25 September 1066
Stamford Bridge
Kingdom of England
Haakon strained to hear Snorri's shouted commands over the din of battle drums and catcalls arising from the assembled English troops. Across the River Derwent, the main bulk of Hardrada's army scrambled in clouds of dust to don their bulky leather hauberks. Fewer than two score scouts formed a shield wall with him at the abutments to the bridge.
Snorri snatched Haakon's arm and leaned close to shout in his ear. "We'll ne're be able to hold 'em for long. Our King will need warriors once the English breech our lines. Go join him, my friend." The stink of fear—or was it exultation?—hovered about the Viking.
Haakon shook his head, the steel helmet chafing his neck and the chain mail face guard scraping his cheeks. He shouted back, "Nay. I'll stand and fight with you. Yon bridge is narrow. We can make our stand there, on the span, while the King prepares for battle. After, we will feast together as heroes in Valhalla."
Snorri's mouth split in a gap-toothed grin. "You speak well, Olaf's son." He squeezed Haakon's forearm, his grip threatening to burst arteries and squash muscle. "Stand on the bridge, then, while I whip these churls into order. I'll see you on the bridge or in Valhalla, whatever the gods and fate decree." With that, he stomped away, cuffing his scouts into an orderly line.
Haakon arched his back and squinted at the advancing English troops. It appeared that Harold was holding his best troops, the Danish housecarls, in reserve and had sent peasants to dispose of the scouts defending the bridge. In single combat, Snorri's scouts would chew up those poor farmers like wild boars feasting on a rat's nest.
The English charge reached the scouts' shield wall in a ragged line of axes, spears, and wooden swords. Snorri's disciplined troops responded with a shout, and the battle erupted in chaos and gore. Sudden shadows flickered in the morning sunlight and whistled overhead. A volley of arrows swooped from the sky and thudded into the fight, felling English and Viking alike.
A shout arose from the English battle lines and the housecarls advanced. In front of Haakon, peasants and Vikings thrashed on the ground in a morass of blood and fletching. Most of the English farmers turned back and scrambled away, while the surviving scouts reformed around Snorri. A small band of Englishmen rallied about a man in monk's garb who carried a broad sword.
Snorri swung his axe about his head with a savage yell. A second volley of arrows whizzed overhead and thunked into men, bodies, and earth. As if by magic, an arrow grew out of Snorri's skull where his left eye should be. His body froze, axe overhead. His head lurched backwards and he swirled about before he crumpled to the ground.
Haakon muttered, "Fair thee well, my friend." He fumbled at the cord about his neck and exposed his Celtic cross. A leather pouch dangled next to his Timepiece. His fingers trembled as he tore the bag open and snatched out two small, orange pills with the letters "OP" impressed on them. Obetrol. One of the advantages of time travel was access to banned performance-enhancing drugs. Coupled with the nano-doc injection Corbett had given him, these would supercharge him. He swallowed both tablets dry and hefted his axe. A twist of the handle activated the microscopic cutting laser embedded in the blade. The electronics would fuse after two hour's use, but that would be plenty for his purposes. His shoulder gave a small twinge where the Viking arrow had wounded him, but he was nearly full strength. Between the methamphetamine and the residual nano-docs, he should be able to do his duty. With both legs planted wide, he waited for the English advance.
Though leaderless, Snorri's surviving scouts still held with a tenacious ferocity. They hacked and snarled at the remnants of the few peasants still within reach.
The monk's little band clustered scant meters uphill from the Vikings. The man raised his arms in blessing and exhortation while he shouted at them, "Soldiers in Christ! God wills that we smite these heathens. They burned our crops and raped our women at Scarborough. King Harold is the anointed one to bring order and the will of God back to our land. How say you? Are you with God and King Harold?"
The rag-tag group held up their pitiful weapons and shouted in response. "Yes." "God wills it."
Grim-faced, the monk turned to face the scouts.
Adrenalin prickled in Haakon's fingers. He knew that face and that voice. That was no monk. That was Friar Ralf. What was he doing here? Loyal Ralf, whose sweet embrace had comforted Haakon just a few hours past. His wooden cross dangled from a rope about his neck, and he carried the broadsword he'd used as a soldier in Harold's campaigns in Wales. One-to-one, Haakon knew Ralf would hold his own, but against the clustered Viking scouts he'd be red meat.
Ralf's rag-tag group charged toward the Vikings, but before they reached them, King Harold's mounted housecarls thundered into the battle. Broadswords were helpless against men on horses with lances. Within minutes, a heap of grisly and mangled Viking corpses lay at the foot of the bridge.
Haakon was all that stood between the English horde and Hardrada's army. His destiny and his duty had arrived.
While the English organized their lines, he cast a hasty glance over his shoulder at Hardrada's troops on the opposite bank. Scarcely four score of the Viking main corps were in full armor and forming into a shield wall on the other side of the bridge. Not enough. The rest still scrambled in disarray. They needed more time. Another ten minutes would do. Even five might be enough.
Footfalls pounded on the timber deck of the bridge. Haakon raised his axe and waited. It was Ralf's band of farmers, come to do battle. The first yeoman reached him, armed only with a pitchfork. A swing of Haakon's axe, and the man's arm flew off in a crimson fountain and a piercing scream. Another approached on the narrow bridge, jabbing with a makeshift spear. Haakon parried with his axe, then used the pike at the tip of his weapon to gut his opponent.
Three warriors came next. One slipped on the guts that had spilled from Haakon's last victim and tumbled over the low wooden rail into the river. The other two stumbled forward. Haakon's pike gored the first. The second jabbed his spear and corkscrewed the point into Haakon's chain mail. With a swing of the axe, the man's head splashed into the waters below. His body stood there for a moment, as if it didn't know it was dead, red fluid spouting from its neck, before it collapsed in a boneless heap.
Only one warrior remained. Sweat burned in Haakon's eyes, and he blinked it back. He peered through the slits in his helmet. Ralf. It was Ralf who faced him now.
Haakon hesitated. Ralf must not know he faced his old friend. Why would he? Haakon was no Viking.
Ralf shrieked, "For Christ and King." He lunged forward and swung his sword overhead.
Haakon parried with his weapon and his reflexes and the methamphetamine took over. The flat side of his axe slapped against Ralf's grip and his weapon fell onto the bodies scattered on the bridge. Without thinking, Haakon flicked his wrist. The axe sliced across Ralf's stomach. His flesh parted in a spurt of blood. Purple, white, and red organs tumbled out. Ralf's mouth gaped in a face turned ashen. He held out his hand, two fingers reaching for Haakon.
His voice turned to husk as he spoke. "I forgive you your sins."
He clutched at his stained cross and tumbled forward, twisting and landing face upward onto his colleagues. His sightless eyes gazed skyward, at eternity.
Cheers arose from the Vikings on the far side of the bridge.
Haakon's heart stopped. What had he done? Ralf's body lay still before him, silent, accusing.
More boots stomped onto the wooden planks. Housecarls this time. They attacked with relentless fury. Haakon had the advantage: they had to struggle through the bodies he'd already slain and the narrow span prevented them from using their superior numbers. Time slowed to a nightmare of thrusts and parries, of slashed flesh and dangling guts, of death and destruction. A housecarl, his eyes shining wild through his helmet, swung his broadsword. It raked across the back of Haakon's hand. More attackers littered the bridge. A quick slash of the axe, and the one who'd struck his hand slumped to his death. His axe slithered about in the human sludge that mired his grip.
More cheers and shouts arose from Hardrada's troops. Haakon dared to glance back again. The shield wall had at least doubled in number. His heart thudded in his ears, and his breath tore at his throat. His muscles screamed, and sweat drenched his body. Every movement tore into his shoulder, where a deep ache throbbed from yesterday's arrow wound.
Worst of all, the memory of Ralf's sightless eyes still accused him.
Downstream, three of the housecarls maneuvered a swill tub into the river. Two held it steady while the third, holding a spear, struggled to get inside it.
Haakon knew the legend. His torment wouldn't last much longer.
Yet another bevy of Englishmen tested Haakon on the bridge. This time, a spear point found its way into a seam of his hauberk and penetrated his side. Haakon used the pike on his axe to jab his attacker in the eye and push him away. The man's spear caught on Haakon's chainmail and stayed inside him, its point gouging into his flesh. Agony ripped through him as it dragged through his guts.
Another attacker stumbled forward and slipped on the gory surface. Haakon slashed at him.
But then searing pain wrenched deep into the inside of his left leg. The housecarl in the swill tub had floated to the bridge and struck from underneath, through a gap in the planking. Haakon's armor offered no protection from below, and the wound tore ligaments and destroyed his knee.
His leg buckled. He slammed to the surface of the bridge. Cheers filled the air, this time from the English side of the river.
It was time.
Haakon fumbled for his Timepiece. He rolled across the lifeless bodies. Intestines slithered with him. Then he was falling, falling. The river smacked against his body and for an instant he lost consciousness. Wet and cold jerked him awake. He couldn't breathe. He could barely see in the murky stream. Sounds—shouted voices, the clang of battle—fought in his ears with the rushing waters.
There was something important he needed to do. He just couldn't remember what.
The wound in his hand ached, where he gripped a knobby, angular object. His Timepiece. That was it. He needed to activate it.
He tumbled over rocky rapids, and his head momentarily broke the surface. Fifty yards or more upstream, the English and Vikings clattered away in battle. He gasped for air, and held his cross aloft in the light. With his other hand, he stroked the device here, and there. He stabbed at the controls, but the rushing waters blinded him. Had he hit the right buttons?
He sank beneath the surface, his strength failing. The armor and hauberk dragged at him. The wound in his side burned, and he couldn't feel his leg below the knee where the housecarl had stabbed him. Darkness narrowed his vision. Red swirled away from him in the muddy waters.
His sense of time stretched. He envisioned his arrival in Chicago. Corbett would have alerted them, and medics would be ready for him. Fresh nano-docs and more. How long since he'd pushed the Timepiece controls? The field should form in mere seconds.
At least he'd done his duty. He'd killed a score or more of the English. The future was safe. But Ralf, poor, innocent Ralf, lay dead. All he had done was answer his King's call for God and country. At least the chain mail and nose guard on his helmet hid Haakon's features: Ralf never knew who killed him.
It didn't really matter if Haakon lived or died. Except for Nathan. He mattered. Haakon's battered body tumbled in the rushing current as blackness closed in.