Raven of the Waves (11 page)

The man was an impossible apparition, jabbering at Aethelwulf. The poor creature held him with a bloody hand. It was Edgar the fowler, a man who lived at the edge of the village, near the river, where the damp earth rose up in puddles that favored the raising of ducks.

“Strangers, Father!” cried the injured man, sinking to his knees. “They're killing everything that lives!”

18

Gunnar offered instructions, the men nodding as they listened.

Njord and a few men from
Crane
would stay with the ships. The rest would march with their own crews, and if there was any attack, they would form three wedges, the leadman at the point of each. Lidsmod would come with the fighting men but stay well away from the shield wall. “Protect our rear,” said Gunnar. Lidsmod was being spared the greatest danger, and he was both grateful and resentful.

There should have been darkness. There should have been more information about the land that lay ahead and around them. But there was no time. They had the old advantage, a warrior's simplest trick—surprise.

Every man realized this. The bosses of the leather-covered shields gleamed in the sunlight. Men adjusted belts and worked their heads into the peaked helmets. Sword belts were loosened, and mail chinked as men settled it around their shoulders. A few men wore such mail, and some had leather guards for their shins.

Each man was ready, in his own way. Gunnar drew Keen and let her cut the air with a whisper. Ulf lifted Long and Sharp. This ancient sword would eat its fill today, Lidsmod thought, envying his stout shipmate.

Lidsmod hefted his small ax. His limbs tingled. Every blade of grass was sharp in his eyes. The land had a smell of ripeness.

Horses were useless in battle, Lidsmod had heard. They were good only for travel over land. Two legs planted on a field were all a man needed. The shield bearers began to stride forward. No one spoke.
Raven
's men swung to the right, across a pasture. The wet earth squelched under their leather soles. Sheep stirred and began to run in that curious, easy panicked way of such animals, but the men ignored them.

Gunnar strode ahead. They would slaughter a few sheep on their way back, Lidsmod thought, for food. As much as men admired courage, no man wanted to be in a situation that required it. Lidsmod had heard the firelight fighting lore, long into the nights of his boyhood. It was always better to strike quickly, by surprise. Gunnar quickened his pace.

Gorm began to run, pushing himself ahead of the ragged line of men. Gunnar ran too, remaining just ahead of Gorm. What a sight they all were in Lidsmod's eyes. Swords, axes, spearheads gleaming, each man gaining speed.

Surely this settlement was alarmed, Lidsmod thought, surely there would be men rallying to protect it. The men from Spjothof would slaughter them all. They ran recklessly now, and this was dangerous because some, such as Ulf and Trygg, were bad runners—strong oarsmen, thick-necked and deep-chested, but heavy-footed.

A man in ugly, shaggy wool clothing stood surrounded by ducks and duck-soiled mud. The man raised a cry, and Gunnar gestured. A man from
Landwaster
cut at the man, knocking him down, then laid about him, scattering duck feathers.

A town beyond leafless trees: roofs and a half-built tower and a gold fortress, surely that's what it was. They did not even have to enter the town to find the gold! This was indeed a great gift, thought Lidsmod. And the little town itself, with its mud-yellow walls and its far-off timbered hall, did not look so poor. There would be gold in some of these dwellings. A rooster stretched his neck, his red plume arched like a scythe.

They were a surf of men, like a battle force in a saga, a sword tide.

A boy ran toward them, hurrying to reach the refuge of these stone buildings. Lidsmod recognized the shepherd with the withered arm. The youth twisted in his stride and hurried into the gold fortress.

The rooster fled, a single, copper-bright feather floating in the air. Workmen stood at the base of the stonework; one held a hammer. They wore the plain gray tunics of thralls. One or two of them might have made good slaves. These were not weak men, but they had stupid looks of amazement. One man did, in fact, wield a hammer. It was a wooden maul, though, not a mighty Thor hammer, and Gorm and Ulf made quick work of the laborers before they could rally.

Blood winged into the air, and swords made the squeal of steel cutting bone. As the stoneworkers began to fight back, hammers fumbled for and found, feet slopped in scarlet mud. One worker banged a steel rod off Ulf's sword and then ran. He easily outsprinted the heavier swordsmen, but this caused great laughter among the men from Spjothof. Battle was not a foot race!

Gunnar directed men to watch the exits of the gold fortress, lest men try to flee with gold. But above all, he directed them to watch for a counterattack. Lidsmod had heard the battle tales. Too many wise, stalwart men had died from a spear in the back. Even the men of Spjothof would kill a man from behind—it was so much easier. And so in this land of weak men, treachery was expected.

The men of Spjothof surrounded the corpses of the workingmen, stabbing the bodies experimentally, and to give steel its blood taste. Lidsmod hacked at a leg, a hairy, sweat-gleaming limb. His small ax bit the flesh and left a red slice.

Then they spread out as Gunnar directed. The door to the gold fortress was blocked, but Ulf kicked it easily aside. Would the fighting men of this country ever show their faces? Lidsmod joined a small group that entered the gold refuge.

It was nearly dark inside, with a sweet, perfumed smoke in the air. Men sometimes hid in a dark place like this, and then speared the intruders. It was a stupid way to fight, but a trapped stoat fought this way—and was often very difficult to kill, as Lidsmod knew from hunts with his boyhood friends.

Gorm wrenched open a shuttered window. Daylight fanned into the hall and ignited gold on a table at the hall's end. One of the men picked up a bench and splintered it against a wall. There were other benches, and these were splintered too.

Gunnar directed a guard to the side door. A counterattack was always most deadly at a time like this, when men were gold-stunned. Because, without question, Odin had guided them to treasure.

19

Gorm hefted a large gold object shaped like a sword hilt. It was a curious object, and Lidsmod did not like to see Gorm handling it so roughly; it could be dwarf craft and have some unknowable power. Gorm bit into it. He gave Lidsmod a smile. “Gold, pure as mare's milk,” he said.

A figure had been crafted from this rare metal—a bleeding man, magically wrought. If this was a sword hilt, Lidsmod would hate to see the blade that went with this hiltlike shape, or the man who wielded it.

There were rich stones, Lidsmod knew, in the goblet Opir found, and in the mead cup Gorm held into the light from the window, laughing.

Gold everywhere! Dark pictures of men with heads of fire were, if held into the light, made of gold leaf. Floki had found an ash shaft with a shepherd's crook of gold, and there were robes that were certainly silk. This was a wealth cavern, a jewel hoard. All of this was rare and valuable, and some of it was too strange to be assayed in this hurried way.

“Bring all of it,” Gunnar commanded. But it was an unnecessary directive. The men knew what to do.

Axes splintered wood. The hall was torn apart; even the cracks between stones were scraped and tested with knives. When the hall had been searched and the contents, both useless and rich, piled outside in the late-day sun, Gunnar directed the search of the side hall to begin.

Opir held up a skin with magical runes. Gunnar ordered it taken, although he told Lidsmod it was impossible to guess what worth it might have. Ulf dragged a robed man into the dying light and cut his throat. Fireside talk in recent months had described such men, unarmed inhabitants of these treasure places. The dying man wore a wooden bleeding-man shape on a leather thong. As he died he sputtered a stream of fervent words and gripped the wooden carving hard, as though to squeeze it of its power.

Ulf hurried back into the side hall, but a scarred old seaman from
Landwaster
and another from
Crane
had just killed another three men. They had been hiding in a huge, beautifully wrought chest, crowded together, trembling, uttering pleas or curses, words unknowable but plainly magical in intent. The two swordsmen killed them quickly and without interest, then dragged the bodies outside, where they stripped them, to see how such weak men were built.

Ulf and Gorm flung open chests, emptied shelves of clay pots, and, as they stopped to thrust swords into the ashes of a central hearth, a figure rose from the dead coals. It ran as Lidsmod looked on, too surprised to seize the running legs.

Opir laughed at the sight. The small ashy figure collided with the laughing Boaster, and Opir flung it to the floor. Gunnar emptied a pitcher of water over it, and a pale boy's face squinted up at them. Then the boy was up, and his teeth sank into Opir where he had no armor, above his knee.

“It's a little weasel,” Opir laughed, and he brought the butt of his sword down on the corner of the boy's skull. The youth with the withered arm went limp. “The first true fighter we've seen here,” said Opir. “And I felled him. I, Opir, the all powerful.”

Gorm stepped to the fallen figure and lifted his sword, but Ulf's sword, Long and Sharp, blocked the boy's body. “I want him,” said Ulf.

“This? You want this boy?” Gorm was nearly speechless. A man could take a slave but, with so little space on the ships, a slave had to be chosen very carefully. Only a man of great value could be taken, and usually only if ransom were a possibility. “Look at him! He's a weak, dirty little mouse—”

“The people of this village will pay to get him back,” Ulf said. “He's a magic child; why else would he be here? I'll buy him from you if you claim him.”

Gunnar pushed Gorm aside. “This is a value place. Everything here, even the rune skins, must be valuable to the folk of this country. They'll pay to get him back. Keep him,” he directed Ulf. “He belongs to all of us.”

Gorm bit his lips and slashed a clay vessel to powder with his sword.

Lidsmod did not allow himself to show his relief, lest Gorm see. Lidsmod doubted that the boy was worth much gold. He might be magical, but who could tell in such a strange land?

“We have ourselves a mighty warrior,” said Opir. “The mightiest in this mighty land!” Twin bleeding crescents marked Opir's legs.

Ulf dragged the boy outside. “Tie him up,” said Opir to Lidsmod.

“Gorm will kill him,” said Lidsmod, meaning: my ax and my arm will not be strong enough to protect him.

“Never!” Opir laughed. “Here is a new Leg Biter,” he said, to complement the famous sword of the same name. “I'll stay with
Fotbitr,
” he said, and Ulf laughed too. They had a living Biter, like the dead horse, and like the sword.

Let Gorm touch Leg Biter, Lidsmod thought, tying a walrus-leather rope around the boy's legs. If the boy is so much as bruised, Gorm will suffer.

“Go feed your hungry ax,” said Opir with a laugh, meaning: good luck with your first kill.

Lidsmod hurried to find the source of the rough cheers and taunts.

A knot of villagers had gathered on the muddy road. A stone rang off the boss of Torsten's shield. Torsten lifted his spear. He scowled and seemed to sniff the air.

Some of the dark-haired villagers continued to heave stones, and one man swung a sling. The men of Spjothof appreciated the power of a thrown rock. It was not a warrior tool, but enough rocks could batter an army. The villagers backed off, however, as soon as the Spjotmen fell into formation.

Torsten stepped alone up the road. The men of Spjothof were silent. It was a great mistake for the men of this village to make Torsten angry. A rock bounded beside Torsten, and another.

The men of the village spread across the road, making themselves more visible, the way a cat arches its back to seem big. It was a poor battle formation. The men of Spjothof could fan out, enclose the village, and attack this inexperienced group from the flanks. Nonetheless Lidsmod had to admire their startled courage. The villagers brandished axes, and the younger ones continued to hurl rocks.

“They're delaying us,” said Gunnar. “While the women and children escape, and the animals, and while they take their hidden silver or bury it in the earth.” His voice grew louder. “They are stealing our gold!” he cried.

“Gold!” cried the men of Spjothof.

Ahead of them Torsten threw his spear high into the air. It glinted in the light of the late day and when it fell, it struck earth far behind the backs of the axmen in the road.

One of the villagers laughed. “Your best spearman cannot throw any better than a child,” the laugh seemed to say. The taunting villager stepped forth. He was broad-chested, with hair black as ship tar. He called to them unintelligibly, shaking a fist. “Come on and fight,” the man seemed to cry.

The men of Spjothof were silent. The spear act, throwing a weapon over the heads of the enemy, had consigned these men to Odin. As every man watched, Torsten began to pant. His neck thickened, and his head shrank into his swelling shoulders.

Torsten was filling with bear spirit, and the men before him were about to die.

20

Aethelwulf put his arm around the fowler with the blood-gilded face.

Alfred the mud cutter knelt beside the injured man, supporting him. Everyone seemed to move slowly. The man was lucid, as injured men sometimes are, and described the strangers as “very big, but looking much like men.” The man's head wound was a gash where a sword had sliced into the flesh. Aethelwulf had seen such injuries in Frankish land disputes, when as a young monk with a surly humor he had been asked by the king's men to bind their hurts.

“How many strangers are there?” Aethelwulf asked, pulling the man toward Beornbold, Lord Redwald's hall.