The Burning Land

I saw Gisela smiling, then had a waking dream of men with shields and of spears flying from their hands. I lay for a moment in the sand, watching the stars, then I stood, stretching the stiffness from my arms and legs. “How many men does he have, lord?” Cerdic asked me. He was reviving the fire, and the driftwood flamed bright. Cerdic did not lack bravery, but in the night he had been haunted by the memory of those large ships coming to the coast.

“He has two crews,” I said. I saw that I had been the last to wake and men now drew toward the fire to listen to me. “Two crews,” I said, “so he has at least one hundred men, maybe a hundred and fifty?”

“Jesus,” Cerdic said quietly, touching the cross he wore.

“But they’re pirates,” Rollo said loudly.

“Tell them,” I ordered, pleased that Ragnar’s man understood what we faced.

Rollo stood in the flamelight. “Skirnir’s men are like wild dogs,” he said, “and they hunt what is weak, never what is strong. They don’t fight on land and they don’t know the shield wall. We do.”

“He calls himself the Sea-Wolf,” I said, “but Rollo is right. He’s a dog, not a wolf. We’re the wolves! We’ve faced the best warriors of Denmark and Britain and we’ve sent them to their graves! We are men of the shield wall, and before the sun climbs to its highest Skirnir will be in his grave!”

Not that we saw any sun because the day clouded over with the gray dawn. The clouds ran swift and low toward the sea, shrouding the marshes. The water rose with the tide, flooding the margins of the land where we had our refuge. I climbed to the top of the dune from where I watched the three ships come slowly up the creek. Skirnir was riding the flooding tide, rowing till his beast-headed ship grounded, then waiting for more water to carry him a few oar strokes farther. His two ships led and Seolferwulf followed, and I laughed at that. Skirnir, confident in his numbers and blinded by the prospect of regaining Skade, did not think for a moment that he had enemies behind him.

And what did Skirnir see? He was in the prow of the leading ship and he saw only five men standing on the dune, and none of the five was in mail. He thought he came to capture a bedraggled band of fugitives and so he was confident, and, as he drew closer, I called for Skade to stand beside me. “If he captured you,” I asked her, “what would he do?”

“Humiliate me,” she said, “shame me, then kill me.”

“And that’s worth silver to him?” I asked, thinking of the reward he had offered for Skade’s return.

“Pride is expensive,” she said.

“Why wouldn’t he just keep you as a slave?”

“Because of that pride,” she said. “He once had a slave girl killed because she betrayed him. He gave her to his men first, let them enjoy her, then he tied her to a stake and skinned her alive. He made her mother listen to her screams as she died.”

I remembered Edwulf, skinned alive in his church, but I said nothing of that as I watched Skirnir’s ship come still closer. The creek became too narrow to allow his oar-banks to dip in the water, so now his ship was being poled forward. The tide was rising slowly. As it neared its height it would rise more swiftly, and then Skirnir would know he had run out of water, but the creek, though narrow, was proving to have more than enough depth for his ships. “It’s time to dress,” I said.

I went down the dune’s far side, hidden now from Skirnir, and Oswi, my servant, helped me into my mail. The leather lining stank in my nostrils as I pulled it over my head, but it felt good to have that familiar weight on my shoulders. Oswi put the sword belt around my waist and buckled it. “You stand behind me,” I told him.

“Yes, lord.”

“If it all goes wrong, boy,” I said, “you run like a hare. You go inland, find the monastery and ask for shelter.”

“Yes, lord.”

“But it won’t go wrong,” I told him.

“I know it won’t, lord,” he said stoutly. He was eleven years old, an orphan who had been found scavenging in the mud beneath the terrace of my Lundene house. One of my men had accused him of theft and brought him to me so I could order a whipping, but I had liked the fire in the boy’s eyes and so I had made him my servant and was now teaching him sword-craft. One day, like my previous servant, Sihtric, Oswi would become a warrior.

I went to the dune’s edge and saw that Skirnir’s ship was passing our beached and abandoned fishing craft. He was near enough to shout insults and he was bellowing at Skade, who now stood alone at the dune’s summit. He was calling her a whore, a turd of the devil, and promising that she would scream her way into hell.

“Time to show ourselves,” I said to Rollo, and picked up my linden shield, which had Bebbanburg’s wolf’s head painted around its iron boss.

Rollo carried a war ax and he kissed the wide blade. “I’ll feed you soon, my darling,” he promised the ax.

“They’re close!” Skade called from the dune.

The island we had chosen was shaped like a crescent moon with the dune making the moon’s high belly. The horns of the crescent touched the creek, and cradled in its belly was marshland. So the dune could be approached from either horn, while the marsh, about a hundred paces wide and fifty paces at its deepest, was an obstacle. Men could cross that marshland, but it would have been slow work. The horn nearest to the sea was the wider of the two, a natural causeway leading to the sandy island, but ten men could bar that causeway easily, and I led twenty, leaving the remainder under Rollo’s command. Their task was to protect the farther horn, but they were not to show themselves until Skirnir sent men to use that second causeway.

And what did Skirnir see? He saw a shield wall. He saw men in helmets and mail, men with bright weapons, men who were not the desperate fugitives he expected, but warriors dressed for battle, and he must have known that Finan and Osferth had lied to him, but he must have thought it was a small lie, a lie about weapons and mail, and his desperate hopes to regain Skade still persuaded him to believe the larger lie. Maybe he thought they had simply been mistaken? And still he was confident, because we were so few and he had so many, though the sight of a shield wall gave him pause.

Skirnir’s helmsman was nosing the foremost ship into the bank when we appeared, and Skirnir immediately held up his hand to stop the men poling with the long oars. Skirnir had thought he would have little to do on that overcast morning, merely storm ashore and capture a small band of dispirited men, but our shields, weapons, and close-linked wall made him reconsider. I saw him turn and shout at the men poling his ship. He pointed up the creek and it was obvious he wanted the ship taken to the farther horn so that he could surround us. But then, to my surprise, he leaped off the bows. He and fifteen men splashed into the creek and waded ashore as the ship poled on. Skirnir and his small band were now about fifty paces away, but they would be swiftly reinforced by the crew of his second ship that was approaching fast. I stayed where I was.

Skirnir did not look back to see Seolferwulf, and would he have been alarmed if he had? She was the last of the three ships and her bows were filled with mailed and helmeted men. I could see Finan’s black shield.

“Uhtred?” Skirnir shouted.

“I am Uhtred!”

“Give me the whore!” he bellowed. He was a heavy man with a face as flat as a flounder, small eyes, and a long black beard that half covered his mail. “Give her to me and I’ll go away! You can live out your miserable life. Just give me the whore!”

“I haven’t finished with her!” I called. I glanced left and saw that Skirnir’s own ship had almost reached the second causeway. That crew would start landing in a moment. Meanwhile his second ship had grounded just behind Skirnir and the crew were tumbling over the side. There was not sufficient room on the small beach for more than thirty of them, so the rest, maybe another thirty men, waited on the ship. Seolferwulf crept closer.

“Oswi?” I said softly.

“Lord?”

“Fetch Rollo now.”

I felt the exultation of victory. I had seventy men, including those on Seolferwulf, and Skirnir had done what I wanted, he had divided his forces. Sixty or seventy of his men were facing us at the first causeway, some still aboard their ship, while the rest had gone to the other landing place and though, once they were ashore, they would be able to attack us from behind, I expected to be master of the island by then. I heard Seolferwulf thump her bows on the grounded boat, then I gave the command.