Sword of Vengeance, page 19
‘I have turned a blind eye to their courtship thus far. But if that bastard touches my daughter, I’ll feed his corpse to the ravens,’ Vigdjarf said, scowling after them.
‘Brand is a good man and a fine warrior,’ said Beornoth. ‘Sefna could do worse.’
‘I know it, but I don’t have to like it.’ Vigdjarf kicked at a rotting branch in the undergrowth and Hrist laughed. She linked her arm under her father’s and took him off to look for firewood.
Ornir Hauknefr followed his dog, sniffing beyond the clearing, and Reifnir sat on a log and ran a whetstone along the edge of his axe. Dolgfinnr and his men prepared a fire in anticipation of whatever meat the hunters would bring back for the pot.
‘Tell us of this Godric, then,’ said Dolgfinnr who, Beornoth noted, wore a new green cloak of the finest wool purchased from one of the many traders who had passed through the tavern whilst he had waited there for Beornoth. They spoke in Saxon, so as not to further irk Hrodgar, even though the king’s thegn was not in earshot. He rested with Thered’s hearth troop, sipping at a skin of ale.
‘He’s the son of Odda, who was a powerful East Saxon nobleman and close friend of Ealdorman Byrhtnoth,’ said Beornoth. ‘He is probably the second-largest landowner after the ealdorman’s family. Odda died, and Godric inherited his vast estates. Godric was a thegn and warrior of Byrhtnoth’s hearth troop, but he and his brother fled the field at Maldon and took most of the fyrd with him.’
‘So, you fought beside this Godric; is he a brave man?’ asked Bodil Balti, which meant the pounder, so named for the war hammer he carried into battle.
‘He is a coward and a braggart, and a filthy piece of toad shit and I will rip the life from him to avenge my fallen brothers.’
Dolgfinnr laughed at that. ‘So, you are saying that you don’t like the man?’
Beornoth frowned at the jest. ‘He is a coward, but he has silver and men. We can expect his burh to be stout and well defended, and the lands around it crawling with the masterless men he has hired. Godric and his brother Godwig led the fyrd from the field at Maldon, but they were not alone. There were other Essex thegns amongst them, and those pieces of shit will also rally to Godric once he knows we are coming.’
‘Why has he paid these men to fight for him?’ asked Anarr Holtaskalli.
‘Because he wants to steal Byrhtnoth’s land from his widow, stop the ealdorman’s daughter from inheriting, and become ealdorman himself.’
‘And we are going to kill the bastard?’ said Dolgfinnr.
‘Yes. He and his men led the rout at the battle, even though he swore an oath in blood to fight for Byrhtnoth until his last breath. Once Godric and the remaining traitors are dead, our quest is over.’
‘Will there be silver in Hareswood?’ asked Dolgfinnr, and then shrugged in indignation as Reifnir frowned at him. ‘What? There must be treasures there if the bastard is as wealthy as Beornoth says.’
‘This Godric has his own hearth troop, like all Saxon thegns. So perhaps ten men?’ said Reifnir, running a hand across his bald head.
‘Seems likely,’ said Beornoth.
‘Then he has the three hundred cut-throats roaming the shire, stealing land and generally making bastards of themselves. These are the men who attacked you in the barn?’
‘They are.’ Beornoth had recounted the tale of the night attack in the barn to Reifnir and the rest of the company on the road south from Northumbria.
‘We are just over two score strong, and we shall attack a fortress held by three hundred hired fighters and a dozen well-armed warriors, if we include this Godric and his brother.’
‘We must get to the place first. Hareswood is just beyond this forest, maybe a half-day’s ride from here, if we travel through the forest, and we don’t know if Godric’s three hundred are close or out in the shire.’
‘I like these odds,’ said Reifnir. He touched the hammer amulet at his neck and stared upwards, where shafts of light broke through the trees. ‘Few will stand against many, and we shall fight with honour. If we fight bravely enough, Odin will see our deeds. Perhaps we can amuse him and catch his eye.’
‘You seek the gods’ pleasure, Reifnir?’ asked Dolgfinnr.
Reifnir stood and stared into each man’s eyes. ‘Don’t we all? I have done things I am not proud of in the name of the blood feud. My enemies killed my sons, the things most dearest to me in all Midgard, and in my wrath I took the lives of innocents. Such deeds would stop a man from joining the einherjar after his death. They would curse him to an eternity as wandering Niflheim. My sons died in battle, and they wait for me in Valhalla. If I can stand and fight with honour, blade against blade, in the clash of arms where heroes fight, I can redeem myself before the All-Father. If I die, let it be amongst the brave men I have slain, and with an axe in my hand.’
‘And take your place in Valhalla,’ said Anarr, rapping a fist on his leather breastplate.
‘I will drink ale from curved horns with my ancestors, and my two dead sons. I will fight all day and feast all night on the benches of Odin’s Hall, beneath the roof of shields, and take my place amongst Odin’s einherjar.’
‘Then let us hope we find the fight you are looking for,’ said Anarr, and both he and Reifnir’s eyes blazed at the prospect of Valhalla and a glorious death. Beornoth sighed as he listened to the warriors talk of their glorious afterlife. It was so different to heaven, and when Beornoth was a child growing up around Cheshire and the kingdom of York, the Norse gods had appealed to him. The tales of Odin, Thor, Njorth and Týr were so much more attractive to a boy who was obsessed with fighting, riding and hunting. The Norse gods loved and drank and fought like people. Beornoth could imagine them in the crags, brooks, copses and hollows of the land, not like God and Christ who were ethereal and majestic in their heaven of purity and prayer. Beornoth wondered in that moment, as he saw the belief and inspiration in Reifnir and Anarr, if that was the reason that the Vikings had been so successful in their wars against the Christ worshippers of England and Frankia. Their gods encouraged war and savagery; it was the pathway to heaven. The Vikings were like hungry, savage wolves and the Christians were gentle sheep hiding behind a fragile pen of rotting wood as the predators howled in the darkness.
‘Just not too glorious,’ said Dolgfinnr, shaking his head at how the two warriors stirred each other’s hearts. ‘And not too outnumbered. I might have lost my harminger, my luck, at sea, but I am not quite ready to join my ancestors.’
The others chuckled, and Beornoth stretched the aches in his stomach and thighs. He pressed his stomach wound gingerly and twisted his body left and right. There was no pain, unless he forced his fingers into the scar, and then there was sharp, severe discomfort. He feared as the fire crackled into life, warm and inviting, that he might fall asleep. So weary were his bones that Beornoth thought he could sleep for a week. It was close now, the end of his search for vengeance, and Beornoth hoped his old body wouldn’t let him down now that it was almost over. Hrodgar came striding across the clearing, stepping lightly around a rock dotted with yellow lichen.
‘The boy has been gone awhile,’ said the one-armed Saxon. He jerked his head in the direction which Tata had gone after the rabbit. ‘I’ll go and see what keeps him.’
Beornoth rolled his shoulder, another old wound which added to the stiffness in his legs, stomach and back. He went to the stream to wash his face in the cool water. It was fresh on his skin, and he took another handful and splashed it through his beard. Beornoth wondered what Eawynn was doing in that moment, as a robin hopped along a tree branch across the water. She would be busy with her garden in Cheshire, with the flowers and the bees. Beornoth hoped he would be with her soon, and then perhaps it would be time for him to put down his sword and byrnie, and find a different life, a quiet way for him and Eawynn to see out their remaining years together.
A cry split the woodland like a woodcutter’s axe. Ornir’s dog raced through the wood, leaping over fallen logs. It stopped and turned, barking into the forest’s gloom, and behind it came Ornir himself, running with his axe in his hand and shouting a warning to the warriors around the campfire.
‘Arm yourselves!’ Beornoth shouted, and he drew the king’s sword from its scabbard. A great roar went up from the trees, many voices joined as one to make a sound like the crashing of waves on a storm-ravaged shore. The sound shook the forest. It was a wild, fearsome thing, the cry of bloodthirsty men who came to kill. Desperate men who believed they attacked an unsuspecting and unprepared enemy, they saw a chance to kill men and steal the pouches of silver and coin from their purses, their knives and spears. Wild men without honour, Godric’s cut-throats shifting through the trees to murder and enrich themselves.
An arrow thumped into a tree five paces away from Beornoth, and another whipped through the air to his left. Arrows made even the bravest man flinch when he had no shield to protect himself. The lowliest archer could kill the greatest champion with a swift shaft through the throat. Wuffa threw himself to the ground as an arrow flew through the camp.
‘Archers,’ Beornoth shouted, and dived behind the closest rock to crouch behind its cold stone. Voices from the murky boughs shouted instruction and encouragement to each other, and boots crunched on rotten twigs and fallen branches. An iron arrowhead clinked off the stone, and another plunged into the leaf mulch beside Beornoth’s foot. An arrow flew from behind Beornoth, white feathers flying between the trees as Hrist loosed missiles of her own towards the attackers. She keened her war cry, and another arrow sang from her bow, seeking the enemy. A voice cried out in pain from deep in the woods. Hrist had struck back, and Ornir crouched behind a tree close to Beornoth, red-faced and sucking in gulps of air.
‘There are fifty men out there at least,’ said Ornir, cursing as an arrow thudded into the tree behind him. ‘They are all around us. It’s an ambush.’
Beornoth shook his head, refusing to allow Godric the traitor and his vagabond army to come between him and his vengeance. He snarled and ran back towards the camp. His boots sloshed into the babbling brook and another missile soared past him to disappear into the distant trees. Thered acted quickly and his ten men unslung shields from their horses and formed a wall behind which the rest of them could shelter. They moved quickly, forming a half-circle, and crouched behind the stout boards as arrows thumped into linden wood instead of flesh. More arrows whipped through the camp, and two of Thered’s men lay on the rotting forest floor, one with an arrow in his eye and another gasping in horror at one buried deep in his chest.
‘We must charge them,’ said Beornoth, finding Thered amongst his milling warriors. ‘It’s the only way to survive an ambush. We could be surrounded, and they’ll cut us to pieces with their bastard arrows.’ Thered nodded, and his face was long and pale. He knew as well as Beornoth what must be done, but the young ealdorman just stared vacantly. Beornoth clapped him on the shoulder. ‘You stay here with your men and the horses.’
‘Bastards!’ Vigdjarf bellowed into the forest.
‘Form a wedge on me; we make the boar’s snout and charge them,’ said Beornoth, aches, pain and age swept away in the heart-pounding desperation. Soon, the enemy would close their circle around the camp, they would pour arrows into Beornoth’s men and then attack with axes, spears and clubs until they were all dead. He would never see Eawynn again, and Godric would be free to pursue his ambition.
‘Yes,’ said Reifnir, pale eyes gleaming. The Vikings formed up behind Beornoth, in a spear formation, with Beornoth at the tip. Thered’s men spread out and made a circle of shields around the horses, and Beornoth turned once and felt saddened as Thered peered over the shoulders of his warriors. A year ago, Thered would have stood shoulder to shoulder with Beornoth in the front line, swinging his sword with bravery and daring. But the once brave and noble warrior had been reduced to a ghost-faced husk by the horrors of war.
‘Stay on me,’ Beornoth barked, and he took a shield from a Northumbrian and marched forward. An arrow thudded into the linden wood boards, jolting Beornoth’s arm, and Beornoth pushed his tongue through the tooth he had lost when an arrow had torn through his cheek in a long-ago battle. He caught the glint of steel behind a tree to his right, and a man shouted to his left. ‘We punch through their line, and then roll them up,’ Beornoth ordered. It had to be Godric’s army of masterless men; not all of them, but enough to surround and massacre Beornoth’s company unless they acted decisively. If Beornoth’s boar’s snout could punch through their surrounding ambush, they could turn and roll up the line, and the ambush would backfire, and it would be a slaughter in an East Saxon forest, warriors against a rabble.
Beornoth tripped on a rock beneath the leaf mulch, and Vigdjarf grabbed his belt to stop him from falling. They huddled together to make the boar’s snout compact, and another arrow glanced off the iron rim of Beornoth’s shield to twang off into the treetops. Hrist popped up from the centre of their formation and loosed an arrow of her own and an enemy bowman fell out of a high branch to crunch into the forest floor. More men ahead, emerging from the trees; they wore jerkins, wool, fur and leather. Beornoth glimpsed an axe, a cudgel and a long knife in filthy fists. They were not warriors, and they saw an organised force of well-armed, armoured fighters coming towards them.
‘Charge them!’ roared a voice deep enough to shake the very ground, and five of the enemy charged at Beornoth. He snarled and picked up the pace, meeting the charge with his shield. He didn’t pause to strike with his sword, but just burst through them, leaving the Viking blades behind him to carve up the charging cut-throats. Beornoth’s size and strength surged him forwards, his shield crashing into one enemy to send him hurtling through the air. A man with a harelip cried out as the iron shield boss slammed him into a tree trunk with a loud crack. They fell away before Beornoth’s shield like mice from a cat.
‘We are through,’ Beornoth said. ‘Split up and attack.’ He veered to his left, and a stocky man armed with a rusty spear staggered backwards as he drank in Beornoth’s fearsome appearance, a huge warrior clad in shining mail and armed with sword and shield. Beornoth was like a thing from a nightmare, a professional warrior, a thegn from the warrior’s caste whom the man, and all like him, had been taught to respect and honour from when they were children. A flash of steel from behind a bush, and a short man with a grizzled beard swung at Beornoth with a wood axe. Beornoth parried the blow with his sword and smashed the iron shield rim into the man’s face with such force that his neck snapped like a breaking twig. Bodil Balti roared in anger and his war hammer smashed into the head of the man with the rusty spear, and there was blood in the forest. Men who had come to surround and kill Beornoth found they faced not villagers or farmers who they could bully and steal from, but organised and brutal killers.
Beornoth crashed through the undergrowth, moving along the ambush line, killing with his sword. A man tried to flee from him, and Beornoth stabbed his sword point into the small of the masterless man’s back, snapping his spine before driving his skull into the ground with his shield. Reifnir moved amongst the trees across from Beornoth, cutting with his axe and calling to Odin. The ambush had failed and Vigdjarf raised his axe and shouted for the victory, which all in Beornoth’s company took up with a single roar in response.
Suddenly, the forest around Beornoth erupted, and a monstrous man came at him with an axe in each hand. Beornoth raised his shield to catch one axe blade and then ducked as another sang over his head. The attacker towered over Beornoth, and spittle flew from his toothless mouth. It was Godric’s man, Ansgar the Giant, and he ripped his axe free of Beornoth’s shield with such force that it tore the shield from his grip. Beornoth slashed his sword at Ansgar, but the bigger man batted it aside with an axe. He swung again and Beornoth swayed away from the bright blade, but Ansgar lashed out with his boot and caught Beornoth in the knee. He was off balance and toppled backwards into a clutch of ferns, rolling and swinging his sword desperately at the giant.
‘Die, turd of thatan,’ Ansgar lisped through his gums. Beornoth rolled away from an axe strike, down into a shallow ravine and into a nest of exposed roots. Ansgar grinned and held his two axes high, showing Beornoth the weapons that would chop and hack his life to ruin. Ansgar wielded the weapons like they were twigs. He was the biggest man Beornoth had ever seen, untrained and fighting with pure brutal savagery and strength. Just before the giant could strike, Hrodgar burst from the trees and chopped his sword into Ansgar’s shoulder and the giant spun away, his blood spattering on dark green leaves as he ran from the fight.
Beornoth scrambled in the roots, their foul dampness cloying and rotten in his nose. By the time he got to his feet, ready to fight, the giant had disappeared with his men, and the clearing was once again a place of silent tranquillity, broken only by the groans of Thered’s men who had taken arrow wounds.
‘The bastards almost caught us,’ said Hrodgar, sheathing his sword so that he could reach out with his good hand and help Beornoth climb out of the ditch.
‘We must move out of the forest before they come back,’ said Beornoth. The boar’s snout had worked, but if the attackers had got closer before their trap was sprung, it could have been a different story. Beornoth and his company would now be corpses rotting in the forest’s depths. The giant was formidable, and Beornoth would have died with an axe in his skull if Hrodgar hadn’t arrived when he did.
‘What’s going on?’ shouted Brand, running into the clearing with his axe drawn, Sefna at his side with a white-feathered arrow nocked to her bowstring. Dolgfinnr laughed at Brand’s red face, and the leaves caught in Sefna’s hair, and then laughed harder at the fury on Vigdjarf’s face as he came to the same conclusion as why Brand and Sefna had missed the fight. Tata walked sheepishly from the trees, with the shame of someone who had hidden from the fighting. He had a brace of rabbits in his hand, and he looked away from Hrodgar when the king’s thegn asked him where he had been.
