Blood Triad, page 9
“The rest of our army was concealed in a forested area that grew up to the beach, with that convenient bluff rising up to our left. We waited until the enemy was in maximum chaos to march forward. Up until this point, all my highest military fantasies were playing out. We’d lost no men; our tactics were working just as planned. I was thrilled to a near-sexual excitement. I was too young and dumb to remember that in battle circumstances can change in an instant. In my mind, we’d already won.
“Most of our warriors had ridden the shaggy fell ponies we used for transportation. Our King and some other of the highest nobility had true horses, but regardless of their pedigree, all were tied up in a clearing in the woods well away from the action. The rocky beach upon which the Northmen had been camping was hazardous footing for horses—any benefit from having a cavalry division would have been lost by that. And most of our training had been fighting on foot with spear and with sword. So even Drest, Son of Uurad, was afoot, leading our charge at the center, as was expected of our kings.
“When we emerged from the trees and lined up for battle, it gave the Northmen a wake-up jolt, and their leaders were finally able to organize them as a whole. Some of them kept up the attempt to rescue their ships, hiding from the archers by swimming around aft and climbing up in safety, but the rest were ordered to grab their weapons and make proper shield walls side by side with the crews from the other ships. Most had managed to more-or-less armor themselves. Faced with hand-to-hand combat, not just an unexpected wake-up call of arrows and fire, they pulled themselves together to do what they did best.
“In front of their burning ships they formed up three shield walls, and in no time they were drumming their shields. It made an impressive clamor, and gave me my first real intimation of fear.
“We had about three hundred fighters, now double their number since over twenty Vikings lay dead with arrows sticking out, and more than that number were occupied fighting fires on the ships. Even with the disparity of numbers, the Northmen were intimidating when not in rout. Every single one of them had chosen to be here, was experienced with their weapons and with fighting in what we called the schiltron and what they called the skjaldborg. Among our number maybe a hundred were like me, young men dedicated to a life of practicing with weapons and skirmishing. The rest of us were farmers and craftsmen, made strong by a life of hard work, and certainly always ready for a fight, but not trained warriors.
“It was far larger battlefield than any I’d experienced before. It was my first time smelling the scents of battle: drunken fear oozing from unwashed bodies, shit and piss, and vomited beer and mead.
“And that is where I would meet this radge wee shite. Right there in the space between the Pictish army and that Viking army. But perhaps this is the moment for him to tell how he got there.”
Dubhghall made sounds of contentment as he settled back in the comfy chair, his work done for now. Wulfhram unsettled himself, scootching forward, awkwardly resting his large hands on his knees.
“My people love to tell a tale as much as this miklimunnr, here…but I have not spoken of these things, not in a very long while. Dubhghall, I do not need to tell—he already knows. And I would never talk of my past with another am’r. Maybe jokes with Sandu, but few others do I trust.
“Perhaps you will change this. But it is how am’r have always been. So I have forgotten how to tell stories…”
As Wulfhram paused to figure out how to begin, I really looked at him, more than just the usual impressions of “big” and “solid” and “blond” that were the obvious first impressions. His blond hair was reddish-gold, styled up in almost a pompadour. His eyes were cobalt blue, and he had hints of laugh-lines around them. He looked a bit more timeworn, his face more lived-in, than even am’r who were far older than him. But that made him seem far more approachable, less inhumanly distant.
“I was a little older than this Pict when we met. But we come from the same time. It can be rare, to find another am’r from the same time and place as you. Many ages of this world have gone by. And while my world—as one who went a-Víking—was larger than you may guess, still, the world is far bigger than I knew then. So, you meet an am’r, it is not very likely that they will be from the same time as you, or the same place in the world—”
“Assuming you don’t just kill them first, without stopping to chat about all that,” Dubhghall interjected with a flash of teeth too quick to be a grin.
“Já, assuming that. Killing people does hinder getting to know them.” Wulfhram sent a smile back to Dubhghall, and his body language showed him finally relaxing. Damn am’r. Violent murder is their warm comfy blankie.
“So, as I say, it is rare for there to be another am’r who is from when and where you are from, who can so deeply understand you. It is rare, and therefore we are rare, two am’r who have seen the same things with different eyes.”
“Oh, we are odd fish in so many more ways, mo faol-chù.”
“Will you let me tell this story in my own way, veslingr?”
Dubhghall spread his hands in an expression of “Please do go on.” Wulfhram took a deep breath.
“What I try to say is that our kee lives were not so very different. He lived in a house of stone, I a house of wood.”
I stifled both a giggle and any comment about three little pigs. I caught Dubhghall’s eye, and his face was unnaturally blank as well. I quickly dropped my glance down to my tablet, pretending to check that the sound recording was still running OK.
“We Nordmenn herded sheep and cattle. We grew vegetables and grains and supplemented with gathering and hunting. The clothes we wore were not so different, nor the armor that protected us in battle. My peoples were famed for their cleanliness and style, while his have come down through history as painted savages—” Wulfhram’s eyes flicked over to Dubhghall, but the latter merely grinned and let the dig pass. “And, as my friend noted, his peoples could as well climb in a ship and sail in search of mayhem and gain.
“But my peoples took that much farther. Some of us stayed home and tended land and livestock. But many preferred to spend part of the year at sea, acquiring riches and wives and our reputations as warriors. And, at this time in our history, there was also pressure upon us. There was a ruler, an emperor named Charlemagne. He was forcing all the Germanic peoples to convert to Christianity—at the point of the sword. Saxons and other tribes fled, some to our country. At the same time, we had the problem of our own peoples growing too numerous for the land to support. As well, our traditions were that only the eldest son inherited from his father, leaving many other sons to find some other way to make their lives. Well, so it made sense for many to sail away from their homes and make new homes in a new land.
“A ‘Viking’ these days is a thing both romanticized and demonized. We were feared simply because we had a good strategy and were successful with it. But we were no more brutal than any other peoples of that time. We took less territory than the Romans. We made no forced conversions, like the Franks. In the lands Dubhghall here was just recounting for you, one tribe would do raiding against the other, back and forth, creating generations of blood feuds, as violent as anything the Víkingar might do. As I say, we Nordmenn were simply successful. That was our threat.”
I had to interject, “But what about…berserkers?”
“Ha! The most popular part of the Víkingr stories.” Wulfhram’s face assumed a pained expression. “I wish I could tell you that it was all a silly myth, just to get everyone to stop their jaws about it.
“But…it is not a myth, and it is part of my tale. Our tale.” He stopped talking, and there was a too-long pause.
“I’m so sorry I interrupted you! Please, Wulfhram, go back to telling it your own way.”
“Nei, nei. I was just gathering my memories. It is good.
“I was one of those not-eldest sons. My mother was a second wife, a Saxon. That is why my name is Wulfhram. I was named for my father, but his first son had taken his name and was already the next Ulfr Ulfsson, so I was named in the language of my mother. My name means ‘Wolf-Raven.’
“As a second son, it was easy to choose to go a-Víking. I had been doing it for some years and I was good. I was adept with sword and with oar. I could hold strong in a shield-wall. I enjoyed caring for the horses. I could carry heavy loads back to the ship. I was good at all the parts of Víkingr life.
“Áleifr Ulfsson was my lord. He was my uncle as well, but I was given no special favor. He had overseen my early training with the sword when he was home over the winters. It was no surprise to him when I said I wanted a place on his ship. And it was the life for me: much action, but a high regard for both strength and cunning. And much drinking and much fucking.”
“Still your preferred life,” Dubhghall noted, amused.
“Já. And yours, miklimunnr. I did not interrupt your tale.”
“I seem to recall a comment about perpetually disappointing my ancestors. But go on.”
“I think I have told enough of who I was. Of how I got there. I mean, there, across from an unruly mob of little dark men in gaudily-dyed wool and—”
“Wait!” I was too excited to care about interrupting the flow of the story. “Hold on a sec! Everything I’ve read says the Picts fought naked. They didn’t?”
“Not in my experience. But ask the Pict.” Wulfhram shrugged.
“This is what I mean about archeologists and historians being fucking useless.” Dubhghall’s tone was pure annoyance. “They can’t even figure out something as simple as that. You can’t both say we fought stark naked, but then have examples of our helms in your museums.”
“So, what did you wear into battle?”
“The answer is ‘both-and.’ My ancestors traditionally did not wear much armor, which the Romans in their mail, scale, and plate armor thought proof of our barbarian madness. But we were fighters who counted on maneuverability, and we could run rings around the slow Roman tortoises. The Romans considered not wearing armor to be ‘naked,’ which is part of how that myth was started. But by the time I was born, we had perfectly good leather and chainmail armor. We had just as good leatherworkers and smiths as any other people, thank you. And when we were victorious, the tradition of those times was to take the mail off the dead on the battlefield, so we had plenty of foreign-worked armor, as well.”
“So…you never fought naked?” I had to admit I was disappointed.
He grinned at me. “Enjoying the mental picture, eh? But that would be like me saying to you, ‘Oh, so you Yanks fight in breeches with muskets.’ We had hundreds of years of Pictland. Do you think we did not evolve in all that time? But it is also not inaccurate to say that my ancestors did sometimes pull off their tunics for fighting.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Well…the historians have guessed somewhat right, there. Our tattoos gave us power and protection in battle. They were spells in our skin. And they were intimidating. As well, to tear off your clothing expresses a complete disdain for your opponent. It is both an insult and a threat. And to back that up, once our warriors would strip down, they would then scream more insults and threats at the enemy, perform feats of strength in front of them. Still naked. Try to imagine that. And then that same naked tattooed man leading a charge of men running at you, their battle-cries filling the air. It scared the piss out of our enemies. Literally.”
Wulfhram huffed, “And they called us berserkr!”
“Yes. And I’m sorry you have to deal with that being trendy with the kee, now. I can only imagine how annoying it is. We have not spoken of this in some time, but you may recall my people had the same battle-madness, which we called the miri-cath. Our greatest warriors had it, and you could say it was the miri-cath that inspired them to strip naked and do feats of strength, and run screaming at the enemy, one man to slaughter many.”
“Maybe the kee will discover this and start making foolish TV shows about your peoples instead of mine.”
“Why d’you think I keep messing with archeologists? If they know nothing about my people, they cannot make History Channel specials about us. Or worse, historical fiction.”
“Do you actively destroy artifacts?” I was horrified at the thought.
“Oh, I have not. Well, some things have gone missing before they could be displayed in museums. But the damp conditions of my land mean that there is not much I need to do: metal rusts to nothing, and leather and linen melt into mud. They can’t do much with a few carved stones. But if I wanted to help, there are hoards I could unearth, all sorts of hidden things I could bring to kee daylight. But I would rather be out in that daylight with no sunglasses, thank you, than to give the kee any knowledge of my people.
“But again I find I have interrupted the story. Please continue, mo faol-chù.”
“It is fine. You gave me time to remember. It started as a very bad day for us. I was not the only one who drank deep of ale the night before. And that beach was made of little stones, not nice soft sand. But if you drink enough, you do not notice! So we were not up at the break of dawn, and we had only started rousing ourselves when the first arrows rained down on us—not a very nice way to wake up!
“It was not a warm night, and we were all accustomed to sleeping in our clothes and boots. So once we realized what was going on, those near their shields held them up, and the rest of us pulled on our mail shirts and helmets in safety, then took the shields to return the favor. But while I was holding that shield, I have this memory of a man I liked—for some reason I still remember his name, Leif Tokeson—staring with one dead eye at me, a Pictish arrow sticking out from the other.
“Of course I had seen death many times before that, both given to those I was fighting and those who fought beside me. I do not know why that moment stays in my mind. Perhaps because it was the start of the day when everything changed.
“It only took me a few moments to get on my mail shirt and helmet. Then I grabbed my own shield and held it next to the man who had been protecting me, and together we protected more men as they prepared to do battle. My uncle was shouting orders to his men, and we were glad to follow them because it brought order to the chaos. The other lords were doing the same, and soon we made three skjaldborg, about fifty men each, ready to use our spears and battleaxes and swords. I started with a spear that I grabbed from near me, but my sword Mjǫtuðr is never far from my side.”
Wulfhram caressed the sword at his side. “Is that the same sword, after all these years?” I asked, having already lost a beloved blade in a cave in the bottom of the world. Being an am’r can be hard on weapons.
“No. The first Mjǫtuðr—this means “Dispenser of Fate”—was stolen when I died the mortal death. But I have faithfully recreated her—more than once—and her spirit lives on in each blade.
“And she was right here at my side on that fateful day. Ah! You two, do not give each other that look; I am not being full of drama! My peoples understood fate, ørlǫg, as a most important force in one’s life. That day I met my fate, and that is why I am here telling you—trying to tell you—my story, and not food for the ravens and the worms long since.
“I worshiped Thor as my main god when I was kee, but since I became am’r I know I have become one of Odin’s: that the twisty-minded oath-breaker is the one I must sacrifice to if I don’t want to be left alone in the indifferent hands of the Norns.
“But I did not know any of this was to come, that day. I checked that Mjǫtuðr was safe at my side, grabbed a spear, and overlapped my shield with the shield being held up by the man beside me, and then the next fighter overlapped their shield upon mine.
“When we had organized as rapidly as possible into three shield walls, five fighters deep, we began drumming the shields. We all began to feel more secure. Today you’d call it the “comfort zone.” I had been in the skjaldborg so many times by then. I knew the fighters to either side of me, knew their strengths and weaknesses, and which ones I could count on.
“Arrows thunked into my shield and stuck there, but did not prevent our shield wall from growing. The fire-arrows were an issue, for our shields were wood, oiled to keep from getting waterlogged. They were not fireproof. The fire was easily enough put out—but to do so you had to take your shield out of the wall. That made a weak place that the enemy could exploit. The Picts ran out of fire-arrows soon enough. The main force of them had lined up to fight us, and we started telling them what cowards they had been, first hiding in the trees and letting archers do their work instead of coming out to fight like men, and now that they were here, they were too likely to get scared and run away, and they should be scared; here we cried out the names of our most renowned warriors, with a deed they had done—”
“Like what? What kind of things did you say?”
“Oh, like, ‘I am Leif Leifson, who killed Æthelgeat the Mighty, who had slain twenty men before I chopped him down like a tree with this axe right here, called Skull-Splitter.’ We said the same lines in each battle. Battle-poetry, you could say, recited both to frighten the enemy and to make our own adrenaline pump harder.”
“Of course, we had to shout loud, to be heard over the maniacs across from us. They were shouting much the same things. And they did not all stay in their line, but some ran out into the space between and did stunts. We mocked them. They dared us to break the skjaldborg and meet us for single combat. We knew not to give in to their jibes; we held the wall strong.”
“Did, um, any strip down naked?” I could feel Dubhghall glaring at me.
“Ha! No, I am sad to let you down. None stripped naked, although some had bare arms with tattoos showing on them. They carried these tiny little round shields, which to me seemed worse than useless. Why carry such a pathetic shield? To carry another sword would give more protection! I had gone a-Víking in this area, but mostly monasteries and surprise raids on villages, so I had not faced a force of armed Pictish warriors before. They had spears like ours, but their swords were shorter and their shields so itty-bitty. They seemed like little terrier-dogs, barking at our heels.
