Sex, Thugs, Roll, and Rock & Roll

Haermund Hardaxe Was Here by Allan Guthrie

The following story is inspired by graffiti inscribed on the walls of the prehistoric chambered cairn in Orkney, Scotland, known as Maeshowe or Orkahaugr. The inscriptions, circa 1150, are thought to have been written by Viking crusaders. More info here: http://www.orkneyjar.com/history/maeshowe/maeshrunes.htm

Hours had passed since we crawled into the gut of this Orcadian burial tomb. The tunnel opened into a high-ceilinged central chamber where Tholfir Kolbeinsson, Einar Orkisson, and Ofram Sigurdsson now lay sleeping. In the lightflicker, Arnfithr Steinsson carved letters in the stone.

Inside the mound of Orkahaugr, we sheltered, warm inside its flint-raked walls. While outside, snow fell thick as flour shaken from a thousand sacks.

I listened to the scratch of Arnfithr’s words until sleep stole my soul.

The wind moaned. It howled.

Flames swathed my thigh. Fiery droplets skittered down my calf. Neck-split, Erlingr lay death-still where he fell. The Damascene arose, a hole punched in his chest, and kissed my bleeding lips.

I cried aloud and woke, shivering. Cold sweat pooled above my buttocks.

I stretched my leg. The lazy clink of sword and axe, the scrape of hide on bald clay, stirred no one. Piecemeal, the snuffle and snort of my band of sleeping Jerusalem-farers soothed the dream-lashed weals of my mind.

My tongue flicked over ever-foul lips.

Arnfithr still wrote. He glanced my way yet did not speak.

“Are you telling of our deeds?” I asked.

His smooth-skinned arm dropped to his side. “I am the man most skilled in runes in the Western Ocean. Yet I have no stomach for those tidings.”

“What are you writing?”

“My name. That I was here.”

“Carve something for me.”

“What shall I say, Hardaxe?”

I thought for a moment, my fingers probing the hollow chambers of my axe. Sockets pocked the shaft where once gleamed jewels. I gripped the handle and squeezed. I smiled. “Say: Ingigerth is the most beautiful of all women.”

Arnfithr roared. His laughter brought Tholfir scrambling to his feet.

Nervous Tholfir. A good soldier. He hid his fear.

I spoke to him now as I spoke to him in the dusty heat when our skins burned and blistered and burned again. “It’s okay,” I told him. In some ways, despite his thirteen years, he was still a child.

He lay down, nestled against me, and was asleep again before Arnfithr had stilled his shaking shoulders.

“Be serious, my friend,” Arnfithr said. “These ancient walls want to know what Haermund Hardaxe has to say.”

We trudged over ridges of drifted sand. Waded though this great ocean of ill-tinted sea. A coating of finest sand layered our tongues. We plodded footsore and back-weary towards the distant mountains.

At length, the terrain hardened. Beneath our feet, the earth had baked.

In Iberia promises of plunder had girded our loins. After our failure in Damascus, the glow of adventure had dimmed. And now, riven from the fleeing Franks, our mercenary band of five staggered and weaved in the hostile sun with thoughts only of staying alive.

“We should find shelter,” I said, squinting in the sun’s glare. “It is too hot. We will travel under the stars.”

“Might we steer our path back to the City of Blood?” Arnfithr’s eyebrows rose.

“You jest.” Damascus. The very name means “dripping with blood.” But I too thought of the orchards of fruit trees and my mouth watered. Trees wreathed the city. Mud-walled orchards lined the stream hugging the eastern wall, enclosed the western wall, and stretched five miles to the north towards Lebanon. Within the walls, narrow paths snaked through ample trees of violet damson.

When our army marched forth, the Damascenes, hidden in the thickets, repelled us with ease. Inside the orchards were many walls, behind which lingered spearmen who thrust their weapons through thin slots as we passed and stabbed without fear of harm at our crowded number. From tall houses arrows rained on our heads.

Shouts and screams pulsed all around us.

I clutched the helve of my axe and trampled over a fallen body.

Erlingr turned and faced me, an arrow cleaving a path through his neck. A rattle in his throat. On his knees, he swayed.

By my side, Tholfir paled. “My stomach,” he said. “I think, I think…” He bent over and heaved.

I seethed and raged at our blindness and the blindness of those who had ordered us forward. I could bear no more of this folly. “Get the fuck out of here,” I yelled at my men.

I bent, scooped up Erlingr, hoisted him over my shoulder. I barged through the crunch of surging bodies. Some turned and joined me. Others shouted curses in a tongue I barely grasped.

For the briefest moment, the world was still.

A silence shrouded us.

And then, all around, men dropped their weapons and began to dance. Faces gnarled, strangled voices singing, they batted urgent rhythms with arms winglike, flightless birds in this Muspell, this World of Fire. Above our heads, bronze tubes that lanced the peepholes of a tall building hurled jets of liquid flames into our midst.

Greek Fire. A noxious brew of sulfur, naphtha, and quicklime. It grabbed my leg and clung with burning fingers. I stumbled and fell. Erlingr lay still, his blond beard stained dark red, blood no longer spurting from his slack mouth.

Arnfithr hauled me to my feet.

“Erlingr,” I said.

“Leave him.”

I wiped the sweat from my brow. Ahead, at the top of a slight incline, a shelf of crumbling rock promised shade. “A good place to rest,” I said.

We laid our weapons on the ground and curled up beside them. Helmets covered our faces, shielding our eyes from the rising sun. Arnfithr lay next to me. I listened to his restless breathing. After a while he brushed my arm. I turned, uncovering my face, and nodded.

We rolled up our blankets while our sleeping colleagues whistled into their helmets. We wandered towards a distant row of juniper bushes. A screen.

We unrolled our bedding and stripped. The fire in my loins burned as hot as the fire in my leg.

I fucked Arnfithr.

Then he fucked me, whispering the name of Ingigerth, his betrothed, in my ear.

Afterwards, I slept soundly.

I awoke with a start. A hand was clamped over my mouth. The high sun blinded me. Slowly, my eyes adjusted to the light and I saw Arnfithr crouched over me. “Quiet,” he whispered. He stabbed his finger at the camp two hundred paces away.

Nine. I counted them. Nine jeering Damascene soldiers grouped around our startled brothers. Drunk with discovery, the band of infidels prodded and poked our rudely awakened men. An anger swelled in my belly. Arnfithr grasped my wrist. Fiercely calm, he said, “Hardaxe, we have no weapons.”

I was sickened. Like fools we had left our weapons at the camp. We could do nothing but watch.

Rousing cries spewed from the Damascenes’ mouths. They frolicked like children with new toys. Living toys. Was this the best Nour Ed-Din had to offer? Had the new ruler of Damascus sent this rabble to hunt for stragglers from the retreating armies?

More likely they were scavengers.

I tried to spot their leader.

The one with his hair scraped back? The one strutting around Einar? The ox about to strike Tholfir in the face? How could I tell?

Tholfir staggered backwards, fell. After a moment he turned where he lay and began to scramble across the cracked ground on hands and knees. The Damascenes laughed, pointed, circled him, kicked him, spat on him.

Ofram broke free of his captors, bolted towards Tholfir. A tall Damascene stepped in his path. Raised an axe. Ofram stopped. He cried, “Hardaxe,” and folded to his knees. He looked towards us for an instant. He may have smiled. Huddled behind our needle-leafed shield of juniper, his expression was hard to read. He yielded to the tall Damascene, wrists held out for binding. The Damascene lowered his axe. The handle glinted.

Him. He was the leader. The axe in his hand was mine.

We watched and waited. No one was gravely hurt. The Damascene soldiers rounded up our ragged threesome and tied them up. After they’d tired of kicking and spitting and slapping and punching, they dragged our men down the slope and out of sight.

I turned to Arnfithr and swore. Arnfithr moved like the earth was burning the soles of his feet. I grabbed our blankets and hastened after him. My leg stung. The wet cloth swathed around it to keep it cool had dried out as we’d slept. Not for the first time, I brooded on the moment the fire had burned my skin. A sickness buckled my legs. I picked myself up, slung the blankets once more over my shoulder, and scurried towards the camp.

Arnfithr lay on his belly, staring into the distance.

I cast the blankets aside and crept towards him. I lay down. Although the ground warmed my stomach, my heart grew cold as I watched our band of rope-threaded Jerusalem-farers being led away like beasts of the field. The Damascenes were heading into the desert. Away from Lebanon. Away from Damascus.

I said, “What shall we do?”

“I am at a loss,” Arnfithr said. “We cannot fight them. Unarmed. Two against nine.” He turned his head slightly. “How is your leg?”

“Of no matter.” I gazed into the distance. “We will shadow them,” I said. “And strike at nightfall.”

“You have a plan?” He reached out and touched my shoulder. I clamped my hand over his.

They traveled on foot, upright. We were not so lucky.

We kept low to the ground, often crawling on our stomachs over the rocky terrain, always keeping our enemies in sight. Two toothless predators stalking fat prey. Their smells drifted towards us, stirring our nostrils, sweetening our mouths.

They had slept. We had little time to do so. Full of anger and outrage, our minds were alert but our muscles ached with the strain of hugging the ground. The heat beat down on our heads, on our necks.

I had told Arnfithr I had a plan. I had lied. Could I outwit our foe? Could we play a shrewd trick to disarm them, conquer them, rescue Einar, Tholfir, and Ofram?

Weaponless, we would be slaughtered. We had to win back our weapons. Or steal those of the Damascenes.

Slithering over a dry scum of sand, I set my mind to the task of finding a way to free our men and escape.

Easier to free myself from the mouth of a serpent, I thought. But then an idea came to me and I thanked God.

The Damascenes stopped for the night at a village of no more than a dozen dwellings. The villagers chattered angrily at the soldiers’ arrival. We understood not a word they said. Perhaps they did not want these city soldiers eating their meager food stocks. Perhaps they did not want the soldiers near their women. Perhaps they did not want those pale-skinned captives in their village. They’d heard that Norsemen were crazy. They fought like demons, ripped their enemies apart, and ate their souls.

Whatever the villagers’ pleas, the soldiers ignored them. An old man fumed. A soldier batted him aside and knocked him over. Another villager strode forward, shouting. He pointed to where the old man scrabbled in the dust, then folded his arms and barred the entrance to his pitiful house. Without warning, the Damascene leader struck him a heavy blow with his new axe. I hoped he was pleased with the result. The man clutched his stomach, surprise in his widening eyes. He fell forward, hands never moving from his belly, and bled furiously.

The Damascene yelled something at the villagers. They grabbed what they could and fled. After a while the man on the ground stopped jerking and the soldiers dragged his body away.

Arnfithr and I lay still and waited for dark. When it fell, it was as if nature had thrown a dark, wet sheet over us.

My body was chilled. Only my leg had heat in it.

We waited, the darkness pressing in on us.

They had lit a fire. Two guards sat by it, warming their hands, jabbering. Behind them, our brothers lay roped together. Silent.

I unfolded my plan to Arnfithr.

He switched his gaze to my leg. “There can be no doubt as to who will play which part.”

I nodded, then took a gasping breath to fetter my unsettled mind. “Twice,” I said.

The first punch knocked me on my arse. I shook my head but stayed dazed. I put my hand to my nose. Blood dripped from the left nostril.

Arnfithr held out his hands, meekly.

“It’s necessary,” I said, rising to my feet. “Another,” I said. I closed my eyes. The second blow knocked me down again. I lay where I fell.

Arnfithr bent over me and began tearing my clothes.

I powdered my cheeks and lips with dust. I hoped I looked the part-bleeding, dirt-masked, limping on my scalded leg. As I lurched towards the village, I croaked: “Help.” No break in the Damascene guards’ prattle. A little louder. “Help.”

One of them looked up. He stood, one hand seeking his sword, the other lighting a torch from the fire.

I staggered forward a few more steps.

The guard spoke to his companion. After a moment he crept towards me, sword drawn.

I crumpled, fell at his feet.

He kicked my ankle. I groaned. He kicked me in the ribs. I groaned again. “Piss-drinker,” I said, knowing my tongue was a thick muddle to his ears.

His dark eyebrows arched.

I placed my hands palms up in front of me to show I was unarmed. I pointed to my face. Blood still seeped from my nose. I showed him my leg, where I’d earlier shed the cloth to bare the blistered skin beneath.

I opened my mouth. Made drinking signs with my hand. “Understand, you son of a dark-haired whore?”

He steered the torch closer, bending over to study the beaten and burned Viking, peering closely to sift the truth from what he saw: this curious savage, isolated from the rest of his men, had walked into the hands of his enemy rather than die of thirst.

At least that’s what I hoped he was thinking.

Abruptly, he stepped aside and backed off to the campfire. The plan had been to kill him swiftly and silently while Arnfithr rid us of the other guard. But the moment had passed. I dragged myself to my knees and scanned the village.

Arnfithr was nowhere in sight. Our men were awake. They knew we would come for them, of course. And they knew not to make a sound.

Out of sight, I stood up and bolted, my feet thudding like gentle heartbeats on the softer ground. Fifty paces away, I stopped and watched the guard lead his companion to where I had lain. As they neared the place, I saw Anrfithr flit behind our brothers.

I prayed for his success.

My target was the hut where the Damascene leader slept. In the dim moonlight, a dark trail snaked from the doorway where the corpse had been dragged away.

A cloth draped the entrance. I pulled it aside. Bright lights flashed as my eyes tried to pierce the darkness. Silence pounded in my ears. I stood still and listened.

Snoring from my right. Gentle, swinelike grunts. Like a woman’s snores. I shuffled towards the sound. Closer. Still closer.

My foot touched something solid. I stopped. My skin prickled. My mouth dried. My stomach filled with heavy stones. I crouched. He had not awoken. The Damascene leader’s snores still rattled in his throat where he lay on the floor. My hand slowly moved towards the sound. I touched hair that felt like silk. At once, my left hand darted towards his neck and my fingers clenched around his throat.

The snoring stopped.

My right hand joined its fellow and I squeezed.

Awake now, the Damascene grabbed my wrists. My fingers tightened around his throat, and I pressed down from my shoulders.

By the time I heard the sound behind me it was too late to react. The blow struck me across the cheek. A second blow struck my nose. I fell off the Damascene and rolled across the floor. I was on my feet, my nose bleeding again. It was too painful to dab the gore away. I thought I might choke. I shook my head vigorously and spat.

My stupidity shamed me. How had I not reckoned there might be a brace of them in the room? I saw only the leader entering the abode, but a companion, a bodyguard, a lover perhaps, had sneaked in unobserved.

I didn’t know which one I had tried to strangle. But he was still alive. The sound of his coughing now filled the room.

The moment the other spoke, his words intended for his fallen companion, I sprang forward. I knew I risked death. He would be armed. But better to risk death than face the fate that awaited me should I linger in an unwarriorlike fog of doubt.

The heel of my hand struck bone. A second blow shunted him to the side, clearing a path ahead of me.

I plunged through the doorway and looked up.

The moonlit glints of the laughing Damascenes’ weapons were silver flashes of lightning.

They hair-dragged me towards my brothers. I readied myself for the bleak sag of Arnfithr’s jowls, the wretched faces of my three other men. All knew they were about to die in this godforsaken land. I ground my teeth against the Damascene’s kicks of encouragement.

But maybe Arnfithr had succeeded. Maybe at least that side of the plan had worked. Yes, he had freed our companions and they had escaped into the darkness! And now they awaited their chance to free me! Hope clung to me like rotting flesh on a skeleton.

Not for long.

Arnfithr had managed to loosen the ropes around the wrists of Tholfir and Ofram. Einar remained tied. Arnfithr was unbound, his head bowed, closely guarded by three Damascenes.

The Damascene leader stood in front of me. His dark eyes sparkled in the firelight. I spat blood in his face. His eyes narrowed. He wiped the red-frothed spit off his cheek and showed me his axe. My axe. He’d plucked out the jewels. Was he offering it to me? I thought not. I looked at him again and he struck me on the shoulder with the helve of the axe. And again. As if he was knocking a stake into the ground. I fell to my knees. The third time I was ready for him.

I caught the axe handle as it swung down and ripped it out of his grasp. Before he had time to tumble to my intent, I planted the blade in his skull. I tugged it out and sent it crashing down again.

Around me, the Damascenes looked at each other. Leaderless, they didn’t know what to do. Surprise turned to outrage. Outrage battled with fear. Fear yielded to stupor. They stood as still as trees.

Not so Arnfithr. Two of his guards lay on the ground. The third gargled, a knife hilt-sunk in his throat. Tholfir, silent despite the tears in his eyes, untied Einar’s bonds. Ofram picked up a sword that had belonged to one of Arnfithr’s victims and stood beside me.

Arnfithr started to yell. He roared like a berserker. I joined him. Ofram took up the call. Einar joined us. Then Tholfir. Together, the noise we made caused the ground beneath our feet to tremble.

Still yelling, I plunged my axe into the Damascene leader’s chest. The blade tore into his body. I chopped at him as if I were splitting a log.

The remaining Damascenes backed off.

My men kept up their crazy noise.

The Damascenes kept their distance.

Their leader’s chest was spoiled red, the mess a pack of dogs would wreak. I stuck my hand inside and grabbed his heart. I ripped it out and held it high.

Our chorus was the roar of an angry God. I placed the bleeding flesh to my lips and bit into it. My mouth filled with warm blood. I passed the heart to Ofram.

Suddenly there was silence. A single Damascene soldier had stepped forward, his right hand shaking as he held out his sword.

“Brave man,” Arnfithr said.

Ofram dropped the leader’s heart and wiped his hand on the ground. He darted towards the advancing Damascene and slew him with a single blow to the neck. “Dead man,” he said. He picked up the fallen man’s sword and gave it to Tholfir.

Tholfir looked at me.

“It’s okay,” I told him.

“What now?” Einar asked.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” I said.

We bunched together and backed away from the Damascenes. When we could no longer see them, we turned and ran, heading for the safety of the Lebanese Mountains.

Had the Damascenes chased us, they might have beaten us down and crushed us before long. They had food and water. We were hungry and thirsty. But they chose to let us go. Now and again Tholfir let out a cry and pointed at a glimmer in the distance. But each time, it was only his fear-fevered fancy.

When we reached the mountains, we prayed, quietly, each asking his own favor of the Lord. On my knees, salt tang still on my lips, I whispered, “Give me strength to forget.”

And God answered, “What is past is dead.”

Outside the flint-carved walls of Orkahaugr the wind still howled. Tholfir stirred, legs kicking like a dreaming dog where he lay curled at my feet.

Arnfithr finished his latest scratchings on the wall. “You must say something, Hardaxe,” he told me. “For those who are yet to come to this place.”

I gazed at him. “Write only this,” I said. “Haermund Hardaxe was here.”

I closed my eyes and tried to sleep.