God of Vengeance (55 page)

‘Well I will kill whoever comes within reach,’ Bram said, ‘so if you want this Skarth on the end of your spear you will have to hope you get to him first.’

Agnar Hunter and Valgerd took up bows and tested their draw. They could not shoot far with their strings wet as they were but it would not matter for this would be an intimate affair, as Svein remarked to Valgerd while she was tying the arrow-thronged quiver to the shield rail on
Reinen
’s sheer strake.

‘And the worst part of it is that we are downwind of them,’ the red-bearded giant said. ‘When they shit in their breeks at the sight of us we will be choking on it.’

‘Here they come!’ Olaf said as their enemies’ war cries carried across the water and Sigurd looked at Asgot who nodded, lips hitched back from his teeth. Some men touched amulets at their necks for luck but most had enough iron all around them and touched brynja rings, spear blades, helmets or sword hilts.

‘It’s time, Runa,’ Sigurd said and she nodded, their eyes riveted on each other’s for a moment, then she hefted a shield and went to stand by the mast. Sigurd wished she were further away than that, but had to content himself with the hope that Randver would not hurt her if he won. Then he remembered that she and Randver’s son Amleth had been soaking and shivering when they came into the jarl’s hall and he was struck by the idea that Runa had tried to drown herself.

‘Now then,’ Olaf bellowed, ‘remember to let them get the hooks in and the ships kissing before you start killing the ugly sons of sows.’ He looked at Valgerd and Agnar Hunter. ‘That doesn’t go for you two. If you can thin them . . . give one or two of them an eye problem before we snuggle up, that will be no bad thing.’ They nodded, nocking arrows to their strings because in twenty heartbeats
Fjord-Wolf
would be in range even with wet strings.

‘Let’s make them feel welcome, hey!’ Bram roared and they all began to hurl insults at those coming to kill them.

‘I wish Crow-Song was here to see this,’ Aslak said.

‘Don’t you worry, lad,’ Olaf said, ‘when he tells it Randver will have four ships and we’ll have Thór himself standing with us swinging his bloody great hammer.’

And he had barely got this out when Agnar and Valgerd let fly their first arrows and men lifted their shields to overlap them and form a bulwark above the sheer strake.

When
Fjord-Wolf
struck
Reinen
, men on both ships were sent reeling but Svein had one brawny arm round the prow beast and as Randver’s ship glanced off
Reinen
’s bow and scraped along her steerboard side he swung his great axe and took a man’s head off his neck. The man dropped to his knees, his neck stump spraying blood six feet into the air, and Randver’s crew hurled their grappling hooks into
Reinen
’s thwarts. Those on
Reinen
’s port side ran over to join the others and no one cut the ropes, Bjarni even holding out a hand and yelling at one of Randver’s men to pass it over, which the man did, the two of them hauling on it to bring the ships together.

Olaf ignored his own command about waiting for the ships to be securely lashed before killing their foemen. He hurled a spear which punched into a man’s chest, throwing him back into his companions, and this unleashed the rest to the slaughter. Agnar loosed an arrow which streaked into a face, the shaft going through one cheek and out the other, and Valgerd put one through a beardless stripling’s arm as he raised it to cast his spear.

Ubba was roaring curses and jabbing his long-axe at shields and Asgot was a fiend with his spear, cutting and ripping, and Sigurd could already smell fresh blood in the air. A sword glanced off his helmet and thumped into his shoulder and he sank his spear into the man’s shoulder so that the sword fell from the man’s hand and splashed into the sea between the ships. Then
Fjord-Wolf
and
Reinen
came together with a bump and Randver’s crew tied off the ropes which was brave of them – working on knots when men were trying to kill you.

Another of Randver’s warriors, a big mail-clad man Sigurd remembered from the earlier fight, stepped up onto the sheer strake and swung his long-hafted axe, smashing Bjorn’s shield to splinters. His next swing would have killed Bjorn but Kætil Kartr was there and plunged his sword through the big man’s thigh, making him bellow like an ox. But those legs were like trees and somehow the big man kept his balance and swung the axe again and the blade sliced Kætil’s sword arm off at the shoulder. Bjorn hurled himself forward, driving his spear into the man’s belly, and Sigurd saw the moment that the rings burst apart and the blade sank into the flesh. The big man doubled over and with another great shove Bjorn tipped him back into
Fjord-Wolf
and Randver’s men roared to see the big man down.

Another brave warrior tried to come aboard, chopping the end off Aslak’s spear as he put one foot up on the side, but a heartbeat later that foot and most of the ankle were lying in
Reinen
’s thwarts thanks to Floki’s hand axe, and perhaps the man might have grieved for it had Floki not cracked his skull open with his next swing.

But Sigurd could see what the enemy had in mind, for if they could come aboard
Reinen
their advantage of numbers would likely win the day, with Sigurd having barely enough men to put a skjaldborg all the way across the deck.

‘Vidar be with me now,’ he growled under his breath, and with that he stepped up onto the sheer strake, roaring like a berserker and jabbing his spear at every man before him, and two swords hacked into his shield, splitting it across the middle, so he shook it loose and hauled his scramasax from its sheath.

And he jumped. The weight of him in all his war gear was enough to force a space amongst the thronging enemy like a rock dropped into water. Even so he should have died then, gutted and spear-gored, ripped and hacked, but before he could even set about him he was knocked to the deck by another mail-sheathed warrior with black braids flying. Floki had no shield, just a short axe in either hand and those weapons were a blur as he parried blades with one and struck with the other, opening bellies and necks, butchering men as though they were carcasses lying on the board. Randver’s men raised their shields and shrank back from him and this gave others a chance to come over from
Reinen
. Sigurd drew Troll-Tickler and put his back to Floki, catching a blade on his sword and slashing the scramasax across a man’s eyes. Bram was there too, and all along
Reinen
’s side men were plunging into
Fjord-Wolf
’s thwarts, which was so shocking to Randver’s crew that they were already giving ground across their deck.

Sigurd turned and saw Svein swinging his axe, creating great arcs of room for other
Reinen
men to pour into. Randver stood on his ship’s mast fish, sword and shield in hand, yelling at his men to stop being cowards and drive their enemy into the sea, which was easy for him to say standing there watching other men die.

Ubba dropped a barrel-chested warrior with a well-placed thrust of his axe’s head into the man’s face and this left him facing Skarth who had until now been guarding his jarl. Ubba grinned and jabbed the long-axe into Skarth’s shield by way of a greeting and Randver’s champion cast the shield aside, knowing it would not take much punishment from a long-hafted axe wielded by a man of Ubba’s size. Then Ubba brought the axe up and round and down but Skarth had not become Randver’s prow man by losing out to a wood-cutter’s strike like that and he twisted out of the blade’s path as it thunked into the deck boards. He brought his big, worm-looped sword down and cut through the axe’s haft, which was a thing worth seeing, then he stepped forward and hacked aside the stave Ubba now brandished as a club. Ubba spat in Skarth’s face as the champion’s sword scythed into his neck with a wet chop that Sigurd heard above the battle din, but Ubba’s neck was stronger than his axe’s haft and at least he died with his head still on.

‘Olaf!’ Skarth roared. But Olaf was busy fighting two men on the steerboard side.

‘Sigurd!’ Runa screamed and Sigurd saw that one of Randver’s men had gone over into
Reinen
perhaps thinking to end the thing by threatening to kill Runa. There were too many bodies between Sigurd and Runa and he knew he could not get to her in time.

‘Valgerd!’ he yelled, and the shieldmaiden looked up, her eyes following where Sigurd’s scramasax was pointing. She moved like lightning, hamstringing one warrior and knocking another aside before getting to
Fjord-Wolf
’s side and casting her spear. The shaft flew straight as a shipwright’s plumb-line and took Randver’s man in the back so that he staggered into Runa and she squirmed free of him, letting him slump to the deck where he thrashed like a fish.

‘Sigurd!’ Aslak called and Sigurd turned, getting his sword up in time to block a wild swing from a pock-marked, yellow-skinned warrior who stank like death. Sigurd stepped in and punched the long knife up into the man’s guts and held it there, using the man as a shield as he hauled foul breath into his lungs and looked for the next man to kill. Then Aslak went down from a blow that dented his helmet and Karsten took a spear in his shoulder just as another man hacked into his leg with a hand axe. The helmsman roared in pain and fury but the sound stopped as the spear came again, this time bursting from his chest.

Floki was walking death, seemingly untouchable as he worked his craft and thinned Randver’s crew. Beside him Olaf, Asgot and Bjarni were working side by side, pushing Randver’s men back towards the stern where the jarl had put himself now. On the other side Svein, Bram and Bjorn were making a slaughter for ravens for it seemed Randver had no men in brynjur left standing. Valgerd had gone back aboard
Reinen
to protect Runa, but the shieldmaiden was now working along the side with her bow, shooting arrows into men who were too busy fighting for their lives to do anything about it.

‘Leave him for me!’ Olaf clamoured at Agnar Hunter who was scything his two long knives at Skarth. He managed to cut the champion’s forearm but then Skarth lopped off one of his hands and before Agnar knew it was gone Skarth took the other hand too. Agnar raised both spurting arms and glared at them as though unable to believe what he saw, as Skarth plunged his sword into his open mouth, twisting the blade in a mess of blood and broken teeth.

‘Finish it!’ Sigurd yelled. Men shrieked and bellowed and
Fjord-Wolf
’s thwarts ran with blood that pooled by the ship’s ribs. And Sigurd’s Wolves would not be stopped now. They hacked and ripped until their arms felt as though they were on fire and still they slew their enemies even as those men saw their doom and some of them threw down their swords.

‘I am coming for you, Randver!’ Sigurd bellowed, pointing his blood-slick sword at the jarl who stood up on his stern deck. Sigurd’s men moved with him like a wave of death sweeping over his enemy’s deck. ‘Are you ready for me, Randver? You white-livered nithing!’

Hearing this and seeing the day was lost Skarth strode back to join his lord and the two of them watched as the last three of Randver’s hirðmen were slaughtered where they stood. Sigurd turned and looked back across
Fjord-Wolf
’s deck. Bodies lay everywhere. You could hardly see the oak boards for them.

Then he turned back to the bow and told his men to hold, which they did, gasping for breath but holding themselves straight and tall, chests heaving like forge bellows, sweat dripping from beards and running down sleeves to cascade from wrists.

Then Bram shrugged his broad shoulders and stepped forward.

‘Don’t even think about it,’ Olaf gnarred, and Sigurd knew there was no point in trying to stop Olaf now. Skarth grinned, if it could be called a grin in an axe-holed face like that, and shook his head to rouse himself, his one blond braid whipping his scab-crusted head.

‘I will enjoy killing you, Olaf,’ Skarth said, and the only answer he got was a clash of blades that must have rattled his big bones. There was no more said between them as their swords rang out and they circled each other like two great wolves, each seeking the opening.

But then Olaf seemed to tire of the game. He took Skarth’s next blow on the strongest part of his sword near the hilt and forced the other’s sword up high then stepped in and smashed his helmet into Skarth’s face. Skarth stepped backwards and scythed his blade down but Olaf blocked it again, this time sending it wide and hammering a fist into Skarth’s jaw and it was a blow that would have stunned a bull. Skarth staggered, lifting his blade to block the sword he thought was coming. But Olaf stepped up with a clenched fist and hammered him and this time Sigurd heard the jaw bones crack like knots in wood when the fire eats into them.

Skarth went down onto one knee and Olaf stared down and shook his head as though disappointed, then swung his sword and took off Skarth’s ugly head.

‘You’ve improved his looks anyway, Uncle,’ Svein said with a grin, standing there with one arm resting on his long-axe.

Jarl Randver looked to the south-west as though he thought his son might suddenly appear with four ships full of men. But there was nothing out there other than Rán’s white-haired daughters running across the wind-rippled sea. Sigurd thought the jarl would throw himself over the side then, rather than beg for his life. But Randver was a still a jarl, even with none of his hearthmen left around him, and he had not got his torc by being a coward.

‘I will wait for you in the Allfather’s hall, Sigurd Haraldarson,’ he said, then cast his shield over the side, raised his sword wide and strode forward. Sigurd avoided the first three cuts, catching the fourth on his own blade, then plunged the scramasax into the jarl’s neck and hauled it across, ripping the throat open in a snarl of flesh and windpipe and glistening white bone.

‘You will see your sons there first,’ Sigurd snarled in his ear, throwing his blades down and picking the jarl up by his sword belt. Then Svein was there and together they lifted the jarl, whose eyes bulged with the things he could no longer say, and dumped him over
Fjord-Wolf
’s side. Then they leant on the sheer strake and watched as Randver’s fine brynja dragged him down into the dark depths and the waves covered him as though he had never existed.