Winter's Fire: (The Rise of Sigurd 2) Read online

  ‘Go aft, Runa,’ Sigurd said. ‘Take a shield and stay near Solmund, but get down amongst the ribs.’ The first arrows streaked from the enemy ship now, one of them clattering into Reinen’s thwarts but most falling short into the wave furrows.

  Runa shook her head. ‘I can fight. You know I can. Valgerd has taught me the ways to kill a man. It is not so hard as one might think.’

  Sigurd did not doubt that his sister could fight. He had watched her and Valgerd training together and had been as surprised as he was impressed by Runa’s resilience and determination. The inevitable cuts and bruises had, if anything, spurred her to greater efforts and she was a quick learner too.

  ‘What did you expect? She’s Harald and Grimhild’s daughter,’ Olaf had said one day, when he and Sigurd had sat by the hearth watching Runa, her teeth gritted, grunting with effort as she hammered Valgerd’s shield with wild sword blows. ‘Besides, she had to put up with you and your brothers growing up,’ Olaf said, and Sigurd had smiled, though his mood had inevitably soured as he thought of his brothers Thorvard, Sigmund and Sorli: all dead now, like their mother and father and so many others.

  ‘I won’t hide like a mouse in the floor rushes,’ Runa said now.

  Sigurd sighed. ‘Fetch a shield and a spear. But keep your head down.’

  He could see the enemy crew’s leader now, a barrel-chested man who stood at the prow of his ship tying the helmet strap under his chin as he barked commands at his men. Beside him was a broad-shouldered warrior with a long axe who had the look of a prow man. He loomed beside the carved dragon head making sure that his enemies could see more of him than they could of anyone else aboard his ship. He was yelling something, insults probably, but whatever it was got lost in the wind.

  ‘Sigurd?’ Olaf called after a while, wanting the younger man to make the final decision about whether to stay at their stations or prepare for a fight.

  They had completed another tack and were heading out to sea again, so that it seemed they must collide with the enemy, that Wave-Thunder’s bows would strike Reinen midships or aft. Then the king’s men would hurl their hooks and haul the ships together hull to hull and when they were as close as lovers the killing would begin.

  ‘Hold your positions!’ Sigurd yelled, raising his shield to knock an arrow out of the air into the sea.

  Olaf nodded, the order good enough for him.

  Then the sea air was thick with the noise of their enemies’ war cries and Sigurd’s nose was full of their stench and a spear thunked into Reinen’s mast, where it quivered like a branch in the wind.

  ‘Tell your king that I proclaim him an oath-breaker and a coward!’ Sigurd yelled over the side. He was close enough to his enemies to see the blood-hunger in their eyes and the snarl of their teeth. He could see the Thór’s hammers at their throats, the rings of the prow man’s brynja beneath his furs and the patches of grey in the skipper Bjalki’s beard. ‘Gorm is a pile of vomit!’ he bellowed. ‘A spineless tax collector who has forgotten how to please the gods. He is a nithing!’ And then Sigurd laughed, even as an arrow whipped past his head and another thunked into the free board where he stood, because the enemy prow had all but kissed Reinen’s stern post yet Reinen had slipped by just beyond reach. Bjalki was red-faced and yelling but Sigurd was laughing too hard to hear the words coming out of his mouth.

  Then a grappling hook clumped into the thwarts, but before it could bite into a rib or snag on the sheer strake Asgot hacked through the rope and the frayed end slithered harmlessly away.

  Those on the ropes cheered and yelled insults at the other crew, who bristled helplessly, their chance missed. The grin in old Solmund’s beard was so wide its corners might have met at the nape of his neck, and Sigurd shared a look with Olaf that said more than words could. Gods but it had been close.

  Her sail full of wind, the king’s ship flew past, her skipper already yelling at his men to lower the sail so that he could turn her back into the wind and give chase.

  ‘Now we will see what kind of a crew they are!’ Solmund called, leaning to spit over the side in disgust. It wasn’t long before they got their answer. Sigurd had made his way aft, slapping the grinning brothers Bjorn and Bjarni on their shoulders and declaring that even half a crew they were more than a match for any other. Now he stood at Reinen’s stern, watching Gorm’s men run out their oars and begin to row after them.

  ‘All muscle and no craft,’ Solmund said, unimpressed because it seemed their enemy had no confidence in their own ability to tack into the wind.

  ‘This skipper Bjalki has crammed his thwarts with fighting men and left no room to work the sail,’ Sigurd said.

  Solmund’s lip curled. ‘Either way they won’t catch us now.’

  And yet, after the time it takes to sharpen a knife, Sigurd and Olaf were exchanging concerned looks again. ‘What the pig-swivers lack in sea craft they make up in brawn,’ Olaf said, for with so many oars in the water Wave-Thunder was coming on at a frightening speed, so that it was not impossible that with Reinen’s long tacks their enemies might eventually catch them. It did not help that now and then Olaf would misjudge the wind, or one of the men would take too long to tie off a rope and Reinen would be blown backwards, losing much of the distance they had previously fought so hard for.

  And they were getting tired now.

  ‘They are like shit clinging to a sheep’s arse,’ Olaf growled as they came to the end of the landward tack and everyone prepared for the well-practised fury of movement that would bring the sail across and take Reinen back out to sea.

  ‘Bjalki is trying to make a name for himself,’ Crow-Song said, dragging an arm across his sweat-slick face.

  ‘No storm-driver to swell his sail

  He yet carves the wave with his prow.

  His men lash the sea with their oars

  But poor Bjalki cannot catch us now.’

  There were smiles at that for it was rare to hear Hagal word-weaving these days, and they enjoyed it, even if no one admitted as much to Crow-Song.

  They were off the coast of Åkra now, could see the smoke hanging in the wan sky above the village like unspun sheep’s wool. It was a cold, dull, slate-grey day, yet most of them had taken off their furs and cloaks and worked in tunics and breeks, though they would begin to shiver between each setting of the sail.

  ‘We should turn around and fight them, Sigurd,’ Black Floki called, his crow-black braids hanging either side of his lean, glistening face as he and Svein heaved that great log, the bietas, across the beam of the ship.

  ‘It would not be a fair fight for they will be too tired to lift their shields,’ Svein said, wedging one end of the log into Reinen’s side ribs and threading a rope through a notch in the other end which now hung out over the windward edge of the boat. The giant’s own braids danced like red ropes as he worked and Sigurd thought how much he looked like his father Styrbiorn these days. Styrbiorn who had slaughtered Jarl Harald’s enemies with his long-hafted axe, until by some bad luck the axe head had caught on Sea-Eagle’s prow beast and some nithing had plunged his spear into the champion’s belly. That had been Styrbiorn’s death wound and Sigurd and Svein had watched him fall back into the thwarts like a felled oak.

  ‘It would be worth turning round for a little fight just to have a taste of the wind on our side,’ Bram said. ‘Gods this is thirsty work.’

  ‘So what are you thinking?’ Olaf asked Sigurd, his eyes little more than slits, perhaps remembering the last time they had turned Reinen around to face the enemy. That enemy had been Jarl Randver of Hinderå, and having fled across the froth-crested sound Sigurd had felt Óðin’s one-eyed glare on him like the heat from a forge. They had chosen to end that business one way or another and, turning Reinen and dropping the sail, they had waited for Randver and the slaughter that came with him.

  ‘I have an idea, Uncle,’ Sigurd said, watching a gull dive down to snatch something from the waves.

  ‘So long as it does not involve losing
half this half crew – unless you want Solmund hauling on ropes with his arms and steering us with his feet.’

  But while having an enemy ship half up their arse was nothing to be happy about, Olaf knew that it was better to deal with that threat than risk running into another of Gorm’s crews and having to fight two ships together.

  ‘Well, lad?’ he said, having given the command to move the sail across for the next turn. ‘Let’s hear it.’

  They made a mess of two out of the next five tacks. On these failed attempts the wind blew them back and Solmund and Olaf waved their arms and yelled insults at those working the sail. Then they let the wind spill from the great woollen sail so that Reinen rocked in complaint, her mast swinging from side to side, before they made headway again.

  Sigurd watched the ragged coast with its snow-sheathed pines slide slowly past then looked at Wave-Thunder and smiled because his plan was working. Her oars were beating even faster now, cutting neatly into the fjord and biting well, because Bjalki knew he might actually catch up with Reinen and make his fame.

  ‘The turds must think we have broken out the ale and are up to our eyebrows in it,’ Olaf said.

  ‘Aye and it’s painful as a knife in the ribs,’ Solmund moaned, ‘letting those king’s men think we’ve got no sea craft.’

  ‘They won’t think it for much longer,’ Sigurd told him. They were some twenty boat lengths ahead of Wave-Thunder now and he locked eyes again with the enemy skipper, though this time he did not hurl any insults, wanting Bjalki to think his confidence had leaked like the wind from Reinen’s sail.

  ‘Ugly bollock,’ Olaf said, grimacing beside Sigurd, because Wave-Thunder’s skipper was all grin now, imagining the silver arm ring he would earn and the feast which King Gorm would lay on in his honour. His men’s oars beat like wings, the plunge and lift relentless and inevitable. With muscle and spruce those Avaldsnes men were weaving their own saga and it was only a matter of time before they lashed their hull to Reinen, spilled over her side in a wave of sharp steel, and slaughtered their king’s most hated enemy.

  ‘Now!’ Sigurd yelled, and snarling like wolves his crew went to work, Solmund driving the tiller across to turn them into the wind. It was a storm of muscle and rope and Reinen gave herself to her skipper.

  ‘Like a lover on a summer’s night!’ Solmund called.

  ‘You’ve a good memory, old man,’ Bjarni said, getting an insult back for his trouble.

  Then Svein and Bram and the others trimmed and tightened the sail which cracked loudly as, at last, the wind bellied it, the wool stretching with the sudden force, and Reinen bolted like the creature for which she was named.

  Now it was down to Solmund, who was old and not as keen-eyed as he once was, but who loved being at Reinen’s helm more than he loved anything in the world.

  ‘Remember this for your saga tale, skald,’ Sigurd called to Hagal as they grabbed spears and Svein took up his long axe and Valgerd nocked an arrow to her bow string.

  Bjalki was so shocked by Reinen’s about turn that he was too slow in giving any commands that might have changed things, and Solmund aimed Reinen’s prow beast at that of the enemy.

  ‘If he gets this wrong we’ll all be swimming,’ Olaf muttered.

  Then Solmund pushed the tiller and Reinen’s bow turned. The king’s men had no time to unship their oars and Reinen’s sweeping chest smashed into them in a thunder of splintering, snapping wood cut with screams as men were crushed in the thwarts by their own oar shafts.

  ‘Kill them!’ Sigurd bellowed, casting his spear which took a man in his chest, hurling him back into his companions. Valgerd’s first arrow plunged into a grizzled-looking warrior’s open mouth and the second planted itself in a young man’s eye and he screamed like a vixen. Bram’s spear had taken their prow man in the shoulder and now he stood impaled, his mouth gaping like a fish as he stared in disbelief. Svein could not reach anyone with his long axe and so stood with his arms wide, roaring at the enemy that they were cowards and the sons of shit-stinking sows.

  Then, the insults still hanging in the air like a fart, it was all over, Reinen having left Wave-Thunder reeling in her wake.

  ‘Óðin!’ Asgot screamed, arms raised, fingers grasping at the leaden sky. ‘Óðin spear-lord! We kill in your name, Raven god!’

  Sigurd strode up the deck, pulling a silver ring from his arm. ‘Solmund Sigðir!’ he said, but the old man batted away the name Victory-giver as though it was a cloud of gnats and Sigurd laughed. ‘Here, take this.’ He held out the arm ring but the helmsman shook his head with a smile that was all worn teeth and gaps.

  ‘What would I do with that, young Sigurd?’ he asked. ‘I’m too old for all that strutting and boasting. Besides which, I have all that I need.’ He patted the tiller where the wood was worn smooth and shiny. ‘Beats all the silver you could give me.’

  Sigurd nodded and clamped a hand on the helmsman’s shoulder. ‘You did well, old man.’

  ‘She’s a fine ship,’ Solmund said, ‘and has a half-decent crew.’

  ‘Don’t tell them that,’ Sigurd said. He turned and tossed the ring to Bjorn who caught it in one hand. ‘Cut it. Everyone gets a share,’ Sigurd said, ‘but for Olaf and Asgot. We’ll let the godi sacrifice something.’

  ‘And Olaf?’ Bjorn asked.

  ‘He’ll be happy with a horn of mead. When we can find some.’ Sigurd caught Olaf’s eye and the older man nodded, which was approval enough. An arm ring cut into nine pieces would not make any of them rich, but it was silver and they had earned it. Yet even so its lustre was nothing compared to the sight of Bjalki’s crew floundering against the wind with neither enough oars or sea craft to make headway out there amongst the froth-whipped waves.

  ‘Now that is an unhappy ship, I think,’ Svein said, his red beard slashed by teeth.

  A ship of splintered oars, broken bones and blood, Sigurd thought. But even a few corpses in the thwarts would be as nothing against the damage done to their pride, and Sigurd continued to gaze at his enemy as Olaf and the others went to work turning Reinen back into the wind and beginning to tack once again.

  ‘The gods love you, brother,’ Runa said, the breath of those words fogging around her face.

  ‘Aye, girl, they do,’ Olaf said, ‘but the gods change their minds more often than my wife. They are as fickle as the wind and we’d do well to keep that in mind before we try a trick like that again.’ He gestured towards Solmund behind him. ‘I’m not even sure the old goat did not mean to pass those swines on their larboard side.’

  ‘I heard that,’ Solmund called, proving that his ears still worked.

  Sigurd took Runa’s hand in his. ‘Uncle is right, sister, the gods are fickle. But the Allfather loves chaos.’ He smiled at her. ‘And so we shall give him chaos.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  WHEN THEY ROUNDED the southern tip of the island it was as though the low leaden sky had sunk down to drape itself over Reinen and her crew. It was not raining but the air itself was wet and everything aboard was clammy and greasy to the touch, though that in itself did not account for the dark mood that weighed on Sigurd like a ship’s anchor. And neither was he alone in this mind mire. Olaf, Svein, Aslak, Solmund and Asgot were as gloomy as the day and had withdrawn into the cave of their own memories like bears in their winter dens.

  Runa sat weeping at the bow and Sigurd did nothing to comfort her. Instead he peered through the mist-hazed air towards the shore. He could barely make out the jetty and perhaps that was just as well. If the day had been clear and he had been able to see the rocks and the path that led up to Eik-hjálmr his father’s hall – no more than blackened rotting timbers now – his mind would have fashioned his mother standing there, her beaded necklace and her silver brooch outshone by her graceful beauty. He would imagine his brothers Thorvard, Sigmund and Sorli challenging each other to see who could jump from the boards and be the first to swim to one of the islands. Their father Harald would be there calling them young fool
s, making a show of not being interested, but watching all the same with pride in his eyes.

  They were all gone now. All of it was gone. Their lives, their ambitions, their bonds one to another had all been washed away by a tide of blood. By what the skalds called the red war.

  And yet, even death cannot break some bonds. For in the hereafter, in Óðin’s hall, men may have the chance to feast with their kinsmen once again and for the rest of time, or at least until the final chaos and the gods’ doom. Sigurd clung to those bonds now, be they invisible as a bird’s spittle or a fish’s breath, as was Gleipnir, the binding which held the wolf Fenrir. He would answer the demands of his own blood kinship with the blood of his enemies.

  But not yet.

  ‘We could sneak into Gorm’s hall in the dead of night and gut him in his bed,’ Svein had suggested back when they were deciding where to go from Hakon Burner’s hall. ‘Why wait when that turd’s death is long overdue?’

  ‘I will not do it in the dark, Svein,’ Sigurd had said. ‘I will do it in the full light of the day, when all men can see. I will blow the horns to announce the oath-breaker’s doom. He will get the end he has spun for himself, my friend, but neither our slain kin nor the gods will miss it.’

  But to take his revenge like that Sigurd needed men and spears. He needed silver and he needed reputation, for reputation is a weapon in itself, a thin cold blade which worms into your enemy’s guts when he is trying to sleep at night. All this would take time, and so for now they were sailing away from Avaldsnes and King Gorm and the ambition that burnt inside Sigurd. Yet he would keep that fire inside his chest. He would fan its flames with deeds worthy of the Spear-God’s one-eyed gaze and one day, when he was ready, he would go north again to claim what he was owed.