Viking Gold

© V. Campbell 2011

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as the author of the work in accordance with the

Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
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means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without
the prior permission of Fledgling Press Ltd,

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,
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,
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Published by Fledgling Press, 2011

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Cover design by Joanna Lisowiec

eBook format ISBN 9781905916412

Paperback format ISBN 9781905916290

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

Invictus,
William Ernest Henley

Part I

Home

If
Redknee had known sword fighting was going to be so important, he would have
listened to his uncle’s instructions. As it was, the heat of the afternoon was
getting to him. All he wanted was to escape the training yard and shelter in
the cool of the forest.

He tugged at his wool tunic. His
shield, big as a wagon wheel, weighed heavy on his arm. He rested it on the
ground, lowered his wooden sword and wiped the sweat from his brow. What did it
matter if he could fight? He was going to be a woodsman, a tracker. The village
didn’t need more warriors. His uncle had said it himself many times – the years
of raiding were over. The world had changed. Monasteries were no longer the
easy pickings they once were.

“Come on,” Uncle Sven shouted
across the yard. “You give up, you die.”

The men watching from the
shade of the village oak laughed. Redknee couldn’t be sure, but he thought he
heard one of them mutter, “Like father, like son.” 

He’d heard the slur often.
Not right to his face, mind. No one would be so brave, with Jarl Sven as his
uncle. But he heard the whispers all the same. Redknee did what he always did
and turned away.

The skinny youth opposite had
sixteen summers – same as Redknee. Harold the Thin was going to be the best
warrior in the village. Or so he never tired of telling everyone.

Harold moved his wooden sword
from hand to hand.

Taunting him.

Flies buzzed round Redknee’s
face. Sighing, he picked up his shield, raised his wooden sword and awaited the
blow. Might as well get the farce over with.

“Stop there lad.”

Redknee
glanced up. Uncle Sven was marching across the yard. He pulled Redknee aside
and spoke in a voice too low for the jeering onlookers to hear.

“Think of your shield like a
jug of mead,” he said gently. “Keep it high. Don’t let your arm drop. If it
does …”

Sven stared at the disc of
leather-covered yew. Redknee thought he saw sadness in the big man’s eyes. But
when Sven looked up, he was smiling, the sadness gone. “Come on,” he said,
slapping Redknee on the back. “Let’s try again.”

Dust sprayed the air as
Harold lunged at Redknee’s chest. Redknee heeded his uncle’s words and Harold’s
blow thudded uselessly off his shield. Harold’s eyes widened in surprise.

Having the advantage was new
to Redknee. Pride flashed through him.
Maybe he could be a warrior.
Thinking
quickly he thrust his sword at Harold’s belly. But Harold was already out of
reach, leaving Redknee’s arm floundering at empty air.

Before Redknee could recover,
Harold swung his sword low, beneath the protection of Redknee’s shield. Redknee
fell to the ground, pain coursing through his ankles. Harold stood over him,
the sun at his back casting him in silhouette, as if he were Hela, come to drag
Redknee to the underworld.

“You’re dead,” he said,
pressing the tip of his sword into Redknee’s  throat.

“Stop it boys!” Redknee heard
his mother call from the door of the longhouse. “That’s enough.”

Harold sniggered.

“Ach, he has to toughen up,”
Uncle Sven shouted back. “You’d have him in a bloody dress.”

Harold sneered down at Redknee.
“It’s called the snake-bite. Oldest move there is. But a sap like you wouldn’t
know that.” He twisted the wooden blade into Redknee’s throat until he gagged.
“Leif Redknee,” he said with disgust. “I claim victory over you - shame of the
Vikinger, just like your father.”

The
men’s laughter rang in Redknee’s ears as he stomped from the yard. He tossed
his shield into the long grass. Worthless piece of rubbish – let the dogs
sharpen their teeth on the rotten wood. He took the path that climbed the mountainside.
He craved to be up in the forest, far above the village. Away from lectures on
war-craft and the mind-numbing repetition of military moves. Better to spend a
sticky summer day running through the pine-scented darkness. Better to spend it
alone.

Things would have been
different if his father were still alive. No one would be calling him a coward
for a start. He would be the son of the Jarl, a position demanding respect. Oh,
Uncle Sven tried his best. But most of the time he was just too busy.

No, Uncle Sven wouldn’t come
after him. And Harold the Thin, despite his claims to martial greatness, was
too afraid of wolves to venture up the mountain. The only person in the whole
village who might care was his mother, but she only left the longhouse to work
in the weaving hut or wash clothes in the stream.

No, Redknee was on his own,
just the way he liked it.

Redknee
stood on the edge of a bluff half way up the mountainside. He’d made good
progress. Far below, the straw roofs of the longhouses glinted in the sun, as
if on fire. Bounded on one side by the silvery-blue of Oster Fjord and on the
other by a patchwork of brown fields, the village looked peaceful. Happy, even.

But the summer had been dry. The
barley thirsted in the fields, and the mood in the village stank like dung
cooking in the
midday
heat. Redknee turned his back on the view and
scrambled on. There was nothing for him there.

After a short while, he heard
a soft crunching noise behind him.  He ignored it at first, quickening his
pace until his deerskin boots skidded on the floury earth.

“You’re going too fast!”

He turned to see a hood of
copper curls bobbing between the trees. He sighed. “Why are you following me,
Sinead? You will be wanted back at the village.”

The girl shrugged. “You
looked upset.”

“Slaves are not allowed to
leave the village without permission. My uncle will have you whipped.”

Bristling, Sinead folded her
arms across her chest. “Well I thought you might really be running away this
time. Are you?”

“Don’t know.” He kicked a
loose stone. It skimmed off a tree trunk.

“Can I come with you anyway?”

Redknee
sighed. Sinead had asked him about the mountain before. About where the paths led,
how far they were from the next village, the nearest big port. She seemed to
think him as keen to escape the village as she was. “Look,” he said eventually,
“even if I am running away, and I’m not saying I am, you couldn’t come with
me.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’ll slow me down.
And you don’t know the ways of the forest. You’d end up troll food in no time.”

“Do trolls really live up
here?” she asked, her green eyes scanning the tangle of leaves above their
heads.

Redknee reached out to a low
hanging branch and swung himself up until he was sitting atop it, his legs
dangling over the side. He needed to get rid of her to have any chance of
tracking the wild deer that roamed the mountain. Her chattering would scare off
even the dopiest fawn.

“These woods …,” he said,
weaving between the lacework of branches “… are swarming with trolls.”

“No!” Her eyes widened.

He stood, balancing on a
stout branch, stretching his arms towards the canopy. “They are as tall as an
oak and as fierce as a bear, with sharp red teeth and fiery eyes.”

Sinead snorted.

“It’s true,” Redknee
continued, pulling himself higher. “In fact, they live in tree-trunks, just
like this one.” He rapped the coarse bark with his knuckles.

“Don’t!” Sinead gasped.

Redknee smiled. “Why ever
not?”

“You’ll wake it—”

A sudden crackle of leaves
startled Redknee and he lost his footing. He heard Sinead scream as he crashed
to the ground like a sack of turnips. His head pounded and his left arm ached
along its length.

“Don’t move.” Sinead’s
firestorm hair drifted in and out of focus as she kneeled over him.

“Was it a troll?” he asked.

“Shh, don’t try to speak.”

Ignoring her, Redknee dragged
himself up with his uninjured arm. The movement made him feel sick. He turned
from her quickly, spewing vomit on his breeches.

She
handed him her apron. As he took it, he saw her nose wrinkle at the stench and
his cheeks burned with shame.

Suddenly her attention was
distracted. Redknee stopped dabbing. His ears attuned to the distant
whoosh
– whoosh
of someone, or something, charging through the undergrowth. He
listened carefully. Too heavy to be a deer. A bear? No – too fast. Whatever it
was, it was coming their way. He turned to Sinead as a spear flashed past her
head. Her face went blank and she fell to the ground.

“Sinead!” He scrambled to
where she lay. “Sinead, were you hit?”

No reply.

He turned her over. Blood
trailed from her hairline and spread, like spindly fingers, over her closed
lids.

Closer now, he recognised the
rhythmic thud of hooves. Horses! Needing no further warning, he lifted Sinead
using his good arm and dragged her beneath a big hawthorn bush. He stayed
there, hunkered down in the mud for what seemed like ages, listening to the
steady approach of the horses.

A hulking warrior with
straggly, piss-coloured hair and a cross-shaped scar over his left eye urged a
grey stallion into the clearing. The powerful horse rose onto its hind legs as
three other riders joined him. The first warrior motioned the other men
forward; Redknee took him to be the leader.

One of the men pulled the
spear that had struck Sinead from a tree. Redknee glanced down at her; she was
still breathing. It was just a graze.

“Come out, little mice,” the
leader shouted in accented Norse. “Skoggcat wants to play …” Redknee watched as
a youth, painted head to toe in orange and black stripes, stepped forward
brandishing a ball and chain.

Sinead stirred. Redknee held
his hand lightly over her mouth. One false move and their hiding place would be
revealed.

Skoggcat
and the other four warriors circled the clearing, getting ever closer to the
hawthorn bush.

Sinead was awake now, her
eyes alert to the danger. Redknee cradled his bruised left arm against his
body. There was no way the two of them would be a match for this lot. Redknee’s
heart thrummed so loud, he was sure they must be able to hear it.