struck him but the animal took fright, staggering sideways, bucking and kicking him off. Vali landed in the water and the tapestries spilled open, showering cups and plates into the sea. The clatter spooked the horse even more and it bolted.
A roar went up from the incoming boats. Vali was badly winded but had no time to recover. He gathered up what he could in his arms and staggered up the beach towards another horse.
Behind him he heard a heavy crunch as the ships grounded.
‘Odin, slayer! Odin, madman! Odin, war-drunk! Odin! Odin! Odin!’
The berserks didn’t even stop for the plates and cups, just charged at him. Vali made the other horse, untied it and mounted. He had one silver cup left from the hoard he had bundled into the tapestries. He raised it towards the berserks. As he did so, he saw a familiar face. At the front of the charge was a massive man in a white bear skin, a cleft right down the front of his forehead. It was the berserk who had killed the monks, Bodvar Bjarki. He had a throwing spear in one hand and the huge iron rattle in the other. So now he was their leader.
It had been three years and Vali was a stronger man than he had been then, but he reminded himself of his plan. Still, he called to the berserk: ‘Remember me, you half-witted coward? Have you come to pay me for my slaves you killed?’
The berserk heaved the spear at Vali but the prince dropped his head flat to the horse and it sailed over him.
‘I’m afraid I’m going to require a little more than a spear. That can’t be worth much, even after we’ve scraped your shit off it.’
The berserk became even more enraged, charging up the beach without drawing his weapons. Vali was sorely tempted to ride him down but reminded himself that he had faith in the merits of organisation and a cool head on the battlefield. One of the reasons he’d given his gear to Bragi was that he didn’t even want the option to fight. This battle, he thought, would be won in the mind, like a game of king’s table, and he had to stick to his plan. He urged his horse a little way up the hill and then turned to see what was happening. The more sober warriors were disembarking, and he saw the banner of Haarik, king of the northern Danes of Aggersborg — the black dragon. As he’d thought: Danes fronted by local berserks. He wondered if the berserks had suggested the raid. No time to think though. He kicked the horse off at a fast walk, careful to stay out of range of the spears but not far enough away so he couldn’t be seen.
He heard the shouts behind him.
‘We will have your blood.’
‘Catch him!’
Good. He had their attention. Already Forkbeard’s hall was burning but the berserks were chasing him. Would they lead the rest of the raiders? He stopped as he left the settlement, holding up the cup again. He saw the man holding Haarik’s standard point at him, then a group of around forty warriors began to follow the berserks up the hill at the trot.
He rode away, the taunts of the enemy at his back. The most dangerous part of his plan was about to unfold. As he approached the woods he had to let the berserks catch him. He dismounted and held up the cup.
‘Cowards!’ he shouted. ‘Cowards!’ There was no point in finer insults on the battlefield; they would not be heard. The horse panicked and ran off. Now Vali had no means of escape. He would succeed or he would die, he knew.
A scrum of six or eight berserks was following Bjarki up the hill. They were near and a couple of spears thudded into the bank beside the track. Vali turned to see them screaming and posturing, pointing at him and howling. They’d stopped following, though. Vali pulled one of the spears out and threw it back, heaving it far too far as the heat of battle filled him. Never mind, he’d achieved his goal. The berserks came charging after him again.
He ran as fast as he could, aware that he was in a narrow sunken lane and that the advantage he hoped to give to his own force could now work against him, cutting down his scope for weaving and giving his enemies a clear target.
He was lightly dressed, but so were the berserks. They were bigger, heavier men though, and he was faster than them down the lane. Another spear thunked into the track beside him, then a hand axe hit him on the back, but luckily not with its cutting edge. He knew they were close — the effective range of the axe was nowhere near that of the spear. He hoped the shield wall would be in place as he came to the crest of the hill.
It was, thirty men in four ranks crammed tight into the lane. It was then he realised he had nowhere to go. He didn’t want to tell the wall to part because he wasn’t sure it would close again in time. He glanced behind him. The berserks were no more than twenty paces away.
‘Spears down!’ he shouted, sprinting towards the wall.
Bragi was at the front. He slapped down four or five spears so they were pointing at the ground.
Vali pulled one last effort from his legs and ran flat out. Then he spotted a tree root sticking out from the bank and veered towards the side of the lane. He hit it with one foot and thrust himself up over the heads of his men, missing his footing on the bank on the way down, crashing into the back rank and sending three men tumbling.
‘Spears up!’ shouted Bragi.‘Spears up!’
The men levelled their spears as the berserks came loping and howling towards them. One of the boys at the front fainted at the sight of the enemy. The men behind pulled him back by the legs. Vali’s sword was nowhere but there was no time to think about that. He shoved on his helmet, snatched up his shield and bundled forward through the line, moving to fill the gap. It was tight-packed at the front, no room to swing a weapon, which hardly mattered as Vali didn’t have one.
‘Spear! Spear!’ shouted Vali, but no one heard him. He’d have to make do with just the shield until he got a chance to find his seax or another weapon. He gripped the straps behind the boss tight in his fist. Bragi could actually punch with a shield but Vali had never got the knack. The point, said the old man, was not to swing it but to drop your weight behind your hand in a quick jolt, the whole forward movement being no more than the width of a fist. He’d regularly seen Bragi fell men with the move for a bet when the old man was in drink, and now he wished he’d tried harder to learn the trick.
The women and the children behind him were screaming, the berserks were howling, his own men were shrieking curses and clattering their weapons. The noise alone was dizzying. The back rank, though disordered by Vali’s arrival, got some missiles away. Two spears, a hand axe and a couple of rocks flew towards the enemy. A spear took a berserk in the leg and, though he tried to run on, he was hopelessly encumbered. As the butt end of the spear dug into the bank, he screamed, stumbled and fell. The axe missed and the rocks too.
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
