“I have no sword and shield,” he shouted. “But I have this!” He pulled from his belt the long single-edged knife he carried. “I will fight you Rogaland style! We need no bull's hide. We have the holy stone. I will fight you here, wrist tied to wrist, and he who steps down from the stone, he is king of the Swedes.”
A slow rumble came from the crowd as they caught the words, and Kjallak, hearing it, tightened his lips. He had seen duels like that before. They took away the advantage of skill. But the crowd would not let anyone back out now. He still had strength and reach. He reached down, unbuckled his sword-belt, threw it from the stone, hearing the Swedes begin to cheer and clash spear on shield as they realized he had taken the dare.
“Dunghill cock!” he said, keeping his voice low. “You should have stuck to your own midden.”
Cwicca, holding his broken arm up by the sleeve, muttered to the battered and bleeding Thorvin, “There's something funny going on. He would never have planned this. Nor he hasn't been levered into it either. This isn't like him.”
“Maybe the gods have taken control of him,” said Thorvin.
“Let's hope they keep it up,” said Hama.
Bruno, still watching the arrangements being made from his unnoticed vantage-point, looked round thoughtfully. All eyes were on the center, where men were helping Kjallak out of his mail as Shef stripped to his tunic as well. A rope had appeared, cut from the hangman's coil, and they were preparing to lash the two men together, each man with two seconds now to see fair play. One of the temple priests had insisted on singing an invocation to Othin, and Herjolf, pushing out of the crowd, had begun a counter to it.
“We can't even get at them now,” said Bruno. “The crowd's too close-packed. See here, what we'll do is this.” He pointed out to his men a circuit they could make. To the right, round behind the temple and the slave-yard, to appear between the temple and the oak, where a gap had been left for the prisoners. “Come out there behind them,” he concluded. “Ride forward and make a wedge. That way we'll get our people away at least.”
“What's that banner they've broken out down there?” asked one of his men.
“It is a cross,” cried the weak-eyed Erkenbert. “God has sent a sign!”
“Not a cross,” said Bruno slowly. “It is a lance. Like the one the young man just threw down. A lance with something I can't see across it. I don't deny it may be a sign for all that.”
Breathing deeply and slowly, Shef waited for the signal to begin. He wore only his breeches, shoes kicked off as well for a surer grip on the wet stone. He had no idea what to do. It did not seem to matter. Hund's potion filled him with rage and ecstasy. The calculating part of him that lived on somewhere below the potion had given up its protests, was telling him instead to keep his eye on his enemy, not just luxuriate in feelings of power.
A sudden silence as the rival chantings stopped, a blare of horns, and Kjallak stepped forward over the stone platform like a panther and slashed. Shef leapt away almost too late, felt a line of fire across his ribs, heard from some far distance the roar of acclaim. He began to move, pulling with one hand on the rope both men held, feinting to thrust with the other. Kjallak ignored the feints, waited for the real stab. When it came, the one-eye would have to step close. When he missed, Kjallak would strike again for the body. He circled always to the right, crowding the knife-hand, making his opponent back away to keep him off his blind side. Every few seconds he slashed quickly, professionally, at Shef's exposed left arm, enough to make the blood run, the strength go.
“How's it going?” asked Thorvin, his left eye swollen shut.
“He's cutting our man to bits,” answered Cwicca.
He's cutting me to bits, thought Shef. He felt no pain, no physical fear, but there was an undercurrent of panic rising, as if he were out on a stage in front of thousands of people, and had forgotten what he was supposed to say. He tried a sudden sweep with one leg, a wrestling trick. Kjallak evaded it economically, and sliced him across the knee. Shef slashed back at Kjallak's rope-arm, drawing blood for the first time. Kjallak grinned and thrust suddenly over their joined arms, forcing Shef to jerk his head aside and leap back, dropping the rope, to avoid the instant second thrust for the heart.
“Learning, eh?” panted Kjallak. “But not fast enough. You should have stayed with your mother.”
The thought of his mother, her life destroyed by the Vikings, stabbed Shef into a flurry of thrusts, coming forward recklessly. Kjallak dodged them, caught a couple with his own knife in a clang of metal, waited for the surge to die down. Like a berserker, he thought. Don't take them head on. Keep out of their way and wait for them to tire. He could feel it already, the spasmodic strength draining.
“Stayed with your mother,” he repeated. “Maybe had a nice game of knucklebones.”
Knucklebones, thought Shef. He remembered the lessons from Karli in the marsh, remembered Hedeby market. Seizing the trailing rope again, he jerked it taut, slashed it suddenly through. A groan from the crowd, a look of surprise, disgust in Kjallak's eyes.
Shef threw his knife high in the air, spinning end over end. Kjallak, whose eyes had never left it, looked up, followed it automatically for an instant, his head rising. Shef stepped forward, pivoting from the waist as Karli had taught him, and threw a clenched left fist in a sweeping hook. He felt the blow run up his arm, felt the crunch of fist on beard and bone. Kjallak staggered. But he was a man with a neck like a bull's, knocked off balance but not down.
The spinning knife came down. As if he had practiced the catch for a dozen years, Shef caught it left-handed by the hilt, thrust upwards at the raised chin. The blade skewered through beard and chin, mouth and palate, drove on till the point wedged hard in the roof of the skull.
Shef felt the dead weight fall forward, twisted the blade, jerked it free. He turned in a slow semi-circle towards the crowd, raising the bloody knife. A roar of applause from his own men, confused cries from the rest.
“Foul!” cried one of Kjallak's seconds, stepping towards the stone. “He cut the rope! That's against the rules.”
“What rules?” said Cuthred. Without further words he slashed at the second, half-severing his head. From the stone Shef saw spears poised, crossbows leveled.
A ray of sunshine broke through the clouds, fell on the bloody stone. This time a groan from the crowd, of awe. And in the same moment, a clash of metal. Shef looked up, saw between the oak and the temple a solid line of armored horsemen, driving between the prisoners and their guards, hustling the temple priests towards him. He did not know who they were, but they gave him a chance. The potion filled him with one more inspiration, a surge of fury.
“Swedes!” he called out. “You are here for good harvests and prosperity. They grow from blood. I have given you blood already, king's blood. Follow me and I will give you more.”
Voices from the crowd, shouting about the oak and the sacrifices.
“You have sacrificed for years and what good has it done? You sacrificed the wrong things. You must sacrifice what is dearest to you. Start again. I will give you a better sacrifice.”
Shef pointed across the clearing. “Sacrifice your oak. Cut it down now, and set free the souls that hang from it. And if the gods want blood, send it to them. Send the gods their servants, the priests of the temple.”
Across the clearing, a small black-clad figure had scrambled from a horse, was running under the ghastly swaying boughs. He had an axe in his hand, snatched from a gaping priest. He reached the oak, raised the axe and swung. A groan again from the crowd at the sacrilege. Chips flew, men stared upwards for the avenging thunder. Nothing. Just the hard noise of metal on wood as Erkenbert swung like a man possessed. Slowly eyes turned towards the priests. Bruno's men rode forward, herding them towards the stone. Herjolf turned towards Shef's followers, seizing the moment.
“Right,” he shouted. “Crossbows, down here and make a ring. Ottar, get your Finns organized. The rest of you, seize those men. And you,” he called to Bruno, “stop your little fellow before he does himself an injury. Make a ring round the oak and get four men at it who know their business.”
The Swedes watched in amazement and acquiescence as Herjolf made his grisly preparations. Before the morning was over the Kingdom Oak would be in flames, and tossed onto it as a pyre, the bodies of its servants.
“Does that make the one-eye king of the Swedes?” they asked each other.
“Who knows?” went the answers. “But he has brought back the sun.”
