Einar opened his eyes. The rush of pain that exploded behind them told him that at least he was still alive. His helmet, shield and axe were gone. He was lying on his back. Above him the stars twinkled in the blue-black sky. The view was ringed by the pointed stakes of a palisade wall. A warrior stood over him, his spear pointing downwards at Einar’s face.
Seeing he was awake, the man grunted something in Irish and prodded the point of his spear into Einar’s chest. Einar did not know what he said and shook his head. The man spat on his face then reached down, grabbed a handful of his mail shirt and hauled him up into a sitting position. The warrior delivered a kick to Einar’s side and gestured with his spear that he should move.
Wincing at the pain in his head Einar looked around him. Where on earth was he? The light from three large braziers burning on top of wooden poles showed he was lying on the ground inside some sort of small defensive ring fort. From the lack of trees – or anything except the night sky – in sight beyond the palisade he guessed this fort was on top of the mound they had seen from the shore. It must be some sort of rough citadel, a last resort if the other defences on the island were overcome.
There was not much to it, simply a circular palisade atop a very steep-sided mound perhaps twenty paces across. The single way in and out was a gate, a heavy wooden door that was bolted and barred. It sat in a deep, sloping trench so that if an enemy broke through, the defenders inside the palisade could rain blows down on the intruders from above as they tried to get further in. The inside of the palisade had a platform behind it that allowed defenders to reach over the top of the wall and down on anyone trying to attack.
The short perimeter allowed a small band of men to defend against a much larger enemy, which was the case now, as a quick count told Einar that there were five enemy warriors up here as well as himself, Affreca and Pol. One warrior pinned Affreca face down to the ground, his boot pushed down on the flat of her back, his spear hovering behind her head, ready to strike. Pol was on his knees beside her, the left side of his face swollen, blood dripping from his nose. He had taken a beating. A warrior stood guard over him. The man above Einar clearly wanted him to go over to the others. The man gave him another kick and Einar, grimacing and raising his arms in a conciliatory gesture, lurched to his feet and staggered over to Pol and Affreca. One of the men guarding Pol laid a hand on Einar’s shoulder and forced him down to his knees beside the priest.
The remaining two enemy warriors were peering over the wall, looking down at whoever was below the mound. Einar saw his axe resting against the palisade a little way away from them.
He swore to himself. These men must have sneaked round behind them in the clearing below. Perhaps they had been up in the fort when the fighting broke out, then crept down in the dark through the trees. The question was, why were Affreca, Pol and he not dead?
One of the men at the palisade turned round to look at the prisoners. Einar remembered his last moments of consciousness and recalled now where he had seen this man before. He recognised the carefully brushed, shoulder-length hair, the long drooping moustache, crooked nose and challenging blue eyes of Edgar, the Englishman who had stood guard outside the weapon merchant Ricbehrt’s house in Dublin. Beside him was the tall, blond Irishman who had been with him there.
Edgar turned and looked out over the palisade again.
‘Ulrich,’ Edgar called down into the darkness. ‘Ulrich, let us talk.’
There was no reply. Einar noticed that neither was there any noise of fighting from outside. The battle in the clearing must have ended.
‘They jumped us from behind,’ Pol said to Einar in a low voice. His tone was apologetic. ‘Then when you ran over to us that big Irishman came at you from the trees to your side. Smacked you across the head with an axe. I thought you were dead.’
‘I feel like I’m half dead,’ Einar muttered, wincing again at the pain in his skull.
‘Your helmet was smashed to bits,’ Pol said.
‘What about the others?’ Einar said.
‘The last I saw it looked like the Wolf Coats were finishing off the remnants of that lot down in the clearing,’ Affreca said.
The Irishman guarding her shouted something and prodded her back with his foot. It was clear they were supposed to keep quiet.
‘At least let her up,’ Einar said.
The man looked at him, not comprehending. The warrior guarding Einar gave him a swat round the head with his hand. Einar’s vision dissolved into many coloured stars again as pain exploded across his already bruised skull. He screwed his eyes shut and tried to stay upright.
‘Ulrich, I know you’re there. I have some of your friends up here,’ Edgar called out over the palisade again. He was speaking in the Norse tongue. ‘You’re keeping strange company these days. We have the boy who was with you in Dublin and none other than Affreca, daughter of the King there. We have your priest too. I’m glad you’ve finally seen the light of Christ, Ulrich. I never thought an old heathen like you would.’
‘I’m no Christian, Edgar.’ Ulrich’s voice drifted up from the darkness. ‘As you will realise when I give your spirit to Odin. Not that such an unworthy thing will please Hanga Tyr. He will cast you off to Hel.’
Einar heard a sob and turned to look at Pol. To his surprise the man was crying. His head was down but Einar could see that his face seemed a mask of torment. Tears streamed down his cheeks and dripped off his chin.
‘Are you all right?’ Einar hissed. This was so unexpected. Until now the man had been the very model of composure. Through all the danger so far Pol had been calm and reserved. He had been one of Ulrich’s Úlfhéðnar yet now he was crying like a child.
‘The Devil,’ Pol sobbed. ‘He is rising inside me again. I thought I had beaten him years ago. Now I don’t know if I can control him.’
‘What?’ Einar was confused. The man guarding him prodded him with the butt of his spear, warning him to be silent. His companion who was guarding Pol smacked the priest round the head too. Einar saw the snarl of anger that flashed across Pol’s face for an instant before it fell into misery again. The priest screwed his eyes shut, his lips moving as he muttered something silently.
‘Ulrich, let us talk,’ Edgar shouted again to the darkness.
‘What have we to talk about, Edgar?’ Ulrich called back from below. ‘How that rat of a master of yours has cheated us? Some of those swords he gave us were fakes. Some of my men died wielding them.’
‘I didn’t know that, Ulrich,’ Edgar did his best to sound apologetic.
‘Of course you didn’t,’ Ulrich replied in a tone that told how little he believed him. ‘And Ricbehrt would have let us die in Dublin if it wasn’t for the potential of getting more money from us.’
‘Ricbehrt is a man of trade,’ Edgar said. ‘All he cares about is profit and cost. He is not like us. We are men of honour.’
‘Men of honour?’ Ulrich retorted. ‘Where is the honour in fighting for whoever pays you most, as you do, Edgar?’
The Englishman chuckled. ‘Perhaps. But others fight for a lord because he gives them gold rings, weapons, armour and lets them drink in his hall. Is it really that different?’
‘Is this what you wanted to talk about, Edgar?’ Ulrich said. ‘Who is the most worthy between us? We can sort that out soon enough when we attack.’
Pol let out another low groan. The warrior guarding him struck him a stinging blow round the head with the butt of his spear, hard enough to send the priest sideways. His face collided with the dirt floor. For a moment he lay, panting at the pain, then struggled back up to his knees.
‘Are you all right?’ Einar asked.
Pol shook his head. ‘I don’t think I can control it any longer. Tell me. Did you mean what you said?’
Einar’s frown told him he did not understand.
‘You said if you got your revenge on the jarl you would do the right thing by the people of Orkney,’ Pol continued. ‘I mean the Christians there who live as slaves. You said you would help them.’
Einar nodded. ‘Yes I will, but—’
The men guarding both of them unleashed a flurry of blows with their spear shafts which told them to shut up.
‘Why don’t we avoid all that unpleasantness, Ulrich?’ Edgar shouted over the palisade. ‘You and I know each other of old. We don’t have to kill each other over Ricbehrt’s hoard. Why should we continue fighting? I certainly have no yearning to die for the Frank’s wealth. Why don’t we come to an agreement? Let us go. We will just walk away.’
‘Why should I?’ came the response. ‘All your men down here are dead, Edgar. Why should I let you go?’
‘Because I know you don’t have enough men to take this fort,’ Edgar said. ‘You could try but you’ll lose more of your men. We’re safe up here. All we have to do is wait.’
‘You’re also stuck up there,’ Ulrich said.
‘True,’ Edgar went on. ‘Which is why I propose a trade. Let us walk away from here and we will let you have your priest and the boy back.’
‘What about the princess?’ Ulrich asked.
‘Not her. We take her with us,’ Edgar said. ‘King Guthfrith has a bounty on her head. He’s not pleased at her running away. A warm welcome and a fat reward waits for us if we take her back to Dublin.’
He leered over his shoulder at Affreca then turned back again. ‘Take your time making your mind up, Ulrich,’ he went on, ‘we can wait. Mind you, some of the men you killed down there were locals. Sooner or later the Ulster king will come looking to see what is going on. We have plenty of food and drink up here.’
Einar looked about. The fort was bare of anything save themselves. Pol saw this too.
‘He’s lying, Ulrich!’ the priest shouted. ‘They’ve nothing up here.’
‘Shut him up!’ Edgar growled. The Irishman guarding Pol swung a vicious kick into Pol’s ribs. It drove the wind from the priest’s lungs and doubled him over. Pol looked up and Einar saw the same look of anger as before twist his face into a snarl. This time it did not disappear. In an instant he was on his feet, screaming. The man guarding him was taken by surprise and seemed frozen with shock as Pol head-butted him. The Irishman’s nose exploded into a red splash. His knees buckled and he staggered backwards.
Edgar turned round to see what the commotion was. ‘Kill him!’ he shouted. The man guarding Einar turned to meet the new threat, brandishing his spear in readiness to attack.
Pol’s face was a twisted mask of rage. His eyes were wide open and glaring, vacant of all humanity. His lips were pulled back from his teeth in a terrible rictus grin. A loud growl like a dog burst from him as he ran forward. The warrior above Einar drove his spear forwards. Einar saw the point go into Pol’s guts but the man seemed oblivious. He grasped the shaft and pulled it out of himself, wrenching it from the other’s grasp, taking it two handed and smashing him across the head with it like it was a club. The warrior lurched to his left, stunned by the blow as with another roar Pol jabbed the butt of the shaft into his face. There was a loud crack as his cheekbone shattered and a couple of bloody teeth shot from his lips. Dazed, he fell to his knees. The priest stood above him. He raised the spear in both hands, point downwards, then drove it down with all his might. The spear blade sheared down the man’s face, opening up a bloody furrow. It skidded off his chin and down into the top of his chest. He cried out as Pol hauled the spear out of him and stabbed down again. The warrior fell over, his eyes already staring at something beyond the wall of death, Pol kept on stabbing him, driving the spear into the corpse several more times. He seemed to have lost all reason.
Einar realised he was watching a man possessed by the berserker rage. He had heard about it in stories and legends but this was the first time he had seen it with his own eyes. The Úlfhéðnar’s frenzy was much more controlled. They were angry and violent but could still function as warriors. Pol looked out of his mind. It was said that Odin the War God sent this special kind of madness and those in its grip could perform amazing deeds of strength. It was a killing frenzy that could only be quenched by red slaughter. Those in the grip of the rage ran into battle without armour, sometimes even naked, and it was said in old poems and sagas that iron weapons could not hurt them. Indeed this seemed to be at least partly true as the warrior Pol had attacked first recovered from the head butt and charged back at Pol, driving his spear into Pol’s back. The point erupted from his chest in a spray of blood but the only effect on Pol was that he stopped stabbing the corpse beneath him. He gave a jerk as the spear was pulled back through his body then turned his attention on the new attacker.
Einar knew he had to move. He sprang to his feet and ran towards his axe. Behind him Pol snarled as he rammed his spear through the second guard who had stabbed him. Einar reached his axe and grabbed it. The blond Irishman and Edgar drew their swords and stepped off the fighting platform behind the palisade to meet the threat behind them. The warrior with his foot on Affreca’s back let her go and ran towards Pol. Affreca immediately scrambled to her feet and ran for the gate.
Pol turned on the man who had been her captor and ran at him as he came the opposite way. He batted the man’s spear aside and shoved the one he carried into the man’s guts. With a roar he kept on charging. Skewered on the end of his spear, his enemy was driven backwards. With unbelievable strength for a man who should be dying, Pol heaved his spear upwards, lifting the Irishman off the ground. With a final grunt Pol shoved the spear shaft, heaving the Irishman backwards, up and over the palisade. Pol let go of the spear and the man disappeared over the wall and into the darkness outside.
The blond Irishman ran up behind Pol and slashed him across the back of the thighs. His blade opened up a big, purple gash. The large muscles and sinews in his right leg parted and Pol dropped to his knees. The Irishman stalked around in front of Pol. He grabbed a handful of the priest’s hair in his left fist and hauled him back up, halfway to his feet again.
Edgar ran at Einar. He swung his sword overhead. Einar just had time to hold up his axe above his head and the sword blade bit deep into it. It held and Einar lashed out with his feet, shoving Edgar away from him.
Affreca, her fingers numb from cold and panic, fumbled with the bolt and bar of the gate.
With a malicious grin, the big blond Irishman drove his sword into Pol’s belly. With a grunt he trailed it upwards, unleashing a torrent of blood and dark bile from the gash it left behind. Pol’s eyes rolled up into his head and the Irishman laughed. As if he heard him, Pol’s eyes refocused on the man. He reached up with his left hand and drove his thumb into the Irishman’s right eye. The man cried out in surprise and horror as Pol’s fingers scrabbled along the side of his head, found purchase on his hair then the priest drove his thumb deeper. The Irishman screamed. Pol hauled himself forwards, impaling himself further on his enemy’s blade but at the same time driving his thumb up to the knuckle into his eye. There was a sickening cracking sound as the back of the eye socket gave way. The Irishman dropped to the ground like a stone, already dead but his body jerking in an uncontrolled, horrible way. Pol’s thumb came free from the eye socket with a sickening wet sucking sound. The priest fell backwards a step and collapsed onto his back. A gush of dark blood came up from his mouth as his eyes fixed on something an unmeasurable distance beyond the stars above. He breathed his last.
Edgar came at Einar again, hacking down at Einar’s head. Einar tried to block his blow with his axe but somehow Edgar switched his attack and instead the blade was aimed at Einar’s guts. It was all Einar could do to jump backwards. He got just far enough away, though he heard the rattle as the point of the blade caressed the rings of his mail coat as it swiped past. Einar’s back collided with the wooden palisade. The breath was driven from his chest and he fell with a thump into a sitting position, his back against the wall.
Edgar stood above him. A wide grin spread across his face as he realised Einar was completely at his mercy.
‘At least I get to kill you,’ the Englishman gloated. He raised his sword, then a band of black shadows rushed up from the trench before the now open gate. Before Edgar could bring his blow down the Úlfhéðnar swarmed around him and he disappeared from Einar’s sight under a welter of slashing blades.
When their work was done the Úlfhéðnar stood back. Edgar’s butchered corpse lay on its back, his eyes gazing upwards, his face frozen forever in an expression of utter shock.
For several moments there was silence apart from the sound of heavy panting as men tried to catch their breath which rose in clouds into the cold night air. Then Einar saw Skar towering above him. The big man heaved a heavy sigh.
‘How many times have I told you, lad?’ Skar said as he shook his head. ‘Go for their legs.’