Glendalough Fair (15 page)

Mon Dieu…
Louis thought and then Lochlánn was prodding him, shouting, “Captain, Captain!”

Louis turned back again. There were more of the enemy heading toward them. He had hoped to break off the fight, to find a minute or two to get his men back to the trees while their foes ran in panicked retreat, but he would not get his wish.

Heathens
… Louis thought. These were not Irish but Northmen, and they carried shields and they wore mail. One of them, a great hulking mountain of a man, carried a red swallow-tail banner bearing a grey device of some sort.

“Form a line, form a line!” Louis shouted. “Spear-men to the back!” They had struck the heathens as Louis had planned, they had wounded the bear. Louis had hoped to withdraw as fast as they came.

But now he could see it would not be so simple.

Don’t say, “It’s been a good day” till sundown

Hávamál

So ready was Thorgrim Night Wolf to drive his sword into Ottar Bloodax’s guts that the first sounds of the attack did not even penetrate his blinding red rage. Everyone had leapt to their feet when the weapons came out, but Thorgrim ignored them. His eyes never left Ottar’s and Ottar’s never left his.

Ottar moved first, darting his blade in, looking for a quick wound, an open belly, a slash to the groin, something that would put Thorgrim down in the first seconds of the fight. But Thorgrim was as quick as Ottar and he swept Iron-tooth from right to left and knocked the blade aside, then stepped toward Ottar to drive his heel down on the man’s knee.

The move was well placed. Ottar had extended his leg with the thrust of his sword. The force Thorgrim put behind his heel would have snapped Ottar’s knee like a man twisting a leg off a roast chicken. But just as he felt the soft leather of his shoe connecting with Ottar, Harald grabbed one of his shoulders and Skidi grabbed the other and they pulled him away.

Ottar leapt back as he felt Thorgrim’s foot strike. Both men bellowed in rage and made to lunge at one another, but Harald and Skidi held Thorgrim fast while Ottar’s men grabbed him and held him as well, Otter flailing with his sword and shouting to be let free.

“Father!” Harald was yelling in Thorgrim’s ear. “Father! Listen! There are enemies here, the camp is being attacked!” The familiar sound of Harald’s voice, the note of urgency, made Thorgrim pause in his struggles. He was breathing hard, but over the sound of his own breath he could hear the swirl of confusion outside the pavilion, the sound of more and more voices taking up the alarm.

The flap of the tent flew open and one of the Irish men-at-arms was there and he shouted something to Kevin. Kevin shouted back, then grabbed his sword and shield and ran from the pavilion.

“Come on,” Thorgrim said, Ottar now forgotten. He pushed through the pavilion’s flap and out into the evening. Men were running in every direction, but he could see the chief of the action was up by the tree line that separated the field from the rest of the countryside. Whoever was attacking had come from there. They must have come fast, giving the sentries little time to react.

“Harald, go get the others. Bring our men up here!” Thorgrim said and Harald nodded and raced off for the ships. Thorgrim watched the swirling fight three hundred feet away. Between Kevin’s lies and Ottar’s insults he would just as soon see the lot of them butchered. But he could not suffer an enemy to attack Norsemen, even Ottar’s Norsemen, without paying a price for it.

Skidi was at Thorgrim’s side and he pointed to the distant skirmish with his drawn sword and said, “Not many of them. They’re not wanting in courage, to attack this camp.”

“No,” Thorgrim agreed. It seemed they had launched this attack against Kevin’s men and the crews of nine longships with less than one hundred warriors. Which meant either they were fools or they had some trick planned.

Ottar and his men followed Thorgrim out of Kevin’s pavilion. They pushed past Thorgrim, but Ottar stopped mid-stride, half turned and glared at Thorgrim, and Thorgrim returned the evil look. They said nothing, because nothing needed saying out loud. Each man understood that this was not over.

Then Starri Deathless appeared, coming from the ships at the river bank, running ahead of the rest of Thorgrim’s men. He was naturally quick, like a long-legged hare, and he was not burdened by mail or shield like the others. He nearly collided with Thorgrim, and Thorgrim pulled his eyes from Ottar as he grabbed Starri’s arm.

“Wait for the rest,” Thorgrim said. Starri was doing that odd jerky motion with his arms, desperate to get into the fight. Thorgrim looked behind. Harald was running up, and with him was Agnarr and the crew of
Sea Hammer
and the crews of the other ships as well, Bersi’s men and Skidi’s and Kjartan’s.

“Make a line, make a line, we’ll advance in a line!” Thorgrim shouted and the men quickly sorted themselves shoulder to shoulder. The men in Thorgrim’s fleet had come ashore prepared for trouble, armed and wearing mail. They had remained together, gathered by the ships, so they were more prepared to plunge into the fight than those who had been enjoying the comforts of camp.

“Follow me!” Thorgrim shouted, holding Iron-tooth above his head. He started forward, toward the place where a huddle of Ottar’s men were surrounded by this unknown enemy and were being hacked down, and others in the camp joined the rush toward the melee. The defense was frantic and disorganized. The Irish and Norse had been caught by surprise, and now were interfering with one another as much as they were doing damage to their attackers.

Then a sound, sharp and clear, jerked Thorgrim’s attention to his left. It was not a battle sound. It was a musical note. Or, more correctly, something between a scream and a musical note, the sound of a horn blown loudly but with little skill.

Thorgrim turned toward the sound. There were men massed there. Thorgrim had seen them already and thought they were Kevin’s men-at-arms shying from the fight. But now he saw they were not shying away; they were locked in combat with men who must have come along the river bank.

“Oh, you clever sons of whores,” Thorgrim said. That was why the attacking army had seemed so few. Half of them had come around to hit the camp from behind.

Thorgrim came to a stop. “Hold!” he shouted and heard the ragged sound of men pulling up short. He pointed his sword in the direction of this second fight.

“This way! This way! At them!” he called and charged off in this new direction. Godi was at his side now, shouting in his deep voice, the banner staff in his hands. Thorgrim moved faster, just short of a run. His anger with Kevin, his fury with Ottar, were all burned away in the familiar crucible of battle.

Starri Deathless had shown remarkable restraint, but he could show no more. He raced ahead of the others, ahead of Thorgrim, and Thorgrim knew better than to try to stop him. Starri wore only leggings and soft leather shoes and held a battle ax in each hand. He was screaming as he ran, a high-pitched keening sound, not a sound one would expect this side of the grave.

Norsemen were accustomed to the ways of berserkers, but the Irish clearly were not. The enemy’s line had been standing their ground like experienced and disciplined warriors, but Thorgrim could see them start to back away from Starri’s headlong, dangerous, manic rush. Starri was five feet from the line when he launched himself off the ground, axes swinging, his body airborne. Thorgrim saw a spear come up from behind the line of men, saw the dark shaft, the iron point, saw Starri come down on the weapon as he plunged into the men-at-arms.

The spear point erupted from Starri’s back in a spray of blood and the man holding it died under the stroke of Starri’s ax, his head split in two even before Starri fell on top of him.

No, no,
Thorgrim thought as he broke into a run. Death was a part of what they did. They brought death, they were merchants of death, and they found death in return. Thorgrim never thought he would much care if any among them other than Harald was killed, himself included. But the sight of Starri impaled on the spear had moved him as he did not think he could be moved. It never occurred to him that Starri Deathless might die.

“Bastards!” Thorgrim roared as he met with the first of the men-at-arms, a young man, just a few years Harald’s senior. He wore mail and carried a shield and Thorgrim lashed at him with a stroke that was meant to knock aside any resistance and bite deep into whatever it hit. Mail. Flesh. It was a death stroke, filled with power, and Thorgrim was surprised to find Iron-tooth turned aside by his opponent’s deft use of his shield.

Now it was Thorgrim who had to step back and deflect a blow and then another as the young man came at him step for step. Thorgrim lunged, missed, raised his shield to take the man’s counter-stroke.

But it could not go on because Thorgrim’s men were fresh and nearly double the enemy’s numbers. Already they were wrapping themselves around the attackers’ flanks, pressing in. The Irish would have to either retreat or die where they stood, and they chose to retreat. Step for step they moved back, their pace increasing as they headed for the wood by the river’s edge, fighting as they went. The young man with whom Thorgrim was exchanging blows was calling orders now, his words sounding like Irish to Thorgrim’s ears, his accent something else.

Then Thorgrim saw Starri Deathless face down on the ground and he forgot about this enemy in front of him. He took two steps over and knelt by Starri’s body, dropping his sword and shield as the fighting moved past him. The spear had snapped as Starri fell on it, but the ugly point jutted out of his back, just below his shoulder blade.

Thorgrim grabbed the hateful thing and jerked it up and it came free of Starri’s body, its end jagged and ugly, blood soaked. Fresh blood welled up in its wake, and to Thorgrim’s utter astonishment Starri gasped and moaned.

Gently, Thorgrim rolled Starri onto his back. The spear had pierced his right side, just below his shoulder, and it had made a terrible mess going in. The skin was ragged and torn, the blood coated his chest and mixed with the mud into which he had fallen. Thorgrim was accustomed to seeing Starri blood-covered at the end of a fight, but it was not usually his own blood.

He heard footsteps behind him and Harald knelt by his side. “He…he lives?” Harald asked.

“He does,” Thorgrim said. They were quiet for a moment and then Thorgrim looked up. “What of the fighting?” he asked. The sound of battle was gone and he had not even been aware of its going.

“They made it to the trees,” Harald said. “The Irish who attacked us. They reached the trees and disappeared into the wood and Bersi said not to follow. You were not there, and so I figured Bersi was in command.”

Thorgrim nodded. “Yes, that’s right. And Bersi did the right thing. In the woods they might have cut you down one man at a time.”

Harald nodded. “The other half of the Irish, the ones fighting by the trees, they retreated as well.”

“The horn must have been the signal,” Thorgrim said. “He’s a clever one, whoever is leading those Irish warriors.”

At that moment Starri made a groaning noise, soft and weak. His eyes fluttered but remained closed.

“Will he live?” Harald asked. The boy had still not figured out that some things were as much a mystery to his father as they were to himself.

“I don’t know,” Thorgrim said. He shook his head as he looked at Starri, pale and motionless on the ground. It was so odd to see Starri not moving. Starri was never still, even when sitting quietly.

Had the spear struck just an inch to the left Starri would already be making the journey to Odin’s corpse hall. But now his death, if it came, would be long and agonizing and not at all the end he had so often envisioned. And how long would it be before death overtook him? An hour? A few days? Or would he live on as a broken cripple, the worst of all fates?

No, Starri would die in battle. He would live long enough for that. Even if he had to drag himself into the fight, even if Thorgrim had to carry him, which he would, Starri would go down fighting.

Thorgrim picked up one of Starri’s battle axes and set it on Starri’s stomach and wrapped Starri’s hand around the grip. He looked up. More of his men were gathered around, looking silently at their stricken fellow.

“Find a cloak or some such, something we can carry him on,” Thorgrim ordered. “We’ll bring him back to
Sea Hammer
.”

A coward believes he will ever live

if he keep him safe from strife

Hávamál

The sun had gone behind the western mountains. The camp was all but lost in the deep shadow, the first stars making their blinking presence known when they lay Starri down near
Sea Hammer’
s stern
.
Thorgrim had ordered a bed made up for him in the after end of the ship, the place where Thorgrim generally slept. They had piled up furs to make a deep and comfortable pallet and laid him down, moaning and moving his head side to side. There was not much more that they could do.

Most of the men who sailed aboard
Sea Hammer
, who had been seafaring and raiding for more than a few years, had some knowledge of the healing arts. They could set broken bones. They could stitch gashes left by sword or ax. Some could even amputate a limb with a reasonable expectation of success. They could treat the sort of injuries they most often encountered. But they could not do much beyond that.

And Starri’s injuries were certainly beyond that, his body pierced clean through. They had washed the wound, washed the blood and dirt from Starri’s chest. Bersi suggested that they stitch him closed but Thorgrim rejected that idea. He did not know why. He had an idea that there might be spirits that could get trapped inside Starri if they did that. But he really did not know what to do, so he laid a damp cloth over the wound and left it like that.

Once Starri had fallen asleep or lapsed into unconsciousness, Thorgrim wrapped the wounded man’s fingers around the handle of his battle ax and gently lashed them in place with a soft leather thong. He had no notion of when Starri might die, but he could at least be certain he had a weapon in his hand when he did.

“Odin, all-father,” Thorgrim said softly, his hand resting on Starri’s hand, the one tied to the ax. “If Starri dies now, he dies of wounds he took in honorable battle. Sure there is no difference between that and being killed on the field? If he goes, I beg you will send the Valkyrie to lift him to your corpse hall. It’s all he ever wanted.”

He stood and looked around and wiped his eyes. He had no idea whether or not  Odin paid heed to such a prayer, if the logic of his arguments carried any weight. Of course, he could not tell Odin anything the god did not already know, but he did not imagine such a plea would hurt.

Thorgrim left Starri to rest or die, whichever he would do, and climbed down the gangplank to the shore. He walked a few perches toward the camp, then stopped and looked around. There was little to see in the gathering dark. A few fires had been kindled and in the light of the flames he could see men moving around. The air was filled with the familiar sounds that marked the end of battle: moaning, the occasional cry, raucous laughter from men happy to still be alive, men who were feeling the remnants of the fighting madness and needed some release.

And there was the shrieking of the prisoners. Ottar had managed to find two of the Irish attackers wounded but still alive, and now he was making them pay for their audacity. He had ordered his men to raise tall wooden stakes and he had bound the Irishmen to them and now he was taking his time with the sorry bastards as he vented his fury. The night was filled with their screams and babbled words. Pleading, Thorgrim guessed. He could not understand what was said. There were several men in the camp who could have translated, but Thorgrim doubted that Ottar much cared what they had to say.

Thorgrim was disgusted by the entire affair. At the battle’s end, Ottar had been in a blind and senseless rage, racing around the killing place, slashing at the bodies of the few dead the Irish had left behind, screaming like the madman he was. At least a dozen of his men had been killed and Ottar was apparently determined to make those two poor bastards who had lived pay for that loss.

Thorgrim Night Wolf was not shy about killing, he did not slink from brutality, but this was pointless and dishonorable. It was worse than pointless. They might have applied less agonizing treatment to the prisoners and received useful information in return. They might have found out, for instance, who it was who had launched that clever attack, and what they were planning next. If they had let one prisoner go he might have returned to his fellows and told them of what happened to the others and thus put some fear into all of them. Now they would learn nothing, achieve nothing.

Thorgrim shook his head and pushed it from his thoughts. Kevin mac Lugaed and a handful of his men were approaching, and Thorgrim knew there was some hard negotiating on the horizon.

“Harald!” Thorgrim called because he knew Harald was lurking nearby, trying to be inconspicuous. “Go find Bersi and Skidi and Kjartan and tell them to meet me here. The Irish will want to talk. And you come back, too. I don’t want Kevin whatever-by-the-gods his name is to be the only one with a man who can speak both languages.”

Harald nodded and rushed off. He was still fetching the others when Kevin arrived, Eoin at his side and his house guard trailing behind. Kevin spoke and Eoin translated.

“Kevin says thank you for your good service today. That was the sort of treachery we are bound to encounter. But at least we showed that we can defeat any who would come against us.”

Thorgrim turned and spit on the ground. “We defeated no one,” he said. “They did just what they came to do. They hurt us and they pulled back before we could hurt them.” It always amused him how some men considered clever planning to be treachery when it was their enemies who were being clever.

Eoin translated. Thorgrim could not believe he was telling Kevin something he did not already know, but the man did not look pleased as he replied.

“Kevin says that he understands such an attack should not have happened. And it won’t again. But he adds that this shows that there is great wealth to be had at Glendalough, that they would make such effort to stop us.”

Thorgrim looked at Eoin and thought,
A poor farmer will use every means he has to protect his one miserable cow, it does not mean the thing is worth a turd
. But he was already tired of talking so he said nothing.

Before the silence could grow more uncomfortable, Harald approached with the others behind. Thorgrim turned to his son. “Tell Kevin that I called for my chief men so we might finish the business that was interrupted. Tell him I don’t think Ottar is in much of a talking mood, but that’s probably just as well.”

Harald rendered the words in Irish. Kevin spoke and Eoin translated. It was like single combat, a battle of translators.

“Kevin says that he apologizes again that he could not alert you to Ottar’s presence. He says there will be loot enough for all at the Glendalough Fair, and that Ottar and his men will make it that much easier for us to take and plunder the place. My lord hopes you will not change your mind about joining in with us.”

Thorgrim was not much impressed with the assistance that Ottar and his men had rendered thus far, but again he kept his own council. Before he could speak, however, Kjartan stepped closer and said in a low voice, “Night Wolf, might we all have a word? In private?”

There was an odd note in the man’s voice, much of the former arrogance stripped away. Thorgrim tried to see his face in the poor light but could see only shadows.

“Certainly,” Thorgrim said. He turned to Harald. “Tell Kevin that I must have a word in private with my chief men. Tell him to wait on us a moment.” Then Thorgrim, the captains of his fleet, and Harald moved off toward the water, far enough away that Eoin would not pick up their low talk.

“Thorgrim,” Kjartan began, “I need not tell you Ottar is a madman. You have seen that well this night.” The prisoners had stopped screaming by then, but the sound of their agony was still in every man’s ears. “But I have to tell you, he is more mad, and more despised by the gods, than you can imagine.”

“You’ve had dealings with Ottar before?” Thorgrim asked.

“He’s my brother,” Kjartan said. “We came together from Norway. Three years ago.” And then Thorgrim recognized the odd note in Kjartan’s voice. It was fear. The same fear Kjartan had shown in the village of the dead. Kjartan must have known then who had butchered all those people.

“What are you saying?” Bersi asked.

Kjartan was silent for a moment, as if summoning the resolve to speak. “I say we cannot trust him. And I don’t think we can trust this Irishman, Kevin, even though he never cheated us back in Vík-ló.”

Thorgrim could already see how this would play out. They had been tricked into this meeting on the river. Kevin had manipulated them into fighting in the company of another chief who was mad and unpredictable. Already the Irish of Glendalough had shown they would not be easily beaten. Any sensible man would have put back to sea and returned home.

But there were things to consider beyond being sensible. Honor was one. Thorgrim would not admit that Kevin had so easily tricked them. He could not tolerate even the suggestion that he and his men lacked the courage to join with the mad Ottar in a raid up river, or that the strength and cleverness of the Irish might make them shy away.

“So what do you suggest?” Skidi asked Kjartan in his grunting voice. “What is your council?”

Once again Kjartan was silent for a moment before he spoke. “I think the prudent thing to do is to abandon all this, to return to Vík-ló, to look for some other opportunity,” he said.

This time it was the others who were silent, considering Kjartan’s words. Finally Thorgrim spoke.

“You know we can’t do that,” he said. A statement.

“Yes, I know,” Kjartan said. In the dark Thorgrim could see the others nodding.

“Then it’s decided,” Thorgrim said. They would press on to Glendalough. They would face head-on whatever fates the gods had in store. They would endeavor to win glory and riches or to die well, and in the end there really was nothing more for which a man who went a-viking could hope
.