Viking Sword: A Fall of Yellow Fire: The Stranded One (Viking Brothers Saga Book 1) (2 page)

He clenched his teeth, indignation intense that he and his men had done all the preliminary fighting and taken the gates, only to lose the battle. They had prowled like phantoms along the walls of the fortress, unseen and unheard, almost reaching the main entrance before the guards on the wall sensed their presence and sounded the alarm. They returned the challenge, and surged forward to form an overhead shield-wall to protect those battering the palisade gates. They had only just broken through, when attack had come from their flank, taking them completely unaware.

He still did not know how many men they had lost at that first clash, but when the seemingly endless horde of warriors streamed out of the confusing, billowing mists and fell upon their warriors, Karl, fighting with him at the gate, advised withdrawal. He agreed. There was greater honor in living to raid other villages, and though the Nornar might have destined this day as his time for the journey to Valhöll, he refused to
seek
death, for him or his men. Raising his blowing horn, he sounded the notes signaling retreat.

They gathered their wounded, and ran for the drekars. It had been all they could do against the overwhelming odds to fight their way clear.

In the chill, dense moisture that had begun as a key strategic advantage, but was now simply a veil for their flight, he engaged with yet another hearth companion who caught up with him. Rage blazed, goading him to fierce effort. Common sense would argue that his failure to complete his task was a matter beyond the control of any of man. Still, his father would accept no excuse, and he expected to have painful strips skinned from his hide,
if
he survived the rearguard action he fought and managed to return home.

An agonized growl, so low he almost missed it, came from off to his side and just out of his sight. Karl! His brother would not allow such a sign of weakness unless he was fearfully hurt. The metallic clang of weapon upon weapon in that direction at least proved his brother could still fight, despite whatever wound had caused that groan.

With an underhanded stab of Frækn delivered beneath his opponent’s shield, he dispatched the man and turned to aid his brother. The fighter that engaged Karl had his back to him, his weapon already arcing to decapitate. At the last moment, he seemed to sense his peril. He checked the deadly blow and started to turn, but the action was too late. Brandr’s blade thrust through his heart.

They were not yet safe. More of the enemy advanced through the mist.

He slung his shield over his back to free his hands and knelt beside Karl, who attempted to get to his feet. “Brother! What is amiss?”

He sucked in a silent inhalation at the axe buried deep in the back of Karl’s thigh. Blood trickled from the wound, but if he pulled the weapon free now, it would flow like water over a fall. Best to leave it until he could get him to the ships.

Karl’s face was white as moonlight beneath his sea-tan. “Cursed hearth companion got lucky,” he muttered through gritted teeth. “He must have thrown the weapon blindly, but it found its mark. Help me up! We have got to keep moving.”

“Where are the others?”

“I do not know. Hjort and Olvir were ahead of me. Where they are now, I cannot guess. In this murk, it is impossible to know for sure where
we
are.”

“I think the beach is that way.” Brandr made a vague gesture to their front. “Can you stand?”

Karl tried to grin. “Have I a choice?”

Brandr returned the smile. “I could carry you.”

Karl answered with a grimace. “Huh! And listen to you complain to Father what a helpless, snot-nosed child his heir is? I will keep up.”

The hearth companions behind them had, for the moment, lost track of their quarry, but it was a temporary reprieve at best. Brandr picked up his brother’s fallen sword, shoved it into his hand, and got an arm under his right shoulder. Karl grunted between clenched teeth as he heaved himself up on his good leg. Brandr steadied him.

“Lead the way, Bjarki.”

The next few moments were among the most harried of Brandr’s three and twenty years. Karl used his sword as he would a walking stick but still, their shambling progression toward the beach was more a series of controlled staggers than a strategic retreat. Karl’s breathing was rough and too loud, though he sought to suppress it.

Brandr could not fault him. His brother had to be in agony.

A triumphant howl was all the warning they had as two ghostly forms materialized out of the mist before them. Brandr was fighting for their lives before he had time to wonder how the men had gotten in
front
of them.

Alone, he could take on two men with only one hand free, but keeping hold of Karl would put his brother at further risk. He murmured a soft apology and dropped him. Karl threw himself out of Brandr’s sword range, his indrawn hiss of pain almost lost beneath the laughter of the Saxons.

Thorr’s hammer!

No time to get his shield in hand. The warriors flanked and stalked him, seeking to take him out of the action first. He prepared for the tactic with sword and axe. It would not be the first time he had beaten back multiple adversaries. The Saxon to his left suddenly cursed and went down. A lightning glance revealed the fool had dropped his guard and circled too close to Karl, who buried his blade nigh to the hilt in the man’s side.

A snarl contorted the second fighter’s lips as he jumped toward Karl. Brandr leapt to his brother’s defense, only to curse as the warrior hurled himself back in the opposite direction. Brandr twisted as he sought to protect his flank from the unexpected maneuver, angling his sword to deflect the powerful blow, but not quite in time. The other’s blade slid down Frækn’s length in a screech of metal, and he felt its keen bite as it sliced, cutting through the metal links of his ring-shirt and padded undertunic.

There was little pain. His blade and the mail absorbed the worst of the damage. The wound was not mortal, but deep enough to weaken him from blood loss if he did not finish this, and
now
.

Keeping his own body between the warrior and Karl, he went on the offensive with a series of lightning stabs and swings. The fighter was good, almost as skilled as Brandr’s father, the only man he had never been able to best during training. Calling on the memory of a maneuver his sire had once used to defeat him, he abandoned finesse. Dropping his axe, and with a two-handed grip on Frækn’s hilt, he bludgeoned the other’s shield, driving the man back to gain the distance he needed, and keep him on the defensive.

Then he hopped backwards on one foot. In a pretense of stumbling over Karl, he feigned a loss of balance, letting go of his sword. He threw out his empty hand as if to stop his fall, but as he did so, he grabbed a fistful of dirt and tiny stones. The hearth companion launched toward him, coming in fast. Brandr pitched the mix into his eyes. The man howled and made an instinctive, vicious swipe with his weapon before sprinting away in the roiling mist.

Mighty hammer of Thorr!

He huffed a hard, deep breath. A hair closer and he would have been eviscerated. As it was, the wound to his side burned like the flames of Ragnarók. He knew by the growing wet patch seeping down his thigh that it bled freely.

He retrieved his weapons, and felt his face settle into grim lines as voices speaking the Saxon dialect crawled through the soft white clouds surrounding them. Two men, even three he could deal with, but he feared the number of warriors now descending upon their position was more than he could best.

Karl agreed. “Brandr,” he whispered, “I am a hindrance. Leave me, or Father will lose us both.”

“You may imagine, brother, but it will never be.”

The mists around them parted in violent whorls as two more shadowy figures leapt into view from different directions, but one of them Brandr instinctively recognized. Only one man of his acquaintance bore a frame like the giants of old. He wore no helm and carried no shield, but he brandished a great bearded axe.

“Playing instead of fleeing, are we?” Sindre’s voice boomed like thunder on the horizon, unconcerned how far it carried. “I would join the game, but those of us who can still move are preparing to launch. They await us, and it would be discourteous to disappoint them. We may enjoy ourselves another day.” His whole face was alive with glee as he faced the now wary Saxon who silently circled, waiting for his comrades to arrive. “Go on ahead! I will deal with this whelp.”

“Do not linger, Sindre,” Karl ordered as he scrambled up on one foot with Brandr’s help. “Even you cannot defeat an army.”

“Fear not, lads, I will be right behind you.”

“See that you are,” Brandr said. Leaving behind the clash of weapons, he and Karl raced with as much speed as possible toward the beach. Surely, it was not far now. It seemed as if he had been running and fighting for days, though it was still early morn.

By the time Sindre caught up, Brandr was nearly dragging a slumping Karl. He stopped. His brother’s head hung low over his chest and his breathing was labored.

“Pick up the pace, lads,” Sindre said. “Our hosts are many. They want to join the fun, but I do not think we three together are a match for them.” He abruptly went still, staring at Brandr. “You are hurt. How badly?”

Brandr gritted his teeth and forced himself to straighten. “Not enough to hold us up.”

Sindre searched his face and nodded. He wrapped a massive arm around Karl. Brandr suddenly felt like he was tied to a dragon as they fairly flew down a gentle incline. Up ahead, the faint slap of waves sounded against a shoreline of pebble-strewn sand. The low murmur of familiar speech lured them on with the promise that the ships—and a degree of safety in which Karl’s wound could be treated—were at hand. But even as relief flooded his soul, Karl went utterly slack between them, his dead weight dragging. They stopped, but shouts, too close for comfort, drew a backward glance from Brandr and Sindre both.

Brandr met his uncle’s gaze. Before Sindre could protest, he shoved his brother into his arms and stepped away. “The enemy is too close and the beach too far. We will not make it if we stay together. I cannot carry him. Go! Get him home to Father.”

Karl, still conscious, muttered in protest, but did not lift his head. The merriment was wiped from Sindre’s eyes like the wash of waves over sand. Resignation shadowed his expression. “If you survive, lad, hold on. Do not yield hope. I will return, and find you.”

“Já, we will,” Karl said.

“Nei, do not return. I will catch up if I can, or fight my way clear and make my way home overland once you are away. Go!”

He whirled and plowed into the chill vapors. He had taken but a handful of steps before he literally collided with the first of the oncoming warriors. They were many, and closer than he had thought. The fog had distorted their proximity.

The resultant skirmish was fierce. Frustration compounded by icy rage catapulted him into nigh berserkr frenzy. Valhöll loomed. He welcomed it. Let the Valkyrjur come! In the flash of a heartbeat, he forgot the pain of his wound and the weakness brought on by blood loss, forgot even his name and why he fought. He knew naught but the swing of Frækn and the flash of his axe. He evened the odds against him as one by one, his enemies fell.

He came to himself only when there was no one left to fight. He struggled to draw breath, and blinked at the sticky moisture sliding into his eyes as he sought to orient himself. Around him lay only the dead, shadows in the mist. Some distance beyond, in the direction from which they had come, men still battled. The shouting had ceased, and there came to his ears only the clash of weaponry, but he could
feel
the focused intensity of those who warred so silently. Yriclea’s defenders fought the Saxon intruders.

All to the good. Let them kill each other.

The thought heartened him and he turned away, intent on reaching the beach. It might still be possible to catch up to the others before they left. The cacophony behind him faded toward the village, growing distant. His ears picked up the faint shrieks of women but that, too, died away as he lurched forward, hoping his efforts had gained his men the escape time they needed.

He had not so far to go as he had thought. Again, the fog distorted distance. He passed between the mist-shadowed cliffs, loped across the beach and splashed into the gentle surf.

The drekars were gone.

Ruthlessly, he crushed despair.

To his right, a dark lump slumped upon the sand. Beyond it was Yriclea’s small dock. Its outlines were blurred in the fog, but on it, he spied a bundle.

He angled toward the lump and bent to investigate. At his feet was a dead hearth companion. The others must have either surprised him here, or he attacked as they approached and died for his efforts.

The bundle on the dock turned out to be his húdfat, a water skin, a tightly capped horn of bjórr—which elicited an appreciative grin—and an extra fur. Prominent on top of the outer flap of the sleep sack was Karl’s silver pendant, on which his name was incised in runes, encircling the hammer of Thorr.

They had not forgotten him, and the pendant meant Karl still lived when Sindre got him this far.

He faced the sea and stared into the shifting moisture, but naught was visible. Here, at water’s edge, the fog was not so thick and he could see some distance onto the waves, but not far enough. Giving thanks to Odinn and Thorr for the safety of the men, he was about to return to the cliff top when more shouts, as of distress, came to his hearing, but these came from out on the water. His heart clenched. He waded farther into the surf, trying to make sense of the cries.

Abruptly, as if the gods favored his sight, the fog separated in a nearly straight swathe ahead of him. Outlined under blue sky he viewed a sight he had seen but once before and had hoped never to see again.

How did the portents go so wrong? Did the runes lie, or did the seer misread them?

The Stethi, one of their three drekars, was sinking. Already, its proud dragon prow lifted high above the waves, while its stern gunwale barely cleared the surface. He started to run before he remembered he was thigh deep in surf. He came to a splashing halt. They were too far away. He could not help, but he could see men swimming from the Stethi to be pulled from the sea by those in the Andskoti. He watched the doomed ship, but saw no more men dive from it. He could but hope all had made it off and were now safe in the other vessels. If great Odinn had not utterly withdrawn his favor, both of the surviving ships would soon be off. The order to set oars came, clear and welcome, to his ears. The drekars pulled away.