God of Vengeance (11 page)

‘You have been raiding people who I am sworn to protect, Jarl Harald,’ King Gorm accused, the words weaving through the forest, somehow filling it.

It was not true, or if it was then those people had made an alliance with the king which Gorm had failed to mention to Harald. But it did not matter. Biflindi needed the pretence, was simply looking to justify the breaking of their mutual oath.

‘You lie!’ Jarl Harald called, still tall, shoulders square as
Reinen
’s red sail, his chest inviting the arrow from any with the courage to loose it. ‘You and Jarl Randver are snakes in the same nest. I am wondering, do you use him as a woman or does he use you?’

There was no sharper insult a man could hurl than this and it brought a silence down over everything as men waited to see what came next.

‘I have come to an understanding with Randver,’ the king said eventually. ‘He has grown powerful. He has given me enough reason to weave an alliance with him.’

‘You mean he has given you silver,’ Harald said. ‘And in return you mean to give him my land. My silver.’

There was the clatter of armed men to their right and voices calling to each other up ahead.

‘Now we see the whoresons well enough,’ Sorli growled, pointing his spear at a line of warriors coming through the trees towards them. They were coming in loose order, perhaps thirty warriors stalking through the trees like wolves.

‘And there,’ Sigurd said, pointing his own spear to their front left where another body of men and shields was appearing.

‘Thór’s bristling bollocks, this will be a hard fight,’ Frothi said, scratching his nose with the rough inside of his shield.

‘Well it’s not my wyrd to die here,’ a bull of a man named Orlyg muttered. ‘I’ll die at sea in a ship fight or not at all.’

‘That old priest who came to Skudeneshavn last winter told him that,’ Finn remarked, ‘and you are a fool if you believe him, Orlyg, for he also said that I would be rich by the time the red hordes turned up, yet I have seen more curlew, sandpipers and red knots than any summer I can remember and I am still silver-light.’

‘That old piss stain told me my toothache would be gone by the time he reached Kopervik and the folk there were pouring him his first ale,’ Orn said. ‘I have heard better foretelling in a dog’s fart.’

‘Well why do you think he wanders from village to village and is not kept by a jarl or a king? You fools,’ Sorli said.

‘Still, I won’t die here. You can be sure of that,’ Orlyg said.

‘Here they come!’ Sorli cried.

‘Gorm!’ Harald yelled as the king’s men came on through the trees, no more than a spear-throw away now. ‘You can hear me, oath-breaker! Let us settle this the old way. My champion against yours!’

There was a shout and the shieldwall coming from the front left halted, its men planting their spear butts on the ground. Then it parted and a huge warrior rode through the breach on a pony, his mail and helmet, belts and scabbard glinting with gold fittings. Sigurd could not help but be impressed by the king who had come to kill them.

‘Your champion was Slagfid and he is lying on a bench in my hall so that my people can see him, though you would not recognize him now,’ King Gorm said. ‘My godi wanted to take his eyes so that he would never see the hall of the slain but I did not let him. He was a great warrior.’ The king leant over and spat onto the forest floor. ‘I afforded your sons no such respect.’

‘You prickless nithing!’ Sorli yelled, the fury coming off him like smoke from a pyre. Sigurd’s belly soured at the thought of some godi prising out Thorvard’s and Sigmund’s eyes and the sudden craving to kill King Gorm engulfed him like a wave so that he could barely breathe.

But Jarl Harald was as a rock, unmoved and unwilling to give his enemy the satisfaction.

‘My champion against yours, oath-breaker,’ he said again.

King Gorm patted his pony’s neck with ringed fingers as he considered this and Sigurd realized that he had some gold rings sewn amongst the grey ones of his brynja.

‘Why not!’ the king announced. ‘My father always said it was a bad thing to rush a good feast. Send forward your champion and I will send mine.’

‘Father,’ Sorli said. ‘I claim the right as your eldest son.’

Jarl Harald turned to Sorli and the smile in his beard reminded Sigurd of past times. ‘No, my son. You are a great fighter but you can still learn a few things from your father, hey.’ And with that Harald drew the pin from the great silver brooch at his right shoulder and took off his blue cloak, letting it fall to the ground. He gave the heavy brooch to Sigurd, winked at him then turned, hefting his spear and shield. He strode forward. ‘Who am I to kill then?’ he roared, and his men cheered their jarl and hurled curses at those facing them.

This was a good insult from Harald for every man in Skudeneshavn knew who King Gorm’s champion was but the jarl had in those six words pissed on the man’s reputation.

King Gorm’s thegns began to thump their spears, swords and axes against their shields and chant ‘Moldof! Moldof!’ as their champion left the line and walked towards Jarl Harald, bending his neck from side to side to loosen it as he came.

‘Frigg’s tits, I wouldn’t ask that ugly fuck to my house to share my night-meal,’ Asbjorn said, and men muttered in agreement with that for the man was huge, as big as Svein’s father Styrbiorn had been. It was one thing to know the man’s reputation as a killer, even to have the memories of him smiting their common enemies. It was another thing to see him in the flesh now, knowing he was against you.

‘Ah, he’s only a head taller than Harald,’ someone said. And only a touch broader, Sigurd thought.

‘But he’s much uglier,’ Orn Beak-Nose said, which was something coming from him.

Harald pointed his great spear at Moldof. ‘This ox of yours will low loud enough to wake our grandfathers when I gut him,’ he said. ‘And yet he is much smaller than I remember him. Have you not been feeding him, Gorm?’

Moldof grinned and it was a gruesome sight. No doubt in his time the man had heard every insult a man could come up with. That he was still alive to enjoy them meant that for plenty of men their insults had been their last words in this life.

‘I pissed on your sons’ corpses,’ Moldof said to Harald, his face as straight as its ugliness would allow, and this statement was worse than any insult a tongue could weave.

‘When Moldof has killed you, Jarl Harald,’ King Gorm said, spitting the word
jarl
, ‘my men will slaughter yours. And your sons.’ He looked at Sigurd now and Sigurd felt as if his eyes were burning at the sight of the king, as if they had venom in them. ‘You have grown, boy,’ Gorm said. ‘But I see you are not as pretty as your brother there.’

‘I will kill you, worm,’ Sigurd said.

King Gorm smiled at that. ‘I always liked you, boy.’ Then he turned his stare back to Harald. ‘Your bloodline ends today, Harald.’

Sigurd did not need to see his father’s face to know the wolf grin that parted his beard then. ‘Perhaps,’ he said. ‘And we will wait for you in the Allfather’s hall, oath-breaker.’ Oath-breaker, a good play on the king’s byname Shield-Shaker that, and it was not lost on any man there regardless of which side they were on. Such names stick to a man like shit to sheep, Sigurd thought.

‘Do not disappoint me, Moldof,’ the king said through a wall of teeth.

Moldof thrust his spear stave against the back of his shield and his sword-brothers roared encouragement and he came forward rolling his huge shoulders, the rings of his enormous brynja shifting like the grey sea.

‘Open him up, Father!’ Sorli was straining like a wolf on a rope but knew he had no choice but to stand his ground and watch. ‘That ox will tire quickly,’ Sorli told Sigurd, ‘and he will not have the wits to match Father. Men as big as that don’t hone their wits because they don’t normally need them.’

‘It’s the same with pretty men,’ Asbjorn put in, grinning at Sorli who called him a crab-clawed son of a mare.

‘Gut him!’ Frothi yelled.

‘Go for his damned shins,’ Orn Beak-Nose growled. ‘I’d wager he can’t bend down that far to do anything about it.’

‘Aye, piss on his roots while he’s not looking,’ Finn said, for the king’s champion stood there like an oak and despite the advice Jarl Harald’s men gave him, it must have been hard for anyone to see how best to tackle the man.

Keeping his shield up Harald thrust his spear in an attack that would disembowel most men, but Moldof got his shield in the way and jabbed his own spear high and Harald dipped his head so that the blade went wide. Then the two warriors circled each other, eyes searching for weaknesses, muscle and sinew taut as a hauled halyard, both men set to strike.

Harald lifted his shield and thrust low but Moldof deflected with his own spear and then the two men’s strength and skill bloomed for all to see as they used their heavy spears almost like swords, slashing and cutting, parrying and twirling them to hammer their opponent with the butt ends. Sigurd imagined the fire in their arms and shoulders from using the spears single-handed, yet neither man showed any sign of it.

Then Harald anticipated a thrust and brought his shield across and it struck Moldof’s spear’s shaft, knocking it aside, as Harald barrelled forward slamming his shield’s rim into Moldof’s face. The giant staggered backwards, spitting teeth and blood, and the men around Sigurd howled in pleasure as Moldof hawked and spat a gobbet of blood at Harald. The jarl strode forward then thrust for Moldof’s face but as King Gorm’s man got his shield up Harald dropped like a rock and thrust up from the crouch, his spear blade ripping into the rings of Moldof’s brynja at his left hip and scattering them onto the forest floor. Moldof roared and Harald swung the spear in a throat-ripping arc but the giant got his shield up in time and Harald’s swing had so much muscle behind it that the marrow in his arm bone must have trembled with the impact. Moldof brought his own spear round and it clunked against Harald’s shaft which he forced down until the blade hit the ground. Then the bigger man brought his knee up and stamped down, snapping Harald’s spear, but the jarl swung what was left in his hand, catching Moldof in the temple with a blow that would have dropped a bull.

Then Harald stepped back, hurling the broken stave which clattered off Moldof’s shield, and the two men caught their breath and Sigurd hoped that Óðin Allfather was watching this fight.

‘This is your champion, oath-breaker?’ Harald called to King Gorm. Two or three of the king’s men bellowed at their champion to have done with the thing and take the jarl’s head from his neck, but most were silent, perhaps not used to seeing Moldof take so long to kill an opponent. The king himself had a face like a bucket full of thunder.

‘I am insulted,’ Harald said, drawing his great sword whose blade shone with its dragon breath pattern in the forest’s strange half light like a mackerel’s back ten feet down. ‘Any one of my sons could beat this lump of cow shit.’ The jarl was straight-faced but he must have been hoping his words would sting Moldof into foolishness, that in his rage the giant would present him with a killing opportunity. But Moldof was not so stupid as he looked and now he rolled those huge shoulders again and grinned, for he was the one with the spear whilst the jarl only had his sword and the scramasax.

In came the spear, striking like lightning, thundering off wooden shield and metal boss as Harald kept his feet moving, turning the giant round in slow circles to disorientate him, which was all he could do because of his disadvantage in reach. That spear blade glanced off his helmet, then off his left shoulder and then Moldof roared, bringing the spear over his head and striding forward to put his weight behind the thrust and the blade split the planks of Harald’s shield and caught fast. Harald hauled the shield back, yanking the spear from Moldof’s grasp, then slammed the whole lot into the ground so that the spear snapped, a foot of shaft jutting from the shield as Harald stood tall again.

To pierce a shield with a one-handed thrust was saga-worthy and every man knew it, which sent a shiver spidering up Sigurd’s spine because he knew it was the kind of feat that the gods loved. And as if to drive this nail deeper Moldof took his shield in both hands and turned, then twisted back and launched the thing and it spun through the air, slamming into Finn Yngvarsson and knocking him to the ground. The king’s thegns went wild at this, hooting and bellowing as Finn clambered to his feet and must have been glad for the beard hiding his red cheeks.

‘Arse, Finn! But it would have been better if you had stayed on your feet,’ Asbjorn growled, to which Finn asked Asbjorn what he would have done seeing as he had no shield.

‘It would have cut you in half,’ Finn answered for him, ‘so shut your mouth, claw-hand!’

‘Now now, girls,’ Sorli said, as Moldof came at Harald with a huge sword, grunting with each strike, sending splinters flying from the jarl’s shield which already had some spear shaft sticking from it.

Harald had no choice but to back off, then a downward strike cleaved into Harald’s shield and stuck, which was the idea and Moldof hauled the shield towards him pulling Harald off balance, then leant in and hammered his right fist into the jarl’s cheek and Sigurd heard the crack of bone. But somehow his father held on to the shield and staggered back with it still on his arm as Moldof strode forward and slashed his sword across, lopping off the bottom third of Harald’s shield. His next blow took another chunk and when Harald tossed it aside Sigurd saw that Moldof’s blade had bitten into the flesh of his father’s arm too, for blood was blooming on the jarl’s tunic where the brynja’s sleeve ended.

‘Bleed him, Father!’ Sorli called. Sigurd saw the curl of their father’s lip and knew he was in pain. Moldof sensed it too, like a wolf that knows its rival is wounded, and he came at Harald striking down onto the jarl’s raised sword over and over like a blacksmith, clearly convinced that if either sword broke it would be Harald’s. All the jarl could do was take shelter from the steel-storm under his own blade, his arm absorbing the impact and the ringing of it filling men’s ears and maybe the gods’ ears too.