Warnings of Violence and Language.
The day was warm, for ‘twas still summer. We had brought the fleet, 300 ships strong, up the river Ouse. The only resistance had been the slaughter at Fulford Ditch. And that had been over quickly. They should have payed us off. Like we told them to. Angevin fools. Now the fleet was at harbour, beached on the banks of the Ouse. A third of the army had been left to watch them, whilst the rest of us took tribute of Yorvik at Stamford Brig.
Twas warm, unseasonably so, especially for this part of Angleland, warm and dry and sunny. Most of the men refused to wear their armour. A few like me ignored the ‘sage advice’ of those who let comfort outweigh common sense. We stood asides Hadrada as the Angevin brought their tribute. Horses, cattle, sheep. Many weights of silver and gold. Fine steel and ironwork. After the slaughter at Furford, they even brought their children for tribute as thralls. Worthless wretches. I would die in battle afore I’d give so much as a fingerswidth of hacksilver. Let alone my own flesh and blood.
So it was that I was stood with Hadrada and the Jarl Tostig when Harold called Godwinson arrived. Tribute was demanded. And Godwinsons response made me laugh. “I’ll gie ye tribute, lad,” He said, even though Harald Hadrada was almost as old as he was. “I’ll gie ye se’en foot o’good Angevin earth. Tae be yours in perpetuity. Ore as much longer as ye be taller than other man!” I had to laugh. The man had guts. I grinned, baring teeth that were almost fangs, behind the coif that covered my face. Godwinson turned to Tostig next, and spoke again. “Tae ye, I’ve another offer. I’ll gie ye an earldom, should ye turn on Hadrada here…” Tostig shook his head. He would not betray Hadrada. Not after he had been the one to recruit Hadrada for this venture.
As Godwinson and his escort left, I tilted my head towards them, but with a shake of his head, Hadrada, my liege lord, denied me the pursuit. Things could have been different had he done otherwise. It was a few hours later that I tilted my head to the air, sniffing the air. As my nostrils filled with the scent of the approaching army, I turned to Hadrada. “They Come.” I growled, and he turned to me. “What?” He demanded, and I sniffed again, assuring myself of the foes soon to arrive. “Godwinson. Many warriors. They come. And soon.” As Hadrada and Tostig shook their heads in stunned disbelief, I realised that they didn’t belief Godwinson could have mobilised so soon.
So, I responded in the manner of one who had been a leader of warriors amongst the Varangians. “WITHDRAW!” I roared. “HOLD THE BRIDGE!” As the warriors looked stunned, I tore the Raven banner from the ground, and passed it to a young Huscarl. “TAKE IT!” I snarled at him, and then roared again, “CROSS THE BRIDGE! TO THE RAVEN!”, as I shoved him towards the wooden bridge we were camped at. I glanced around, looking for a specific face. There, one of the few warriors in Maille. I grabbed his shoulder, and growled commands. “Shuck your armour. Get to the boats. Go, Tell Our Warriors, Son Of The North, That Gorm Grendelsbane Holds The Brig At Stamford! FETCH THEM!” As he bent double, his armour rolling of his shoulders, I got to the center of the bridge, and their I stood.
My Mailled Hauberk was stifling, but I was glad of it. The Gambie was already sodden with sweat, but I knew that soon it would be soaked through with other fluids. A feral grin lit my face, not that any could see it. My helm was an antique, steel loops descending from the angled spangenhelm to ward my eyes. Below that a chain coif and ventail protected my neck, and hampered my breathing. Mailled chausses warded my legs, and a great kite shield of linden, with the rampant wolf I held as my heraldry emblazoned on it, warded my back. At my belt hung sword and knife and axe, as they had since the Volga, and a great two-handed crescent axe, the blade almost a foot of curved death, was held loosely in my left. It’s steel-shod end slammed into the oaken boards rhythmically as those warriors I served aside flowed around me.
As the runner set off at the fastest pace he could maintain, for fifteen miles is no sprint, the bulk of the Vikingr present hastened to our camp, to arm and armour as best they could in the few minutes they would have. And whilst they did that, I summoned forth as much of the wolf as I dared. I growled low and deep in my throat. My eyes, hidden by the spectacles on my helm, yellowed. Fangs lengthened, cutting through my lower lip. I could scent my enemy coming, smell my allies forming up behind me. The wood under my feet. I could feel the bridge vibrate with the torrent of water below, and with the steady thudding of my axe-haft upon it.
As the first of the Angevin forces filtered out of the woods, my left foot came forward. I leaned forward and roared in challenge and defiance, my head twisting like that of the bear in a fury. Godwinson trotted his horse to the foot of the bridge, and addressed me. “Stand Aside Warrior. Or Stand With Your Fellows.” My response was simple. “Here I stand. Naught shall pass.” He wheeled his horse aside, and signalled his champion forward. I stood, moving not a muscle, as the man approached me. He was almost my match in height, truly a giant for the Angevin folk, and close, but not quite as broad. He was armoured as well as I and armed almost the same. As he drew nigh, slowly and carefully, his daneaxe held in a guard, I continued to stand motionless, right up to the point where he began his first swing.
He flipped his axe up, and twirled, swinging it around at head height. As I ducked, he began to drop it, but the haft of mine met his in midair, as the head of mine dropped to the ground. I hooked my head behind his legs, and let the force of his swing add force to my sweep, dropping him to the hard oaken planks. A flip of my axe brought the steel-shod butt into his face, with enough force to shatter bone. I withdrew it, and returned to my original pose, standing straight, the axe held loosely at my side, butt standing on the bridge.
They tried to pepper me with arrows then, but I smelt the glue and the fletchings as they drew, and when they loosed I was ready. My crescent axe spun patterns in the air afore me, faster than the eye could see, catching broadheaded mankillers on the blade, or on the steel ferrules at the ends of the haft. More arrows were batted aside by the solid length of ashwood, or simply avoided by shifts in balance. Their first volley was useless, and I threw my laughter into their faces. With the second volley, those who had missed in the first were able to fix their aim, and I felt the hammerblows as arrows hit my maille, albeit at angles that simply bounced off. Come the third volley, my blood was actually spilt, not fewer than three shafts piercing maille and gambeson and hide. As my blood began to trickle, I readied to charge, only to hear Godwinson order the archers off. Apparently they had too few arrows to waste entire volleys on a single man.
Instead another champion started towards me, twirling paired axes over his wrists. I grinned behind my aventail, and as he rushed forward, howling a warcry, I met him with one of my own. “FENRIR!” I roared at him, spinning my axe up to trap both of his where hafts met heads. As he stopped, his momentum checked, I slammed my head forward, the steel of my helm smashing into his unarmoured brow. As he staggered back, stunned by the blow, I disengaged, and with an underhand swing, split him from groin to navel. The third and fourth warriors to come at me posed barely any greater challenge, and I growled my disappointment at my foes. And they began to come at me in groups.
The first pair came in to close together. Their shields got in each others way, and whilst they were trying to straighten themselves out, my axe licked out, slicing ones skull in half. As the top half of his head slid away, I spun the axe on the backswing. The hook caught around his hapless companions neck, and with the force of the wolfsblooded behind it, dropped him over the side of the bridge. Warrior after warrior came against me. A score fell, skulls staved in, guts spilled out, limbs lopped off. Their sundered corpses were left lying upon the bridge, or thrown over the side, gifts to the river. My axehaft had sundered, and so I had shifted to wielding axe and dagger. Then my other Axe had lost its head.
Finally, the blade on my sword had shivered and shattered, broken to slivers, and so I had been reduced to fighting with dagger and kite shield. Blood streamed from many wounds, leaking from rents in my maille and tears in my gambeson, but I barely felt it. My blood was up, my fury ready. I roared and snarled as more warriors rushed towards me. Knife licked in and out, shield parried wildly, and mind was lost. I knew not but the joy of battle. Not but the glory of shedding blood, of rending and tearing and maiming and slaying. And then suddenly, there were no foes before me. I roared again, challenging, demanding that one step forward to face me.
But none were to come. I began to drift down from my bloodied nirvana, returning to myself. “STEP FORWARD!” I bellowed at them, but there was no response. “WHO WILL FACE ME!” I demanded, but no one stepped forth. Finally I gave up. “ARE THERE NO MEN AMONGST YOU!” I asked of them at the bellow. Still no response. I took a step forward, and felt something cold slide up the inside of my thigh. It was almost a comfort, taken against the burning pain of my wounds, and the broiling heat of the battle and the armour. But only for a second, afore the flaming lance drove up into my flesh beneath the corselet.
Oh, how I howled as that length of steel tore and rent and split inside, and as it ripped out in a gush of bloodied effluvia I staggered, gasping silently for breath. As those warriors I had fought to hold safe till our army was rejoined stared on in horror, I slammed against the side of the bridge. As strength left me, I toppled over, the air whistling past my head, until with a splash, I sank into the river, and in the sudden chill, blackness took me. It was much time afore I knew of the slaughter that met my men. I know not how long the river rolled me down the rock-studded bank, afore I came back to myself, washed up next to the corpse of a slain man. I know not to whom he owed fealty, nor even whom or what had slain him. All I knew was that his flesh was enough to keep me alive, and heal me enough that I was able to move.
I learned later that the Vikingr had been slaughtered almost to a man. Hadrada had been shot down with many arrows, as one slays a boar or a bear brought to bay. The few survivors fell in with Godwinson to fall at Hastings, a battle I was sorry to miss. I myself found my way north, so slowly and painfully, to settle in alongsides a family of Scots. And there I stayed for many a year, until my standing with Andrew Moray and William Wallace led me to have cause to leave great Alba.
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