Forged in Blood Read online

  Forged in Blood

  Book 2 of Viking Odyssey

  Ken Hagan

  © Ken Hagan 2017

  Ken Hagan has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published by Endeavour Press Ltd in 2017

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  FIRST PART

  Chapter 1

  The royal counsel chamber at Linn-dubh is thronged to overflowing. Trestle-tables and benches, usually arranged around two fires at feast-times, have been cleared to accommodate those invited for the King’s announcement. Craft-men in the King’s pay, smiths and sail-makers, wood-cutters and shipwrights — unable to enter through the huge studded doors for lack of space within — jostle outside in the rain.

  At the head of the hall, fief-men and counsellors sit on a bench below the King’s dais. Lower down, in the body of the chamber, are two great winter fires of apple-wood — the kind of firewood favoured by the King for its fragrance in the hearth. Fierce heat. Apple smell off the winter fires, and a stuffy warmth of men’s stale bodies jammed close in the hall. Steam rises from our dripping cloaks and wet beards. It gathers in a haze under the smoke-holes.

  The narrow space along each side of the scorching fires, adjacent to the walls, is reserved for warriors and merchants, some Erse-men among them, but solid buttresses of the King’s power. On all sides men are straining for a glimpse of the King. Raucous and restless, we press forward, narking our neighbours within the crush; niggling tight on each other’s heels; squeezing past roof-pillars of oak that support the rafters. Between one merchant-man and a warrior the cocky banter turns sour. To and fro it goes, coarse and contentious. One man mocks the other’s manhood. A scuffle breaks out.

  ‘Put an end to it, you two,’ says Finn in a loud whisper. ‘Save your balls for the fecking enemy!’ Within the crush no one turns aside, or looks behind to see who spoke — all eyes are on the King.

  King Amlav kisses the Hammer-of-Thor that hangs from the chain on his chest. He removes one of his bejewelled sandals and holds it above his head, showing his intention to speak. Anxious wrangling between fief-men and counsellors tails off into unfinished phrases. Questions broken-off; words half-uttered. Among merchants and warriors the banter dies instantly. The hall falls silent.

  The King is aware that we hang on his words — though everyone knows what’s coming. For a time he says nothing — an intimidating pause. He has five fiefs of Linn-dubh before him in counsel. The sixth, the King’s cousin, was killed last week in the latest raid by the men of Osri. The fief-men are huge and brawny; fighting men; battle-rousers all their lives — not easily set on edge — and yet, squatted on low benches before the King, they have the look of boy warriors awaiting a telling-off from their sword-master.

  Amlav’s second son, his favourite and his rival, the pox-cheeked Glun — called Iron-knee for the knee-cap armour on his gammy knee — approaches from behind the royal dais on the King’s left, intending to whisper in his father’s ear. He is turned away, dismissed by a flick of the royal hand.

  From the back of the hall, where Einar, Finn and I stand in our dripping winter-cloaks among merchants, we hear the clink of iron rivets. Glun wears an armoured knee-brace to protect his weakened left leg that was maimed in battle. The King’s son retreats to the under-bench, and sits glowering beside his brothers.

  In a quiet, menacing voice the King of these eastern shores of Erseland begins his call to war.

  Chapter 2

  The crew of the Hrafentyr are in festive mood. It is Vali’s day. Last night Einar weighed out hacksilver — an equal share of hack for each man of the ship. He promised more from his buried stash for all who get through seven days ashore unscathed. ‘Fair warning,’ says Finn our midshipman, ‘Our skipper cannot abide lame ducks! Stay in one piece, my lads, or you risk being replaced on our next voyage north.’

  No one pays heed to Finn’s advice, least of all the big man himself. At the royal jetties — hastily erected last winter — seventy long-ships of the King’s allies, newly arrived from overseas, are at haven in Poddle Creek. Hundreds of warriors off the ships will compete in a ‘Leik-moot’. Our crew will be among them. To celebrate Vali’s day, an array of sports, challenges and armed encounters has been laid on by the King. The fields of play — for seven days of games — are the sloping cow-meadows north of Hurdle Ford, a spear’s throw over the river.

  *

  The waters of the great river an-Ruirthech are swollen by the neap tide. They sparkle and bubble under our feet. We cross the rope-bridge — Finn, Dugfus and I — to reach the far bank. Since daybreak several thousand people have crossed in single file over the hurdles: warriors and merchant crews like us, wood-men, shipwrights and smiths, and — in a rare excursion outside the palings — cook-women with their children, their shawls laden with fire-wood and fresh bread.

  Men of mixed blood — offspring of Ostmen by local Erse women — who herd for the monks, have driven across scores of squealing pigs, plump half-yearlings from the apple-woods. The pigs will be butchered for the night feasts — all fayre paid for by the King. The young pigs were panicky, crossing on the rope-bridge. Had they not been blinkered, they would not have come over in safety. They might have skidded through the ropes and fallen to their deaths in the water.

  The new staging across the river, specially commissioned by the King, was erected by his shipwrights. It spans an-Ruirthech — what local folk hereabouts call ‘the mighty-runner’— using flights of walking-planks linked by cordage. Each flight is strung like a hammock between sturdy piers of oak sunk like hurdles into the river-bed. The rope-bridge can be dismantled, hauled ashore at times of flood, or cut loose in emergency, if, Thor forbid, another onslaught like the one last winter-fall descends on us from Erse tribes in the west.

  *

  The King himself — Amlav Kuaran of Linn-dubh — threw the first spear of the day to signal the beginning of the Leik-moot. He hurled it across ‘the mighty runner’ — a massive throw for a man half his age. The distance might never be matched. It was amazing to those who watched — and it was the King’s first and only attempt. He threw from the shore on south bank; he threw north into a wind and over the river.

  We stood in awe. We were among a throng of two thousand fightin
g men on the opposite shore. Finn is not a man easily impressed, but even he had to admit that he had never seen the like. Amlav’s spear passed high overhead. We tracked its flight. We listened. The spear-shaft whistled. We turned. The spear held course in the air, and then dipped suddenly to ground. It sank into turf behind us. When the spear-head struck land with a ‘puck’, the sound was greeted with a battle-cry from the warriors, a shout of acclaim so instant that it might have come from one mighty voice.

  The King is no fool. He knows that fighting men enjoy battle trials before the start of a spring campaign — a test of might and main against other well-travelled warriors with common virtues of valour and greed. The men are eager to be seen and admired. Fighting in single combat, or pitching together in pairs or threes, they will strive in the gamut of arms and warfare. And no less so in the unarmed sports: swimming or wrestling, horse-running or cart-pulling, they will compete at every turn in whatever challenge takes their fancy.

  To fight for a season under Amlav’s banner, warriors have sailed to Erinland from the Outer Isles. Many have marched from Jorvik in the Angle-Lands to join a fleet of long-ships bound for Linn-dubh. They are freemen, bound by no ties of family, and owing no debt of service to king or jarl. Each man has fierce loyalty to fellow fighting-crew, and a shared hunger for the summer spoils.

  *

  For seven years Einar has been a merchant in the king’s service with a warrant to raid and trade in the estuaries north of Linn-dubh. In return for Amlav’s patronage — as for all the King’s favoured merchants — a share of my brother’s earnings falls to the royal purse. To protect his own interests, Einar has pledged his crew of twenty-nine men to Amlav’s spring campaign against Osri.

  To fight at my brother’s side will be a proud moment in my life. I will join Einar and the crew in the march inland against the king’s enemies. Einar didn’t ask if I was willing to go. He took it for granted I would. Not that I thought of refusing — I am forever in my brother’s debt — I can never repay what Einar did for me and my foster family. Without his help, I could never have married Helga. He shelled out a small fortune for a twelvemonth bond to secure my safety from blood-law. The bond enabled me to stay for a year in the ice-lands — under house arrest at Twaindale — before my three-year banishment began. I have to prove to Einar that I am worthy of his trust — and pay back, if I can, at least some of what I owe him

  Finn knows my thoughts. ‘Trust me, Kregin,’ says he. ‘No better way to earn your corn than against the filthy Erse — and among your fellow Ostmen.’

  *

  Finn, Dugfus and I walk down the meadows, leaving the rutted tracks where cart-races are run. Finn has a face like thunder. He throws his empty purse to the ground in disgust; crushes it under his boot. The big man has lost the last of his hack in a foolish bet. Dugfus, the fore-sculls oarsman from the Hrafentyr, the tallest man on Einar’s ship, had warned Finn not to take on the last challenge. He had tried to stop our midshipman from making a fool of himself. But, by then — at Finn’s third attempt in a race to pull a laden cart uphill — the big man’s hackles were up. He was too far gone to listen to reason.

  ‘That bastard cheated me,’ says Finn angrily, ‘I don’t know how he did it — I just feel it in my bones. He played a trick, something in the way his carts were loaded — or he had my cart’s wheels and axles jammed. How could a little shit like him have out-hauled me three times in a row? I’m twice his fecking size.’

  ‘But he gave you choice of cart each time,’ replies Dugfus, scratching his balding head in disbelief. ‘It looked fair and square, Finn. I didn’t let the man out of my sight, like you told me — but both carts were loaded equal. And you had a go at each one in turn. I saw no sleight of hand.’

  Finn glares back at Dugfus, retrieves the discarded purse and rummages inside with his fingers in hope that he may have overlooked a scrap of silver in the lining.

  ‘Will you dip in for me?’ The midshipman asks his fore-sculls oarsman. ‘Help me out from yours. Just an ounce, eh? Wouldn’t I do the same for you, Dugi, if your purse was empty?’

  ‘No, Finn,’ says Dugfus. ‘Forget it! You have lost your own hack. You are not losing mine too.’

  ‘What about you, Kregin?’ asks Finn. ‘You smashed it yesterday in the wrestling and on the shore this morning after the buckler-throwing — I saw you fill your purse. Come on, lad! You can afford it. You are flush. Push me half your silver as a loan.’

  ‘I will give you an ounce, Finn,’ I reply. ‘Maybe two ounces, but no more, on condition that you keep away from the carts. There is no point throwing good hack after bad.’

  ‘Keep your damned ounce,’ returns Finn in a burst of anger. ‘No man tells me what to do — not even the skipper’s brother.’

  ‘Suit yourself, big man. I don’t want you to lose, that’s all.’

  Finn’s pride is hurt. He pulls my arm in annoyance. ‘I have a stash put away. I have buried a small fortune on the Isle of Thorns. Every man on the crew knows I am good for a loan.

  ‘Listen, you two,’ says Dugfus. ‘Instead of arguing over an ounce of hack, why not make up a three-some? Blade and buckler, the three of us together — an equal share each — what do you say? Let’s go and pick a fight with three Ostmen from the ships. I fancy our chances. You will see. We will win back what Finn has lost in no time.’

  ‘I am game,’ says Finn, his eyes brightening like a child’s.

  ‘Let’s do it, Finn,’ says I. ‘But are you are sure you can stay in one piece?’

  For a moment Finn seems uncertain whether my words are meant as insult or jest. The midshipman suddenly breaks into a belly-laugh. He gives my beard a fierce tug. We turn to share our joke with Dugfus, but he has taken to his heels. A whoop of delight from our shipmate. He is running downhill, stepping over the cow-plodded ground, with his unstrapped buckler and blade bouncing on his back.

  *

  When Finn and I catch up with Dugfus at the rope-bridge, our oarsman has spittle-handed for a three-some at blade and buckler. He has matched us against two Ostmen who stand as tall as Finn and me, and a third man whose build is shorter, but thick-set and stocky. This last one has thighs like a ram. He puts me in mind of Slegl, a wrestler who thrashed me at Laxvik hustings back in the ice-lands.

  Finn, the only fighter among us with nothing in his purse, has the gall to push the wager to the limit.

  The stocky man responds with deliberate provocation. ‘You are starting too high, old fella.’

  ‘Don’t “old fella” me,’ replies Finn, easily put on edge. ‘You will soon see what I am made of.’

  ‘If you are up for a re-match after we have trounced you,’ returns the other. ‘I doubt if you will be standing after combat, but if you are — and if you are dumb enough for a second encounter — then we will let you throw your hack to the wind — as much as you want.’

  His battle-mates grin menacingly, content to let their stocky friend do the bragging.

  ‘So be it,’ says Dugfus, ‘but if it has to be a stingy bet on our first clash, let’s make it best of three, eh?’

  *

  ‘The wound isn’t deep,’ says Dugfus. He makes a shrug of the shoulders, a carefree gesture that belies the fear in his eyes. ‘It will heal in no time. You will see. Seawater is best to clean broken flesh. Just carry me to the shore.’

  The warriors who had gathered to watch our fight are quickly gone.

  ‘Tell me it is not bad,’ says Dugfus, grabbing Finn’s hand.

  ‘I don’t know,’ says Finn. He looks doubtfully at the sword-wound. The big man tightens his belt around the oarsman’s thigh to staunch blood from the knee. ‘Could be that you need stiches to bind it. I know an Erse-woman at Linn-dubh. She will scorch it with a hot iron or do some fancy needlework — whatever she thinks is best.’

  ‘Shit, no,’ Dugfus howls in protest. ‘I’m not having my skin burned by an old witch. I am a half-blood — half-Ostman, half-Erse. Who knows what she might do with re
d-hot poker in hand?’

  ‘Niamh is no witch,’ returns the midshipman, mildly offended. ‘She has a few wrinkles around the eyes, but she is a dark-haired beauty. Take it from me, Dugi, you will be safe in her hands. And I will see to that she is paid. Don’t worry on that score.’

  ‘Listen to him, Kregin!’ The oarsman grins at the thought of it, though his lips stiffen with pain. ‘We have filled Finn’s purse and he can’t wait to empty it.’

  ‘We have you to thank, Dugi, for being flush,’ I reply. ‘It was your thrust that smashed through the warrior’s buckler. Your high blade tore it to shreds — and your flick on the man’s nose after he fell to ground — that’s what made him concede.’

  ‘That little fella was full of himself,’ says Finn, ‘flouncing like a ram in heat. Our boy made him eat dirt. You fought back like a madman, Dugi.’

  The oarsman’s face darkens with fear. He turns to me, his voice almost begging. ‘You will speak for me, Kregin, won’t you? It is the skipper I am worried about — and not this flesh-wound. Your brother is a hard man — he could throw me off ship as soon as look at me — spit me out like gristle. We were warned to stay in one piece — or else!’

  Finn intervenes.

  ‘Don’t worry, Dugi, Einar Raffson couldn’t find a better oarsman for the Hrafentyr. Not on this side of the Erse sea! Never fear, shipmate, we will have you bound and salved, have you right as rain. I will vouch for you. Kregin will too. And besides, when we march against Osri, won’t the skipper need a man with a sword-arm like yours to fight at his back?’

  Dugfus stares at his wound. ‘What if I can’t get this damned knee to heal?’

  *

  We haven’t set eyes on Einar for three days, but here he is, at midway on the rope-bridge, coming in our direction, heading for the Leik-moot fields. My brother is in such a haste over the hurdles that treads and ropes shake under his weight. Cordage and staging swing at his feet, but he crosses at the run without a hand for balance on the ropes.