Maroboodus: A Novel of Germania (The Goth Chronicles Book 1) (6 page)

‘They are herding the dogs now,’ Hulderic said, and he was right. Javelins flew after the stragglers and the vanguard of the Saxons. Most missed, some hit and three of the enemy went down, screaming. The rest, some eight men saw us and headed for us, and pointed their spears at the woods, yelling gutturally, thinking we were with Cuthbert.

‘They think we are their kin,’ Dubbe chortled. ‘Oh, they will learn a hurtful truth in a bit.’

‘Kill them. It’s our job,’ Hulderic said coolly to his men, as the enemy was close to us. We turned that way, thickened into a column—a cunus resembling a boar’s tusk—with Hulderic as a deadly tip and I was at the rear. The enemy slowed down, cheering as they saw us coming but then some spotted our strange standard and one, cleverer than the others, noticed our hair knots.

They had no chance.

Javelins flew at them, several of the unlucky Saxons howled in pain and we spread to chase the last ones. Hulderic roared at one who turned to fight and spears flashed as the long-faced enemy tried to impale Father from under the shield. Father had none of it, but bowled the enemy over with his shield and then his spear flashed down at the kicking corpse, puncturing his belly. The man shuddered and prayed and wept and died, and we stopped after the small skirmish. ‘One got away,’ I hissed, ashamed, for I had not even gotten close to the enemy. ‘One ran there to the woods.’

‘Doesn’t matter. The villagers will have him,’ Hulderic said happily, his beard wet with blood as well as rainwater. ‘Run after Friednot.’ We jogged after the advancing column of the Gothoni and we were panting when we reached them at the woods’ edge, the one separating the beach from the hills. We plunged in, our hearts racing and on the rain-beaten beach, there was chaos.

Some hundred and fifty Saxons were milling in confusion, as there was a block of Gothoni guarding the doorway to their ships. The three Saxon scouts were on their faces by the gate and a huge man, Hughnot, was making mocking dancing steps before his troops. His standard was behind him, one of dark, dead crows.

‘You wish to live?’ Cuthbert was screaming, sitting on his horse. ‘You have come to the wrong place to have a dance! Are you lost, perhaps? Give me back my fucking ships, and perhaps you can go home and weep with your rancid women, Hughnot!’

‘You, lord of tears,’ Hughnot was laughing, ‘will sleep under the stars this night. You’ll be alone and afraid, and the crabs will have your coward’s heart! I’ll shine your bald head, you filth, after you are dead. I’ll take the skin and stretch it on my shield. I’ll shit in the skull, too.’

Cuthbert turned his horse and his men rippled in anger. He was pointing his ax at Hughnot’s forty Black Goths. The pirate was utterly enraged, spittle flying and the horse echoed his master’s mood. It was dancing around madly, its eyes huge and ears flattened on the sides, perhaps sensing our presence, but it was wiser than its master. The Saxons yelled raucous encouragements to each other. There were few men with strange coats of feathers and they strutted forward. ‘Damned vitka,’ Hulderic said somberly. ‘And ours died in the winter.’

‘Friednot’s will do,’ I said.

‘They are useless as a bent cock,’ Dubbe spat.

‘Theirs will die today,’ Maino laughed from nearby. ‘I’ll slit their spines and lick at the marrow.’

‘Spare them, if you see them,’ Bero hissed at his son. ‘They are holy men. We are Gothoni, the first men and will act like it.’

‘Probably the only time I agree with the ham-faced bastard,’ I muttered, meaning Maino. I hated and feared the priests. I glanced at Bero’s hand. There was Draupnir’s Spawn, the family ring, old as time and rumored to be given to the first humans by Woden, to Aska and Embla. The Gothoni, the Suebi tribes across the seas, revered it even. Our lost family in islands of Gothonia wanted it back. It was as magical as the spells of vitka, but I could at least understand its power. It was real. I would have used it, I thought, to stomp the Saxons into the cracks of the riverbed in
their
lands, not ours.

But that was not to be. It would be Maino’s next, just like it had been Friednot’s over Hughnot. Maino would always be above me. I could not stomach the thought and bile rose to my throat.

The enemy was chanting now. They were banging their spears on their shields and some were herding the prisoners to the side. Hughnot was laughing at the vitka, and showed them his hairy ass, before marching disdainfully to stand with his men. Some javelins flew after him, one shuddered in the palisade. The enemy shrieked, lifted their shields, slammed them together and walked forward with a tromp of heavy feet. Some broke off to climb the palisade on the sides, but Cuthbert was taking his best men forward in a thick column and the Black Goths cheered them on, mocking their efforts, tightening across the palisade’s opening, ferocious, shield over shield, spears ready, vastly outnumbered, but not by valor.

‘Wish they’d hurry it up,’ Friednot said as he was dismounting. ‘I have not eaten since early morning. This is a bloody nuisance.’ He looked calm, but there was something in his eyes that belied nervousness. The enemy was more numerous, but not by much. We had an advantage of surprise. All should have been well. Yet, the great man was nervous and then three ravens flew across our troops, and that made him serious and silent. The vitka looked away, avoiding Friednot’s eyes. The Thiuda slapped Osgar, his champion on the back of his head. ‘Bastards. Yellow damned bastards. We shall go and kill them. Fear nothing. We cannot get them in any better place than this.’

‘Yes, Father,’ Bero said, his voice thin as he stood twisted to the side a bit, as was his way. ‘Straight in?’

‘No need for a plan, son,’ Grandfather said, assuring the men around him. ‘Straight into their thin backs. Split the necks, spear the backs, and rout them to Hel and have them drink tears.’

The enemy cheered, as if to deny Friednot’s brave words.

They charged.

Swift javelins and stones flew from Hughnot’s troop to rip out the worst brunt of the charging Saxon mass. We didn’t see them hit, but a chorus of pained shrieks told us many found their marks in the enemy ranks and here and there, a head disappeared to be trampled under the men behind. Most found shields, some flesh and there was a lot of confusion with the Saxon troops as wounded and dying men hampered the column. Spears and javelins flew back and forth as the troops closed and now Hughnot’s Gothoni were also falling, gaps appearing on the shield ranks.

‘Charge!’ yelled Friednot with a thrilling voice, his standard of flayed skin flapped under the gray sky. He drew his sword, the Head Taker, and we went on, wild and mad and cheered ourselves hoarse.

The Saxons were near oblivious to our attack. Their Thiuda, Cuthbert had had a bad day, a serious lapse in his normal cunning, and that’s what Bero had suggested would happen, when the enemy king saw his beloved ships taken. The ones guarding the prisoners turned to look at our wild troop, their mouths open, unable to respond, but that was all. The rest did not notice, as they were shouting like mad, concentrated on Hughnot. There was a thundering sound as shields met shields, spears thrust down and up and men fell. The Black Goths took a step back, another, under the terrible pressure, but then the men gritted their teeth, and pushed back at the Saxons, who had been marching for days, fighting and were half starved. Screams of pain drifted across the beach and I was sure I heard Hughnot’s voice shout out a filthy challenge to Cuthbert.

We rushed to the back of the enemy. ‘Ready javelins!’ yelled Bero thinly as we ran.

‘Pummel them! Then straight at them!’ yelled Friednot. ‘Throw javelins when in range, and then rip the bastards in half!’

‘Follow me!’ shrieked Hulderic, as his men tightened into a boar’s tusk behind him.

We all stopped for just a moment, javelins were hoisted by those who held them, men drew them back and let go, cheering gleefully as the missiles flew like a flight of deadly sparrows, grabbed another and let them go as well, and we went on with our framea. The missiles hit the Saxon back, men mostly not ready for such a surprise. A dozen or so, then twenty or more went down in a rattle of shields, pushing on to the backs of their friends, causing terrible chaos. Friednot’s and Bero’s men also bunched into arrow-shaped columns and charged over the dead and dying, trampled over the wounded and crashed into the rapidly turning and readying, shocked to its core, but bigger enemy column. A haphazard shieldwall was facing us, led by a tall, scarred Saxon with a seax and a round shield. Hulderic bashed into the wall, his men followed him and the cunus penetrated deep, bowling over bleeding Saxons, gouging inside the ranks, reaching the men who didn’t expect the battle from behind. Men were punching their framea over the backs of the first rank, then axes and clubs joined the fray and we slowly spent our rage on the enemy shields and skulls. Friednot’s and Bero’s men did the same and soon, too soon we had flattened into a ragged shield wall facing another.

Saxons didn’t die easily, not by far.

They knew the dead would be left unburied, the wounded would be sacrificed to Woden and Donor and the few lucky ones would end up prisoners and slaves. We stabbed at them with the ferocity of the jotuns, hacked madly in the terrible chaos, and pushed savagely and they did as well. I was in the third rank, and men left and right of me pushed into the holes that came to be as the wall lived, or when men died. I saw Dubbe and Sigmundr stand next to each other, guarding Hulderic’s back, slashing axes at Saxon skulls, ripping them out, then repeating the deadly chops at the panting, scared enemy who were pushed to stop them by their friends. Somewhere Hughnot screamed in triumph, and his warlords, Ingo and Ingulf, and son Hrolf were probably doing terrible harm to Cuthbert’s best men. I cursed and feared so hard I wanted to piss my pants, and begged Woden for mercy so I would not. I saw Maino raging with Bero’s champions on the left. He pushed between two tall Saxons, and hacked left and right in berserker frenzy, his eyes wild and mouth foaming. He was bleeding from a shallow wound on his shoulder but otherwise he seemed unhurt. ‘Donor! Smite them in between their shifty eyes!’ he was hollering. ‘Between their eyes!’ he kept yelling, a ferocious, nearly hysterical note in his voice.

A Goth fell before me. His face was battered by a rock and he crawled away to moan in the mud next to me. Sigmundr pushed me from the side. ‘Take the place in the second rank. Stab at anything armed and ugly! Except Dubbe!’ The fat champion was near, grunting as two Saxons were trying to pull his shield away, unsuccessfully, and I knew he was laughing at Sigmundr’s words.

Before me, in the exhausted and bleeding first rank stood a Goth who held on to his battered shield. He had no weapons, but kept blocking two young Saxons. They kept trying to hack and stab at the man with clubs and a stub of a spear, but he held his place stubbornly. I was hovering over his shoulder, trying to find an opening, despairing, but then, when one of the Saxons got frustrated and stepped too close, the Goth grabbed the man’s wrist expertly and pulled the Saxon to his shield. That was my chance and I used it. I rammed the heavy killing spear in the young face. His eyes grew huge as he saw me lunging, he tried to dodge, but could not as the Goth held on to him and so my spear slid into his throat. It was hard to understand how fast, how effortless it was. There was a gaping maw as he screamed; the tip was under the skin, blood came out of it. He was mortally wounded, his eyes red, full of despair and fear. He lived, hanging on to the spear, and then the living thing turned into a sack of rotting meat. He was a shuddering corpse at our feet, on his way to Valholl.

‘Well done, boy!’ the man before me yelled. At that point, a savage, tall Saxon killed a man who had been covering the Goth before me, and that spelled doom for us. The tall Saxon turned his spear to the unarmed Goth from his now uncovered right side, and the man who had fought so well for us gritted his teeth as he tried to step away, but bumped into me, and so the Saxon with a club struck him across face. His head flew back, teeth flying, and there was a strange look of confusion of a man dying as he fell at my feet. Another Goth to my right screamed as a seax cut to his knee. He fell and was hacked to pieces by a fat Saxon and his ax. And that left me a first ranker, as I was pushed to straddle the fallen man. The ax man raised his blood-spattered face to me and so did the club hoisting one. We all looked at each other, all bewildered, flushed in the throng of battle, spattered by blood, mud and reeling from the stench of sweat and piss. Then the ax man charged, hoping I’d be too terrified to react, and perhaps I looked like I was about to run. Instead, I braced the spear and he ran right into it. It did not go deep, but deep enough to make him scream like an animal. I shook in shock as he slid away from the weapon. I had killed again. I had
earned
my shield. The club Saxon had stepped away.

Something happened up ahead. Men screamed happily, others screamed hate and defiance. Either Hughnot had died, or perhaps Cuthbert, or some greater champion everyone knew.

Hulderic was near me, and his spear was all bloodied and so was his arm to the shoulder. He and the men of our villages were pushing, then hacking, pushing, and hacking and slowly, very slowly the enemy gave room. Men fell; the Saxons were being pushed from the sides and every direction now. I held my spear, wounding men, pushing them as they stood before me, some turning to push away through the braver Saxons. Dark shields were broken, weapons were spent, and then the Saxon chief, seeing the fear in his men’s eyes, decided to turn the fates. He was a toothless man with a huge jaw, golden beard with silver rings and a brooding forehead, and he resembled a spirit-taken maniac as he danced away from the first rank near me and went hunting. He had lost his seax, but had found an ax. He was after important prey. He pushed into the second ranks of the Saxons, got stuck with his shield in the press of battle, abandoned it, jerking it off brutally from his arm. He was eyeing Friednot’s skin banner, not far, jumping and reaching across his men’s backs to see our lord. ‘Look out! Dubbe!’ I screamed, but the warrior was heaving with the enemy, so was Harmod next to him, strangling a man in the mud.
Osgar and Ludowig were there to protect Grandfather
, I decided, prayed, and fought a young Saxon whose shield had fallen apart and hung around his wrist. I kept glancing Grandfather’s way, feeling something terrible was about to happen. I saw Friednot’s horsehair helmet, not far in the line as he was pushing at Saxons, trying to slay a wounded man with the Head Taker, sawing it across the man’s face. Then he was swinging the great sword in the limited space, but it was not taking heads as the enemy was so close, instead it was splintering shields, spear shafts and carving flesh. Then, a Saxon fell, and the tall chief appeared, as if by a miracle of galdr song magic of a mighty vitka. The Saxon prayed, I saw it. Osgar saw him, but hesitated, his shield down. The Saxon threw his ax. It spun in the air, missing men’s heads, but it did not miss Friednot. Grandfather’s battle ended midswing, and his thick, near neckless head jerked to the side as the ax hit true and he was badly hurt, we all could see that. Osgar’s face was one of grim acceptance. There was a great wound in Friednot’s cheek, running to his throat and bone could be seen glinting amidst bloody flesh.