From the first blow, the iron sang under the hammer. Tvalin sang along with it, pounding out the blade, long and straight and keen. He knew already this would be a noble sword, and it tore his heart to think who would own it.
He thrust the iron back into the forge, and said to his nephew, “Heat it up.”
Tulinn worked the bellows. Tvalin wiped his hands on his apron. His shoulders ached. He went to the back of the cave and got a stoop of ale. Galdor at least kept them well fed. Tvalin was soaked with sweat from the work, which felt good, and he loved the smell of the iron heating and the sound of the bellows.
He called the sword Tyraste, darling of the god of battles, but he never said the name aloud, to keep it strong. He said it in his mind often. He drank another long draught of the ale, and going back to the forge, he drew the white-hot blade from the coals. Lifting the hammer in his hand, he beat against the iron, and even through the tongs, the blade’s high voice rang true.
High overhead, a door creaked. Tulinn said, “He comes,” and backed away into the shadows. Tulinn was afraid of Galdor. Tvalin laid the sword across the anvil, between him and the stairs, and down the steps came the king, massive in his bearskins, his feet scraping on the stone, and his eyes like a snake’s. On his forefinger was a red jewel, and he carried a weight of gold around his neck.
The two dwarfs bowed down. Tvalin was cursing himself for allowing them to fall into Galdor’s hands. He said, “We are doing the work, King Galdor. We are keeping our end of the bargain.” Straightening, he gestured toward the sword on the anvil.
Galdor caught sight of it, and his face flushed red; his eyes gleamed. He said, “Ah, yes.” He put out his hand toward it, but the ungripped sword was still hot, and he drew back. Tvalin let out his breath between his teeth. Galdor faced him, narrow-eyed again.
“Finish it. And I will keep you no longer. Is that the bargain?” He looked from one dwarf to the other. Tvalin nodded. Galdor went back up the stair, heavy stepping.
Tvalin went back to the sword, cooling on the anvil, and laid it into the coals again. His chest felt too tight. He knew Galdor was treacherous and the king’s last words rang with lies. He turned the sword again in the coals, and drew it out, and worked the fore edge.
With each stroke he thought, Tyraste, be evil. Tyraste, do evil. Tyraste, kill Galdor.
They quenched the blade and honed it, fit on wooden grips and a pommel of a piece of ocean-blood. Galdor would change those anyway to something gaudier. Tvalin lifted the sword in his hand, the balance perfect, the blade eager, and his maker’s heart leapt at what he had done. Then the king came down again.
Tvalin laid the sword across the anvil and stepped back. Tulinn hovered next to him, wanting to be gone from here. Galdor threw back his cloak; he took the sword into his hand, and cocking it from side to side, he murmured under his breath.
“A prince of blades,” he said. “Tvalin, you are better even than your name.”
Tvalin swelled, pleased, and glanced at Tulinn to make sure he had noted that. Galdor said, “Now let’s test the edge.”
Too late, Tvalin saw what was happening. Galdor swung the sword around and in a single stroke sliced off Tvalin’s head and that of his nephew.
“See,” Galdor said, up there above them. “Now I don’t have to keep you. I’ll board this room up, so nobody bothers you.” With the sword in his hand, he went back up the stairs.
With his full strength Vagn hauled his oar again through the water. Night was falling, they should have made landfall long ago, and now they were deep into the narrows, here, between two coasts they didn’t know, with a storm bearing down on them. Around him his brothers and his friends were rowing as hard as he was, shouting the rhythm. A current fought them, the knarr jerking and bucking. Back over the stern he could see the rain blowing toward them, a shadow over the water. Above them a craggy headland loomed. The first rain struck him in the face. The light was bleeding out of the sky.
At the steerboard, his oldest brother suddenly called out and pointed. Vagn cast a quick glance over his shoulder and saw a light bobbing, in the dark below the headland, a signal, a buoy. His brother was already steering them that way. Vagn flung his body against the oar. The wind helped them, heaved them forward. The rain pounded his cheeks and his wet hair got in his eyes. He bent to his oar and the blade struck something, and just behind his bench he felt the hull shudder. The light had lured them into the rocks.
His brother yelled, “Hold on! Hold on!” Vagn cast his oar overboard and jumped after it.
He went feetfirst into the water, his hands out to fend off the rocks, and sank deep in over his head. When he came up a wave hurled him over, and with him the oar and a piece of a strake. In the murky darkness he could make out nothing but the waves’ slap and churn. Then something huge loomed up before him, and his feet touched bottom and he scrambled up onto the side of a rock. The storm wind battered him. He was shivering and he clutched his shirt around him.
Even through the wind and the sea, a scream reached his ears, and shouting. The torch on the shore cast a glow out onto the surging water. He leaned around the side of the rock and saw, against the uncertain light, bare hands raised against swords. He heard his oldest brother calling out, “No, no,” over and over. Then nothing. Men thrashed around in the shallows. A sharp voice rose, once, giving orders, directions—they were looking for pieces of the cargo. A keg bobbed in the slack water behind his rock. They would come to get that. He slid down into the rocking waves, in over his head, and waited there. Legs thrashed by him, close enough almost to touch, lifted the keg away, and moved on.
He raised his head above the surface and listened. He could hear voices, in there on the beach, but now they were moving off. He dragged himself up out of the water onto the rock, found a crevice out of the rain, and pulled his shirt around him as well as he could, and waited to die.
He did not die; the woolen shirt, which his mother had made, kept him warm, and this being midsummer, the sun was soon up again. The fierce waves of the night before had passed with the storm. He waded in through little ruffles to the beach. As he came in the seagulls rose in a cloud from his brothers and his friends. The robbers had taken even their clothes away.
He went from one to the other of the dead men, saying each name, noticing the wounds, and pulled them all together on the beach, as they had been on the knarr together. He sat for a while beside his oldest brother, who should have gotten them in to shore sooner, and should not have believed the light. His brother’s body was hacked and battered, he had fought hardest of any of them.
Vagn piled up rocks over the bodies, making a boat shape, and putting in what bits and pieces of the knarr had drifted in to the shore. There was nothing left of the cargo, the furs, the salted fish, the casks of honey and wax. As he went around, he stamped on crabs and ate them, ate seaweed, dug up clams, and drank water that seeped out of the cliff.
He did not, for a long while, look up at the top of the cliff.
When he was done, he sat down on the sand, and thought about his brothers and his friends and what had been done to them. Only he was left alive, which put a hard charge on him. Now he stood up, and looked up, at the top of the headland, and the tower there, looming behind its wall. He rinsed the salt out of his shirt, slept a little in the sun while it dried, and in the afternoon, he walked around the back of the headland and made his way up.
King Galdor, lord of the Vedrborg, walked out to his high seat and laid the sword on the table before him. Standing there, he looked out over the hall at his men, all on their feet, all their faces turned toward him, and he was still a moment, to feel his power, before he sat, and they could all sit. The slaves brought in the bread and the ale and they fell to feasting.
Galdor thought of his enemies. He wished like Odin he had no use for meat, and did not have to waste time in eating. A great dish came onto the table before him, a mess of fish, likely from the ship they had taken the night before. Peasants’ food. He laid his hands instead on the sword in its sheath, with its pommel and grips of chased gold.
The midsummer was on them, when Hjeldric the Dane had sworn to challenge him, to run the strait against his will, and Galdor meant to turn that to advantage. The Vedrborg grew too small for him. He wanted more than mere piracy. He pressed the sword under his hands. A man with his power should have a kingdom and not a rock and a handful of men. He longed to take the sword into his hand, to loose the strength he felt in it, on some cause great enough for him.
In the hall a stirring caught his eye. Someone had come in from outside. He talked to someone, who talked to someone else, the little passage of the words going up the hall along the outside of the table. At his place just below Galdor, his man Gifr heard it, nodded, and stood.
“There is a stranger here who asks to see you.”
“A stranger. A messenger?”
“No—just a wayfarer.”
Galdor lifted his eyes. In the middle of the hall, a half-grown gawky beardless boy stood, broad-shouldered, with curly black hair, startling blue eyes, in a filthy shirt.
Galdor said, “Come up in front of me. Who are you?”
The boy walked up to stand below the high seat, and spoke out, “My name is Vagn Akason. I have come over the sea because I have heard such of your power, King, that I would join you.”
Galdor leaned back in the high seat. He knew at once that this was both true and untrue. In this he sensed some witchwork: the boy was both a danger and an opportunity. He laid his hands on the sword again.
“Vagn: what kind of name is that?” An outlander. Galdor thought again of Hjeldric. He could always use another fighter if this one was apt.
“Well, perhaps you would prove your mettle?” He looked around the table. “Thorulf Grimsson, stand.”
At once, they all began to move. Thorulf got to his feet, a bear of a man, all hair and muscle. The others pulled the tables back to make room in the middle of the hall. The boy Vagn stood there looking around him, and when Thorulf lumbered toward him, drawing his sword, the boy wheeled toward Galdor.
“I have no sword.”
Among the men now grouped along the wall there gusted some laughter. Galdor said, “What then do you offer me?” He smiled, thinking, for all his big talk, the boy was trying to back out of this. “But there are other ways—bring out staffs, let them fight that way.” He nodded to the black-haired boy. “You still have your chance, see?”
He leaned on the arm of his high seat. He thought this could be amusing. Thorulf was a slacker and a stirpot. The boy was brawny and should have one good fight in him anyway. Galdor beckoned to the slave, who came quickly over to fill his cup again.
Vagn stood in the middle of the room, now a much wider space, and gripped the staff in both hands, his knuckles up. He had fought often with sticks with his brothers.
He knew the men who had killed his brothers were all around him.
The lumpy, shaggy man tramping across the floor toward him held the staff crosswise. They batted at each other a few times, shuffling around, and Thorulf didn’t change his grip. The men watching began to hoot and call out, spurring them on. Thorulf was already sweating. Vagn took a step to one side and struck, going high, over the upside-down grip, and Thorolf blocked it, and with his counterstroke knocked Vagn flat.
The breath went out of him, but even dazed he knew to keep moving. He rolled. The following blow cracked on the rush-strewn floor beside him. He staggered to his feet. He had dropped his staff. He had made a mistake. He had to be keener. Thorulf was strong and knew how to do this. The big man plunged toward him, jabbing his stick at Vagn’s belly, at his face, and Vagn dodged, ducked, jumped, flailing his arms out. The staff whipped past his ear and over his head. In the laughing, jeering crowd someone whistled. Thorulf was red-faced, panting, and his little eyes popped. Big as he was, he was already tired. He lunged around, swinging broad at Vagn’s head, and Vagn dove past him into the middle of the room, rolled, and coming to his feet grabbed his own staff up off the floor.
The crowd roared. Thorulf plodded after him, out of breath, and Vagn danced around him, luring him into another rush. When the big man charged Vagn stepped sideways and thrust his staff in between Thorulf’s knees and felled him like an ox.
A thundering yell went up from those watching. Thorulf sprawled across the rush-strewn floor, and Vagn bounded after him and battered at him until he crouched down, his knees to his chest, and covered his head with his arms.
Vagn swung the staff up. He knew Thorulf had been there the night before on the beach. He wanted to drive the staff straight through him. The men howling and stamping around him were ready for a death. But then he heard Galdor say, up there, “See if you can kill him.”
At that, he lowered the staff. His blood cooled. They were all around him, he couldn’t kill them all, now, anyway. He put out his hand to Thorulf to help him up. The other men yelled, disappointed, derisive, and Thorulf swatted away his hand and got to his feet and went off.
The other men were already moving the tables back into place, and the slaves were bringing in more food. Vagn stood watching all this. The others ignored him. He saw how they sorted themselves out, top to bottom, with Galdor up on the highest place. When everybody else had sat down again, he went to the lowest end of the table and sat on the end of the bench. The bread came to him and he ate. The ale came to him and he drank. Nobody paid him much attention.
He thought about what he had to do here. All these men were guilty of his brothers’ blood, but it was Galdor who was the head. He looked up at the high seat, where the king sat fondling the sword. Wait, Vagn thought to himself.
He slept the short night on some straw in a corner of the hall. In the morning, he expected someone to come to him with work, as would have happened at home, but nobody was doing much of anything. Men came and went in the hall, rolling up their blankets, talking together, and sitting down at the tables to play chess, and drinking. Galdor did not appear. A slave brought in some bread.
Vagn went off around the place, seeing what was there. As he had marked the day before, on his way here, the tower rose on the high point of the headland. A stout stone wall fenced off a wide half circle of space around the foot of it, running from cliff edge to cliff edge. One high gate, braced and hinged with iron, pierced the wall, closed and barred.
He went around the inside of the wall and found a little stable and some storerooms built along it. In the yard some of the men were pitching axes; they paid no heed to him. Firewood stood in stacks along the foot of the tower and tools lay around the yard. In the far corner, where the wall bent to meet the cliff, he came on the kitchen.
In his experience the three things he needed most, bread, clean clothes, and a warm look, all came from women, and women were usually found in kitchens. This one was a narrow room under a turf roof, with two ovens set in the stone wall and a row of split tree trunks for tables. People came and went through it steadily, and he found a corner at the top of a passageway, at the back of it all, where he lurked around until a wan, sullen girl noticed him.
He wheedled her into giving him some bread; he was glad to see that girls were the same everywhere. Like cats, they loved to be stroked. He stroked her more, and she smiled, and then was pretty. He said so. She flustered and fluttered and went off to her work, kneading dough, her hands dusty white and her cheeks bright red, but a few minutes later she brought him mead in a little flagon.
As he took this, thinking he could kiss her, a rattling sound came up from the passageway behind him. The girl gave a violent start, her hands flying up. He looked around, into the dark throat of a corridor, stacked high with wood for the ovens.
“Where does that go?”
She turned her wide eyes on him. “Nowhere. Stay away from there.” She leaned closer. “It’s haunted,” she whispered, and he kissed her.
Later, he squeezed in past the oven wood into the corridor. As he went he could hear the scurrying of rats and he thought that was the noise he had heard.
The corridor wound down steeply into the dark, but in a niche in the wall, under a dusty veil of cobwebs, he found a rush and a firebox. Someone had come down here often but not recently. He blew the dust off the rush and lit it and took it down into the dark.
Around a corner, he came to a door, blocked with a balk of wood. He moved the wood, and the door swung open. Holding the rush out before him he went down a long flight of steps, and the cold air that came to him smelled of an ancient fire, and of bricks, and of iron. This was a dead forge, hidden under the tower. He reached the last step and turned, looking around him.
Almost at his feet, something moaned.
He went cold. He could not move, every hair staring. The sound came again. Down on the thick dust of the floor lay a shaggy head.
Vagn knelt beside it. The head’s eyes were closed. Its long thick hair was filthy with dirt and old blood and its raddled beard trailed away beyond the reach of the rush light. He knew it was a dwarf by its beard and its bristling eyebrows, its plug of a nose. Its lips moved but only a moan came out. Vagn remembered the flagon of mead, and took it from his belt and moistened the dwarf’s lips.
The lips moved, greedy, and smacked. They spoke again, but he could not make out what they said, and he fed them more mead.
“Tyraste,” the dwarf whispered. “Tyraste, remember.”
“What.” Vagn put his head down closer. “What are you saying? Who are you?”
“Tyraste, remember,” the dwarf said, louder.
The rush light was going out. Vagn looked around to make sure he knew where the stair was. He bent to the dwarf’s head again. “Tell me what you mean!”
But all the dwarf said was, “Tyraste, remember.”
The light flickered out. Vagn turned and went up the steps, groping along in the darkness. At the top of the stair he shut the door and jammed the chunk of wood against it, and went on up to the light.
Beyond the kitchen a flight of steps went up the wall to a parapet overhanging the sea. Vagn climbed up there, to the highest place, and stood looking out over the strait, where the wrinkled water spread out far into the distance. From here, Galdor had seen the knarr coming, had seen from here that the little cargo ship was struggling, and gone down to lure it in.
A foot scraped behind him, startling him, and he whirled around. Thorulf Grimsson was coming up the stair. Vagn went stiff all over. Two steps from the top, Thorulf stopped and looked up at him, squinting into the sun.
“You’re going to need a sword. I’ll help you get one.”
Vagn said, “Very well. You go first.”
The big man turned and went down the steps ahead of him. At the bottom, Thorulf waited for him to catch up, and said, under his breath, “That was Galdor, yesterday, who did that.” He put his hand out, and said his name.
Vagn shook his hand. They were walking by the kitchen, by the passageway there. He said, “Who is Tyraste?”
“Is that a name? Some girl?” In the high stone wall beyond the kitchen was a wooden double-sided door. Thorulf pulled the two panels wide open. The sun shone in on a narrow room, the wheels and shafts of a wagon, a pile of round shields, and a barrel of sand. Out of the barrel there stuck up a forest of hilts and crosspieces. Thorulf gripped the barrel and rolled it forward; Vagn saw again how strong he was.
“Try this.” The big man pulled a sword out of the barrel and handed it to Vagn.
The hilt was neatly leather-wrapped, with a round pommel, but the blade felt heavy to him. He looked for something to try the sword against and Thorulf pointed him out the door. In the yard just beyond was a stump of wood, notched and splintered, the ground around it caked with sawdust. Vagn hacked at it; the battered chunk of tree was too low and the angle was bad.
Thorulf said, “Here. Use this edge, see, that’s the front edge. Try this one.”
The next blade was spotted with rust and had a big notch out of the blade near the crossbar, but it felt better in his hand. He struck at the stump again, crouching to get the angle, and Thorulf said, “Good. Stiffen your wrist. Like that.” He thumped Vagn hard on the back. “That’s it.”
Vagn stepped away from the stump, his breath short; he was thinking of his brother. Two other men came over toward them. “What, Thorulf,” said one, “teaching him to beat you worse?” And smirked.
Thorulf said, “That’s Ketil. Ketil Tooth. And that is Johan, who is not even Norse.”
Ketil grinned at Vagn, displaying a jagged eyetooth pointing straight out from the gum. He said, “Don’t get too cocky beating up on an old souse like him, boy.” The fair-headed Johan, not much older than Vagn, gave him a nod. He stood watching everybody, his eyes sharp, but said nothing.
“You’ll need a shield, too.” Thorulf went back into the storeroom.
Ketil said, “You won’t find much good steel in that barrel, boy.” He bumped into Vagn, as if by accident.
“Oh, this suits me,” Vagn said. He held his ground, and Ketil had to step back. Big Johan was staring at the sword in Vagn’s hand; he pointed at the blade, where below the hilt now Vagn saw some old runes in the iron.
“Gut,” Johan said. He nodded vigorously at Vagn. “Gut.”
“What is the work here?” Vagn asked.
Johan looked over at Ketil to answer; obviously he had little Norse. Ketil said, “It’s easy enough. We keep the narrows. All that come by must give us some of what they carry.” Ketil stuck his chin out, pointing east. “The big market lies beyond, where the river flows in. Through here is the quickest way there.”
Vagn knew this; he and his brothers had been on their way to this market. He had the sword in his hand. He could kill someone now. Thorulf brought him a leather sheath. Around him three of the men who had killed his brothers.
Then they stiffened, and all three were looking across the yard toward the hall. Vagn followed their eyes.
King Galdor had come out of the hall. He stood upon the threshold, his head thrown back. He wore a black bearskin cloak, a breastplate studded with metal. His sword swung at his hip. He stared at them a moment, saying nothing, and walked off across the yard. As he walked, his hand fell lightly to his sword. Thorulf muttered under his breath and made a sign with his fingers.
Ketil said, “Shut up, fool.”
“He’s after me,” Thorulf said. “He’s after me all the time.”
“That’s a fine sword,” Vagn said. “Galdor’s sword.”
“No other has such a sword,” Ketil said. “With that in his hand he does not lose.”
In Vagn’s mind the weapon in his hand shrank to a twig. A few other men walked out of the hall, yawned, stretched. Ketil and Johan started toward them, calling out. Vagn slid his new sword down into the scabbard. He could not kill them all. Galdor he should hate, not these. The girl from the kitchen was wandering by, a basket on her hip, her eyes not quite finding his. He followed Thorulf off to join the other men.
At undernmeal, he sat between Ketil and Thorulf, halfway up the table. While they were all eating, Galdor called out, “We should have some poetry. Thorulf! Give us a skalding!”
All around the hall the men laughed, and turned to stare at Thorulf, who had turned white as lambskin. He got to his feet. The jug was there and he took a big slurp of the ale. The laughing swelled, expecting some amusement. Galdor was lounging in his place, smiling.
“Give us a poem, Thorulf. Speak!”
Thorulf’s chest heaved. He said, “On the swan’s road—” and gulped. Around the room, the jeering rose; Vagn sat still, seeing this was an old practice. Thorulf’s eyes bulged. “The raven lord came—battle-sweat—unh—”
The yells of the other men rose to a roar, and from all sides they threw bread and bones and cheese at Thorulf, who flung his arms up to ward off the volleys, and sank down on the bench. He covered his head with his arms. The table in front of Vagn was littered with bits of food.
Up there, Galdor said, “Well, that was disappointing.”
The room hushed. Everybody waited, breathless, on the king, who looked around them all, and finally said, “Vagn Akason. Perhaps you can do better?”
Vagn stood up; he swiped the crumbs off his sleeves. He said, “Odin’s match is the Vedrborg’s king—”
A disappointed cheer rose. Beside Vagn, Ketil gave a cackle of a laugh. “Figured it out, did you?” On the high seat Galdor raised his head and beamed.
Vagn said, “Save he has both his eyes, his spears are bread, and his ravens are crows—”
The general mutter of approval broke off. Ketil snorted. Galdor’s smile froze. Vagn was cobbling up another line, trying to work in a comparison of Valhalla and the Vedrborg. On either side, Ketil and Thorulf yanked Vagn down onto the bench. Around them the table rumbled up a hard-smothered laughter. Galdor tilted forward from the high seat, staring down at Vagn across the room, and his hands went to the sword lying on the table before him. The laughter stopped.
“Mighty king!” On the far side of the room, another man leapt to his feet. “Ring-breaker, feeder of the eagles—”
Every head in the room swung toward this one, and he went on so, for many lofty words. Vagn sat still; he thought maybe he had shown himself too soon. But he was glad. Already Galdor was making a big point of sending this new poet a golden cup of mead. Next to Vagn, Thorulf clapped him on the shoulder and leaned toward his ear. “Keep watch,” he whispered. “Galdor won’t forget.” He straightened. Up there, Galdor had turned to glare at Vagn again. Ketil handed him the alehorn.
“You need this, fool?”
Vagn drank deep.
Later, he saw Galdor, still on his high seat, leaning on the arm to talk with a balding man, squat as a toad. After that one had gone away, Galdor sent a slave to fetch Vagn up. When Vagn stood before him, Galdor frowned at him.
“You are no skald. You annoyed me. So I want you to go up on the parapet and keep night-watch. It’s cold up there, in the wind, and it’s likely to rain. You can think about where your stupid tongue has gotten you.” He sat back. The sword lay on the table between them.
Vagn said, “Yes, King Galdor,” and went off.
There was some weather coming in, as the night fell; he could feel it in the air. He stood on the parapet, looking into the dark, listening to the wind boom and sigh over the walls around him. The rain began, light as a veil. He thought awhile of his brothers, dead down there, and he alive up here, and could not push this into any balance. He knew no one would come down the narrows on a night like this and he went down the stairs again, and away into the back of the kitchen, where the passage started down.
The kitchen slaves were asleep around the banked ovens. He took off his shoes, to make no noise, and kept watch on the yard. In the warmth he dozed a little. He dreamt of the dwarf, just down at the other end of the passage; he heard himself begging the dwarf to help him. He started awake, and heard someone scurry by outside, toward the stair.
He went up to the front of the kitchen, and saw the toad-man climbing up the stair; as he went he drew his dagger. Vagn climbed up two steps at a time behind him, his bare feet soundless. At the top, the toad was peering around.
“Looking for me?”
The toad wheeled, his dagger lashing out, but Vagn was already driving into him, shoulder first, hurling him back across the narrow walkway. The dagger nicked his cheek. The toad hit the waist-high parapet wall and tumbled over into the air. Vagn stood there a moment, and heard a thud. Then he went back down the stairs.
From the kitchen, the girl called him, and he went in there, and lay down with her in the warmth of the hearth.
Galdor came out of the hall door. The rain had stopped, and the sunlight blazed bright and clean over the world. To his surprise, across the yard, hacking at a barrel with a sword, was the black-haired boy Vagn Akason.
The king cast a look all around the yard, looking for his man Gifr, and didn’t see him. He called Vagn to him.
“I see you made a night of it,” he said, when the boy stood before him.
“Not much happened,” Vagn said. There was a fresh cut on his cheek.
Galdor said, “You didn’t see anything?”
“No. A blowfly bothered me, once, but I swatted it away.”
Their eyes met. Galdor laid his hand on the hilt of his sword. “Where did you say you came from?”
“West of here. From the big island.”
“Then how did you get here?”
“I walked.”
“On the water?”
The boy opened his mouth with another lie, then, from the tower, the horn blew. Galdor said a round oath. “Get to the ships,” he said. “Hjeldric is come at last.”
Vagn loved being back on the water, where everything was simple: the stroke, his strength, and the sea. On the bench ahead of him Thorulf swung his oar; Ketil stood at the helm, steering them through the broken water. All around Vagn, the men were chanting the count.
He had rowed all his life, but always clunky little boats like the knarr. Never before a vessel like this one, this sea serpent of a ship, light and supple, skimming over the water. The rhythm carried him like great wings. He added his voice to the count, a glad part of this.
Through the corner of his eye he could see that they were racing to cut off another longship, streaking up the strait from the west. Ketil yelled out and the count quickened. Vagn pushed himself to match it, gasping at the effort; all around him the other men strained at the oars. The ship trashed across a rough current. The oncoming ship was fighting the same surface chop and lost half a length, and then Vagn’s ship glided out onto a patch of easy water. The other longship stood up its oars and veered off.
A hoarse cheer rose from the benches around Vagn. Ketil laid them over. The jug came by and Vagn gulped down most of the water in it. His sword lay under his bench. Maybe now they would fight, ship to ship. He longed to try the sword in a real fight. Over there, across the open water, the other longship faced them, too far to see any of those men. He dragged in a deep breath. Thorulf reached around and slapped his shoulder, and someone else gave a random yell. Vagn felt his blood beating through his body; he shook his muscles loose. He looked quickly around at the other men, his crew. His brothers now. He thrust that problem off. He looked out over the water toward the other ship, his hand itching to pick up his sword.
Then a horn blew, behind them.
He twisted to look over his shoulder. Back there, Galdor had his other two ships bow to stern across the narrows. Three more enemy ships lay up the strait, waiting. Lean and low, they were beautiful, and it swelled him to think he would fight in such a one. The horn sounded again and Vagn felt his scalp prickle. This was the beginning of it. But none of the other men even looked up. Back at the helm, Ketil suddenly gave over the steerboard to somebody else and went forward.
Thorulf was sitting back. Another jug came. Vagn said, “What’s going on?”
“They’re talking.” The man across the way from him turned toward him. “Nothing is going to happen for a while.”
On the bench behind him, somebody said, “They outnumber us. Galdor doesn’t fight against the odds.” Thorulf muttered something under his breath.
Vagn looked around them. They were at the narrowest part of the strait. He remembered the rocks that cluttered the water along the shore. It seemed to him Galdor’s three ships could hold off the four enemy ships easily enough. Probably there was some piece of warcraft he was not grasping here. Now Galdor was shouting from his ship toward one of the others, and someone there was shouting back. They were arranging to meet on the land. There would still be a fight. Vagn reached down to touch the hilt of his sword.
Galdor had sent most of his men back up to the Vedrborg. The rest he kept below, in a broad meadow just inland of the beach where Hjledric’s ships drew up, and he went among them and counted out seven of them. Thorulf was among these seven and so was Vagn. When Ketil was not counted in, he and the others went away. Galdor paced up and down past the men who stayed.
He said, “I am staking the Vedrborg on this. I will reward good work here.” His eyes were hot and bright. He drew his sword; Vagn imagined it hissed like a snake, coming out of the sheath. “Thorulf, take the weather edge. I will take the middle.”
Thorulf stepped back and leaned on his sword. Around him the other men were gripping each other’s hands, drinking deep of the alehorns. Across the grass Hjeldric’s eight men gathered. Vagn looked over his new sword again. He had worked on the rusty parts with sheep’s fat and a rag and gotten some of it clean. The notch he could not fix. But the blade felt good in his hand. He took a deep breath. The sun was warm on his cheek. He told himself he might never see another sunrise; this seemed a far-distant, unimportant matter.
Thorulf stood there, swinging his arms back and forth. He said, “Is this the first time you’ve fought like this?”
Vagn said, “Yes.” His voice had a squeak.
Thorulf said, “I think it is my last.”
Ketil suddenly appeared again. To Vagn, he said, “Galdor will win this. Keep your sword up.” He thumped Thorulf on the back. “You’d better get down there. Feed a few ravens for me.” Thorulf walked heavily away across the grass, and Vagn followed.
Vagn could not stop bouncing. He was gripping the sword too tight. Beside him, Thorulf slouched, scratching his beard. He said, “Tonight in Valhalla, Vagn Akason,” and spat through his fingers. Galdor came pacing along in front of them, calling their names and jabbing his sword in the air.
He lifted his shield, and the horn blew.
They walked together in a row toward Hjeldric’s men, who came toward them in a row, each to each. In front of Vagn was a lanky body behind a big round shield, red hair sticking out all around a leather helmet. Vagn could not quite get his breath. Beside him, Thorulf gave a screech and dashed forward.
The redheaded man lunged at Vagn, striking shoulder high, and Vagn tore his attention away from Thorulf. He swung up the shield and the blow struck so hard it numbed his arm. He slashed out with his sword, low, not seeing much, and felt it bang hard on the redheaded man’s shield, and the other man sprang away. Vagn followed him, shield first, wanting him to strike first. Inside the leather helmet, above the thatch of red beard, the man’s blue eyes locked with his. He jabbed with his sword, and when Vagn pulled his shield up, turned the stroke low, and hard.
The tip of the sword sliced toward Vagn’s knee. He drove his own sword down, and the blades rang together. Vagn saw at once the other man had the longer reach. He crashed forward, shield first, into the tall, gangly body, closing the gap between them. For an instant, they were chest to chest together, the redhead’s breath blasting in Vagn’s face. He felt the other man’s strength coil to throw him off, and as the other man shoved he slid sideways out of the way, laying out his sword. The redheaded man stumbled, fell across the blade and staggered to his knees.
Vagn bellowed, hot with triumph. Then another of Hjeldric’s men was charging him, shorter, wider, swinging an axe.
He caught this on the shield, turning the edge a little, so the wide curved blade did not strike full on. With his sword he hacked down at the axeman’s head. The axeman ducked back and away, and for an instant Vagn could look around.
The redhead was getting to his feet. Blood smeared his side but he was raising his sword again. Out there on the trampled grass, Thorulf lay in a heap.
The axeman barked some name, and he and the redheaded man fanned out and came at Vagn together. The redheaded man was breathing hard, the blood bright on his breastplate and shield arm. The other man, squatty, with his axe, bobbed back and forth then gave a howl and charged.
Vagn stood fast; he turned the first blow off with his shield and with his sword poked and cut, watching how the other man met that. He knew that the redheaded man was coming in behind him, and he backed up in a rush, getting out from between them. The redheaded man dropped to one knee again. The other one lifted his axe, moving sideways, circling around to Vagn’s far side.
The redheaded man heaved himself up onto his feet and stumbled forward. Vagn cocked up his shield; his body felt huge and the shield the size of a pea. From the side the axe sliced at his head and he ducked and lunged and his sword glanced off the axeman’s shield. He dodged away from them both again, and the axeman stepped back. The redheaded man lost his balance and fell to his hands and knees.
Vagn cast another look around. They had moved far along the meadow, somehow, almost to the wood; Thorulf’s body was a long way back there. Nearer, Galdor and Hjeldric were circling each other. Galdor’s sword swung out, and Hjledric dodged, then attacked, going against Galdor’s shield hand.
Then from the wood there burst a tide of men.
Vagn stood, startled. They were Galdor’s men, and they reached the redheaded man first and hacked him down, and then the axeman went down. Hjeldric wheeled toward them, and Galdor plunged the sword through his back. Vagn did not move. He saw Galdor fling his arms up, triumphant. He saw, down on the beach, two of Hjeldric’s ships push away.
Ketil walked up to Vagn. He said, “I told you he would not leave it to chance.” His eyes did not quite meet Vagn’s. Vagn threw his shield down, and went off to see what had happened to Thorulf.
At undernmeal Vagn sat staring at his hands. Around him the voices purred and muttered but he heard nothing. The food came around and he ate nothing. He drank from the alehorn, which did him no good.
His mind was churning. Thorolf was dead, but Thorulf had died well, of hard wounds taken in front. Vagn thought over and over of the redheaded man, who had fought so hard, even wounded, merely to be cut down from behind like a coward. The gall burned in his belly. Ketil, beside him, spoke to him only once.
“We won, didn’t we?”
Vagn grunted at him. After that Ketil said nothing, only glanced at him now and then, and passed him the horn.
In the high seat Galdor shouted out a name, and some warrior stood up, and Galdor pulled one of the gold rings from his arm and a slave brought it down and everybody cheered. Vagn stared at the table.
Then Galdor was calling out his name.
Vagn lifted his head, and all around saw faces watching him. A slave came trotting toward him, holding out a gold ring, and a long yell rose, his name in sixty voices.
He stood up, everybody’s eyes turned on him, and hurled the ring across the room.
“No! There was nothing golden on that field, no honor—” He was shaking, the blood booming in his ears. “Better men than you died on that field, Galdor No-King, Galdor Cheat! I would be a better king here than you are.”
The hall crashed into silence. Nobody moved.
Galdor said, “This is your end, Vagn Akason.” He rose in his place and took the sword up off the table and drew it from the scabbard. Around Vagn the others were suddenly moving, pulling the benches and tables back, and he was alone, standing there. He drew his sword. Galdor was coming toward him down the hall.
He moved away, then Galdor was coming at him, sideways, the keen blade slicing toward him. He bounded backward. He got his sword crosswise of Galdor’s and the shock rang up his arm. Galdor was pushing him along, darting here, there, poking at him, laughing. Vagn skittered backward, trying to get some room, and came up against the table.
Hands gripped him from behind. Somebody was holding him for Galdor, and the king moved in fast. Vagn dropped his sword. He reached back and got the wrists holding him, twisted and crouched down, and with all his weight he hauled the man behind him over his shoulder and into Galdor’s thrust.
The sword came out through the falling man’s chest. While Galdor was pulling it free Vagn grabbed up his own sword again and vaulted onto the table. The other men shied back, toward the walls. Galdor swung hard at his knees, and when he dodged that, the king leapt onto the table after him. Slashing and cutting up and down, he drove Vagn backward, through the bread and the cheese, tipping over the alehorns. Vagn kept his sword up, fending off the king’s blows, groping along behind him with his feet.
Galdor stabbed at him, and Vagn saw something; he lunged toward the weakness, but it was a trap. The king wheeled his blow backward at him and struck the sword out of his hand.
A bellow went up. The king’s eyes glowed. Vagn leapt down from the table, and raced out the door into the yard. Galdor was hot after him. Just beyond the threshold was a stack of firewood, and Vagn threw a chunk of it at Galdor and saw an axe among the wood. With a bound he caught it up. Galdor was right behind him and he wheeled around and swung the axe waist high, missing Galdor by a finger’s breadth.
Galdor howled. His teeth showed. He hacked right, and Vagn dodged, then left and Vagn dodged. The axe was top-heavy and hard to manage. Galdor let him swing and came in behind the swing, and Vagn felt the blade crease his ribs through his shirt. He swung the axe around and hurled it straight at Galdor.
Galdor went down; the axe grazed his shoulder. Vagn raced across the yard, toward the storeroom with the barrel of swords. The doors were shut and barred. Galdor was pounding after him, yelling, derisive.
“Wait, little boy, I’m not done with you!”
Vagn swerved toward the kitchen, where there would be knives. Galdor was on his heels. On the ground out in the middle of the yard he saw a broom, and veered toward it. He could hear yelling, from a great distance; all he saw was the broom, and he snatched it up and wheeled just as Galdor closed with him.
The sword swung at his head; he thrust up the broom and the blade bit the wood and snapped it. Still clutching the short end, Vagn slid back, out of reach of the sword. Galdor stood a moment, the sword raised, the tip circling in the air as if it sniffed for him.
The others, packed up against the walls, were calling and whistling. Vagn watched only the tip of the sword. Sliding his feet along, the stub end of the broomstick poking out before him, he inched his way toward the wall. Galdor shifted as he shifted, the sword blocking him this way, herding him that, moving him backward, backward. Vagn gave a quick look over his shoulder. Just behind him was the stair up to the parapet. The blade ripped at him and he sprang backward, up onto the steps.
Galdor was below him now, but Vagn had no fit weapon. He lashed out with the short piece of the broom and the king coiled back, out of reach, and whipped the sword at his ankles. Vagn leapt up another step, and Galdor came after. The sword jabbed at him. Galdor lunged up the steps and Vagn scurried away across the parapet and came up hard against the rail.
“Nowhere to run now,” Galdor said, breathless. He lifted the sword, and Vagn’s gaze rose with it. “Aha! You admire my sword? You should. It’s beyond price. It longs for blood.” He waggled the sword in Vagn’s face. “Its first blood was the dwarf who made it, who never made another like it. And now—” He cocked back the sword above Vagn’s head. “It will have yours.”
The dwarf. The dwarf. Braced against the wall, Vagn cried out, “Tyraste, remember!”
Galdor swung the blade down at his head, and the sword turned in Galdor’s hand, struck the wall, and flew across the parapet.
Vagn yelled. Galdor lunged after the sword, both hands stretched out. Vagn was closer. His hand fastened on the sword hilt and without pausing he swung his arm with all his strength around and took Galdor across the body.
Somewhere far off a huge yell went up. Vagn stood. Galdor sagged to his knees, his hands on his ripped belly, his head back. Vagn said, “This for my brothers. And Thorulf. And the dwarf in the cellar.” He drove the sword through Galdor’s chest.
The yelling went on. Down in the yard the other people were shouting and waving their arms. Vagn stood, panting.
The sword in his hand felt light, quick; its power burned in it. He understood why Galdor had always been touching it. Vagn wanted right away to strike with it again. The dwarf had made it full of charms. He remembered how it had turned on Galdor.
He went on down the stair to the yard, crowded with people. They were all watching him, and when he came toward them they moved back out of his way. He went in through the kitchen. There he found a rush light, and followed the passageway into the dark.
In the forge, at the foot of the stair, he sank down on his heels, and held the rushlight up to see. In the dust was the dwarf’s head, but now it was smiling.
Vagn laid the sword down beside it.
“I have brought this back to you.”
The dwarf whispered, “Yours. Yours, now.”
Eagerly he took it back in his hand. The dwarf’s lips bent in a deeper smile. “But beware. It is still evil.”
This was how Vagn Akason became king of the Vedrborg. But the life there was not to his liking, and soon he went off to join the Jomsvikings.