The Hammer and The Cross

through shield and forearm, splitting ulna and humerus bones.

Stone-faced, Shef slid his hand high up the head of the halberd, gripping tight, and jerked back. Kolbein staggered forward, put a foot over the line, recovered himself and straightened up, face white with shock and pain. There was a simultaneous yell as his foot went down, and then a confusion of cries.

“Fight's over, past the mark!”

“He struck at the shield-bearer!”

“He struck at the man. If the shield-bearer puts his arm in the way…”

“First blood to the smith, settle all bets!”

“Stop it now, stop it now,” Thorvin called out.

But over him an even louder voice, that of Sigvarth: “Let them fight it out! These are warriors, not girls to snivel at a scratch.”

Shef looked sideways, saw Halvdan, grave but fascinated, wave the opponents on.

Kolbein was shaking, starting to fumble with the buckles of the useless shield, clearly unable to hold it up much longer. Magnus too had gone white. Each strike with the halberd had come close to killing him. Now he had no protection left. Yet there was no escape, no chance to run or surrender.

White-lipped, he stepped forward with the resolution of despair, raised the sword and swung straight down. It was a blow any active man could dodge without thinking; but in a holmgang you had to stand still. For the first time in the contest, Shef twisted his left hand and swung a parry, full force, with the axe edge of the halberd. It met the descending broadsword halfway down the blade and battered it aside, knocking Magnus off balance. As he recovered, he glanced at his weapon. It had not snapped off, but was cut halfway through, and bent out of line.

“Swords may only be replaced,” intoned Halvdan, “by the agreement of both parties.”

Magnus's face sagged with despair. He tried to pull himself together, to stand straight for the deathblow that must come. Kolbein shuffled a little forward and tried to pull his shield-arm up into place with his other hand.

Shef looked at the blade of his halberd, running a thumb over the nick that he had just put in it. Some careful work with a file, he reflected. The weapon was called “Thrall's-wreak.” He was fighting because the man over there had murdered a thrall. Now was the time for vengeance, for that thrall and no doubt for many others.

But he had not knocked the Hebridean down because he had murdered a slave, but because he, Shef, had wanted the slave. Wanted to know about the machines the slave had made. Killing Magnus would not bring the knowledge back. Besides, he had more knowledge now.

In the utter silence Shef stepped back, drove his halberd point-first into the mud, unstrapped his buckler, threw it down. He turned to Halvdan and called out in a loud voice, making sure the whole Army could hear him.

“I give up this holmgang, and ask for the judgement of the umpires. I regret that I struck Magnus Ragnaldsson in anger, knocking out two of his front teeth, and if he will release me from the holmgang I offer him self-doom for that injury, and for the injury just inflicted on Kolbein his partner, and I ask for his friendship and support in the future.” A groan of disappointment mingled with shouts of approval. Yelling and pushing in the crowd as the two points of view found expression. Halvdan and the umpires pushed together to confer, after a few moments calling over the two Hebrideans to join their discussion. Then an agreement, slow quietening as the crowd waited to hear the decision and to ratify it. Shef felt no fear, no memory of the last time he had stood to hear a Ragnarsson pronounce. He knew he had judged the mood of the crowd rightly, and that the umpires would not dare to go against that.

“It is the judgement of all us three umpires that this holmgang has been fought well and fairly, with no discredit to any participant, and that you, Shef…” He struggled with the English name, could not pronounce it. “…Skjef, son of Sigvarth, had the right to offer to submit to judgement while it was your turn to strike.” Halvdan stared round and repeated the point. “While it was your turn to strike. Accordingly, since Magnus Ragnaldsson is also prepared to accept a judgement, we declare that this contest may be ceased without penalty to either side.”

Magnus the Hebridean stepped forward. “And I declare that I accept the offer of Skjef Sigvarthsson to self- doom for the injuries inflicted on me and on Kolbein Kolbrandsson, and we value them at half a mark of silver for each of us…” Whistles and hoots at the low rate set by the proverbially grasping islanders. “…on one condition:

“That Skjef Sigvarthsson, in his smithy, makes weapons for both of us similar to the one he wields, at the price of half a mark of silver each. And with this we admit him to our full friendship and support.”

Magnus walked forward, grinning, clasped hands with Shef as Kolbein too shambled forward. Hund was inside the ring as well, seizing Kolbein's bleeding and already-swollen arm, clucking over the filthy state of the sleeve. Sigvarth was there also, hovering behind the duellers, trying to say something. An icy voice cut through the babble.

“Well, you are all agreed on one thing and another. If you had meant to stop fighting as soon as two drops of blood were shed, you could have done it all behind the privy and not wasted the whole Army's time.

“But tell me this, little dunghill cock—” The Boneless One's voice fell now into a pool of silence as he stalked forward, eyes blazing. “What do you think you can do to get my full friendship and support? Eh? For there is blood between us too. What can you offer me in exchange for it?”

Shef turned and pitched his voice high, allowing once again the note of challenge and contempt to brazen it, so that the Army would know Ivar had been dared.

“I can give you something, Ivar Ragnarsson, that I already tried to get for you once, but that we know you cannot get for yourself. No, I do not mean a woman's skirts…” Ivar swayed back, eyes never leaving Shef's face, and Shef knew that now Ivar would never leave him, never forget him till one or the other was dead. “No. Give me five hundred men and I will give you something to share with all of us. I will give you machines stronger than the Christians'. Weapons greater than the one I used here. And when I have all those I will give you something else.

“I will give you York!”

He ended with a shout, and the Army shouted with him, clashing their weapons in tumult and approval.

“It is a good brag,” replied Ivar, glaring round at Sigvarth, at the Hebrideans, at Thorvin and his group of pendant-wearers, all clustered in support of Shef. “But it will be a sad one for the boy if he fails to carry it out.”

Chapter Four

Hard to tell when dawn comes in an English winter, Shef thought. The clouds come down to the ground, the showers of rain or sleet come sweeping across—wherever the sun may be, it has to cut through layer after layer before the light gets through. He needed light for his own men, he needed light to see the English. Till he had it, they could all wait.

He moved his aching body beneath the layer of sweat-sodden wool that was his tunic and the layer of stiff boiled leather that was still the only armor he had had time to acquire. The sweat was chilling now, after the hours of gasping, whispering labor. More than anything he would like to strip everything off and rub himself dry on a cloak. The men in the darkness behind him must feel the same.

But each of them now had only one thing to think about, one duty to carry out, and that duty something painfully and repetitively drilled into them. Only Shef had the image in his mind of all the things that had to happen, all the parts that had to fit. Only he could see all the hundreds of things that could go wrong. Shef was not afraid of death or maiming, of pain or shame or disgrace—the usual terrors of the battlefield, to be dispersed by action and excitement and battle-fury. He was afraid of the unpredicted, the unexpected, the broken spoke, the slippery leaves, the unknown machine.

To an experienced jarl of the pirates, Shef would already have done everything wrong. His men were formed-up, but cold, tired, stiff and uncertain as to what was happening.

But this was going to be a new kind of battle. This one did not depend on how men felt or how well they fought. If everyone did as he was supposed to, nothing needed to be done well. It just needed to be done. This