Wolfsangel c-1 Page 8

  His musings were interrupted by a boot in the back.

  ‘Move your arse. I need to stretch my legs.’

  He turned around to see a huge man in a thick tunic, a white bear skin over his arm. A deep groove ran from the top of his head, over his eye socket and down into his cheek. Clearly he had been on the wrong end of an axe at some time in his life. Every inch of his body seemed covered in thickly drawn tattoos: scenes of destruction and battle, the coiling world serpent around his right arm, the wolf fighting Odin on his left, the three interlocking triangles that made up that god’s symbol below his left eye, and many other illustrations of animal figures, gallows and weapons all over his face and upper body.

  Vali’s knife and sword were at the bottom of his travelling chest and he knew the berserk would attack him if he saw him go to take them out. He had to act, though. This was a slight to his honour in front of everyone and he couldn’t let it go unpunished, even if he was sure he’d receive more in return than he was capable of handing out.

  He had only one course of action, one possible response. He swung a fist at the man’s head. The man enveloped the blow under his arm and came up to join his hands at Vali’s throat. The boy’s arm was locked and he was forced down, feet skidding for purchase on the ballast stones but finding none. The berserk snarled into Vali’s face and tightened his grip on his windpipe. Confrontation has a way of peeling back illusions and self-deceptions. Vali was no longer a man on his first raid, a prince of the sword-Horda, son of Authun the Pitiless, who could trace his ancestry back to Odin himself, and the hope of a nation. He was a frightened boy, caught by a much bigger and stronger man.

  All he could focus on was the man’s face, which seemed contorted with hate. He was choking Vali and the boy’s whole consciousness seemed to condense into trying to remove the hands from his neck, but he couldn’t budge them. His vision seemed to contract to a tunnel, his head seemed ready to burst. Then a broad-bladed knife came into Vali’s line of sight, but it was at such an angle that the berserk could not have been holding it. Something else came into view — a large pole with three iron rings fixed loosely about it by pegs. Both were interposed between him and the berserk.

  ‘Save it for the enemy, Bodvar Bjarki,’ said a voice.

  The berserk released his grip and Vali lay back gasping, his vision blurred. When he recovered his sight he saw Bragi staring down the scarred man, the old warrior’s knife pointing at the berserk’s throat. There was the rattle of metal on metal and a huge berserk in a brown bear pelt shoved that odd pole between the men. Bodvar Bjarki and Bragi said nothing, as hard men often don’t in such circumstances. They just continued looking into each other’s eyes. The brown bear berserk gently pushed Bjarki back down into his seat with the pole. The big man put his hands onto his oar. Bragi gave a short, amused snort and slid his knife back into its sheath. Then he sat back at his oar. Vali stood and climbed in across from him.

  Bragi turned to Vali, making no effort to keep his voice down so the berserk wouldn’t hear.

  ‘I told you the value of keeping your weapons close. If you’d had your knife you could have gutted him.’

  Vali nodded. Embarrassment mingled with relief, but still, he thought, hadn’t the situation resolved itself without anyone being gutted — for the moment anyway? If he’d had his knife then the result might have been one dead berserk and a blood feud. Or, worse, the berserk might have got the knife off him. Vali was aware that his strength in no way compared to that of the giant behind him. He glanced at the shore. Adisla was looking anxiously towards him. He inclined his head towards the big berserk and shrugged. Adisla mouthed, ‘Be careful,’ and he nodded in acknowledgement.

  After that, the men said nothing at all, just began to row out to sea, more for show than for effect, as the lines on the great sail were tightened and it pulled them out of the bay at an exhilarating pace. Vali raised his hand in goodbye to the people on the shore, saw the figures becoming smaller and smaller and lost himself in the rhythm of the oars.

  The ship, which the skalds called the stallion of the waves, really did feel like that, a living force straining to get forward. For a moment Vali almost forgot the brooding presence at his back. Then, against himself, he gave half a glance behind him. The disfigured man was staring directly at him. Or was he being silly? There wasn’t really anywhere else for him to look.

  Bragi saw Vali’s glance and turned to wink at the boy.

  ‘Don’t show me the man with the scars; show me the man who put them there,’ he said. Vali smiled. Bragi was a good man, he thought, who had his interests at heart. He was honest, big-hearted, straightforward and courageous. Vali just wished he found him less boring.

  The journey was to take three days — three days of dull stories, homely advice and excruciating jokes from the old boy. In rescuing him from the berserk, Bragi had achieved a small victory. Vali should have had a knife on him, granted. But it was that, a small victory. It didn’t imply, as Bragi seemed to with his told-you-so smile, that everything the old man said and believed was correct, and that he now had the right to patronise him for the foreseeable future.

  Vali thought of a trader he’d met two years before, Veles Libor from Reric in the east, who was travelling up to see the Whale People. Now he would have made a better mentor, had he stayed. He knew so much, had travelled the world in peace not slaughter and survived off his wits. With him, Vali felt inspired and eager to learn. He had spread out his scrolls, and Vali had been amazed to see the beautiful colourful pictures and intriguing squiggly writing. He had longed to find out how to read it, how to put down his thoughts in long waves of ink that rose, fell and broke like the surf. Bragi, though, had nothing to teach him that he wanted to learn.

  The journey had been scouted the summer before. They skirted the coast north up nearly as far as the Whale People and then across west to the Islands at the World’s Edge — which were no longer at the world’s edge but simply a staging post to the richer lands to the west. From there they sailed south and picked up the coast of the West Men’s land. Vali slept on the bottom of the boat, wedged in among the other men, listening to the mutterings and cursings of the berserks, looking up at the stars and thinking of Adisla.

  The berserks never bothered to speak to him, and he was glad of that, as it allowed him to remain in his own thoughts. His people saw no beauty in the sea. He thought of the names they gave it: roarer, empty place, devourer, rager. To them it was an obstacle, a place of production and a killer. They turned the backs of their houses to the water, not wishing to look at it when they opened their doors. But Vali was enchanted by it, the sparkling greens and blues, the movement of the clouds on the horizon, the delight when a wave broke over the side of the ship and a mackerel landed in his lap.

  Then: ‘The island! This is where it happens, boys!’

  Vali glanced over his shoulder but could see nothing, no land, no enemy. Bragi put a hand on his arm. ‘Stick to the oar, lord; don’t worry about what’s waiting for us when we get off the boat.’

  Vali nodded, aware that soon he would be killing his first enemy, or being killed himself. He wished he’d unpacked his sword already. He felt the need to piss and stood to do so. He wasn’t the only one. It was almost a comical sight, ten men weeing over the side in one go, a like number on both accompanying knarrs, as if it was some sort of ritual.

  Vali scanned for land. All he could see was open sea. No, there was something, a flat dark patch in the hazy distance. ‘This is it,’ he told himself. ‘This is it.’

  The men pulled in their oars and laid them flat in the bottom of the longship. The berserks’ leader, the man with the strange staff, piled up ballast stones. Then he took out some twigs and kindling, and got a fire going on top of them. When it was established, he hung a cooking pot above it from a tripod and added water from a skin. Then he began throwing in things from a pouch.

  Vali went to the back of the ship and took his weapon from a barrel, along with hi
s helmet. He was intensely nervous and every movement felt unnatural, scrutinised by the men around him and found wanting. Other men were breaking open barrels and strapping on their war gear. There was no conversation. None of the berserks spoke to each other but just mumbled into their beards, cursing and issuing threats to non-existent opponents.

  The contents of the fire pot were poured into a large bowl, which was passed around, drained dry and refreshed. It came to Vali and he looked inside to see a gritty soup. In it floated shrivelled, spotty mushrooms that looked to him like human ears. He passed the bowl on to the berserk next to him without drinking and watched as the man gulped at the brew.

  When each of the berserks had taken the soup, they took up their oars again.

  The war band leader made his way to the front of the ship, carrying the staff with the iron rings. He steadied himself by the prow as his men rowed and began to bang the staff on the boards of the ship, thumping out a clanging beat. The berserks responded to the rhythm by stamping their feet as they worked the oars.

  ‘Odin!’ shouted the leader.

  As one, the berserks replied, ‘That means fury!’

  ‘Odin!’

  ‘That means war!’

  ‘All Father!’ screamed the leader.

  ‘Mighty in battle!’ came the reply.

  ‘All Father!’

  ‘Make red our swords!’

  ‘Odin!’

  ‘That means frenzy!’

  ‘Odin!’

  ‘That means death!’

  The berserks howled and smashed their heads into their oars, spat and swore as they powered the boat towards the shore. The war band leader beat the rail of the ship with his rattle, screaming and shrieking out his words.

  ‘Odin’s men!’ he shouted.

  ‘We are men of Odin!’ the berserks screamed back at him.

  ‘Men of Odin!’

  ‘We are Odin’s men!’

  The chanting seemed to go on for ever, and the berserks seemed to have an endless supply of words spilling out in chants as fast as a fighter’s heartbeat. They went wild, punching at the oars as they rowed, slapping themselves and screaming the words into each other’s faces. The beat became faster.

  ‘Odin!’ shouted the leader, hammering his rattle into the rail.

  ‘Man maddener, all hater, war screamer!’

  ‘Odin!’

  ‘Wolf fighter, spear shaker, corpse maker!’

  ‘Odin!’

  ‘Great wrecker, down thrower, foe slayer!’

  ‘Odin!’

  ‘Berserker, berserker, berserker!’

  Now some of the men stood, punching their chests and arms. The ship lurched as one man in his frenzy forgot his oar, and the blade caught in the water.

  ‘Odin!’

  ‘Berserker, berserker, berserker!’

  ‘So they call me!’ shouted the man with the rattle.

  ‘Odin!’ howled the oarsmen.

  ‘So they call me!’

  ‘Odin!’

  In his fear and excitement the words came to Vali as impressions. They seemed more than names. It was as if the wild chanting gave them a life, as if he could see the images they conjured — Odin fighting the Fenris Wolf, a spear flying through a clear blue sky, gallows and slaughter, fire and blood. The beat of the oars never slackened, though Vali was sure the men could not sustain the pace for much longer. Instead they got faster, hardly missing a stroke, despite many of them swigging from drinking horns which were regularly refilled from a huge jug carried by a boy. Vali wondered that anyone could even lift such a pitcher, never mind pour it without spilling it on a longship as it crashed through the surf.

  As the jug passed, Bragi shouted across to him, though panting with exertion, ‘I’d have a drink if I were you. Ale waters the courage inside you and makes it grow!’

  Vali did as Bragi suggested, taking his horn off his belt to have it filled and swigging down a couple of mouthfuls. He could drink no more, beginning to feel sick with the anticipation of what was to come rather than the movement of the ship. The berserks were baying now, screaming obscenities and promises to their god.

  He glanced over his shoulder again and got the impression of the blue giving way to green behind him. Then white joined the blue and green. A beach. There was a judder and Vali was thrown back off his chest to sprawl onto the ballast.

  Propelled by the frenzied rowing, the boat grounded on the beach far harder than it needed to. Vali thought they’d been lucky not to tear out the hull. He had to roll aside as a stampede swept over him, the berserks howling in their mania to get off the boat. Not one bore a shield, none even armour or a helmet, just spears, axes and, in the case of the leader, a sword in one hand and the huge rattle in the other.

  Vali turned to see who they were charging at but saw nothing, just a pleasant broad beach of light sand, the sunny day, birds over the meadows and deep green grass. There was no enemy there at all.

  The berserks were off and running across the island, the more conventional warriors disembarking from the other two boats behind them.

  ‘Come on,’ said Bragi. ‘We’ve attacked from the rear of the island for surprise. You go ahead of me; I’m too old to run all the way. Remember, pretty women, fit men, they’re the slaves you’re looking for. The rest, kill ’em for the fear it’ll bring next time.’

  Vali stepped from the boat and had the strange sensation of setting foot on foreign soil for the first time in his life. He was inclined to stop and look around him, to see how the place differed from his home, but he knew he couldn’t.

  He pressed on in the throng of helmeted warriors from the knarrs, all of them carrying shields, chasing the fast-moving unarmoured berserks inland. The island was flat and not too long, but he could see no buildings on it. They moved quickly and, as they crested a small ridge, found the first bodies, four old men dead in a furrowed field. He could tell they were old by their white hair; their features gave no clue to their age. The men had been mutilated, their heads cut and cut again, stamped on and kicked.

  Vali took them for slaves, as they were dressed very plainly and the two heads that were still anything like intact were shaved completely at the front, the hair left long behind, which he thought must be the sign of the lowest rank, a mark of their subjugation. There were farm implements lying discarded around them, rakes and hoes, but more than could be used by just four. Vali wondered why they hadn’t simply sat down and been taken prisoner. Why should a slave fight for his owner? Then he realised what had happened. He thought of the chanting of the men on the boat and the consumption of those mushrooms, the frenzy of the dash for the shore. There would be no surrendering to the berserks. There were three paths of action available to the people on the island, run, fight or die. The other slaves had fled, leaving only these old ones behind. Vali shook his head. If the berserks were on a killing rampage it greatly reduced the chances of them getting anything valuable from the raid. A slave was worth as much as gold in some ways.

  He ran on, up a long incline. There was some sort of sound. At first he took it for the crying of gulls, but then, as he got nearer, it became easier to identify. Human screaming. It was high-pitched and desperate, counterpointed with low roars of aggression. Smoke was already in the air.

  There, towards the beach below him, was a settlement of around fifteen houses. He was struck that they were the wrong shape. There were a couple of big halls like a king might own but the huts that surrounded them were all tiny and circular. That was wrong, he thought — huts should be square, perhaps with bowed sides but not round. He had never seen anything like them. He found them very exotic and exciting, and he very much wanted to go inside one to see what it was like.

  Then there were the people. Vali had rarely seen so many in one place, all men too, panicking under the axes of the berserks. Only a few were making an effort at resistance; most were running for their lives.

  He stood watching the attack for some time, watching the huts burn, watchi
ng the berserks hack down the men. All the enemy, thought Vali, appeared to be slaves, all with that strange shaved head at the front, the hair long at the rear. Vali couldn’t help noticing that none of the berserks had actually bothered to take any plunder. With that in mind, he looked down the hill towards the biggest building, the one with the cross on the roof, which he took for a temple. If anything was to be retrieved, he thought, he had better do it before the whole settlement was reduced to ashes.

  Bragi had made the top of the hill and put his hand to Vali’s shoulder.

  ‘Draw your weapon, prince,’ he said.

  ‘I hardly think that’s going to be necessary,’ said Vali. ‘There’s no resistance at all.’

  ‘Best to have something in your hand in case our men of Odin run out of West Men to spear,’ he said. ‘Nothing like the sight of a sword to remind them whose side they’re on.’

  Vali shook his head — he could hardly believe what he was hearing. Still, he unsheathed his sword. It was a good one, a single-edged seax sent to him by his father, more a very large knife than a true sword but strong, short and straight with a whalebone pommel. He felt embarrassed by it and wished he had a plainer weapon. Still, he left his shield at the top of the hill. He didn’t see any point carrying it because, even from this distant vantage point, he knew he was at more risk fighting with staves with Adisla’s brothers than he was here.

  It was, he thought, instructive what panic could do. Some of the West Men had managed to make off down the beach, but others, their wits frightened away by the shock of the raid, had just run into the sea and were attempting to swim for it. Vali didn’t fancy their chances. He had a good sailor’s eye, and the water between the island and the mainland looked a prime spot for currents.

  He came down to the big building. It was even taller than he had thought from far away, with long thin windows cut into overlapping logs. On the ground outside lay the remains of a stone carving that the berserks had smashed. It was finely wrought cross within a wheel, about two handspans across. It was beautiful, thought Vali, and he almost felt like taking it home with him.