Return of the Ravens (Ulfrik Ormsson's Saga Book 6) (28 page)

Arriving at his hall, Grimnr stopped short. "Freya's tits! Where are the guards?"

The hall doors hung open but none of the guards stood watch. Ulfrik again checked the sky, and the crows continued to circle but had drawn closer.

"Jarl Grimnr, sorry!" Vigrid trotted around the corner of the hall, holding his helmet on his head.

"Seems wandering off during guard duty has become a bad habit," Grimnr glared at Ulfrik, then back to Vigrid.

"I've got the runs," Vigrid said. "Half the men started with it last night."

Grimnr and Ulfrik straightened up at the news. An army of this size that squatted in one place too long eventually succumbed to disease. To Ulfrik's mind, an army should march to war and excite the gods with acts of heroism and bravery. When the army hunkered down, the gods were insulted and sowed illness in their ranks as punishment. Men with the runs were the first sign of burgeoning troubles.

"Is it just us? Maybe something you ate?" Grimnr touched the silver Thor's hammer at his neck, and Vigrid shook his head.

"The latrines are flowing over today."

"Shit!" Grimnr spun on his heels and glared at the rest of the camp.

"Lots of that," Ulfrik said, still watching the crows. Vigrid laughed, then grabbed the seat of his pants and ran the way he had come.

"This is bad," Grimnr said, his voice low. He laced his hands behind his head and paced. "I've seen this before. The shits begin and then half the men are dead within the month."

"Sooner than that."

"Well, aren't you a spot of sunshine?"

"It's better than what I'll say next." Ulfrik put his hand to Grimnr's back and pointed at the crows. "They took flight right after we left Amand's fortress and they've been circling. I think they're getting closer."

He did not have to explain the rest to a veteran like Grimnr. He stared at the crows in stunned silence, then growled. "If Mord is leading that attack, his son dies."

"Whoever leads it has obviously silenced your forward positions. And why are we not hearing alarms of the attack now?"

Grimnr's eyes widened. "I bet the men at the fences are at the latrines. We've been blinded"

As if in protest to Grimnr, distant horns began to sound, but the crows overhead indicated the attackers were almost to the first line of fences. Grimnr charged into the hall and shouted at his men to prepare for battle. Most of them snapped to the order with whoops and cries, but half a dozen of white-faced men crawled out of their beds to answer the call.

A young man, no older than seventeen, dashed across the field and burst into the hall, shoving Ulfrik aside. He was out of breath, but Grimnr grabbed him by his wool vest. "You've got a report?"

"Einar's banner, the bloody ax on a white flag, it's flying over the troops. They sprang out of nowhere. They're almost to the wall."

"How many?" Grimnr shook the boy.

"Three hundred, maybe."

"Three hundred men don't spring out of nowhere. Some goat-turd was asleep on duty." Grimnr seemed to realize he was shaking the boy and released him. "Have runners been sent to Count Amand? We need his archers and cavalry."

The runner nodded and took off as soon as Grimnr dismissed him. The camp was now alive with shouts, and glancing out the door Ulfrik saw groups of men running for the fences. Inside, chain armor clinked and weapons bumped the walls as Grimnr's men prepared to escort their jarl to battle.

Einar was making a spoiling attack to further delay the plans with Mord. Ulfrik knew this had to be true. If Einar were leading these men, then Ulfrik realized he could make contact during the battle and send a message back to Hrolf. Einar might not know he was alive, but still he had to try. Trying to communicate during a battle was not only difficult, but likely fatal. Awareness on the battlefield was key to survival, and concentrating on finding one man and making peace with him in the chaos inhibited awareness. One moment looking the wrong way and a spear might pop his guts before he could react.

"You need every man who can carry a shield," Ulfrik said. "Forget Count Amand's orders and take me with you."

Grimnr thumped his shoulder. "Get a mail coat, shield, and a sword from the hall. There will be something to fit you, then follow the others to the meeting point. I have to get the rest of these men ready."

Ulfrik watched him dash across the field, waving frantically at men to head for the fences. The clang of iron already drifted over the hall, and Ulfrik watched the crows circling and screaming. They were directly over the camp.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Ulfrik jogged behind Grimnr's hirdmen not only to conserve strength for the battle but also to drop out of line at his first chance. The mail shirt was tight across his chest and his hair caught in the links at the shoulders, but he carried the weight easily. His helmet sat too low on his head, and with no time to adjust the leather cap inside it, he found himself pushing it off his nose, though it continued to slide forward as he trotted to the front lines.

The sounds of battle washed over him. Screams, war cries, curses, blaring horns, clanging iron, crunching mail, wooden thuds. All of it hit him as square as a shield wall. Yet as he closed the distance, he found no shield wall to join. Between the black fences, men clustered in groups where they traded blows with their enemies. It was like a broken shield wall, though one had never been formed. Grimnr's army had been caught on its haunches and now Einar's men came to spear them like the pigs they were.

"For Grimnr and glory!" The shout came up from the hirdmen Ulfrik followed. They charged with shields out, hurtling into a gap between the fences. None had checked if Ulfrik followed. All their training had vanished like fog in the morning sun and now they barreled heedlessly into battle. Another fault with keeping an army idle too long, he thought.

Ulfrik did not want to kill any of these men. Some of them might have been his own warriors once, and without a doubt many of Einar's hirdmen would have been his as well. Yet standing before the whirling madness of bloody axes and spears, he could see no other way to break through to his old friend. Good blood would have to be spilled for the sake of Hrolf's mission. A plain wood shield before him, he raised his sword and charged into the confusion.

The first clash bought him against a man with bulging eyes in a gore-stained face, like two white stones in a puddle of blood. He screamed at Ulfrik as be blocked the passage between two fences. Their shields slammed together with a heavy thump as Ulfrik tried to plow through the man, but he only slid back in the grass. Ulfrik stabbed over the top of his shield, striking the man's face. Whether the stab killed or wounded the enemy, he fell aside and Ulfrik continued through him. Leaving an enemy alive and behind was deadly. The enemy could catch him between another foe and the two make short work of him. However, locating Einar remained his objective, and until he could find him he had not time for protracted fights.

He looped through gaps of fighting men, dodging blows and deflecting others with his shield. In truth he could not tell one side from the other in this battle, but men on either side of this conflict were his enemies today. Pressing out from behind one fence he spotted Einar's banner wavering over the heads of fighting men, spears, axes, and swords swinging beneath it like a rolling tide of iron. The banner showed a bloody ax on a white field, and a knot of men fought around it. Ulfrik spotted a two-handed ax rise high and chop down. A smile peeled across his face; there was Einar.

Running parallel to the staggered fences Ulfrik avoided the bulk of the fight playing out between the serried rows. The fences had been constructed to foil concentrated attacks over a wide area and provide cover for archers. Einar's men flowed around these and caught Grimnr's men in the pockets. He had dashed the length of one fence when two men charged at him between a gap. The lead man was a head shorter than Ulfrik, dewed in blood, and threw a spear. He spun to deflect it with his shield, but the head penetrated through the wood. Now the weight of the shaft pulled the shield down and he sloughed it off, jumping straight back to avoid the attack of the second man.

They broke to both sides, forcing him to leave one side exposed. Without a second thought he drew his sax, the short fighting blade worn at his waist, and with sword in his main hand he dove for the legs of the shorter attacker. They collided with a grunt, crashing to the ground, Ulfrik using his superior strength to pin the man. He shoved the sax into the attacker's neck, eliciting a scream and gout of blood, then he grasped the mail shirt and rolled over, pulling the dying man atop him.

He felt the second attacker's blade crunch through his dying friend's mail, and both shouted--one in anger and one as his last utterance in this life. Ulfrik threw him aside as the attacker wrestled his sword free from his friend's corpse. He sliced at the back of the attacker's legs, chopping the meat of his hamstrings and sending him to his knees.

Ulfrik sprang up, drove his sword into his attacker's back, then kicked him from the blade with the heel of his boot. He whirled around, spotted Einar with another man fighting beneath his banner. The sight stopped him cold, for he thought he was seeing himself.

"Hakon!" he called out, without thinking. Over the thud and clank of battle and the screams of dying and wounded men his son heard nothing. He danced around another attacker who had lost his sword and now fought with a hand ax and shield. Beside Hakon, Einar disproved Ulfrik's rule that a two-handed ax was a support weapon. With his giant size and the reach of this weapon, he kept two men at bay, wearing them out and luring them into a mistake that would cost their lives.

Joy at meeting his kin in the fellowship of battle flooded him, washing out fatigue and pain and leaving only excited hope in its wake. He flew towards the battle.

He did not call their names again, fearing to distract them from the enemies they faced. Einar hooked the shield from the hand of one man, then shoved his ax to drive him back. The other attacker mistook it for an opportunity, but Einar reversed his swing and sliced into head of the other swordsman. His helmet flew off and he stumbled, but continued his attack.

Ulfrik leapt upon the man who had lost his shield, beating him down with a series of blows that sheared all the fingers from his shield hand. The man collapsed with a yelp, but Ulfrik could not allow any witness to live. A flick of his sword across the man's neck ended his life.

Something heavy slammed between his shoulder blades and he crashed over the man he had just slain. He lost his helmet as he rolled aside, bringing his sword up to deflect the next blow. No attack came. Instead he looked up at Einar's scared and bloodied face smiling down at him. Light hit him directly in the face, setting his faded yellow beard on fire.

"I always wanted to do that to you," he said through his smile. "The ax is a masterful weapon, isn't it?"

"You knew I am alive?" Ulfrik lay on the ground, though all instincts told him to stand when a battle swirled about him.

"Snorri told me, then Mord told me. Sooner or later you'd tell me yourself."

Ulfrik struggled to his feet, but Einar did not assist him. When he stood, Einar kicked a discarded shield at him. "We have to make this look like a fight."

Snatching up the shield, he barely deflected Einar's probing attack. He sliced down with his ax, sending a shudder through the shield into Ulfrik's arm. "You launched an attack to contact me?"

Sweeping his blade lazily under his shield, Einar batted it aside. "Of course not. Three hundred men aren't assembled overnight. Been planning for a week. Spoiling attack to blunt Amand. Maybe kill some of his horses."

Einar pushed him back with his ax, herding him like a goat away from Hakon and toward the rear of the battle.

"The men are sick." Ulfrik stepped inside the reach of the ax, but Einar shoved him away with the haft. Had he been serious, he could have toppled Ulfrik and hewn him like a log. "Wait a week and most of these bastard's won't be able to fight."

"Runa knows you live. She's with Hrolf."

Ulfrik feinted the same move, but Einar remembered his tricks too well and did not react. Somehow it did not matter that Runa knew now. All around him men circled each other with bloodied weapons, while others knelt in the mud clutching the stump of a hand or a ribbon of guts. Nothing but survival meant anything on the battlefield. "Tell Hrolf that Eskil and all his men were hanged. There's only me and I need help. Amand suspects me."

Einar glanced past Ulfrik, who then heard a deep bellow from behind.

"Einar Snorrason! I come for your head!"

"Shit, it's Grimnr." Ulfrik did not have to turn to see what he knew to be the giant wolf of a man charging straight for him. "Let me inside your guard."

Ulfrik slammed forward and began to wrestle Einar, all while gasping out his words. "I need Grimnr to vouch for me. Don't kill him. Get away and keep Hakon safe. Send help fast."

They staggered in a circle, and he heard the thud of Grimnr's approach. Einar crushed Ulfrik to him, using the haft of his ax to lock him. His breath was warm against the side of Ulfrik's head as he spoke. "I cried like a baby when I heard you lived. Come back to us."