Glendalough Fair (21 page)

“Ottar’s men are being butchered because Ottar’s a fool!” he shouted. “We must join in, save the sorry bastards.” He spit rainwater and pointed toward the trees right adjacent to where they stood. “We’ll go into the woods there, move along the river bank, take these Irish whore’s sons by surprise.” He saw men nod. He turned and splashed toward the northern bank of the river

He ran as best he could, a stumbling, exhausting effort through the knee high water, and he spared a glance upstream. Ottar’s men were still mostly in the river, fighting an enemy on the shore above. Ottar was still standing, swinging his sword in great arcs while the others fought beside him.

He could see the Irish among the trees. He saw few spears now. The spears had mostly been thrown, Thorgrim guessed, or broken or pulled from spearmen’s hands. That meant Irish and Northmen were fighting sword against sword and that meant Ottar’s men had a better chance of at least making a good show of it.

Hold them
, Thorgrim thought.
Three minutes more…
If Ottar could keep the Irish at it for another three minutes, then he and his men could run right into their flank and do great execution.

Thorgrim reached the river bank, steeper than he had expected, and with some difficulty pulled himself up and into the tree line. He did not wait for the others behind but turned and plunged on through the undergrowth and the saplings and the mature oaks and maples. The leaves above turned the rain aside like thatch and Thorgrim could hear the fighting now. The bracken was wet and the water lashed him as he pushed through, but he could not possibly be any more soaked than he already was.

The afternoon was dark and it was darker still in the woods and hard to see, but Thorgrim sensed someone ahead, someone moving, and he guessed he had reached the end of the Irish line. He drew Iron-tooth and pushed on forward. Another fifteen feet and then he saw him, an Irishman, spear held straight out, looking more as if he was trying to ward off an attack than join in one. There was nothing about the man, save for the spear, that suggested he was anything more than a poor farmer, one of these pathetic creatures called up to do his lord’s bloody work, and now he would die for reasons he probably did not even understand.

Thorgrim crashed on through the undergrowth, the noise of his passing hidden by the drum of the rain overhead and the shouting and screaming from the river to his left. He was raising Iron-tooth for a backhand stroke when the spearman finally realized he was there.

The man’s head jerked around, his eyes went wide, his mouth opened and he began a feeble thrust of the spear in Thorgrim’s direction as Iron-tooth came whistling through the air. The blade caught the man in the throat and the force of the blow sent him sprawling into the undergrowth, a bright gush of blood proceeding him to the ground.

Thorgrim vaulted over his still thrashing body. He could see the next Irishman, the next three men, actually, all bearing spears. They had been looking out toward the river but Thorgrim and his men had managed to make enough noise to catch their attention. Like the man Thorgrim had just killed, they did not look like men-at-arms, and they did not act like it either.

They had not expected an enemy to come charging out of the woods, that was clear, and they seemed to give no thought to fighting. They flung their spears away, turned and scrambled through the woods, Thorgrim on their heels, his men right behind him. Thorgrim could see Harald charging along, knocking saplings aside with his shield. The boy ran like there was something hideous pursuing him, but Harald was the hunter, not the hunted, the worst nightmare of the Irish farmers fleeing before him.

Panic swept up the line of Irish spearmen arrayed along the river’s edge. They screamed and cursed and joined the flight, driven by the Norsemen’s swords. Through the trees Thorgrim could see glimpses of the river and Ottar’s men, some fighting, some doubled over with wounds, some floating motionless. He turned back to the fight at hand.

The Irish spearmen were gone, run off in panic, but there was another line of men ahead, and Thorgrim could see that these were no farmers. Whoever was in command here must have put his most useless warriors on the edges of the fight, his best men in the middle where Ottar was bound to attack. Or perhaps he gave the spearmen leave to pull back when the real fighting began, let the men-at-arms take the brunt of that. These men wore mail and carried shields and did not run at the sight of the Northmen coming from the trees, but rather shifted their positions to meet them head on.

Thorgrim came to a stop. The man before him now was not running in panic but standing his ground, a long sword in his right hand, a shield with a red cross painted on its face in his left. Iron-tooth came down in a wide arc again, but this time the weapon was met with the shield that took the blow and turned it aside. Thorgrim leapt back as the counterstroke came low, under his shield, looking for his calves or knees but finding only air.

Thorgrim stepped in and slammed his shield into the man and made him stagger, then went right in with Iron-tooth, right for the man’s unprotected throat. The Irishman was still trying to raise his shield when he died on Thorgrim’s sword point. Thorgrim pushed him aside as he fell and leapt for the next man, who was already swinging at Thorgrim with his sword.

Starri…
Thorgrim thought. They did not have Starri and his manic energy, his unnerving ferocity. With Starri in the fight the enemy knew that something wild and unworldly was in their midst and it put fear into them. But now Starri was fighting a different fight.

The Irish men-at-arms had managed to swing their line away from the river’s edge to meet the new threat on their flank, and the two sides, Irish and Northmen, ran into one another like walls of rushing water colliding. Thorgrim saw Harald launch a brutal attack on the man in front of him, his sword and shield moving in a perfect geometric harmony, shield arcing left, sword swinging right. The grace and power of the attack drove the other man back. Godi was beside him, a massive ax in his hand, his attack less subtle but no less effective.

There were two men coming at Thorgrim now, both with sword, shield and mail. They came on shoulder to shoulder, straight at him, but Thorgrim stepped to his right, putting the man on the left beyond sword’s reach, and lunged at the man on his right.

The Irishman parried the blade and made a thrust at Thorgrim but Thorgrim took another step to his right, and then another, putting a massive oak between him and the two men, blocking their view of him as if he was trying to hide. He guessed they would circle around, coming at him from either side, which meant the one on the left would reach him first. Thorgrim held his shield with its edge against the trunk of the tree, refreshed his grip on Iron-tooth just as the Irishman leapt into the clear, apparently thinking he would take Thorgrim by surprise.

The Irishman’s sword swung around in a wide sweeping blow intended to cut down anything in its path. The blade connected with the iron rim of Thorgrim’s shield and bounced off and Thorgrim drove Iron-tooth’s point right into a spot below the rim of the man’s helmet. He jerked the sword free as the man fell and ran past him, around the tree. It was like a child’s game, racing around the trunk, but the second Irishman did not look amused when Thorgrim came up behind him. He had time only to half turn in Thorgrim’s direction before Iron-tooth, still wet with Irish blood, cut him down too.

Thorgrim was breathing hard. He paused, looked around. His men were engaged with the men-at-arms now, dozens of private duels. Some he could see, some were lost in the woods. There was more movement to his left, men crashing through bracken. Ottar’s men. Thorgrim’s attack had forced the Irish to turn away from the river, and that had allowed Ottar’s men to scramble up the bank where they could fight their enemy on level ground.

The Irishmen seemed to waver in their attack. Thorgrim could sense them stepping back, fighting now on two sides, no longer certain of where the enemy was.
Push harder, push harder
, he thought. They would break in a moment. They would start to run, and when they did, they could be cut down in flight.

Thorgrim felt an animal howl building in his chest, a wolf howl, a sound that would bring terror to the Irish, that would drive his men on. He leapt forward and swung Iron-tooth at a big Irishman wielding a battle ax, and the move seemed to draw the howl from deep inside him. The sound rang in his ears, rang thought the woods. It took the Irishman by surprise. Thorgrim could see the terror in his face. He dropped the battle ax, turned and fled. Thorgrim lunged at him, fast as a serpent, but he was not able to get a blade on the man.

“Come on! Come on!” Thorgrim shouted and he saw his men pushing ahead, he could see them through the thick woods as they made a line that swept inexorably forward. Then, from some unseen place deep in the trees there came the sharp, clear note of a horn, as if in answer to Thorgrim’s call. It was the same note Thorgrim had heard at the Meeting of the Waters and it called the Irishmen to fall back, to get clear, to live and fight again.

“No! Bastards!” Thorgrim shouted. He picked up his pace, knocking his way through the woods with his shield, but there was no enemy in front of him anymore, just saplings, bracken, trees.

“Thor take them!” Thorgrim shouted, but he was gasping for air as much as shouting. It was quiet again, save for the drumming of the rain on the leaves and the rush and tumble of the river nearby. Harald loomed up in front of him, and Godi and the others. They gathered to him to see what they would do next.

There was more rustling in the woods, a sound like a bear or some large animal moving through the undergrowth. Thorgrim turned and the others turned and they could see men making their way toward them, half hidden in the dark of the woods and the thick brush. Then Ottar stepped clear of the trees. His shield was in splinters, and he seemed to realize it just at that moment, and he tossed it aside. His sword was covered with blood, too much for the rain coming through the leaves overhead to wash away. His arm and his beard and the ends of his braids were likewise bloody.

No one moved. Ottar and Thorgrim looked at one another. Thorgrim had no idea what might come out of Ottar’s mouth.

Ottar frowned. He squinted at Thorgrim as if he, too, had no idea what would come out of his mouth. Then he turned and spit on the ground. “Finally showed up, did you?” he said, then turned and disappeared back into the woods.

Let a man never stir on his road a step

without his weapons of war;

for unsure is the knowing when need shall arise

of a spear on the way without.

Hávamál

Harald Broadarm sat on
Sea Hammer
’s afterdeck and gently tilted a cup of broth and ale into Starri’s mouth. It was not the sort of task he would generally welcome. Tending the wounded, he understood, was as much a part of campaigning as caring for one’s weapons. But he was never very comfortable doing that work, and he feared that being the youngest man there the others would tend to pawn the job off on him. Just the thought of that made him resentful.

But this was different. This was Starri, whom Harald liked very much. Most of the men liked Starri, or they ignored him, or, Harald suspected, they feared him. Harald’s own feelings were different than the others, more complex, though he would not have thought of them in that way. Starri was part of Thorgrim’s inner circle, part of his father’s household, and that alone made Harald’s relationship with him different. He and Starri had fought side by side many times. They had suffered much together, and had shared triumphs and wealth. Harald liked Starri Deathless. And he envied him.

He envied Starri’s absolute fearlessness. He understood, of course, that Starri was fearless mostly because he was insane, but still he could not help but wish that he, too, could plunge into battle with no concern at all for injury or death. His father seemed fearless as well, but with Thorgrim it was a different sort of fearlessness. He took battle seriously. He wore mail and a helmet, carried a shield. He did not court death as Starri did.

Harald had no lack of courage, and he would have killed any man who suggested he did, or he would have died trying. But he was not without fear. There was an image that had fixed itself in his head, an image of a battle ax striking him right where his neck and shoulder met and splitting him near in two. For some reason that idea frightened him terribly, and he could never shake it in the moments before battle. It was his secret shame.

He doubted that Starri felt any such fears.

“What’s happening?” Starri asked. His eyes were open, his voice was soft, though now there was a hint of strength in it. He had been unconscious, either asleep or passed out, almost the whole time since his wounding. The sounds of the battle had roused him, and he had been awake on and off since then, though still too weak to stand or do much of anything.

“They are getting the last of Ottar’s ships up the river,” Harald said, looking past
Sea Hammer
’s high sternpost. Downstream of where they lay at anchor Ottar’s fleet was just getting over the shallow water where yesterday the Irish had ambushed them. Most of the ships’ stores and gear had been taken off to make the vessels ride high enough to float. Ottar’s men, those still alive and not too badly wounded to work, were loading those things back on board the vessels that had made the transit.

Harald shook his head.
Idiots
, he thought.

Starri was silent for a moment and then asked, “Don’t they fear they’ll be trapped above the shallows? Doesn’t Thorgrim fear that?”

“Father doesn’t worry about our ships being trapped,” Harald explained, “and Ottar is too stupid to worry about his.” He looked down at Starri and could see that further explanation was needed.

“We’re not carrying a lot of provisions. Our ships are light enough to pass over the shallows once the crews go over the side,” Harald continued. “Ottar’s ships must be unloaded to make it. They must take out the stores and the yards and oars and all manner of things. Even if the level of the water drops, we should be all right. But Ottar could have real trouble.”

Starri nodded. Harald gave him another sip of the broth and ale. A minute passed before Starri spoke again.

“Ottar’s company is much diminished?” he asked.

“It is,” Harald said. He had told Starri all this before, soon after the end of the battle, when Starri had been eager to hear the tale. Starri had become so inflamed by the story that he had tried to rise from his bed, even though the fighting was over. It was only with considerable effort that they were able to persuade him to remain supine.

“Ottar lost forty men at least,” Harald said. “That’s forty dead. Another fifteen wounded, I would guess. It was a slaughterhouse. Father says whoever was commanding the Irish really knew his business, set as perfect a trap as could be set, and we walked right into it.”

The Norsemen had spent the hours following the battle setting things to rights. The wounded were looked after, the dead gathered up and buried. That part did not take very long. Ottar had lost around forty men; at least that was the number that filtered into Thorgrim’s camp. But most of the bodies had been swept away downstream. Some had been found but most were not. It was not a comforting thought to the shipmates of the dead men. A warrior likes to think he will be sent off to the next world in the proper way, and not have his flesh devoured by ravens and vultures.

When those few burials were done, Ottar had loaded men aboard two of his remaining ships and gone in search of the vessels that had drifted off and were now lost from sight down river. Thorgrim decided then to move his own ships over the shallows, and the men from Vík-ló spent an hour or so hauling the vessels against the current. By the time Ottar returned with his wayward ships in tow Thorgrim’s fleet was safely at anchor upstream of the low, churning water.

When Ottar saw Thorgrim’s ships were now ahead of his own he flew into a rage, just as Thorgrim and all the rest knew he would. This, Harald suspected, was the real reason his father had ordered the ships hauled up river, even after saying it was a bad idea. He was baiting Ottar, and doing so for the sheer pleasure of it.

Ottar’s ship ground onto the downstream end of the shallows and Ottar jumped over the bow. He stormed through the knee deep water, which slowed his progress enough to make his approach seem much less threatening than he intended. Thorgrim and his men were aboard their ships, anchored in eight feet of water and resting under the sails spread like tents against the still falling rain. Heads turned in Ottar’s direction, but no one moved or spoke or even acknowledged his coming toward them. Thorgrim kept his back turned to the man.

When Ottar reached the end of the shallow stretch he stopped and bellowed Thorgrim’s name. Thorgrim continued to ignore him and Ottar bellowed again. This time Thorgrim stood and moved slowly to the afterdeck. He rested a hand on the tall sternpost and looked across the thirty feet of water that separated him from Ottar, water too deep for Ottar to cross.

“You get ahead of my ships, Thorgrim Night Pup?” Ottar roared.

“Yes, I did,” Thorgrim answered simply.

“You will not get ahead of me!” Ottar said, louder now, more enraged. “You will not!”

Thorgrim looked around in mock confusion. “But I already have, Ottar,” he said. “And if you don’t hold your tongue I’ll get underway now and leave you for the Irish to finish off.”

There had been a change, a big change, in the hours following the fight. When they had first met at the Meeting of the Waters, Ottar’s men had outnumbered Thorgrim’s. That was not the case now. Ottar had lost nearly a full ship’s crew. Now his strength was at best equal to Thorgrim’s.

But that was only part of it. Ottar was the sort of leader that men followed because he was stronger and more violent and more pitiless than anyone else. Warriors joined him because they feared him and they figured others would fear him more. They figured his mindless brutality would lead them to plunder. But the Irish had made Ottar look like a fool, and his men understood, even if Ottar did not, that it was Thorgrim who had saved them and saved their ships.

“You bastard!” Ottar shouted. “Ravens will pick out your eyeballs!”

“They might,” Thorgrim agreed. “But it is not you who will feed me to them.” With that he turned and ducked under the sail and left Ottar standing in the rain. Ottar continued to shout for a few more minutes, but no one was listening, and that made him seem an even bigger fool, so he turned and headed back downstream. It was not until the next morning that Ottar and his men began the laborious work of once again hauling their ships against the current.

“Here’s something I don’t understand,” Starri said, then closed his eyes as if the effort of speaking was getting to be too much. “What of Kevin? Was he not supposed to be moving his men along the river bank? To stop the Irish waylaying us as they did?”

“We don’t know where he is,” Harald said. “We know he’s not here, but we don’t know where he’s gone. Beaten by these other Irish, run off, we don’t know.”

He looked down at Starri for a reaction, but Starri seemed to be asleep. He waited for a moment more and, when he was certain Starri had drifted off, he stood and stretched and considered what he would do next.

Oak Cleaver
, he thought. His sword, the beautiful Frankish blade, once his grandfather Ornolf’s, which now he carried. The edge had taken some damage in the fighting and it needed tending, and the blade could use some oil against the miserable wet weather. But when he looked forward he could see his father heading aft and the look on Thorgrim’s face, a look Harald knew well, suggested that Thorgrim had his own ideas of what Harald would be doing next.

Thorgrim stepped up by Harald’s side and looked down at Starri. The rain had tapered off to a mist, which was a great relief, though most likely a temporary one.

“How is he?” Thorgrim asked.

“Better, I think,” Harald said. “He had some broth. He spoke, wanted to know what was happening with the raid. With you and Ottar.”

Thorgrim gave a half smile. “Well, if you figure that out I’d be grateful if you could tell me as well,” he said. He looked over the starboard side at the riverbank, three rods away. Somewhere, lost from view, Thorgrim’s scouts kept watch for another ambush. It was the prudent thing to do, though no one thought the Irish would be so imprudent as to strike again in the same place.

“Once Ottar is ready to get underway he’ll try to get past us again, get upstream,” Thorgrim said. “I don’t want that to happen. For a number of reasons. So we will get underway now and get well ahead of him.”

Harald nodded. He, too, wanted to stay ahead of Ottar, mostly as a matter of pride. But he could guess at his father’s other reasons.

With each mile they dragged the ships upstream, each dead man they buried or arrow they pulled from a ship’s side, the raid on Glendalough seemed to take on greater and greater importance. No longer a raid but a quest. All the men seemed to feel it. Thorgrim feared Ottar would somehow manage to ruin any chance of a successful attack, or make some dumb mistake that would get them all killed. And Harald guessed his father wanted to twist the knife of humiliation in Ottar’s guts.

“Kevin is gone,” Thorgrim continued. “Where, I don’t know, but he’s not here. So I need you to take some men, twenty or so, and follow us along the river bank. I need you to keep an eye out for another ambush, like Kevin should have done.”

Harald felt the excitement rise, the pleasure of anticipation. Thorgrim was offering him a command of his own, an important task and a leader’s role, a chance to show off skill and boldness.

“You and your men are scouts, you understand?” Thorgrim said, apparently sensing the excess of eagerness in Harald’s face. “You are not to fight an army with twenty men. You’re just to warn us if they’re lying in wait before we blunder into them.”

“Yes, father,” Harald said.

Thorgrim looked him in the eyes and said nothing for some time. “I mean it,” he said at last. “Scouts. You are not to fight.”

“Unless it’s just a few of the Irish, right?” Harald said. “A patrol, or just a few men-at-arms? We should kill them before they can reveal our presence, shouldn’t we?”

Thorgrim let out a breath. “Yes, in that case you may fight. But try to take prisoners. They’re more of a help than dead men. I’m trusting you to use your judgement. Use it well. If you want to see what stupidity will get you, just look to Ottar.”

Harald nodded, but the words had barely registered. In his mind he was already leading his men stealthily along the river bank, and going sword against sword with the Irish son of a bitch who had launched the brutal, bloody attack of the day before.