Votan and Other Novels (FANTASY MASTERWORKS) (32 page)

I raised my spear.

‘Go in, Vandals, and go right through them,’ I shouted. I dropped the point. The wedges moved off.

Behind that leading wedge, the green grass had turned to blue. These were the Vandals who had served Loki, and had worn the cloaks made out of that job lot of blue cloth he had been unable to sell otherwise. Now, as he had cast them off, so they cast off his cloaks, they hoped in his sight. Every man in those four wedges was a Vandal seeking to kill Loki, except the leader, and he was a Goth looking for Sigmund.

They went forward across the common, at a trot. They didn’t make much noise, they were saving their breath. The line opposite them was still steady, and there was a lot of shouting of ‘Sigmund’ or ‘Volsungs for ever’, and blowing of horns and beating on shields.

Of course, almost everyone on either side was badly frightened. Some had been in skirmishes or riots, or had gone to steal ships or horses, but this was the first time for two generations, the generations of the Asers, that two armies had met in the north.

I watched the meeting of the hosts. The rest of my army was still in the wood, and could neither see nor be seen. Hoenir and Tyr, and Oswy Karlsson the Saxon came forward to me to watch.

The wedges crossed the common, and slowed a little, as we had foreseen, as they came to the slope. Then with a splendid sense of timing, Sigmund brought his second line over the crest of the ridge and into position fifty yards behind his first. The sight should have unsettled the Vandals at the moment of impact. But this too we were expecting. The wedges cut into the Burgundian line in four places, and the broken ends of the line curled in, not giving the Vandals space to spread out. In a moment there were four solid masses of Vandals surrounded by Burgundians. The second line on the ridge stood rock steady.

‘Come on,’ shouted Tyr. ‘Get Lyngi out of there.’

‘Stand still,’ I told him, not shouting, I didn’t dare shout, everyone else was shouting. Oswy was moaning and screaming like a madman, which of course for that hour he was.

‘Blood, out, out, blood!’

Hoenir took my mood and just said, in almost a whisper,

‘They’re murdering them down there.’

‘Stand still.’ I wasn’t going to let these green Lombards and
unblooded Saxons loose on an unbroken shieldwall, even if it were only Burgundians. The only talent a general needs is success in his first battle. It is harder to hold an army back than to send it forward. I sat Sleipnir with my face to the enemy, my back to my own host. By sheer will I held my men back in the wood. On the ridge I could see Sigmund, his back to us, shouting at his men by the way his head was moving. Whose will was the stronger? Could I hold my second line longer than he could hold his?

My line stood still, held its form. I could see Lyngi hacking away at the press of Burgundians around him. Tyr was making my men sit down, stand up, tell dirty stories, count themselves, anything to take their minds off the fight they could hear and not see.

Sigmund was stretching his arms wide. Then his line broke, his will gave, he couldn’t hold them any more. First one man ran down the hill toward the mêlée, and another, and then a group. Sigmund no longer had a shieldwall or an army, just a great shapeless mass running down to where Lyngi and his Vandals were still standing, living or dead, in their wedges.

I saw Sigmund’s army dissolve. I saw Victory.

‘Right,’ I shouted. ‘We’ll go now.’

I walked Sleipnir forward. The rest of my army came on behind, in three lines. As they came out of the wood they saw the Burgundians streaming down the hill, and in that first sight they saw their enemies stagger and wilt as Pybba and his archers stood up and sent a shower of arrows into their flank. That much I had learnt from Morien.

I looked back from time to time. I shouted:

‘Keep your dressing. Slow! Push, remember, push, push! Don’t split up. Use your shields. Slow! Keep your lines locked!’

Tyr walked at one side of me, Hoenir at the other, their spears held out horizontally. I looked further back.

‘Hermod, keep your line straight, don’t let the flanks come forward. Slower, Bragi, you’re overrunning Hermod.’

We could hear Lyngi now, shouting:

‘Votan, help! Votan, help!’

He had done his part, he had gone in against odds to tempt
Sigmund’s army down from its strong position, to break it up, destroy the shieldwall. We were almost to him, we were there.

‘Votan,’ Lyngi shouted, and ‘Votan,’ shouted the Lombards. ‘Votan, help!’ they shouted and ‘Donar’, as our flanks enveloped the Burgundians in turn, and pushed them back into a confused shouting mass, so that Lyngi and his survivors could burst out into line with us.

‘Votan!’ or ‘Donar!’ they shouted, and the Saxons shouted, ‘Out, Out, Blood, Out,’ and I pressed into the throng. I wore neither mail nor helm, and I laid Gungnir on my shoulder, and I struck at no one, the only mounted man on the whole field.

‘Loki,’ I shouted as I sought him. ‘Loki? Find me Loki!!!’ I came face to face with Synfiotli.

‘Loki’s in Asgard now!’ he screamed at me. ‘You’re too late, Votan, Loki’s in Asgard, and so’s my blasted brother.’ And as he shouted at me Gand came in at his elbow and cut him down and laughed. I pushed Sleipnir through the press, past that body and a score of other bodies, and I came through the battle and out of it and I was alone on the slope below the village, and alone in the village. I left the noise behind, ‘Votan,’ ‘Donar,’ ‘Sigmund,’ ‘Out, Out.’

I went through the village. There were only dead men left there, there had been a fight, in the night probably, they were stiffening where they had been dragged into a heap and their jewels taken. That was Adils. And there, yes, it
was
Frederik. He was willing to fight, but as Loki had said, he couldn’t. Easy to see what had happened, he had struck clumsily, and his spear had gone into that shield, the one with the dog on it. And while he leaned forward with the shock of the blow, someone had cut at the back of the neck.
His
body no one had moved.

I turned toward the causeway. The smoke wasn’t only from the Honeydew Sheds. There was fire in Asgard. I was galloping toward the causeway now, but there was someone in front of me, running toward Asgard. When we reached the Standing Stone he turned to bar my way. Sigmund had a sword in his hand, the old Greek sword that I had given him.

‘That’s the end of you.’ He screamed and slashed at me, and he missed.

‘Stealer of women, breaker of the north, spoiler of trade—’ and he struck at me again, and this would have done for me, but I used the only real parry, I stabbed with Gungnir at his eyes. He swayed away from the stroke, and he missed me and the sword struck the Standing Stone. The blade broke, and left him with only the hilt in his hand; it was a good hilt, but the iron was old and tired. He looked stupidly at the hilt for a moment, and then dropped it. Sigmund was incoherent with rage and terror and almost out of breath after the long run, and I heard him shouting:

‘Kill me, yes go on, kill me, finish the job, ruin all the nations.’

I thrust him through. I saw no reason why he should die without pain, and less why he should live. I gave him in my heart to Apollo the Destroyer of Things, and I rode past Sigmund where he lay squirming like a crushed worm. I never killed a King before. This one lay to die on Njord’s grave.

I rode on to the causeway. There were dead men lying everywhere. There was one living man. Skirmir was running toward me along the causeway. He too was shouting:

‘All dead in Asgard, all dead in Asgard, all dead but Loki!’

I set Sleipnir at him and rode him down. He was still shouting when the hooves struck him in the face, still shouting:

‘All dead but Loki! All dead but Loki!’

Then as Sleipnir recovered from the shock of hitting Skirmir, he jibbed at something else and came down. He screamed, and there is nothing so terrible as a horse’s scream. I fell clear, and for a little while I couldn’t get up, but lay winded, holding my stomach and retching. When I could move I looked as best I could at the thrashing beast, and there was a leg broken. There was nothing more to do. With Gungnir’s edge I cut his throat, and his blood poured out to the ground and his breath hissed into the wind.

What had frightened him, after all that dreadful day? Whose body was it? By the Spanish boots it was Heimdall, dead on the causeway ten yards out of Asgard. The head was gone. There were more dead men about him.

There were others in the gate and in the courtyard, more Burgundians than Vandals. A brazier had been overturned and some of the houses near the gate were burning, but not badly
yet, and what wind there was came from the sea. Then there was a gust, and flame and smoke with it, and I looked and the thatch of Valhall was on fire.

I held Gungnir before me, and I went forward into the smoke. At the door of my own house I found Donar. He was sitting there. There were four dead men in front of him, and Mollnir was dirty, with hair and blood and brains. As he struck, two-handed, someone had come in under his arm and stabbed him to the kidneys, deep. There was blood over his lap, and blood came from his mouth, but when I bent over him he knew me and said:

‘Freda … Loki … sword …’

I left him and I went to the door of burning Valhall. Just within the door sat Loki. He sat on a bench. His head was bowed on the table where he had eaten the Feast of the Dead and cursed us all to Death. Soon he would eat the Feast of the Dead in his own right. Someone had cut down hard on to his shoulder. The blade had shorn through mail and leather and cloth, through muscle and bone. The arm was almost severed, all around was drenched in blood. His other arm, the right, was on the table. His fingers touched Njord’s whetstone. At each end were four faces under a red painted crown. Now all the stone was red with blood.

I looked up the hall, under the burning thatch. There were the thrones as always. There sat Freda. She was white clad and gleaming, golden-haired and willowy, shining and splendid in the red and yellow flames. Gold rings were on her fingers, gold bracelets on her arms, a great gold brooch was at her shoulder. Around her were her maidens, in yellow or green or crimson, four living maidens at her back and four oaken maidens on her chair. Across her knees she held a bloody sword. Donar’s sword, I knew it by the copper and silver set in the blade.

I stood at the door of Valhall, burning Valhall. Freda stood up.

‘Votan!’ she cried. ‘Votan! Why were you so long in coming?’

And all our quarrel was as if it had never been. And then the roof and all the wall of Valhall fell in upon her.

And that was the end of my wife Freda, Njord’s daughter, Skazi’s daughter, Goldlover. She died and all her maidens with her in the flames of Valhall. I took the whetstone from Loki’s still living hand, and I left him to the flames.

I went into my own house. I thrust the whetstone through my belt. From the wall I took the helmet, my shield from the Goth king, the sword Donar made me. I looked around, and I found my old leather bag, the last Greek thing I had. I rummaged in the boxes, I stuffed wealth into the bag, all I could find, gold, silver, Amber.

As I turned to leave the hall I heard a movement on the bed. Wrapped in a bundle of furs was Scyld. He was asleep; by the looks of it, someone had given him a dose of Honeydew before the fight started. There was no reason why he should see the horrors.

I put my arm through the strap of the shield and held him against my body. It was the only time I was ever allowed to hold him in my arms without someone interfering.

I knelt by Donar. He looked at Scyld, and tried to smile with the side of his face that did not always smile.

‘Sister’s son,’ he said. ‘King’s heir … sister’s son … not King’s son … sister’s son …’ He retched a little, we were both wrapped in the smoke of Valhall, the horrible smoke and smell from buildings that burn with men still in them.

‘Hurts, Votan, Allfather, Allhealer, hurts …’ he said and then very clearly,

‘But not in the earth, my friends, no, not in the earth.’

So while he was looking at Scyld, I took the sword he made me that I had never used, and I struck at the back of the neck. Then I took the body into my own house, Donar, that was King Vikar’s son of Norroway, Skazi’s son, and Skazi was sister to Mymir the Oldest Aser, and to Bergelmir that was driven out. I kindled the thatch with a brand from burning Valhall.

I took Scyld and my arms and the bag, and I went down through the wicket to the jetty, where was still moored the boat Bragi had built for me, and rigged with a lug sail, though he did not understand what this tangle of mast and spar and ropes and leather was for. I laid Scyld in the boat and I took the steering oar. On this voyage I had no need of food or water. I hoisted the sail.

I looked back to the land. The battle was all up and down the sea shore, axes rose and fell on the edge of the marsh. All through the saltings the Saxons hunted down the last Burgundians. The fire had spread from the gate of Asgard along the causeway.
Heimdall and Sleipnir were both consumed. I cast off from the jetty and whistled, as Jokuhai-inen had taught me to do.

The wind came at once, a hard south wind, off the land. The smouldering houses at the gate of Asgard burst into a new flame. The wall of fire raced through Asgard, to meet the fire of Valhall, and sweep to the seaward end of the palisade. The well-tarred fence burnt, the old dry decking on which the houses were built flamed from end to end. The very piles on which all was carried flared down to the water’s edge. Smoke rose from oil and cloth and wax and fur and wine. In that heat, gold would melt and run down the pillars, flesh and bone would char away to nothing.

The wind carried the great cloud of smoke over us. Our sail filled, and we stood out to sea. Behind us I could still hear the noise, the shouts of:

‘Donar … Loki … Votan … Sigmund … Out … Out …’

At last the noise died. The wind was hard from the south. I held her a trifle west of north.

At dawn, we beached on the shore below Sweyn’s hall. There were no ships there. They had gone south in the night. We had heard them pass in the dark, the rowers cursing the south wind that blew in their faces.