conjure was on him as long as it still mooed.
Plans and first arrows and whatnot.
Undistracted, Ketill loosed an arrow at the cow’s head. One of the guards around the animal raised a shield to stop it. The arrow struck hard and pierced the layers of linden and hide but stuck fast at its fletching. Other guards moved into position to block further arrows.
Varg was through the gate then, just behind his champions. The less well-equipped men crossed the land bridge at the head of their group, all apparently unfazed by the cow. I reckoned we were outnumbered at worse than two to one.
The first rock came down wide of any warriors. The one with an arrow in his shield pointed and shouted to the rest. If the rock’s thud put them on edge, it did not slow their advance.
I ran to Ketill as he nocked another arrow. “Shoot the handler!” I shouted into his ear.
“What?” he asked over all the other noise.
“The handler! Varg is not the sorcerer, the handler is!” It was not working. Though I could hear a small amount, Ketill could not.
I backed off a pace and made an expression like a man chewing cud, and then ran one finger across my throat.
The wizard looked to the handler, undistracted by Varg the Charmer, Varg the Distraction. Sudden realization crossed Ketill’s face. He read the battlefield, and I followed his gaze to Svein. The fat man had left off fighting Haldor. He was running in the direction of the ‘Steins. Toward Cow Killer.
Something changed in Ketill’s face. Not the drunken glee from last summer or the capricious frustration of former times. An old fury, the kind that can only emerge from long years of nurture, formed in his eyes.
He wiped his bowstring as dry as he could before nocking the arrow again. “Stop the fat one,” he commanded, his voice ringing through my ear protection.
I dropped that stupid shield and took off after Svein. Behind me, I could feel the vibration of Ketill’s counter-chant. Maybe that would stop the sorcerer from burrowing into our ears to make them itch. Even if it did, there was still the cow to deal with.
Ahead of me, the ‘Steins launched their second rock. What I would not give for that to take out the cow sooner rather than later. As it was happening, I had no real plan to stop Svein. All I knew was that I could run much faster than he could, and I would overtake him before he reached the ‘Steins. What would happen when I caught up to the behemoth? I hoped for inspiration as I ran.
The cow mooed again, louder and angrier this time. I felt that demon voice in my bones. The sound pierced my ears but did not drive out my sanity, so that was something. However, it meant the rock had not found its target.
“Svein!” I shouted, coming within twenty feet of the man. “Cover your ear!”
The red-faced warrior looked back at me just long enough for me to see his lip curl in disgust. On he rumbled toward the ‘Steins. Shouting the obvious was not working. A verse, perhaps! A verse sounded much better than trying to tackle a man twice my weight.
I had only seconds to compose, so don’t be too judgmental.
“Haldor’s man
huffs and puffs
running the wrong way.
* * *
He’ll gain no
glory this way
with that cow left unKILLED!”
I needed another line at least to make it galdralag, but I hadn’t finished yet when Svein made it clear how badly the verse had failed. He stopped and pivoted, face full of rage, and threw his shield disc-like at me. Hence the unpoetic, high-pitched end to that particular verse.
Nimble as I was, I could not dodge the shield. Shields are made from linden because it is light and strong. “Light” is a relative thing, however, and light enough to deal with axe and spear blows is not light when it is sailing at your face at high speed. The shield clipped my right shoulder while I tried to dodge. I let the blow spin me as much as I could but stumbled and fell in the process.
The ‘Steins had launched the third rock and were loading another. That was the first thing I noticed as I tried to get up. The second thing I noticed was that Svein had turned away from them and was heading for me, axe in hand.
“Keep shooting!” I shouted at the ‘Steins. Whether the brothers heard well enough or not, they understood. Of course, even light rain might have an effect on all that twisted rope, and our enemy might just move our target at any time.
On my feet, I could have danced around Svein and forced a chase he had no hope of winning. But I slipped on the wet ground, and my rolling was not as fast as my running. Svein’s huge movements telegraphed where he would swing in enough time for me to roll away. After the third attempt, he let out a howl of frustration.
Svein brought his axe down directly at my face. I turned my head away and brought my hands up, at once flinching and wishing I could face my death with more courage.
Need was still in my hands, though, and it was a shield at that point.
Svein’s axe clanged violently off the shield boss. I rolled and blocked a few more times, but the force of each blow kept me from rising.
I caught a glimpse of the ‘Steins. They had launched the fourth rock and were cranking the arm back. The cow continued to moo. It had taken them five attempts to hit their target in practice. If I could give them time enough for this shot and one more, that might be enough.
