Wolfsangel

36

Vali did not, as Feileg did, remember the attack. Nor did he remember the huge moon reducing the world to silver and black, lines and a circle.

The drakkars had come upon them quietly from the fog bank. Feileg thought the ambush must have been directed by a sorcerer who was working for the pirates How else would Bodvar Bjarki’s ship have been spotted at night, and through such fog?

He didn’t know that magic was involved, though with a bigger ambition than plunder. In the caves of the Troll Wall, the witch was working to speed him to his destiny and on the flat rock of his island the northern sorcerer sat entranced for a week beating his drum and chanting his chants to bring Vali to him. So the Danish warlord had found himself unable to sleep tht night. The inside of his longhouse seemed unbearably stuffy and he had gone outside for some air. Looking out over the sea, he had seen a movement. It was a squall of starlings, wheeling against the big moon, turning and vanishing. It was then that he’d seen the Drakkar, out towards the horizon, skirting an incoming fog. It was potentially dangerous to set sail in such weather but the temptation was too great. His men had not needed rousing. A mob of them were at his door before he had picked up his spear. They too had found no comfort in their beds that night and had seen the enemy vessel. Two ships were crewed and launched before the fog had moved a boat length.

The attackers had lost sight of their prey in the fog but had been guided by the slow beat of Bjarki’s oars through the murk. Both Danish ships had matched that rhythm to hide the sound of their own approach. From within the white world of the fog the voices of the men on the target boat, Vali’s conversation with Bragi even, would have sounded loud and close by.

Leading up to the attack, Bjarki, noted the wolfman, had been nervous. The fog was approaching and the berserk headed out to sea to keep clear of any sandbanks or rocks.

Feileg remembered Bjarki suddenly freezing and telling the rowers to be still and silent. They’d heard it then, the straining of the pirate oarsmen as they rowed, the exhalation of effort mingling with the sound of the oars in the water like the wet breath of a dying giant.

‘Weapons!’ Bodvar had shouted. ‘Weapons!’ And the men had scrambled to their barrels and chests. War horns had announced the attack, followed in a heartbeat by arrows. The bowmen were not accurate shooting from one moving ship at another but they had caused panic, the warriors stumbling and cursing as they fought to be first to their spears. In the attack the distinction between captive and captor melted away and Vali, Bragi and Feileg were free to act.

Bragi had been screaming at Feileg, really bellowing, ‘Get yourself a shield. If you want to live, get yourself a shield.’ He had also been trying to rouse Vali, who seemed to be in a trance.

Feileg could not yet see the attackers, though a couple of arrows skidding on the boards next to him told him they could see him. He ducked down as some of the other men were doing. Bragi was shouting at Vali, begging him to wake up.

A gust of air enveloped them in fog and for an instant Feileg thought they were hidden. But then there was a thump on the ship, so hard it almost felt as though he himself had been struck, a rattle and a crunching as their oars were sheared away, and screams of exultation as the Danes leaped aboard.

The prince stood, seemingly in the grip of madness, muttering to himself and staggering as if drunk.

Three Danes jumped down but one was impaled by Bragi’s sword before his feet even touched the boards, and he collapsed into the other two. There was an insane scramble on the bottom of the boat as Bragi left his sword in the Dane’s body and found his knife for the close work. The Danes were armed with axes, but with Bragi on top of them in a pile had no way to swing them. He gutted the first in an instant. The second tried to get up, but Feileg drove a powerful kick into his head and leaped on him, tearing with his nails and teeth. Bragi was on his feet. He sheathed his knife and regained his sword. Then he leaped into the press of the fight slashing, striking with his pommel, kicking, biting and punching.

Bodvar Bjarki was an impressive sight, blocking with his shield, hacking with his sword, driving in with his knees and head. He was fighting three men at once and it was they who were giving ground.‘Odin! Odin! Odin!’ he was screaming. He was so big that Feileg was reminded of when he’d played with his father as a child, leaping on him, being thrown away and leaping on again.

Other Danes appeared next to Feileg and for a time he lost all sense of anything but his own preservation. Faces came at him, weapons blurred, he dodged, struck and bit, broke limbs, tore eyes from their sockets and stamped on his fallen enemies. There was another massive crunch, the air filled with splinters and he fought to retain his balance. A second ship had sheared their oars away on the other side.

The fighting happened in waves. Men would engage, fight, prevail or die, then part to stand shouting insults at each other and looking for openings before clashing again. Bragi was howling, ‘We are nobles of the Horda and much gold will you win for our safe return,’ but it was useless. The Danes were set on killing them.

One came at Bragi, two then three. The shield he had taken up had been reduced to smithereens and he was fighting with just the iron boss, punching out with it and hacking with his sword. Someone struck him to the face, cutting away part of his chin, but the jarl just shoved his beard into his mouth to secure his dangling flesh. Four were on him, five. Two Danes confronted Feileg, and he couldn’t reach Bragi.

Everything changed when someone struck at the prince. Feileg saw an axe swing towards Vali’s head, but then the axe was flying through the air and the man who had been holding it was clutching his throat and screaming. Feileg saw Vali plunge into the Danes, and the rhythm of the battle changed. The ebb and flow became a flood tide, an unstoppable immense surge that pushed the Danes back, smashed them down and tore them to nothing. Vali’s speed was breathtaking and his strength even more so. He reached Bragi, who was almost dead on his feet. The first Dane had his neck broken as Vali took his head in both hands and twisted; the next was simply battered into the sea. Bragi struck the third with his sword to the shoulder and Vali leaped on him, the two going down together. The last two no longer liked the odds and retreated onto their ship.

Bragi scanned for enemies, straightened his bent sword under his foot against a timber and slid his knife into his belt. That done, he put his hand up to the flap of skin at his chin and called out to Vali behind him,‘Well, you remembered something I taught you, though you did a good enough job of hiding it for long enough. I…’

Feileg watched as Bragi looked at the prince. Vali was kneeling beside of one of the fallen men, chewing into the flesh of his face and trying to rip the meat from the bone with his teeth.

‘Prince, I…’ Bragi put his hand on Vali’s shoulder.

Vali gave a boiling growl.

‘Prince,’ said Bragi, ‘you are bewitched. Prince, friend, please-’

He never finished his sentence. Vali stood and in the same movement threw Bragi onto his back. Then he was on him, biting at him, tearing his skin, punching and kicking. Feileg saw the old man’s head loll as Vali poured in blow after blow, but Bragi was a formidable fighter and responded with blows of his own. The two men rose, locked together, crashed back over the rail of the ship, fell into the enemy vessel and rolled apart. Danes surrounded them. Four, five, six men tore into the pair, attacks coming in from all sides. Vali lost his footing. Axes and spears were raised but Bragi got free of his opponent and charged headlong at Vali’s attackers driving three of them to the boards. Bragi lost his sword and much of his hand to an axe but Vali broke the axeman’s neck with a blow to the head.

Bragi went down, locked to an opponent. They broke, shoving each other away as they stood, but the Dane had snatched the old warrior’s knife from his belt. Bragi reacted immediately, driving his head forward into the man’s face, sending his opponent crashing over the rail of the ship into the sea.

Vali seemed to catch the idea. He tossed two men over the rail into the water and turned to face the rest. The Danes fell back, a half-circle of them around Bragi and Vali, too scared to come on but with nowhere to retreat to.

Bragi was unarmed, all his weapons gone in the fight and his right hand a bloody ruin, as was his face. He smiled at the prince. ‘All my life I’ve dreamed of doing this with you. You’re a great scrapper, as long as you concentrate on the enemy. But you want to watch those berserker mushrooms.’

Vali swayed uncertainly in front of him.

Bragi put a hand on his shoulder.

‘I’m proud of you, lord. You’re a mighty man, and it does my heart good to see you fight like that. I’d have lost my hand before if I’d known it would have that effect on you.’

And Vali took him, leaping on him like a wild animal and tearing out his throat with his teeth. Bragi instinctively reached for his sword with his bloody hand and for his knife with his good one, but they were gone. He staggered back, his blood engulfing him and engulfing the prince. Vali shoved him to the deck, where the old man lay writhing, his hands tearing at his belt for the weapons that were no longer there.

The Danes around them seemed to decide as one they wouldn’t take on Vali and scrambled onto Bodvar Bjarki’s crippled ship. The pirates on the other ship took this for a renewed attack and came pouring over in numbers themselves. Feileg fought hard and lost track of time, then he saw Vali leap back onto the centre boat with a terrible snarl.

Some of the Danes seemed transfixed, stopping as if turned to stone. Feileg had heard his father tell stories of this — the battle fetter — where Odin descends and strikes the enemy motionless. Others, though, were not affected and came forward to meet Vali. The fighting was terrible. Men lost their footing and were stabbed or trampled on the blood-slick boards; friend struck friend in the confusion but Vali seemed untouchable. Opponents fell back from him as if blasted by a gale, pushing back to their own ships. Some made it. Those who didn’t were crushed, torn or broken by Vali’s merciless attacks with teeth and hands.

Feileg took a blow across the shoulders and staggered, but then his opponent was down, felled by Bjarki. He was not berserk — he hadn’t had the time to chant his chants and consume his brew of mushrooms — and when he spoke Feileg recognised what he said for sense.

‘We have to take one of their boats. Leave him here. He is berserk like I’ve never seen and will harm us as much as the Danes.’ Bjarki was no fool and realised that a common enemy could make for strange friends. He pointed to the ship where Bragi lay.

Feileg nodded and jumped across. He went to Bragi. The wound at his neck was terrible and his eyes were dim. He was reaching around, searching for something. The wolfman instinctively knew what to do — he had spent his earliest years with berserks, after all. He picked up a fallen spear and pressed it into the warrior’s good hand. Bragi’s fingers curled around it and he drew Feileg to him. His voice was hardly audible and Feileg had to crane down to hear it.

‘I taught him many things,’ he said, ‘but I never taught him that.’

Bragi began to laugh and then stopped. Feileg touched the old man’s face. He had died as the men of his people would have wanted to, thought Feileg, with a weapon in his hand and a joke on his lips.

Only a few of the Danes remained on the boat and the fight had gone out of them. Seeing the berserk and the remains of his crew climbing across towards them, they rushed back the other way to join what was left of their comrades on the far boat. Only Vali remained between the two groups on the middle ship. The Danes knew they were facing a monster rather than a man and had already started cutting the ropes they had lashed to Bjarki’s ship at the start of the encounter.

On the oarless ship, red with blood, surrounded by bodies, Vali was suddenly still, looking about him as if slightly puzzled. A pair of eyes appeared above the rim of one of the barrels. Someone was still in there, Feileg realised.

‘Now or never Veles Libor,’ shouted Bjarki.

The merchant stood in the barrel looking at Vali. He trembled as he stared at the prince. Even from twenty paces away Feileg could see him shaking.

Veles looked towards Feileg’s ship, his movements very slow as if he feared he might draw attention to himself. Then, with a very surprising turn of speed, he levered himself out of the barrel, ran to the rail of the boat and rolled over to join the wolfman and the berserk, flattening himself to the bottom of the boat as if he was still in the middle of an arrow storm. Bjarki gave a snort of contempt but Feileg was minded to throw the merchant into the water. Luckily for Veles, the wolfman had other things to think about.

‘Can we take the prince with us?’ Feileg asked Bjarki.

Busy cutting ropes, the big man shook his head. ‘He’ll still be berserk. We’ll follow the current and try to keep him in sight.’

‘And if we lose him?’

Bjarki shrugged. ‘We’ll pick him up easy enough if we let ourselves drift. If I stay tied to him I’ll have a mutiny on my hands. He’s bewitched and the men won’t stand for it.’

The fog came over them again, the taunts of Bjarki’s crew following the Danes as they disappeared into it. Vali was only a shadow on the corpse boat, though one last rope still connected it to Feileg’s ship.

The rope was cut and the boats began to move apart. Feileg looked at the body of Bragi. Then he turned to Bjarki. He pointed to the old warrior’s corpse. ‘Tell tales of him,’ he said, and then jumped to join his brother as the fog bank swallowed them.