farther to the left, falling back upriver, disappearing through a clump of trees. He could see the figure of Hakon in his golden byrnnie, as distinctly as a magically animated little statue, running.
The hostile Dnieper was the only refuge for those who had not fled or already fallen to the swarming Pechenegs: Haraldr, Jarl Rognvald, Gleb, and maybe half a dozen Varangians who either had had the misfortune to miss Hakon’s precipitous retreat or had the good sense to protect the expedition’s pilot. Before his boots were even half submerged, Haraldr could feel the icy current swiping at his legs. When the rushing snow-melt seized his testicles, Haraldr heard the dark voice from the pit of his soul: you are going to die.
The vanguard of the Pecheneg horde stood at the water’s edge, a jeering riot of antic brown limbs and flashing blades. They were less than thirty ells away. An archer wearing only a loincloth came out to test the water and made it half-way to the tight cluster of Norsemen before he shot down the river as if yanked on a string. A hundred ells downriver, his head went under, not to be seen again.
But the Dnieper offered a precarious sanctuary even for the huge Norsemen. One of the Varangians lost his footing, and the entire group staggered before they could make common cause against the rushing river. When they had steadied somewhat, the tallest Varangian spoke. He Was about Haraldr’s age and size, and impressively handsome. His voice was as calm as if he were sitting on a stump whittling a stick. ‘Hakon will be here within a quarter of an hour,’ he assured his comrades. ‘He was wise to fall back and summon the rest of the Varangians from upriver. Soon the corpses of these shitheads will be colder than we are.’
Jarl Rognvald turned to the Varangians. ‘Yes. All we need do is stay on our feet until then.’ But inwardly the Jarl suspected not. What he had seen looked more like a treacherous desertion than a strategic retreat.
Aeifor roared on. The Pechenegs jittered and waited, occasionally launching a few spears or arrows; the Varangians fielded the missiles on their shields as though playing a game. The game became less amusing as the current continued its numbing assault; Haraldr’s legs were turning to dead stumps. Finally there was a commotion, and the teeming mass of Pechenegs was parted by a silk-clad chieftain accompanied by three or four byrnnie-clad subalterns and dozens of variegated retainers, including some women in expensive Frisian cloth robes apparently just looted from the Rus ships. ‘The turd on top of the dung heap,’ said the handsome Varangian in a remarkably laconic voice.
The Pecheneg chief had wide, thick shoulders; a scowling, beetlish face peered out beneath a finely embossed Norse-style helm. He stood with his hands at his hips and shouted furiously at the Norsemen, then at his own men. He stomped up and down the beach for a few minutes, every now and then pausing to exhort the heavens or kick at the sand. This exhibition concluded, he simply sat on his haunches and waved his retainers away.
The Varangians began to discuss a break-out, but the handsome young Varangian was adamant in his faith in Hakon. ‘We’re pledge-men,’ he reminded his comrades. ‘That’s what
‘Maybe they are pinned down upriver,’ offered a shorter, thick-necked Varangian with boyish, rock-crystal eyes.
Haraldr admired the loyalty of the Varangians. They’re good men, he decided. They deserve a better leader.
The Pecheneg chief suddenly leapt to his feet, screaming and gesturing as if he had been seated over a fire. Almost immediately the Pechenegs swarmed the nearest ship upriver from the Norsemen. The blood that chilled in Haraldr’s aching limbs seemed to crystallize, cold water turning instantly to ice.
‘We’ve got to move now!’ shouted Haraldr; he did not bother to explain why, and only distantly wondered why he was giving commands. ‘If we clasp arms and form a ring, we can drift together until we get to the rocks!’
The handsome Varangian quickly appraised the situation. Like industrious ants, the Pechenegs had already lifted the massive hull from the log rollers and were creeping towards the water. ‘That’s the best plan now,’ he calmly agreed. His eyes had a wounded look, not of fear but of betrayal. Hakon has lost something more valuable than all the gold in Grikia, thought Haraldr.
The ship was almost floated, due less to organisation than to the numbers and the verminous frenzy of the Pechenegs. Thirteen ells at beam, fifty ells long, and careening down the river, the big river craft would crush the Norsemen like snails. The desperate human raft floated away just as the looming hull began to bob towards them.
The Dnieper’s suction drew them on at a fantastic speed, but the ship, a more seaworthy craft, came on faster. The white water was just ahead. Haraldr’s foot smashed into a rock but his feet were so numb that he hardly noticed. His head went under, and water surged up his nostrils like solid plugs of ice. The ring broke up. Insensible feet scrambled to gain a foothold on the treacherous bottom. The ship whooshed past; seconds later a series of muffled cracks announced its destruction on the rocks.
‘Make the boar!’ yelled Jarl Rognvald. The boar-array was a wedge of men driven into the heart of the enemy. The Varangians quickly found their places. Jarl Rognvald took the snout, grabbed Haraldr’s arm, and placed him at his right flank; the handsome Varangian took the same position on the Jarl’s left. The essential Gleb was tucked safely in the middle of the wedge.
The boar moved warily through the spiky, foaming shallows. The Pechenegs crowded the bank, spears thrusting and sabres waving. ‘Follow my cadence!’ growled Jarl Rognvald. The Pechenegs were only a few ells away. Voices were screaming deafeningly both inside and outside Haraldr’s skull.
‘Fast!’ Jarl Rognvald lurched forward at a near run. His axe rose and fell like a woodcutter’s. Haraldr pushed against the mass of Pechenegs with his shield, but it was as if the beast of his fear had seized his sword; he still could not lift it. He struggled to keep moving forward against the weight on his shield. He could see a rock-strewn rise ahead and promised himself that if they made it, they would live. Then sun-flared metal showered over the rise. Not Norse steel but Pecheneg mail jerkins and captured Hunland swords. The Pechenegs had brought up their best footmen.
The Pecheneg footmen pushed forward, crushing their less-heavily armoured comrades against the Norse boar. The wedge quickly became a circle, a desperate shield-fort. The crystal-eyed Varangian took a spear in his thick neck, drew a final, desperate arc with his axe and fell. Another Varangian raised a forearm lashed to a limp red rag by the Pecheneg sabres. Jarl Rognvald smashed two Pechenegs with his axe and sent them reeling in a mist of blood, but three more leapt forward and clutched at his shield and the Jarl could not throw them off. Thin sabres whirled around him like furious, shrilling birds, and long red streaks appeared on his face. A spear drove into his byrnnie, and he fell.
Something struck Haraldr’s chest so hard that his lungs emptied and he thought he had lost his sword in the darkness. The noise of the battle was like a great wind that kept him from regaining his breath. His upper arm touched something white-hot, and his forehead tickled. He shoved hard with his shield to keep it from crushing his chest, but a greater force pressed back. All he could see was blood, not before him but in memory. Black-red blood. Stiklestad. His body began to freeze. He saw Elisevett, very clearly for a second, and then his mother. He fell, not to the earth but in a great spiralling plunge to the abyss of his own being, a spirit world haunted by mythic beasts given substance by the real horrors of Stiklestad. Here, riot in the realm of flesh, would be Haraldr’s last battle, here his tormented soul would finally be forced to confront its own demons.
Haraldr knew he had been here before. It was a dark, featureless plain scoured by a bitter-cold wind that wet and stung his eyes. Someone told him that if he stopped to rest, he would be warm for ever but another voice thundered and ordered him on against the ravening gale. The fire exploded before him but it was colder than the wind and blacker than burned coal. Within the lightless magma he could see the great gaping black jaws. The Dragon.
He awoke to ice crystals in the sun. Steel-ice. The Pecheneg wore a conical Norse-style helm, a steel jerkin sheathing his stocky chest. Haraldr’s body was liquid and iron at once, flowing, changing between the two at some unthinking but complex suggestion. His sword at last lifted, blown by the cyclone from the spirit world. And then it fell.
The Pecheneg’s sword arm and half his torso were gone, and the gaping slash spewed blood as if his heart
