Halfdan hit the sacks of grain, rolled, and dropped from the cart, landing on his feet in a crouch, looking about. The Wolves and their Norman charges were scattered, and he wished he’d given more explicit instructions before sending them out. The four Normans were gathered together, looking determined, their young leader squinting into the darkness, taking in the situation. Halfdan took a deep breath and began shouting out orders.
‘Ketil and Bjorn, go for the gate to the inner court. Take the cart and use it to block the gap. Take two men to help, and when you’re done, run for the main gate.’
It was perhaps a tribute to how undisputed he was as jarl that neither man blinked, let alone argued, as they grabbed two of the biggest Wolves, grasped the cart by the traces and the sides, and began to move it. They were large, strong and fast men, and the cart, though heavy and slow to start rolling, was soon creaking across the grass, and picking up pace as they angled it toward where a small group of Wolves was currently holding back an increasing tide of garrison men trying to get out to catch them. There wasn’t a lot more he could do than that. It would hopefully slow the enemy sufficiently.
One man was leaning against the wall, wincing, unable to put down his leg, while another was still rolling around on the floor, cursing and clutching his knee.
‘Can you walk?’
The two men turned to Halfdan. Both nodded, for both knew the ugly truth. There was no time to take care of the wounded. They had to be gone, and anyone who couldn’t make it would have to be left behind. The young jarl wasn’t convinced, the way the two looked, but he had to give them a fighting chance.
‘Make for the gatehouse now. Be fast and meet us there.’
As the two men hobbled off, he looked at the others, counting off to be sure he had everyone. Six men at the inner gate, blocking it and then running. Three at the stables. Not enough to handle twenty-one horses. Two injured hobbling off toward the gatehouse, and that left… Yes, ten of them, including the duke and his men.
He looked at them all and pointed to the three leanest-looking men left – a Wolf and two Normans.
‘Go for the gatehouse. Secure it if you can. Try to stay alive.’
The Normans looked to their duke, the orders having been given by a stranger, but William nodded to them, and the three ran off, making to overtake the injured and seize the gate from its guards.
Thank Odin that the rebel lords had been so focused in their planning. They had cleared the outer bailey, and then pulled the bulk of their forces into the inner bailey and removed the loyalists there, assuming they could trap their prey in the keep. Now, those prey were in the outer bailey, and it really was quite sparsely manned – presumed secure and no longer a priority.
That left him, William and one of his men, the three women and Leif.
‘The stables,’ he said simply.
The men on the outer bailey walls were moving, some toward the main gate and some toward the stables.
They pounded across the grass of the bailey then, racing for where the warriors they’d sent earlier were already bringing horses out of the stables, some saddled, some not. As they approached the huge wooden structure, it became apparent that the fighting was not yet over. Two of the Wolves were leading out horses and letting them go to wander loose, while the sounds of furious combat raged inside. Without the need for words, Halfdan pointed to William and the women and then to the horses, and they moved to take control of the wandering beasts.
While they worked, Halfdan, Leif and the other Norman ran into the stable doorway. One of Halfdan’s men, beleaguered, was fighting off two opponents. Only one was armed with a sword, the other a young stable lad thrusting with a pitchfork, but the need to divide his defence between the two meant the Wolf was permanently on the defensive, picking up small wounds as he fought, and yet unable to finish them off.
‘Leif, get the rest of the horses out.’
The Rus nodded and turned, beginning to urge the beasts to movement, while Halfdan and the duke’s man ran to the ongoing struggle. Halfdan leapt, pushing his troubled man aside out of danger, his own sword catching that of the Norman’s and turning it aside. The parry required some effort, for the Norman’s sword was much longer and heavier than his short Alani blade, but he managed, and that was when the smaller blade’s advantage came to the fore. While the Norman grunted and lifted the heavy sword ready for another attack, Halfdan was already moving, the light weapon in his hand swift and easy to manoeuvre. He dropped and rolled, lashing out. The Norman was wearing one of their usual chain shirts. All the ones he’d seen were long-sleeved, thigh-length, and divided at the hem to allow for riding, and some had chain hoods built in. They were protective and bulky.
But they did little for the knees.
Halfdan’s blade snicked through the man’s hamstrings as he tumbled past and leapt to his feet once more, nimbly. The Norman soldier screamed and went down like a sack of grain on his ruined leg. The jarl turned to look for more trouble, but the duke’s man had swiftly dispatched the stable boy now that he was alone.
The enemy were down. He didn’t bother wasting time finishing off the maimed man. The guard could hardly chase after them, anyway. Instead, he and the duke’s man turned and helped Leif usher the horses from the stables, out into the open.
He cursed as they emerged, and he counted. Twenty-one of the fugitives, and there appeared to be seventeen horses, only thirteen of those saddled. He reached back in through the door to where he’d seen saddle blankets and grabbed a few, throwing them to his friends.
‘Anyone who can ride bareback, do it now.’
The Wolves and their Norman companions were climbing onto the horses, favouring the ones with saddles. The duke went for an unsaddled one, but one of his men grabbed his lord and turned him toward another, taking that one for himself, and so William climbed into a saddle with surprising skill for one so young. Halfdan smiled to himself. He’d not been a whole lot older himself when he’d left Gotland in search of a murderous jarl. When had he taken such a step toward being a greybeard?
A roared curse drew his attention, and he turned to see Bjorn and Ketil racing across the turf from the inner gate toward the outer gatehouse, two others close behind. It was a saddening sight, for it meant that two Wolves lay dead at that gate. Looking past them, he revised his estimation. One dead, one still struggling, fighting like a hero of old, wounded in a dozen places, but standing on the upturned cart and fighting a hopeless rearguard to let the other four escape.
Halfdan directed his people to leave four horses, and then took the others and rode for the gate. The two men with leg injuries from the fall were only two thirds of the way across the bailey. The three he’d sent to the gate had passed them and were in the recess of the gatehouse, fighting fiercely with a number of men, others joining even as their companions fell, feeding down from the ramparts. One of the men from the walls turned, seeing the small, mounted group – six figures herding thirteen horses toward the gate – and hurried toward them, shield up and sword out. It was brave. Stupid, but brave.
It was the young Duke of Nordmandi who veered out to ride the man down, and with a thunder of hooves left the broken soldier groaning his way to death in the trampled turf.
One of the men at the gate was down, but they had taken down an impressive number of guards between them, using the recess of the gate to limit the number of Cotentin’s men who could approach them at any one time. Still, now they were down to two, they would not last long.
The six riders reached the gate swiftly, and those guards engaged with the pair fighting for control of the portal were caught between them and the new arrivals, and swiftly dispatched. Again, Halfdan paused for just a moment to take stock of the situation. The gate was just about theirs, barring four men running from the walls to help. Another four, this time their own Wolves, had reached the horses Halfdan had left for them and pulled themselves up on to the beasts, riding for the exit. They had almost done it. He pointed to the men in the gate, who were breathing heavily and recovering from their struggle.
‘Get the gate open.’
As they, with the help of Leif and Gunnhild, lifted the heavy bar and began to haul the gates inward, Halfdan and the others rode to take on the men leaving the walls. It was short work, for Cotentin’s guards were not enthusiastic in their task, and held back as much as they could. By the time Halfdan had delivered a deep chop across a man’s neck, almost decapitating him, and another had fallen to one of his men, the remaining two ran for safety.
The gate was open, and freedom beckoned. William was already riding into the gap, and the others followed. Thanks to their three losses, they were only one horse short, and in a heartbeat Anna jumped clear and ran over to Leif, who hauled her up in front of him. By the time Ketil and Bjorn and their friends reached the gate, even the two men with the injured legs had arrived and were climbing on to horses with a lot of cursing.
Then they were gone. As they rode away from the gate, into the streets, men appeared on the ramparts behind them, and arrows began to fly, clacking down to the streets and off walls, none able to reach the fleeing riders. Halfdan looked around at his companions. There were eighteen of them on seventeen horses – the Wolves of old, with their two Byzantine women and two former varangoi, accompanied by Thurstan and four of his Apulians. And William and three Normans, of course.
Halfdan shook his head. He had to stop thinking of Thurstan and his men separately. They were Wolves now. In truth, as the duke had noted that first night, the Wolves were drawn from so far afield that they were far more than a dragon boat raiding party these days, even if their numbers had diminished a little. And even Cassandra and Anna had become an integral part of the crew. He smiled as he looked at the two women, wondering when they’d begun to braid their hair in a northern manner, as though taking their lead from Gunnhild. No matter who they were – Norman, Apulian, Byzantine or true Northerners – they were all Wolves.
As they took several turnings in the streets, putting them out of sight of the castle gate, they slowed. Some were clearly pleased, struggling to control mounts with only a blanket to ride and a mane to cling on to.
‘What now?’ Halfdan called to William.
The duke rubbed his scalp and yawned. ‘Preferably sleep. But plenty to do before that. If Bessin and Cotentin have rebelled, then nowhere in the peninsula is safe. And if that was truly Hauteville’s man you saw back there, even Pirou is barred to us. And to think I offered him a place at court and a stipend.’
Halfdan chewed his cheek in thought. ‘I am not sure Hauteville has rebelled yet. Before you reached Pirou, he was still being hunted by rebels, or so we believe. I think he is doing what Normans do best,’ he added, drawing on experience from Apulia. ‘I think he is playing a game of self-preservation. He openly acknowledges you as his jarl, but he has a man in the rebel camp, negotiating, ready to change sides if it is to his advantage.’
The duke nodded. ‘Still, this does not mean we can trust Serlo. We cannot ride for Pirou, lest we find ourselves stepping into the bear’s den. And south there is only France. There may be ways I can persuade King Henry to my cause, but not if I meet him as a beggar and a fugitive.’ The young duke pulled himself up in the saddle. ‘There is only one course. We must ride south and east, make for my castle of Falaise, where my army awaits. Once there, I am again in a position of strength.’
‘Is it far?’
William nodded wearily. ‘A dreadful journey, in fact. As the crow flies it is more than seventy miles, and that is if the river Vire is at low tide when we reach it. If not, that pushes it to over a hundred miles via the nearest bridge.’
‘A hundred miles is not too bad by horse,’ Ketil put in.
‘This hundred miles is. For the first stretch we will be in the lands of Cotentin, and once we cross the river we will be in the lands of Bessin and his allies. Sixty of those seventy miles are strongly controlled by my enemies.’
‘One of the first things we will need to do is find somewhere we can acquire reins and saddles for the other horses,’ Halfdan said. ‘We cannot make seventy miles with men riding bareback. And we will need food and supplies.’
The duke nodded. ‘There are places—’ he began, but was interrupted by a triumphant shout.
They all turned and cursed their lack of foresight. A man in a chain hauberk sat on a horse at a junction fifty paces away, sword levelled in their direction, bellowing to others. Clearly the rebel lords had no intention of letting their quarry escape, even now he’d managed to slip through their grasp in the castle. And they would be better prepared.
‘Ride,’ Halfdan barked, but even as they started moving, he realised they were in trouble. With so many unsaddled horses that were causing their riders difficulty, they were not moving at high speed, while their pursuers were expert horsemen on their own mounts, fresh and ready to give chase. The Wolves and their Norman companions would be overtaken and ridden down in short order.
William seemed to have come to the same conclusion.
‘We need to buy time,’ the young duke shouted.
Halfdan nodded and pointed to some of their companions. ‘I will hold them off for a while and catch you up. Get the women and the unsaddled to safety.’
The duke gestured to his man Ancel. ‘Stay and help our pagan friends. Run when you have to. Meet us at Saint-Cyr.’
His sergeant nodded and hauled on his reins, turning the beast and urging it over to join Halfdan. The jarl watched the rest leave – those without saddles and those he sought to save first. Five of them would stay and hold the line to allow them time: Halfdan, Ancel, Ketil, Thurstan and Bjorn.
‘How long do we hold?’ Thurstan asked, an edge to his voice.
Halfdan glanced at Ancel. ‘It will take five minutes to leave town completely, and in another five they will be vanished into woodland and hard to follow.’
‘Five minutes, then,’ Halfdan said. ‘Make every minute count.’
Even as they drew themselves up in a mounted line, facing that street along which a second man had joined the one who’d spotted them, Halfdan heard a stretching noise and turned to see Ketil lifting his bow, an arrow nocked. In half a heartbeat the arrow thwacked off into the night. Halfdan tried to watch its flight, but it was impossible, the dark-fletched shaft vanishing into the dark distance. Nothing seemed to happen.
‘You missed,’ Ancel said. ‘Must be that eye of yours.’
Ketil said nothing, simply watched. After what seemed an eternity, the enemy’s horse suddenly collapsed beneath him, buckling and falling to one side, scattering the Norman across the street, where he’d had the sharpness of mind to unhook his feet from the stirrups first.
Another came around the corner, pointing and yelling.
‘How long can you keep that up?’ Halfdan asked.
Ketil reached down, counted the few arrows in his quiver and drew one out.
‘Five more times,’ the Icelander said, lifting, nocking, raising and releasing.
Again, in the night gloom, they never saw the arrow hit home, but the second rider suddenly swayed in his saddle, lolling.
‘One more,’ Halfdan said.
Ketil nodded and loosed a third shot. This time, the arrow seemed to hit the man’s horse, but after a moment of rearing and whinnying, the rider managed to get his mount back under control.
‘All right,’ Halfdan said to the Icelander, ‘here’s what I want you to do. Take the most direct route from town and into the woods. Get beneath a tree and prepare. The moment we come into sight, take down the first three men following us, yes?’
Ketil nodded and turned, urging his horse away.
‘That leaves us a man down,’ Ancel said.
‘But when we have to run, he will cover us and give us a chance.’
The four of them settled into their line, listening to Ketil clattering away behind them into the distance. More and more mounted Normans were gathering ahead, at the junction.
‘Why don’t they come?’ Ancel breathed.
Halfdan grinned as he looked to each side. He had to look up to see the massive, eerily white bulk of Bjorn Bear-torn at one side. The solid, unyielding shape of Thurstan sat, heavily armoured, to the other.
‘Would you?’
Ancel looked left and right, and shuddered.
Finally, some sort of officer appeared with the Normans down the street, and orders were bellowed. Four men were sent for them, their commander matching man for man. It was a sensible tactic. The street width would negate any advantage they could count on from numbers, and man for man would give the officer more of an idea of what he was dealing with.
Bjorn plucked a throwing axe from his belt, looked at it for a while and frowned.
‘What’s the matter?’ Halfdan asked.
‘Don’t want to lose a good axe,’ the big man answered, and reached down to the other side of his belt, lifting a bottle of something and popping the lid away with his thumb before taking a huge swig. Ancel looked at the big man as though he were mad, then settled his teardrop-shaped shield into place, proudly displaying the twin golden lions of the duke, and hefting his sword ready.
The four riders came on, strong, confident. Three of the defenders braced themselves, ready for combat. Bjorn shrugged, and upended his bottle, tipping what remained mostly into his mouth with just a small amount across his face and into his ears. Finally sated with drink, the great white warrior gripped his reins with his left hand and, as the enemy closed, flung the bottle with his right.
The empty vessel, spraying odd droplets, spun through the air and struck an impressive blow right in the face of the man charging at Bjorn. Halfdan had to put the blow down to luck. Ketil could pull off such a manoeuvre and expect success, but Bjorn was no archer. Thor was with the big man, just as Loki watched over Halfdan.
The man the missile had hit was out of the fight straight away, the bottle having smashed on the brow of his helmet and sprayed the man’s face with shards of glass. The rider barrelled off to the side of the street, yelling in pain. The other three came on, preparing for the collision and combat. At the very last moment, Halfdan reached across to Ancel and grabbed his reins, hauling on them, pulling the horse over toward him. The Norman shouted in alarm, stunned, with no idea what the jarl was doing, but blinked in surprise when he realised Halfdan had saved him from their own companion. Bjorn, roaring and with his big axe out, pushed his horse across in front of Ancel, jealously choosing a second target now that he’d felled the first.
In front of them, as their enemies hit and crowded in, Bjorn swung his axe in a massive arc, over the head of his horse. The nearest man lifted his shield, full of professional confidence, preparing to take the blow and then stab out with his own long sword. He had clearly not counted upon the sheer weight and brutality of Bjorn’s blow. The massive axe cut through the shield as though it were parchment, taking a huge piece from the man’s arm, and then continuing almost without slowing, tearing a chunk of the man’s side away, chain links scattering, wool and flesh following.
The man bellowed in shock and agony, and immediately fell away in the opposite direction to the blow, where he fell against the next man.
By the time any of the others could strike, their four opponents had dropped to one. Thurstan’s blade thunked from the last man’s shield, but he managed to turn his sword and knock aside the man’s counterstroke.
Bjorn tore his axe free and struck again, sending the wounded Norman to meet his god with the second blow, following which he pushed forward, making for the man with the glass in his face, who was still reeling at the side of the street.
As Thurstan continued to deal with his own man, Halfdan leapt forth in his saddle, not giving the last Norman a chance to recover from where he had been knocked sideways by his friend. The man was armoured in hauberk with coif, conical steel helmet and shield. The way he was leaning, lurching this way and that, meant there was little chance of a blow to the face or neck landing without meeting iron links. Consequently, the jarl struck the only clear blow he could. The tip of his sword plunged into the horse’s eye, and he ripped it back out sharply, knowing just how easily he could lose his blade if he were not swift.
The horse screamed and reared to an impressive height, and Halfdan and Ancel backed away from the flailing hooves. Its rider tried his hardest to stay in the saddle, not entirely sure in what way his horse had been wounded, but try as he might, finally one foot came free of the stirrup and, with that, he fell, toppling from the far side. His other foot remained anchored, and even over the screaming of the horse, Halfdan heard the man’s ankle break in the stirrup. Halfdan had no need to do more, for the moment the horse dropped back, panic gripped it and it turned and cantered away along the street, making horrible keening noises and dragging the rider behind it by his broken leg, bouncing along the stones.
As Halfdan calmed his own horse, he looked around the street. A little further along and at the side, Bjorn was merrily carving the last echo of life from the man with the face full of glass. Two horses were further on, one dragging its doomed rider, the other with a dead body leaning, wobbling in the saddle. Thurstan remained locked in combat with the last man, but it was clear he had the upper hand. For a moment, Halfdan considered helping, for simple speed if for no other reason, but decided against it. He didn’t know the man that well yet, and some Northmen – Bjorn being a prime example – could become quite offended if you intervened in a fight. Instead, he peered off to the end of the street. Quite a gathering was building at that next junction, and he could hear the distant, muffled sounds of angry shouting.
The next riders were in no hurry to follow the fate of the first wave, while the officer was clearly insistent that they do so. Even as Thurstan finished his man off with a blow to the face, Halfdan narrowed his eyes, peering away into the dark, suspicious.
The argument seemed to have ended, and to his eye there looked to be fewer men there, though still quite a number.
‘Bjorn,’ he called.
‘What?’
‘Back here.’
The big man frowned, but knew better than to argue with his jarl.
‘Brace yourself for a second run,’ Ancel advised them.
‘I don’t think so,’ Halfdan said quietly as Bjorn rejoined the line.
‘What?’
‘They’re trying something new. I think their officer has sent men off to come at us from other sides. I think now’s our time to run or we’re going to be surrounded.’
Ancel frowned, but then bowed his head to the man who was in charge. Flicking a gesture for them to follow, Halfdan clopped his horse backwards a dozen paces and then a little more. There they reached a crossroads, and he looked this way and that. He could see no one yet, but it seemed almost certain if they waited there, other riders would come from both sides in an attempt to trap and overwhelm them. He came to a halt.
‘The moment they come, stick with me. We ride for Ketil’s position. As soon as we pass the Icelander, we ride like the wind. Ancel, you know where this Saint-Cyr place is?’
‘Yes.’
‘Take us in a different direction for a while, and once we’ve laid sufficient trail, Ketil will cover our change of course while we turn back and make for the meet-up. It will be hard for them in the countryside to locate our tracks in the dark, especially without a good hunter. With luck they’ll not pick up our trail until dawn.’
It did not take long. Perhaps thirty heartbeats later there were shouts ahead, and away at that other junction a fresh wave of riders started to hurtle their way.
‘This is it. The other two pincers will close at the same time.’
Sure enough, once the riders ahead were moving, the fresh sounds of heavy horse came from both side streets.
‘Now. Ride.’
The others turned with him and put their heels to the flanks, snapping the reins in their fists, though Bjorn looked faintly regretful. They raced away, following the most obvious route, the one Ketil would have taken. As they neared the edge of the town, the riders of the rebel lords racing at full speed behind them, hungry for victory, Halfdan began to vaguely recognise places. This was the route they’d come along when they arrived at Valognes.
As they reached a straight stretch of road, he looked back over his shoulder and could see the wave of men and horses pouring along the thoroughfare behind them, the scudding clouds casting moving dark patches across street and occupant, making it hard to gauge their strength. Too many to face, for certain – and this would only be the vanguard. There was nothing in this whole damn land that the rebel lords would want more than to have William either dead in a ditch or unconscious in their grasp. Halfdan and his companions had to get away now, and then they had to stay ahead until they met up with the duke’s army.
In moments they were passing the last buildings of the town of Valognes and disappearing into the countryside. The road to Pirou crossed an open stretch of field and then entered woodland – that very woodland where Halfdan had expected to fall foul of Neel de Cotentin’s betrayal. The man had been wilier, though, launching his attack the night before the hunt, prepared and planned, and had it not been for Gunnhild’s Seiðr and her intuition, it was very likely that they would all have died in the darkness in Valognes.
As they rode out across the open ground, he judged that they’d perhaps ridden too fast and left their pursuers a little further behind. That would be useful, but only after Ketil. With a gesture to the others, he slowed his pace very slightly, allowing their hunters to gain just a little pace. Then, satisfied that the distance would be just right, he led the other three toward the woodland. Their pursuers gave cries of urgency, knowing that there was a chance of losing them once they reached the trees. The enemy picked up the pace.
So did Halfdan and his friends. They were perhaps twenty paces from the trees when the first arrow thrummed from the woods, hurtling past Ancel close enough to startle him. A quick glance over his shoulder, and Halfdan saw the lead rider of the Normans topple forward, dead in the saddle. As they passed the edge of the woods, a second arrow shot from the shadows and plunged into the next nearest horse, sending it tumbling, broken. The other riders were forced to pull up or change course and ride off to the sides to avoid collision.
The third arrow they never saw hit, though it clearly did from the cries of alarm back in the open. Then they were riding and Ketil was catching up, pounding along the road in their wake. At the next corner, where an old stone cross stood over a shallow bowl full of brown water, Ancel led them off to the right.
All they had to do was meet up with the duke and get him safely back to his castle. And hope beyond hope that Serlo de Hauteville did not turn rebel, kill Ulfr and the others, and steal all the gold.