The berserks had no shields, just spears or rocks in one hand, huge axes in the other. Vali ducked behind his shield as a volley of missiles came in and was glad that he had. A spear tip punched straight through the front of his shield and stuck there, though it caused him no harm. No one around him seemed injured, and for the moment it seemed the wall had done its job.
Some of the spears had done theirs too. Vali’s shield was now heavy and unwieldy and he knew he would have to let it go if an enemy pulled at the spear and it didn’t come free. The berserks crashed into the wall, less hard than he had anticipated. They had to clear the opposing spears first, hacking them down with their axes or just grabbing them and pulling them aside. The thump that Vali had expected never came, just a squabble of weapons as each side fought for advantage. Then his own men attacked from the back rank, long spears reaching over him to stab at the attackers. One berserk got through, driving his axe into a shield deep through the rim into the wood. Then another berserk did the same, and another. Vali saw that there was more method to their attack than he’d credited them with. They were battering down the shields, or sticking weapons into them, gaining levers by which they could pull them away, with the owner attached ideally, or making them so unwieldy they were unusable.
A berserk in front of Vali hurled his axe into the wall and then took hold of the spear that was through Vali’s shield, simultaneously drawing his knife. He clearly intended to rip aside the shield and then do for Vali in close. The spear pulled free though, and he fell back. Vali did not press his advantage by coming forward to stamp on him.
‘Hold the wall!’ screamed Vali. ‘Hold the wall!’
Then he was struck again. Bjarki sank his huge axe into Vali’s shield and tore it down. His strength was so great that Vali was pulled from the line. Bjarki’s axe was briefly useless but the berserk sank a heavy kick into Vali’s belly as he ripped away his shield, sending the prince crashing to the ground. Bodvar Bjarki was not so delirious he didn’t know who he was fighting but his speech was incoherent and nonsensical.
‘Death, prince. Blood, prince.’
Someone jabbed a spear at the berserk and that took his attention. He shook Vali’s shield free of his axe and battered into the wall, knocking men to the ground. The defence collapsed. The berserk killed one man, then another, the axe taking half a farmer’s head away. Vali saw Bragi put his sword clean through an opponent but he was the only one who seemed to be retaliating. Now Vali could see the value of the berserks and was pleased there were no conventional warriors following them in. The shield wall had fallen in on itself and a charge by a second wave of attackers would be decisive. Vali recovered his wind and got to his feet. Bjarki drove his axe into another shield, ripping it away, but lost his grip on the weapon, which went clattering onto the track behind him.
Vali had no weapon, no shield and no choice. He couldn’t allow the berserk to draw his sword. He leaped at him, striking forward and with both hands at his enemy’s chin, trying to snap back his neck. Here, his attention to Bragi’s lessons stood him in good stead. He hit his man hard, pushing up with his legs to deliver a powerful two-handed blow. The berserk took a step back, tripped over a body and fell, his head slamming down against the bank, where he lay absolutely still.
Vali could allow himself no self-congratulation. ‘Attack! Attack!’ he screamed.
Bragi had got four men side by side with shields and they re-engaged the remaining berserks. There were three still fighting, tearing at the shields, beating away the spear points, stabbing and yelling. Vali picked up a spear that had been broken to an arm’s length and drove it into the neck of his nearest enemy. The weapon stuck. He had no knife to draw so just jumped at the second berserk, grabbing him around the waist and driving him to the ground. Bragi’s sword snicked past his shoulder to impale the berserk in the chest, though Vali took a couple of punches and a bite to the arm as the man died.
There was only one attacker left and he was quickly overwhelmed. A great cheer went up from his men. They’d killed seven berserks for the loss of three themselves. Bodvar Bjarki was trying to get to his feet but he was still hopelessly disoriented. Bragi came forward with his sword.
‘No!’ said Vali. ‘I want this one as my slave. Take him behind the ranks and tie him up. And make sure the women don’t kill him; I want him alive.’ The berserk was bundled away.
Then he saw Drengi, the man who - Vali had to think it - was betrothed to Adisla. ‘Hello, Drengi.’ Vali tried to keep his temper. He was furious that Drengi had not tried to find Adisla.
‘Lord.’ The man couldn’t meet Vali’s gaze. He knew what Adisla meant to Vali, and though this hadn’t stopped him pursuing her, it did mean that he found the prince’s presence disconcerting.
‘Go and find Adisla and her mother. Help them to safety.’
Drengi nodded and turned to run down the back of the hill, as glad to be spared further conversation with Vali as another attack.
‘Die for them!’ shouted Vali after him. Then he called up into the woods, ‘You did well, Hogni. Stay your hand until my command, or if I die, until our foes are about to overwhelm us. Take them at their thickest press. Our wall will stay here, behind the bodies. They can walk to us on a road of their own dead.’ He turned. ‘Bragi, where’s my seax?’
Bragi shook his head, said, ‘Vali the swordless,’ under his breath and went to the back of the line while Vali retrieved his shield. The old warrior came back with the weapon, which Vali stuffed into his belt.
There was a knocking sound. Two men fell. Then the sound again. Another man fell.
‘Arrows!’ shouted Bragi. ‘Shields up.’
‘Reform the wall!’ screamed Vali. ‘Reform the wall!’ He pulled and pushed men into position.
Vali snatched up a spear as the men packed back in, bunching to shelter under their shields. Vali knew this was far from ideal. The best formation to receive arrow fire was spread out and separate, but to resist an infantry charge they needed to be together. Never mind. He pushed the men in, raising his shield to meet the angle of the incoming arrows. The arrows made a scrabbling sound as they glanced off the shields, like rats running over boards, thought Vali. The noise came again, and again, and he crouched low. He realised that they were safe beneath their shields. Few of the arrows penetrated and those that did had been slowed beyond harm.
The noise stopped. Vali risked peeking out from over the top of his shield. Seventy warriors at least, all with shields, the men at the front in byrnies and helmets, carrying spears. The dragon standard was brought to the front of the line. This is it, thought Vali: this is where it ends. He had thought his wit and cleverness could triumph, but as he looked at the ranks of the enemy he realised the crushing power of numbers. He had only half believed it when he had told his men they’d die that day. It had been meant to encourage them, to remove the anxiety of battle. If you are certain of death then fear becomes pointless. Looking at the Danes - the strong jarl warriors at the front in their armour, helmets and swords, the young men behind them with their caps and spears - then looking at his own old men and boys, he knew the game was up. Still he’d done his best and maybe bought Adisla some time.
‘The back ranks must push forward at the moment they hit us,’ shouted Bragi. ‘That was why we got flattened by the berserk - you didn’t push. You must push. If you don’t they will overrun us.’
The Danish king looked relaxed and confident beneath his banner, jovial almost, more like a man about to welcome guests on a feast day than a warrior in the field. He was talking to someone - an odd figure. Vali had never seen anyone like him before. Clearly a foreigner, the man was dressed in a blue tunic, skirt and trousers, all edged with red. On his head he wore a blue cap, the top of which took the form of a four-pointed star drooping down over his head. Who was he? What was he doing with the Danes? Vali thought he matched descriptions of the northern Whale People, who were noted sorcerers.
The king was pointing left and right,
weighing up options.
‘He must charge,’ muttered Vali. ‘He must charge.’ He knew very well that Haarik had time to cook a meal, sleep even, and then outflank them the next morning. One of the Danish jarls was sweeping his arms, gesturing around to the back of the hill. If he came around the back or even sent ten men that way, they were done for. They were likely done for whatever happened, but if they were to have a glimmer of a chance, head-on confrontation was it. Then Vali saw a beautiful sight. The Danish king shook his head, laughed and patted the jarl on his shoulder. He was too proud to do it the sensible way: he was going to charge the wall down.
The king put on his helmet and took up a spear.
‘Come on,’ said Vali. ‘Come on.’
But then he saw some men split off. One group of warriors went left, another right, leaving around fifty. Where was the king? His banner was there but he had disappeared. Vali had no time to think about that. The numbers were more even but Vali faced being attacked from the back in very short order. What to do? In king’s table they talked of ‘getting the run’. This meant that though your opponent might be in a better position, you had the advantage of time. If you didn’t let it slip away, he would never get the chance to bring his most threatening pieces to bear. It was the same here - no time for fancy tactics or movement. They just had to kill the enemy at the front before the enemy behind arrived.
Bragi, crushed in by Vali’s side, saw the significance of what had happened.
‘Looks like we’ll have to fight quick, lord.’
Vali nodded. He would still rather be captured by the Danes, sold into slavery and killed than spend another evening in Bragi’s company, but the man’s loyalty and, more than that, his competence, impressed him. He’d weighed up the situation immediately, not by thinking about it, as Vali had done, but as an instinctive reaction.
Bragi spoke: ‘You’re your father’s son. I never thought I’d say it, but you are. There was a rumour for years that he’d bought you in the Isle to the West, and not got much for his money either.’
‘Your charm is effortless,’ said Vali, but the smile he gave Bragi was genuine enough.
‘You can see why people thought that, with you being an ugly black-haired bastard and all,’ said Bragi.
Vali looked at the enemy. The swords of the men at the front were drawn. It was about to begin.
‘Bragi,’ he said.
‘Yes, lord.’
‘If we make it to Valhalla . . .’
‘Yes, lord.’
‘Don’t sit next to me.’
The old man laughed until tears came down his face. ‘You are a king, sir, a king,’ he said.
Bragi had once told him it was a fine thing to die and Vali had thought it more homespun nonsense, but for just an instant he could feel the warmth of the sun on his face, smell the smoke of the burning village, take the weight of the spear in his hand and believe him. There was a comradeship here that he had never felt before, a bond with his fellows that went beyond any small consideration of actually liking them.
There was a roar like a landslide, and the enemy were charging, screaming oaths to Thor, the thunder god, and Tyr, god of war. The name of Odin was not on their lips. These were not berserks, and the hanged god was too peculiar, mysterious and mad for the average farmer or bodyguard.
Vali felt curiously disconnected from the scene and wondered who he should call on for help. None of the gods had ever appealed to him at all. All apart from one.
‘Lord Loki,’ he said, ‘prince of lies, friend to man, let me endure. Let me endure.’
Vali was not religious but for a heartbeat he realised the truth of the gods of his people. Every one was a god of death - of war: Freya, goddess of fertility and war, Thor, god of thunder and war, Freyr, god of pleasure and prosperity but battle bold. Only Loki was not a fighter. Only Loki stood at the sides and laughed, a laughter more deadly to the self-important gods than any sword or spear. No wonder they had chained him.
The sound of the enemy’s feet in the little lane vibrated through the ground. Now they would throw their missiles. Vali felt confident. His men were cheek by jowl, the front rank of shields locked tight into each other. The enemy were coming on in a mass somewhere between close order and spread out. They were too far apart to offer each other protection with their shields but not spaced enough to dilute the effect of an incoming volley of missiles.
Vali turned to the man on his other side and thought he had never seen him before. He was a tall pale red-haired fellow in a long brown feathery cloak. Vali wanted to shout at him for being such an idiot as to wear a something like that in the line but found he couldn’t. He struggled for words, desperate to say something to this stranger. In the end he managed it.
‘Are you with us?’ he said.
The man, who seemed able to find some space to move in the press of the wall, touched his arm and said, ‘I have been with you since the beginning.’
‘And now you’re here at the end.’
‘No end for you,’ said the man. ‘None, ever. You are always and eternal, Fenrisulfr, and soon you will see that. The gods, in their dreams, now walk the earth.’
‘What?’ said Vali.
Spears, axes and stones hammered down. Vali ducked into his shield. A man behind him fell. When he looked up, the red-haired stranger was gone and he had no time to think about how odd that was.
‘Loose!’ screamed Vali, and the ranks behind him hurled their spears. Three of the Danes fell, one in the front rank. The jarl impeded the men behind him as he fell to his hands and knees, the others spinning and leaping to get past him. Vali gripped his spear, his hands wet with the sweat of fear.
Bang! The wave of warriors hit the line. The Danes slid their shields into the spears, trying to push them up or aside or snag them, then to release their shields and hack in with sword and axe. Vali found his spear torn from his hand as a Dane came steaming in to him with his shield and struck at him with his axe. Again Vali could not draw his seax and was glad of his helmet as the axe knocked it off with a glancing blow but without hurting him. The press was so tight that it didn’t fall to the ground but wedged at the back of his shield. Then a spear was pushed over his shoulder from behind and the warrior was driven back. The helmet dropped and Vali kicked it towards the enemy. The Danes rushed forward again, under the defenders’ spears. More men pushed in by his side, still more behind him. It was shield to shield in the crush with no room to swing a sword. Those in the front rank became spectators at the fight, shoving forward and hoping not to be stabbed by spears wielded by opponents they had no hope of reaching. A Dane slipped on the body of another but Vali couldn’t move to draw his weapon. No need. The man went down under the feet of his friends.
More warriors joined the back of the Danish push, throwing weapons and heaving their shoulders into their comrades’ backs in a bid to force the defenders down the lane. Vali shoved, was shoved. He strained forward with every sinew but he felt his line giving ground. Even though the Danes were stumbling and slipping on fallen bodies, there were many more of them than the Rygir. Vali went a pace back, then two. The faces of the enemy were right in his, hurling insults, promising death, spitting, trying to bite even, but there was almost nothing the men in the front could do to hurt each other. They were too close to even kick. Behind Vali someone fell, then another, and it seemed that, in a breath, the wall would be overwhelmed.
‘Now, Hogni, now!’ screamed Vali. Hogni couldn’t hear him but the Horda was an attentive and experienced warrior who had listened well to what Vali had told him. ‘Now and quietly,’ he told his archers.
They came forward out of the woods, five of them, and released a volley of arrows from above at the back of the Danish press at a range of five paces. Then another, and another. Two Danes fell, then three, then two more before they even realised they had been outflanked.
‘Push,’ screamed Vali. ‘Push!’
Danes were trying to scramble up the bank to get at the
archers, slipping on the bodies of their comrades, sliding and falling. The archers shot again and again. Vali stuck his shoulder into his shield and shoved as hard as he could. The Dane in front of him lost his footing, grabbing out and taking a companion with him. The Rygir began to gather momentum and stamped forward over the fallen men, driving down with boots, spears and axes.
The enemy broke and ran. Hogni’s archers continued shooting, though he commanded them to stop. He wanted some of the glory for himself and leaped into the lane to pursue the fleeing invaders.
Vali’s men streamed past him after the enemy. Vali shouted at them to halt. About twenty Danes had gone off on a flanking movement and he felt sure they were about to attack from the rear. But there was no hope of controlling his men, who sprinted after the Danes, followed down the lane by most of the women and many of the children, waving sticks and house knives as they ran.