15. FIFTEEN
FIFTEEN
HERVOR
Vyg Lake, Ladoga
“Stroke! Stroke!” Dwerg screams from the stern.
I pitch forward and throw myself back, pulling my oar into my chest in time to the pounding drums. Thunder pulses over the lake. The deep drone of blasting horns is resonating through my bones.
The ships on either side of us are racing us to the shore. My back is on fire. My biceps are burning as I pull my oar against the water. Next to me Arne’s rowing hard. He’s grinning as he looks at me and starts to chuckle.
What’s so funny? Why is he laughing? Then in his Swedish accent, he calls out a line from a famous poem about the Norns:
“Tell me, my son! How would you fight if you knew you would die!”
Some men from the nearby ships join us as the crew and I shout back together, “I would strike to the left! And strike to the right!”
“Tell me, my son! How would you fight if you knew you would live!”
“I would press the attack with all my might!”
“Then what do you fear!”
“Nothing!”
My own voice roars in my throat as we send up a mighty war cry. My heart swells with courage. I’m eager for the fray. I can’t wait to jump overboard with my sword in hand, spilling blood and adding glory to my name!
Then I hear the hissing overhead.
I jump out of my skin as dozens of flaming arrows pelt our ship, thudding into the gunwale and bottom boards. On the ship next to us, one of the men bolts up from his rowing bench, shrieking, his tunic bursting into flames.
“Loki! Get him overboard!” yells Dwerg.
“Mind your own crew!” the other skipper hollers back. But two of his men dump their burning crewmate into the lake. His body sizzles as he hits the water. He makes no attempt to swim and floats facedown between the gliding ships with an arrow in his back.
Gripped with cold terror, I turn around, anxious to see where my death might come from.
“Face forward!” Arne barks, “Keep rowing!”
Then the second volley hits us.
I yelp as an arrow skips off my oar an inch from my hand. One of the men a few rows ahead slumps out of his seat into the middle of the ship. Dwerg points at him and screams my name.
“Hervor!”
I stare at him dumbly, my chest constricting, cold water pumping through my veins.
“Put his shirt of mail on!”
I keep rowing, frozen to my bench.
“Hervor! Get back here and put it on!”
“Do as he says!” Arne growls. “And keep your head down!”
I lock my oar and stand up. I’m shaking. I can’t feel my legs.
“Cover her, Arne!”
Swearing under his breath, Arne locks his oar and takes his shield from the gunwale then follows me aftward.
“Come on! Move it, Hervor!”
I squat down beside the dead man and unfasten his belt with rattling hands, trying not to look at the gawking eyes or the swollen tongue bulging from the mouth. My fingers are trembling. I can hardly unbuckle his belt. Finally, I get it undone, and I tug the mail shirt over his head.
Dwerg raises his shield as another volley comes.
Arrows rip into the crew. Sharp cries ring out, and I lose my grip and start to sob. Arne mutters an oath as flaming shafts plunk and thud into his shield.
I pull on the heavy mail shirt, somehow managing a nervous laugh as Arne points out the damp patch darkening the middle of my skirt.
“You couldn’t hold it?”
One of the older men chuckles, “if she’s got to go, she’s got to go.”
“Everyone be careful!” announces Arne over the screaming men and pounding drums, “There’s a puddle on the ship! Watch where you step!”
“Go to Hel,” I sniff, pulling the sword belt around my waist.
He grins. “Valhalla for me,” he says, “but not today.”
“Prepare to land!” shouts Dwerg.
“Let’s go!” says Arne.
He drags me by the arm back up to the prow, and I can see the Finns waiting for us on the shore—hundreds of men lined up in shining helms and mail, their yellow shields locked together, ready to drive us back into the lake.
Behind them, a second line, mostly women, are nocking arrows in their bows.
They’re fighting for their families and their homes, only a few feet from where they work and where their children play.
There’ll be no retreat for them. They’ll die standing their ground.
“Ready in five! Four—”
The crew locks their oars and my mouth turns to ash as I adjust Olli’s helm on my head and snatch his shield off the gunwale.
“Three! Two—”
I draw Asger’s sword and glance at Arne breathing slowly through his lips, his axe in hand.
“One!”
Oh gods. Here we go!
My heart thumps as I leap over the side.
The cold water steals my breath. I slosh toward the shore, holding my shield up and out, aching spasms shooting through my wrist and shoulder as arrows bite hard into the wood.
The others are with me, charging through the shallows.
Their shouts are roaring in my ears. The man next to me goes down with a splash.
We rush out of the water and up the muddy shore. My vision narrows in on the yellow shields straight ahead. Steel flashes in the sun—the Finns raising their swords and axes to cut me down. I raise my sword too and a wild yell rips from my throat.
I slam into the shield wall.
Blasting thunder. A high-pitched ringing in my ears. Then quiet. So much movement; not a sound.
Men pile up behind me, pushing me forward like a strong wave, squeezing me against the yellow shields. Too tight. Can’t swing my blade. They’re crushing me, dragging me under.
Spraying scarlet stings my eyes, but suddenly there’s room to move. I jab my sword over the yellow shields. I strike the air, then glance off something hard. I thrust again. Soft flesh. I twist the blade and give a hard push with my shield.
There’s a hitch in my breath.
Pink mist clouds my vision as the craving awakes! With a massive surge of strength, I barge between the yellow shields, shrieking like a burning witch! My sword arm rising, falling, slashing wide. The crunch of bone. Steel slicing tender meat. Hot splashes on my face.
The rest is all a crimson blur.
I wake up to the smell of smoke, facedown in the mud. I’m too weak to move. I must have spent myself completely.
A woman wails in the distance.
My eyes are clotted shut and I can’t open them. With tremendous effort, I manage to get up on my hands and knees, choking on thick smoke. I pick the crusted globs of blood and dirt out of my eyelashes, shielding my face from the sweltering heat of the burning village.
The shore is littered with bodies, like seaweed washed up on the beach.
More are floating in the pink water between the ships.
A few men stagger among them in the firelight, their red knives glimmering as they pick among the dead.
There’s movement among the slain, then a flash of steel and a sharp cry.
Some ways off Kimbi, is sobbing over his brother Geir, urging him to get up. But Geir won’t be getting up again. Not in this world.
More wailing beyond the roaring flames.
Skipper Dwerg and a couple other men are marching a line of children down toward the ships. They’re all tethered together on a rope. Their faces are pale with terror and streaked with tears. Then my heart stops.
Heidrik?
But as I look again, it’s just a frightened Finnish boy—a boy who, without a doubt, has just watched us kill his father. A boy who will spend the rest of his life as a thrall serving the Rus.
Arne comes tramping out of the woods with another man, his blood-caked axe resting on his shoulder. His head and face are smeared with black, and when he grins his teeth look very white. He and the other man are laughing.
Seeing Arne cheers me up a little. I’m glad I won’t have to look at his empty seat while I’m rowing up the river. Then I notice the blond hair flowing from the Finnish scalps tucked into his belt. The sight of them makes my stomach flip, but I should take some too before the others get them all.
I reach for the sax on my hip, but pause as Arne points to something I can’t see.
The other man laughs even harder. This Finnish girl comes tearing out from behind one of the blazing houses; one of the V?gar boys is chasing after her.
She’s sprinting straight for the lake, and I feel sick because I know why.
But she never makes it to the water. Arne sticks out his foot and sends her face-first into the mud.
The V?gar boy dives right on top of her, and I can’t resist a little smirk as the two men split their guts with laughter.
Then I’m holding my breath as he pushes her skirt up past her hips.
The girl shrieks, clawing the mud. But the boy cries out as Arne twists his ear.
He points down to the lake where the children are being lifted up onto the ships, then jabs his thumb back towards the treeline.
Begrudgingly, the boy yanks the girl up by the hair, and I dig my nails into my palms as he drags her off into the woods.
I hedge my heart with thorns. This is who I am now. This is what I came for.
Arne waves to me, then stoops down to pick up something from the mud.
“Hervor!” he says, grinning, “Look! I found you something!”
I stagger across the bodies toward him and Arne holds out a loop of braided leather on his finger. It’s the girl’s kransen.
“I’d say you’ve earned this,” he says,” I think your father would be proud. He winks then gives me a hard punch on the shoulder.
“And Angantysdottir,” he says, “if you’re going to go berserk like that again, let me know so I can keep out of your way.”