Daughter of the Wind (6 page)

It was this faith in her village, and in her father, that kept her from fleeing.

She returned to her captors. Olaf shrugged and laughed, accepting the loss of his wager with good cheer. Hallgerd would buy time, and give her father an opportunity to catch up with these Danes, following their trail.

“I know what you have tried to accomplish, Thrand,” said Hallgerd, feeling once again a hopeful regard for this well-spoken leader. Surely the gray-eyed man with the gentle voice would be a reliable captor, someone with whom a jarl's daughter could negotiate. “And your good man Olaf—who, you should know, threatened to cut off my nose.”

“No jarl's daughter could be deceived,” said Thrand, accepting bright treasure, two fragments of silver, from Olaf's hand. Thrand wore a bright arm-ring, itself finely crafted silver, and his boots were horse leather, finer than any footwear her father owned. He added, “Especially one so beautiful.”

A compliment was a gift, and Hallgerd gave a nod, secretly embarrassed by the bold eyes of these Danes.

Thrand said, “But now, let us hurry down to the ships.”

“Where are you taking me?” she asked. If she delayed, enticing Thrand to engage in talk, she would buy time for her father and his men.

“To an endless banquet, Jarl's Daughter,” said Thrand formally, “where you will be very happy.”

“You set attackers on one edge of my father's village,” said Hallgerd, “while you escaped with me on the other side, through the sheep to disguise your trail.”

“Spoken like a seeress,” said Thrand, without the least trace of condescension. “The rest of our battle force will come around the other side of the mountain. And we have to be joining them—” He made a gesture, polite but increasingly impatient, indicating the beautiful sailing vessels in the fjord below.

Thrand talked like a professional soldier, Hallgerd thought, a captain in a king's army, someone out of a foreign saga. Hallgerd had heard of such spear-bearing hosts, trained soldiers with matching helmets and well-practiced formations. By all accounts the men of Spjothof fought like warrior farmers, brave but with a manly casualness regarding strategy.

“You have gambled,” she said, hoping she struck the right mix of confidence and pride, “that the folk of my village are fools.”

“It was a reasonable hope,” said Olaf, insinuating himself into the conversation. His rough laughter was joined by a few of the men.

“I will promise you a fat purse,” said Hallgerd, keeping her voice steady, “if you return me to my father now.”

“A purse fat with what?” said Olaf with rough good cheer.

A guard hissed.

Thrand held up one hand, his eyes searching the path they had just traveled. Every man listened, and Hallgerd joined them, holding her breath to make out a step high up the mountainside, and another, sharp pebbles scattering.

“Hallgerd, go with Olaf, if it please you,” said Thrand briskly, “and find a comfortable seat in my ship.”

A cry split the cool morning air, an unmistakable Spjothof accent, “
Thor by our side!
”—the ancient battle cry.

Hallgerd smiled grimly. Her father had recited this chant many times, around the kettle fire. It was the prayer the legendary Onund Stone-Ax had made when an army of trolls surrounded him. Onund called to the strong-armed immortal, and, with the thunder god's help, troll corpses choked the streams and turned the flowers along Spjotfjord scarlet. They were to this day the source of the finest red dye.

Hallgerd recognized Hego's voice. Surely many more voices would join in, every villager with a strong arm, overwhelming her captors.

The unmistakable sound of an ax against shield rang out through the morning air. The noise came from high up, and each Dane reached for a weapon.

Olaf seized her. “Come along, pretty treasure,” he said with a laugh, a man not cruel, perhaps, so much as in love with his own brawn. He dragged her, picked her up, and swung her, kicking, but then, before he could take her far down the rocky slope toward the ships the sound of fighting made him turn.

He let her set her feet on the ground, keeping a seaman's grip on her arm.

“I'm here!” cried Hallgerd.

Above the sounds of a single battle-ax chopping a sword into bits, her voice echoed and reechoed off the mountains. Olaf pressed his weathered hand over her mouth, and her cries could only be prayers, now, muffled, soundless.

Father, I'm here
.

Ten

Hego lay on the cool grass.

He did not know how he had gotten there, only that the soft tussocks of vegetation supported his head, and that he was grateful to the dark, wet field for embracing his body so gently.

His head hurt. He rolled onto his back and heard the sounds of a fire in the village, a great conflagration, like the giant bonfires of celebration that had followed
Landwaster
's return a few short summers ago. Maybe the village was celebrating a wedding—
drinking a wedding
, it was called, the rowdy, all-night consumption of ale. Maybe that's what I was doing, Hego thought. I was dancing, whirling, and leaping, and I cavorted all the way out here.

Sheep surrounded him, the black-faced, well-nourished breed-ewes Hego knew were supposed to be in the pine wood pen in the village. The animals skittered one way and then another, bumping into one another, making that plaintive noise that Hego could not help imitating—feebly, not in mockery, but in wordless sympathy. He knew how they felt, the anxious, dumb creatures. Hego reached up to give a ewe a gentle pat, puzzled why the flock had been herded up onto the sheep meadow so early in the predawn.

His head throbbed, and when he put fingers to his scalp they came away sticky. He touched his forefinger to his thumb. He thrust out his tongue—it tasted very much like blood.

This was far from the first time that Hego had awakened under the dark sky in a field of gentle sheep-grass, but he began to knit together a memory of what had happened earlier that night. Soon he would sit up and really begin to make sense of what he was hearing, a sword ringing out against another sword, a spear striking a shield—it made a distinctive, hollow sound, even at a distance.

Perhaps the jarl had arranged a fighting contest—rough, merry games to entertain some important foreign merchant. The sounds of more combat drifted through the chilly darkness. The sheep parted, complaining, stirring anxiously, and a few men in stout, foreign armor hurried through the flock. One of the men carried a bundle over his shoulder, and the bundle was squirming and kicking. The bundle squealed—surely it was a woman. In the poor light Hego could make out only a vague shape, but as the flock huddled together again in the wake of these strangers Hego felt the keen prick of curiosity.

And confusion.

In the neighboring fjord, behind the mountains that shielded Spjothof, was a tiny hamlet called Ard, from the old word for plow. This tiny collection of longhouses, nestled at the farthest end of Wulffjord, was known for its barley, which waved tall and golden on the hamlet's gentle slopes. The men of Ard held spitting contests each midsummer, it was said, unable to think of any intelligent sport. Spjotmen had always had summer spear-throwing games, and wrestling matches, and board games of strategy and capture. Spjotfolk prided themselves on their militant saga lore, and felt a sort of affectionate contempt for the village of Ard.

It was unheard of, Hego knew, for a group of these artless Ardmen to don expensive armor, and even less likely that they would try to creep into a village of legendary fighters and shipbuilders. Hego groped through the dark stems of grass, searching until he found Head-Biter, lying near a puddle.

Maybe tonight for the first time in their history the Ardmen had mustered a little spirit. Perhaps they had tired of their pudgy, argumentative brides and decided to steal one of Spjothof's beauties. It was a regretted but established way for an adventurous man to provide himself with a bride, and sometimes such a stolen woman lived long and happy years with her adopted household.

Hego hurried after this small band of raiders. He polished Head-Biter against the rough wool of his tunic and continued to think over the events of this night. He followed the band through the numbing cold of Stag Brook. How could they move so quickly? These strangers were athletes, long-legged and faster than any Ardfolk Hego had ever heard of. Hego had to run. Even so, they were well ahead of him, climbing up past the elf cave, higher, through the frost-crumbled, mossy rock of the mountain trail, speaking not a word that Hego could make out.

When one of them turned to survey the trail behind them, Hego melted into the shadows.

Not long afterward, as the first birds were stirring, one of the raiders turned again, and this time Hego was slow in hiding. On one side of the path was patchy snow, and on the other side a bank of ice, fanged with icicles. Hego knelt where he was, midpath.

The stranger stared, a long stone's throw ahead on the trail.

“What did you hear?” a voice asked, a foreign accent.

There was a muttered answer, and then the rear guard turned and hurried after their fellows, leather armor creaking, feet splashing snowmelt all the way up the mountain ridge.

“
Donsk!
”

Hego said the word aloud, before he could shut his mouth, and one of the guards turned again, the first-dawn light reflected off the nasal-guard armor of his helmet.

Of course these weren't Ardmen—the thought had been ridiculous.

These men were Danes.

It all came back to Hego now, as he rose and sprinted to keep pace with the band.

He recalled how he woke, went out to drink well water, and met a sling stone with his head. No wonder he was bleeding! He should turn back to gather the village. There was no way one man could take on an entire band of sly, leather-armored Danes.

Not that Danes were feared, individually, the way one fears a berserker, or a veteran fighter like Trygg Two-Nose. Danes were famous for their rich foods, cow's milk cheeses, and pickled fish and bread. Danish bread was kneaded wheat dough, made with yeast and baked in loaves, not the hardy flatbread of northern villages. And they were famous for their treachery, fighting in trained armies with battle formations, always outflanking or using false retreats, hurling projectiles, and rarely giving way to tough-armed, sword-to-shield combat.

It was this very subtlety Hego knew he could not match. Matched with a normal warrior, Hego would teach him how to fight. He could outwrestle most men, but in the games of strategy, moving walrus-ivory pieces around to trap the opposing king, Hego had always accepted the affectionate consolation of his betters.

There was no time to go back for help. He hurried after his enemy.

Hego was breathing hard, and his head was bleeding again. The blood leaked into his swollen eye, but since this eye could not see well in any event, there was no great loss of vision. But Hego had sat long nights hearing stories about men foolish enough to take on too many opponents at once. Such fighters ended up in battle poems, but their flesh fed the crows.

He was on the slope high above the village now, the air cold in his lungs. This is how I will enter a battle verse, he thought.
Alone on the far side of the great Mount High-Seat he lifted his ax of noble name
.

Hego slipped on the icy trail, climbed to his feet, and made haste. He would call upon Thor at the last moment, the god of the strong arm and the boundary stone, the god who hates thieves and strengthens the man who defends his friends.

Hego stumbled, exhausted, crawling into the shadow of a boulder.

Their ships within view, the Danes were close enough to safety to catch a breath, sharing a drink from a goatskin sack. Hego crouched, breathing hard, leaning against a lichen-crusted boulder.

When Hego saw the Danes' captive, far below on the trail, he took a sharp breath and a firmer grip on Head-Splitter. Tears of outrage blinded him, and he had to wipe his good eye on his sleeve to clear his vision.

Hallgerd shook down her long, bright hair, and Hego cursed these Danes before Odin for setting their hands on the jarl's daughter. She was speaking to them, proud of bearing, Hego could see that, although he could not make out her words.

He could not linger here, crouching against the lichen-crusted rock. The wily Danes were glancing around, weary as they were, and soon someone would spy him, peeking out in his craftless, clumsy way.

Hego stepped out from behind the boulder.

He marched down the slope, his battle-ax in his grip, crying out before Thor for the mighty god's help. And a Dane, a red-bearded man, stirred, and climbed toward him, followed by a few others, all of them drawing swords, a few of them lifting skirmish shields.

The red-bearded attacker ran uphill, with easy, self-assured strides. He lifted his sword.

Hego sliced the shield through with one blow, and cut into the bone. Hego was singing. It was what he had been taught around the firelight, battle song giving courage to arm and ax. The red-bearded Dane struck out with his sword, a skilled counterattack, and Hego took a step back and planted his feet.

He killed the red-bearded man, clove his head from the crest of the helmet to the jaw.

And then, with Hallgerd crying out from below, the other armed men closed around him. Far outnumbered, fighting hard, Hego calculated how many he would take with him before he died.

Eleven

Hego was in the lead, and this surprised Hallgerd.

Indeed, not only was Hego leading the attack, no one else was following him.

The young man had polished an amulet for Hallgerd just a week past. Hego was always shy around the young woman, his voice soft, his eyes downcast. The jarl always sent his favorite blades to be quickened by the young man's whetstone. Every farmer was fond of Hego, but Hallgerd doubted that this youth was destined to earn his place in a heroic poem, and she was afraid for her good-hearted neighbor's life.