God of Vengeance
Authors: Giles Kristian
Norway AD785. It began with the betrayal of a lord by a king . . .
But when King Gorm puts Jarl Harald’s family to the sword, he makes one terrible mistake – he fails to kill Harald’s youngest son, Sigurd.
On the run, unsure who to trust and hunted by powerful men, Sigurd wonders if the gods have forsaken him: his kin are slain or prisoners, his village attacked, its people taken as slaves. Honour is lost.
But he has a small band of loyal men at his side and with them he plans his revenge. All know that Óðin – whose name means frenzy – is drawn to chaos and bloodshed, just as a raven is to slaughter. In the hope of catching the All-Father’s eye, the young Viking endures a ritual ordeal and is shown a vision. Wolf, bear, serpent and eagle come to him. Sigurd will need their help if he is to make a king pay in blood for his treachery.
Using cunning and war-craft, he gathers together a band of warriors – including Olaf, his father’s right-hand man, Bram who men call Bear, Black Floki who wields death with a blade, and the shield maiden Valgerd, who fears no man – and convinces them to follow him.
For, whether Óðin is with him or not, Sigurd will have his vengeance. And neither men nor gods had better stand in his way . . .
Contents
God of Vengeance
is for Phil, Pietro and Drew, with whom I rowed the Dragon Harald Fairhair.
I know that I hung
On a wind-rocked tree
Nine whole nights,
With a spear wounded,
And to Óðin offered
Myself to myself;
On that tree
Of which no one knows
From what root it springs.
Óðin’s Rune-Song
775, Avaldsnes, Norway
THE WOODS WERE
silent but the men were not. They progressed slowly and with care. No sudden movements. Round-shouldered like wolves, heads pulled in, eyes half closed so that their whites would not betray them. And yet every other footfall snapped a twig or disturbed the pine litter, making the guilty one curse inwardly and hold still as a rock to see if the bull elk would bolt.
For now at least the creature stood upwind and unaware, its hide dappled pale gold in the late morning sunlight threading through the trees.
Three hunters had broken off from the group. Two men and a boy, and all of them carrying spears, the boy’s one and a half times his own height, its haft almost too thick for his hand to grasp, though he had not dropped it all day. If he had learnt anything in his seven years it was that you did not drop your spear in woods where boar might be foraging. Or where an injured wolf might linger. You especially did not drop it in front of your father or the king, no matter how white your knuckles or how much your fingers ached.
They should have waited for the men with bows perhaps. The dogs too. But kings and jarls were not good at waiting and now the king turned around and grinned at the boy, putting a thick finger to his lips, his copper beard bristling in the breeze. Then he gestured to the boy’s father to skirt round to the right of the glade and the boy knew this was doing his father a great honour and pride bloomed hot in his chest. For once the king made to cast his spear the elk would sense it and take off eastward, and Jarl Harald would hurl his own spear and bring the creature down.
So the boy held still now, his heart beating in his ears, his stomach knotted with the thrill of it all. He would sooner die than be the one to scare the beast off now and ruin their casts.
The bull is magnificent, he thought, trying to be as still as his brothers had taught him, each measured breath rich with the sweet, pungent scent of tree bark and pine resin and the moss that crept up the lower trunks. All around him bracken quivered in the shadows. Something scuttled across an ancient animal track near by, and far behind them a dog’s bark echoed off the trees, but the boy kept his eyes on the elk, hoping his gaze could somehow hold it there, as though his eyes could bind the beast to the spot as Gleipnir, the dwarf-forged chain, had held the mighty wolf.
Then, shielding the gesture with his own body, the king waved a hand at the boy behind him, inviting him to be the one to throw the first spear. The boy blinked. Swallowed. They had been out since before dawn and this was the first worthy prey they had found and now he would have the honour of casting first. And if there was another thing he had learnt in his seven years it was that you did not miss when a man with a torc at his neck the thickness of your wrist invited you to launch your spear. Every day the boy practised with sword and shield but never with a spear so thick he could barely grip it.
He nodded to the king and the king nodded back. He would have acknowledged his father too and made sure of where he was, but he would not allow himself to tear his thoughts from the elk.
‘Even before you throw, see the spear in your mind, flying straight and true,’ his brother Sorli had told him, and no doubt Sorli had been told it by Sigmund, who had heard it from Thorvard, which was the way of it with brothers. ‘See the spear pass through the elk’s flesh and drive into its heart. Only when you have spun this picture in the eye of your mind should you make the throw.’
And so the boy spun the picture of it now as he eased his leading foot forward, making up ground and preparing to put all of his seven years behind the throw.
But the bull had many more years in him than the boy and suddenly he hauled up his great head and sniffed the air. He was a giant. Over seven feet tall at the shoulder and then there was his great head and the antlers which themselves spanned a distance much greater than the boy’s height. The beast’s hackles rose as he lowered that great head and flattened his ears, and the boy was close enough now to see the flies buzzing near his muzzle and hear the crunch of his teeth working through the tough plants he had rooted up.
Now!
The boy made three quick strides and on the fourth step hurled the spear and it flew, arcing slightly before striking the bull in its right hind quarters but not hard enough to stay in the flesh, as the bull roared and turned and galloped off through the trees.
Towards the boy’s father.
Harald gave a roar to rival the bull’s as he cast his own spear, the iron blade streaking like lightning, but somehow the beast swerved, too limber for its great size, and the jarl’s spear gouged a red streak along its neck but flew on into the trees.
‘Thór’s arse!’ Harald yelled, as the bull plunged off, snapping branches and twigs and vanishing deep into the pine wood.
But the king was laughing, great booming peals that echoed off the trunks and bent him double, hands on his knees, his spear stuck in the earth beside him.
‘What is so funny?’ the boy’s father called, an angry flush beneath his golden beard, for he had missed and that was bad enough without his host laughing about it.
Still laughing, the king straightened and came over to the boy, putting an arm around his shoulders, at which the boy straightened and puffed up his chest and tried to grow a year’s worth in a heartbeat.
‘It’s your boy, Harald!’ the king said. ‘By the gods he’s got a throw on him! I swear that proud bull shit himself when he saw young Sigurd’s face.’
The boy did not know if he was being complimented or if the king was making fun of him. He tried to smile but could feel that it was all teeth and nothing else, and then his father burst into laughter too and between the two men the sound was like the roar of the sea.
‘I would not like to get on your bad side, boy!’ the king said, giving his shoulder a shake that made his brain rattle in its skull.
But the boy was still thinking about the bull elk. About how he had failed to bring it down. Next time the spear would pierce the flesh, he told himself. Next time he would be stronger.
‘I don’t know about you, Harald, but I am thirsty,’ the king said, pulling his spear from the earth.
‘I am always thirsty,’ Harald said, as the rest of the hunting party drew nearer, the men eager to catch up with their lords and the dogs barking with the bull elk’s scent in their noses.
Sigurd gathered up his own spear and his father pointed at the blade.
‘See the blood there, boy?’ Harald said. ‘That was a good throw. Better than mine.’
And with that they turned north to make their way back to King Gorm’s hall and the mead that awaited them there.
And somehow the spear in the boy’s hand no longer felt too big.
