Raven: Blood Eye (17 page)

'I'm not getting killed by a woman's arrow,' Svein said. 'The skalds won't say that of Svein the Red.'

'There's more chance of Asgot kneeling to the White Christ,' Bram said with a grin, slapping the giant's back and checking his own sword's edge.

'Bar it,' Sigurd commanded. Bjorn and Bjarni barred the rear door and leant benches against it, and though we could still hear shouts outside, it was eerily quiet in Ealdred's hall. Now we were alone with the dead.

'Asgot, see to the wounded. Eric, help him.'

'This is the blood-eye's doing,' Asgot croaked, pointing at me. 'He has curdled your luck, Sigurd, and turned it sour.'

Sigurd glanced at me, then pointed his spear at Asgot. 'You're still breathing aren't you, godi?' he said.

'The gods keep me alive because I honour them,' Asgot said. The inference that Sigurd did not honour the gods was clear and for a moment jarl and godi stared at each other and the stifling air itself seemed to shudder.

'You heard your jarl, lad,' Olaf cut through the heavy air, nodding at his son. 'See to the wounded.' Then Olaf caught my eye and I nodded in thanks. He dipped his head before turning back to Eric who set about his task with a grim set face. Olaf's son no longer looked like a callow young man. He was an equal now. He had shared and shed blood with these men and they would never forget it. We laid out the dead, Sigtrygg, Njal, Oleg, Eyjolf, Gunnlaug, Northri and Thorkel, straightening their limbs and leaving them uncovered so that their white faces gleamed waxy in the flickering candlelight. Asgot performed a death rite over them whilst the others saw to their own wounds and weapons or kept watch at the door.

'Our friends drink in Valhöll this night,' Sigurd said. Though he held his back straight, his eyes betrayed his exhaustion. 'They sit at Óðin's table with their fathers.' He glowered at each man. 'None of us living can ask for more than this.' His men grunted in agreement and it seemed to me they were jealous of their friends lying cold and stiff in the bloodstained rushes of Ealdred's hall. For those men's souls would soon enter the hall of the slain. Óðin's hall.

'Break the table,' Olaf snapped, palming sweat from his face. 'We'll use some to bar this door and the rest for the hearth. We could be here all night and I don't want you ladies catching cold.' We piled the English in the corner where I had hidden earlier, and covered them with their own bloodied cloaks. There were ten in all, not counting the ones at Olaf's door who were being dragged away into the flame-filled night.

'So much for English hospitality,' Black Floki said, taking off his helmet to reveal a tangle of dark, matted hair. He kicked an overturned bowl, leaving food scraps amongst the rushes, then looked towards the hearth cauldron. 'Is there any stew left, Bjarni? Nothing makes me so hungry as killing.' I did not understand how he could think of food in the midst of all that shit and death.

'You should have gutted that dog Ealdred the moment you laid eyes on him, Olaf,' Gunnar said, checking the edge of his sword for damage. He cursed at a deep nick near the silver and bone cross guard. It would take hours of work with the whetstone to repair. 'If we get out of this, I'll be back on the next tide to burn this shithole to the ground.'

Olaf suddenly blanched and grabbed Sigurd's shoulder. 'They could burn it, Sigurd! They could burn the hall and us with it.'

Sigurd shook his head. 'Ealdred won't do that. He's a slithering snake, but this is his mead hall, Olaf.' He grimaced. 'He'll pay in blood for it.'

But Olaf looked unconvinced.

'Would you burn your own hall?' Sigurd asked him.

Olaf considered it, then shook his head. 'No,' he said.

'Ealdred might be dead,' the bear-like Bram countered, the eyes in his battered face shining with violence. 'Young Eric caught him with the axe. Squealing like a sow he was.' Olaf gripped his son's shoulder proudly and white-haired Eric straightened at the touch, but admitted he had only struck a glancing blow, not a lethal one.

Sigurd shook his head. 'Whatever he's thinking, he'll have sons out there and each of them with one eye on such a hall as this. No, they won't burn it,' he said, turning to Asgot who was kneeling by the dead, finishing the death rites with a flourish of his bony arms. 'What say you, godi?'

Asgot looked up at the beamed roof with its blackened thatch. Then with a hand he brushed away the rushes before him, took a pouch from his belt and scattered the bones across the cracked earthen floor. His face was pinched and closed, but then his eyes widened, seeming unnaturally bright in the dark hall. 'They'll burn it, Sigurd,' he said.

There were eighteen of us now. Olaf told me to arm myself properly and so I knelt by Njal's stiffening body and was struggling with his sword belt when Asgot hissed at me.

'Careful, boy.' His ancient face was full of spite. 'The death maidens are here in this hall.' His yellowed eyes rolled up to the roof beams. 'They choose the slain for Óðin. Carry their souls to Valhöll.' He grinned. 'They can be wicked bitches.'

As I fumbled with Njal's mail shirt, trying to pull it over his white face, I hummed one of the heathens' songs so that the demons of carnage would know that I still lived and not take me by mistake. Then I squirmed into the brynja, smelling the grease on the iron rings, and was awed by the weight of the thing. It dragged my whole body down and I feared I would be unable to move. And yet I found I could move well enough and the brynja's weight was then a great comfort because I knew such a thing could turn an arrow aside.

The hearth flames licked the splintered wood of the table before bursting into life to throw an orange glow into every corner of the hall, vanquishing all but the deepest shadows. Every face was distorted by the firelight so that it had a fierce, animal-like aspect that was terrifying. I touched the wooden amulet of Óðin at my neck, feeling sure that he ruled in that place of death, no matter that the hall's owner Ealdred was a Christian. But the All-Father was a cruel lord. His wanderlust and vainglory had brought the Norsemen to a place that promised nothing now but their deaths. 'The gods love chaos,' Black Floki said, smiling bitterly and gesturing at my amulet.

'I'll wager the English followed us along the coast, gathering men as they went,' Olaf said, removing his blood-smeared helmet and wiping it on one of Ealdred's tapestries.

'If Glum and the others were here things would be more fun,' Svein the Red commented, pulling an ivory comb through his thick red beard.

Sigurd looked at me, his lips pursed in thought. 'Perhaps I should not have killed your red-faced priest,' he said, his mouth twisting into a smile. 'He did talk too much, hey? Someone would have done it sooner or later!' The others laughed and the sound was thick and full. The English outside must have thought it a strange sound to come from their ealdorman's hall. Sigurd turned to Eric. 'Can you get out, Eric? Past those turds and back to the ships?'

Eric thought for a moment. 'If you think I can, lord,' he said. Sigurd glanced at Olaf, seeking his friend's permission, though he did not need it. Olaf nodded discreetly.

'Good lad,' Sigurd said. 'You must warn Glum and the others.'

'What if the English have attacked them already?' Bjarni said, shrugging his powerful shoulders, and I suddenly feared for old Ealhstan.

'There's every chance Glum is fucking some Valkyrie on his way to Óðin's hall by now,' Bjorn added.

'I don't think so, Bjorn,' Sigurd said, his jaw tight. 'The men we fought here were fresh and Ealdred is no king. He doesn't have the warriors to fight in two places at once.' But Sigurd could not know that. He flexed a hand. 'Glum is alive,' he said, cracking the knuckles, 'and he'll spit teeth if we keep all the fun to ourselves.' I whispered a prayer to Óðin that Sigurd was right and the old carpenter was still alive as well.

'I'm a fast runner, Bjarni,' Eric said, already tying back his white hair. 'If I get past them, they'll never catch me. Not in the dark. A man can outrun a horse on rough ground. I've seen it done.'

Floki swore dismissively. 'Over a short distance it's possible,' Bjorn agreed, giving Floki a cold look. Outside, a dog barked.

'And dogs?' Bjarni said, turning towards the sound.

Eric looked down to the rushes then. 'I hadn't thought of dogs,' he said quietly.

'We should be encouraging the boy, Bjarni!' Bjorn snapped. 'You're not afraid of dogs, are you, Eric?' he said gruffly. 'Not English dogs, anyway.' Eric shook his head, grinned and drew his long knife, whose blade glinted in the flame light.

'You can do it, Eric,' Bjarni said, touching Eric's white hair. 'You're fast, I'll give you that. Didn't you win the foot race on Egg Island one summer?'

Eric smiled. 'I was ten years old, Bjarni,' he said, but it was clear he was pleased that Bjarni remembered the small victory.

'We'll create a diversion,' Sigurd said above the dog's barking, 'give those turds out there a night to remember us by.' He showed his teeth. 'Which of you has a plan Loki would be proud of?' he asked. The only answer was the loud crack of an ember from the hearth. 'Come, ladies, don't all speak at once. A strong arm kills but a cunning mind'll keep you alive.'

'We tear into them,' Halfdan said, his two blond plaits shining in the orange light. 'We go at them from the main door, screaming like demons, and in the confusion Eric climbs through there.' He pointed to the hole in the high roof that drew the hearth smoke. 'Then he makes a run for it whilst we're killing Englishmen.'

'And their dogs,' Floki added with a grimace.

'We fight our way clear back to the ships,' Halfdan finished, folding his arms to show that there was no more. The men gave their opinions, some for the plan, others against it. 'What else is there?' Halfdan asked irritably, holding out his hands.

Sigurd gave a curt nod and raised his hand to silence the others. 'It's not much of a plan, Halfdan. More Thór's than Loki's,' he said. Then he smiled, his teeth like fangs. 'But I like it.'

Before a fight a man's bladder fills up, so putting out the fire was easy enough, but the acrid smoke was slung thick beneath the thatch and this, coupled with the small candlelight, meant that Eric did well to clamber up two upended benches to the roof beam which was closest to the smoke hole. There he crouched between the beam and the thatch, ready to pull himself out on to the roof as soon as the fight began.

'Here, lad, blow it hard as the bloody north wind,' Olaf said, passing his war horn up to Eric. 'Get a fire going again, lads, before they get suspicious, but only a small one, mind. We don't want to roast the boy. It would be a hard thing to explain to his mother.'

'I need four of you to stay in here,' Sigurd said, the words hanging heavy in the smoky air. 'The doors must be guarded in case we need to get back inside.' He knew he was asking much, not because it would be a terrible thing to be left behind, but because there would be less glory for those who remained whilst the others attacked. None of the Norsemen volunteered, though a couple of them glanced at me and I knew they wanted me to be one of the ones who stayed. 'Knut, Thormod, Ivar, Asgot. You stay.' Each nodded glumly. 'Raven, if you get a chance, fly after Eric and get to the ships. You'll only get in our way out there.' His eyebrows arched. 'Glum must decide whether to come and fight or take the ships home.' He looked at Olaf, both men aware of the risks.

'A hard choice, hey, Sigurd?' Olaf said, the prospect lying heavy across his brow. 'If he comes,
Serpent
and
Fjord-Elk
will be as vulnerable as two hares in a snake pit.'

'I'll tell him, lord,' I replied, gripping my sword tightly to stop the trembling that had begun in my legs and spread to my fingertips. I had bound the wound on my shin tightly and I looked down, grimacing the pain away and noting that blood had soaked through the linen. 'It won't slow me down,' I said in answer to Black Floki's questioning eyes, and I meant it, though I knew the brynja would.

'Are we ready?' Sigurd asked. The blood on their clothes had barely dried and these Sword-Norse were once again preparing to sow death amongst their enemies.