Erinsong (33 page)

Both Jorand and Kolgrim
were tall men with long reaches and the small roped-off area
designated for
their fight meant they
would surely connect with every blow. Each man was armed with only
a lethal broadsword and a round wooden shield.

Kolgrim was barrel-chested, carrying a stone
or two more in brawn than Jorand. Kolgrim raised his beefy arm to
deliver a slashing stroke, throwing his whole weight behind the
blow.

“Sweet Jesu!” Brenna clamped a hand over her
mouth to keep from crying out again. The last thing she wanted to
do was distract Jorand at a critical moment.

Kolgrim may have had extra
weight, but Jorand was favored with the agility of youth. He
managed to dodge Kolgrim’s blade, deflect it with his shield, and
deliver a counter stroke aimed at Kolgrim’s
sword arm. The older man was quicker than Brenna
anticipated, jumping back out of the deadly arc
of Jo
rand’s sword.

Kolgrim bared his teeth at
Jorand in a death’s-head
grin.

***

“Thought I killed you once,
boy.” Kolgrim
sidestepped, looking for an
advantage.

“You thought wrong,” Jorand
countered, mirror
ing his opponent’s
movements. He stepped carefully,
his
footing slick in the rain. “You relied on the sea to kill me. You
were either too lazy or too cowardly to
finish the job.”

Kolgrim’s eyes narrowed at
the insult. “I see now I
was too easy on
you. It’s a mistake I won’t make twice.
I
only sent you into the coils of Jormungand last time.
And here you are, back again like a boil on my
ass. This
go-around, I’ll see you to Hel
for certain.”

Kolgrim’s sword dipped
slightly, leaving him open
to a swift
attack. Jorand lunged, his blade snaking
toward Kolgrim’s chest, but Kolgrim lurched to protect
himself with the small shield. The point of Jo
rand’s sword wedged in the wood and he couldn’t wrench it
free.

Kolgrim followed up his
advantage, raining a hail
storm of blows
on Jorand. He barely managed to
cover his
exposed shoulder with the shield in time to
avoid a slash that would have cleaved him from the
base of his neck to his breastbone.

“My crew thought they’d
seen your shade on that beach, you know. That’s the only reason you
were
able to kill those few.” He hammered
Jorand but was
clearly frustrated when
Jorand met every blow with his sturdy shield until he finally
pulled his sword free. “You’re no fighter. You’ve always been just
a shipwright.”

Jorand skewered Kolgrim’s
shield. He yanked back on his blade and pulled Kolgrim’s shield
from
his grasp. Kolgrim’s eyes widened
with the shock of
finding himself without
a defense.

“I’m fighter enough to beat
you,” Jorand said, as
he took a step back
and pried the splintered circle of
wood
from the point of his blade. According to the law of
holmgang
, when either
combatant lost a shield, the fighting was stopped long enough to
let him re-arm with one of two spares. A man was
al
lowed three shields in the square, but
only one sword.

“No, my old shipmate,”
Kolgrim promised as he
slid a heavy fist
through the straps of his new shield.
“You
may not realize it yet, but you’re on your way to
Niflheim. Nothing but ice and mist for the
dead
cursed to the ninth circle of Hel.
There’s no coming
back from
there.”

“You talk too much.” Jorand
launched a
series of feints and cuts. When
a flash from the heavens lit the combat, his sword glittered like
molten silver. A roar of approval boiled up from the crowd
and
the sky answered it with a thunderous
boom.

Jorand realized the two of
them were evenly matched for strength. Each time his steel slammed
into Kolgrim’s, the force of the impact shot up
through the sword, jarring his joints all the way to
his
shoulders. There was no give to the
man. It was like
hacking away at
stone.

“Don’t... worry about... your wives, son,”
Kolgrim grunted in short pants between blows. “Once they’ve had a
taste of me, they’ll forget all about you.”

Brenna.
No, he couldn’t think about her now. The
only way to keep her safe was to win.

“Besides, the Irish vixen looks a bit
familiar. Think maybe I know that one already. Mayhap I opened her
up for you. Tight little bitch, isn’t she?”

The bellow of rage pouring
out Jorand’s throat didn’t sound human, even to his own ears. He
swung his arm over his head and brought it down
with all the force he could muster, again and again,
as
though he was pounding a stubborn post
into the ground. Safe behind his shield, Kolgrim was jarred and
battered, but untouched. All Jorand succeeded in doing was wearing
himself out.

Suddenly Kolgrim went on the offensive,
slicing and hacking. He had no finesse, but tremendous power.
Jorand backed and dodged but there was no place to run from the
relentless attack. His shield splintered with a sickening cracking
sound. It dangled in pieces from his arm and yet Kolgrim didn’t
stop.

“Hold!” Thorkill bellowed above the noise of
the crowd and the storm.

Kolgrim changed direction in midstroke, but
not before he’d managed to run the tip of his sword down the length
of Jorand’s shield arm. Blood welled along the shallow cut and
oozed toward his fingers.

A chorus of hissing seethed
from the crowd at this breach of
holmgang
rules, but Kolgrim just
spat on the ground and scowled back at them.

Furious with the course of the combat, Jorand
stalked back to his corner to let Bjorn refit him with a fresh
shield.

“He’s a hard nut to crack,” Jorand said,
sucking in air between the words.

“He’s got your measure,” his friend said.
“Don’t let him rattle you with words. His sword is menace
enough.”

Jorand shook his head, trying to quell the
ringing in his ears. “The man’s strong as a bull. I think I’ve met
my match.”

It was a testament to their friendship that
Bjorn didn’t disagree and rush to reassure Jorand. “He’s a little
bigger than you and he’s fast, which is the very devil of it,”
Bjorn said, eyeing Kolgrim appraisingly.

Jorand lowered his voice.
“If he wins, steal Brenna away and take her home. Don’t let her go
to Kolgrim.
Your word on it.”

“I promise.” Bjorn clapped
a hand on Jorand’s
shoulder and nodded
grimly. “But don’t let him win.”

Jorand turned back to face
Kolgrim without tak
ing time to glance at
Brenna. He couldn’t stand to see
her,
tight-lipped and terrified. It was bad enough he
could feel her fear across the square as strongly
as if
he held her trembling body in his
arms. He supposed
she had a right. His
opponent was the source of all
the evil
that had befallen her and her family, and if Jo
rand lost, she’d be Kolgrim’s chattel, to be used and
tormented at his whim.

Jorand would only be dead.

***

All around her, Brenna
heard the crowd of North
men growling out
what sounded like both encourage
ment and
imprecations at the fighters. Rain pounded
and she swiped the moisture out of her
eyes so she could see.

The two men collided in the
center of the square again, blades slicing shimmering arcs through
the downpour. Their swords struck and rasped against
each other. The whine of metal on metal hurt her
ears.

Both men appeared to be
tiring, but it seemed to
Brenna that
Jorand had to back away from the blur of
blades more often than Kolgrim. Once Jorand’s foot
left the pegged-down cloak and a roar of
disapproval
went up from the
onlookers.

“He gives ground,” Rika
explained. “If both feet
leave the cloak,
he flees. It’s cowardice to run from a
fight.”

Brenna wished they could
both run away, far, far
away from Dublin
and never look back.

Jorand leaped toward the
center of the cloak, trying to keep his steps from the muddy edge,
pivoting to meet Kolgrim’s assault as the other man circled
him like a corbie hovering over a
battlefield.

Brenna had to remind
herself to breathe as the bat
tle wore on.
Both men lost another shield. Jorand
managed to land a blow on Kolgrim’s thigh, opening a gash
that reddened his leggings, but didn’t stop his
sword from singing its deadly song.

Kolgrim’s blade sliced
across Jorand’s chest. Bren
na’s vision
tunneled for a moment, thinking him
killed, but Jorand kept flailing away, even as the red stain
spread across the front of his slashed shirt.

Kolgrim seemed to sense
Jorand was flagging. He
dropped his shield
and, grasping his broadsword
with both
hands, raised it above his head to deliver a
deathblow. Jorand ducked and plowed into his enemy,
using Kolgrim’s own weight and momentum to lift
him off his feet and flip him onto his back. Jorand stomped on
Kolgrim’s sword arm and wrenched the blade out of his
hands.

Brenna heard a loud crunch
as the long bone in Kolgrim’s arm snapped under Jorand’s booted
foot.
A thrill of horror coursed through
her as her husband
raised his sword to
bring it down on his fallen foe’s unprotected neck.

“Hold!” Thorkill ordered.
Rika continued to offer a
whispered
translation for Brenna, but since the head
man knocked down the rope and entered the
holm
gang
square, his intent seemed clear. “The contest is
ended.”

“This combat is to the
death,” Jorand argued,
blood in his eyes
making them glint feral in the dark
ness
like a wolf over a downed ram.

“I am
jarl
and I say it is ended. Unless,
of course,
you wish to challenge me over
the matter here and now?” The master of Dublin was even larger
than
Kolgrim and rested to boot. Brenna
breathed a sigh of
relief when Jorand let
his sword clatter to the ground.

Thorkill lifted Jorand’s
arm in triumph, and the
crowd gave the
measure half-hearted approval. Be
yond the
disappointment over lost wagers, Brenna
sensed only heart’s blood would truly appease them,
but Thorkill’s will was not to be
gainsaid.

Solveig stepped forward and
demanded Kolgrim
forfeit all his property
since Jorand had won.

Thorkill reached down and
yanked his injured lieu
tenant to his
feet. “Since the fight was stopped, there
is no clear winner. Kolgrim might have rallied, but
Dublin is the victor, for I have need of both my
lieu
tenants.” He raised a hand to
forestall Solveig’s argument. “Still, Jorand deserves to be
compensated. One
possession among all that
belongs to Kolgrim. Choose.
Even if it be
his dragonship, it shall be yours.”

“This is most unusual,”
Rika whispered to Brenna.
“Jorand is
Thorkill’s son-in-law, yet he seems to be protecting Kolgrim for
some reason. Or perhaps ...” Rika bit her lip.

“Perhaps he’s upset with Jorand for taking
another wife?” Brenna suggested. Rika shrugged.

“The silver,” Solveig hissed. “Demand the
silver.”

Jorand looked at his Norse
wife for a moment, then
met Brenna’s
steady gaze.

“When Kolgrim went viking
up the Shannon, he
pilfered a book from
Clonmacnoise Abbey,” Jorand
said. “I’ll
have that.”

Kolgrim cradled his broken
arm, tight-lipped with
pain. “As if you
could read it. Have you been gone from us so long you’ve crossed
over to the White Christ?” He spat on the ground with
disgust.

“If it has no value, why did you take it?”
Jorand crowded close to Kolgrim.

“Enough,” Thorkill shouted
to be heard over the wind and rain. He stepped between them, a hand
on
each chest. “The book is in the
jarlhof.
Come. But
first,
bury your enmity here in the
holmhring.
I have
need
of both of you yet.”

Thorkill turned and marched
through the crowd, like a dragonship under full sail, expecting his
followers to fall into his wake. Brenna trailed Jorand, thanking
the saints and angels he was still alive.
She scarcely believed they’d succeeded in regaining
the Codex as well.