It was late spring now, but the weather took a sudden turn for the worse. Inky clouds blotted out the sun and stars and a heavy fog arose from the sea. The sea-fog was so thick that the men standing guard outside the house could barely see their hands in front of their faces, and they were forced to stop work on the defensive wall, which was only half-finished. The fog hung over Borg and the whole island like an impenetrable pall and as the days passed, it showed no sign of clearing. Whenever they left the house to feed the animals or use the privy, they had to feel their way by touch and shuffle forward slowly, keeping one hand on the wall to prevent themselves from straying too far and falling into the defensive ditch. Helgi sometimes took a stick with him and tapped his way, pretending to be blind. But he didn’t like the fog. It always made him want to cough because it trapped the woodsmoke from the fires indoors and the coldness of the moist air was unpleasant on his skin. The dense whitish substance diffused the light in a peculiar way. Sometimes it was shadowy, sometimes brilliantly lit. Sometimes Helgi thought he detected a faint glow moving within it but when he looked at it directly there was nothing to see. It gave him the creeps and he kept indoors as much as possible.
One evening, Halfdan was sitting in the hall beside a roaring fire, playing a game of tafl with Jorund, and Helgi was sitting at the table too, watching them move the squat little ivory figures around the board, and listening to their talk. Halfdan’s king was surrounded by enemies on three sides but it was still possible that he would make it to a corner square and win.
‘Grjotgard could have a whole fleet out waiting in the channel and we’d never know it. We must stay vigilant in case he uses the fog as a cover to sneak up on us,’ Halfdan muttered.
‘It’s unnatural, this weather. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Gunnhild the King-Mother, had sent the mist and darkness to isolate us,’ said Jorund, capturing one of Halfdan’s warriors and removing it from the board.
Halfdan shot him an angry look and snapped, ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘What makes you think Gunnhild is causing the fog?’ asked Helgi.
‘People say that the queen is skilled in magic and that she knows how to summon mighty powers against her enemies,’ said Jorund, oblivious to the angry flush that was creeping up Halfdan’s neck. ‘Would you like to hear a story about her?’
Helgi’s eyes widened. ‘Yes, please!’
‘I’ll tell you how Gunnhild came to power. When Eric Bloodaxe was a young man, not long before he was made king, he undertook a great voyage of discovery. He sailed as far west as Ireland and as far north as Gandvik, the White Sea and brought back a lot of booty. Those desolate lands to our north hold more wealth than one might think! On his way home, he was travelling across Finnmark, when he and his men came upon an old hut. There he found the most beautiful women he had ever seen. He fell in love with her instantly. She told him that her name was Gunnhild, and she was the daughter of Ozur Toti, a great chieftain who lived in Halogaland, not far from here. Eric asked her what she was doing all on her own in a squalid hovel in the middle of the wilderness. She replied that she was not living alone: she had come there to learn sorcery from the wisest men in Finnmark. She had two tutors, who were brothers. They had taught her almost everything they knew about magic and now they expected payment. Both men wanted to possess her! Fortunately, she had not been harmed because the sorcerers were rivals and watched each other like hawks, but it was only a matter of time. They were out hunting but she dared not run away, for they were so dangerous, so skilled in magical arts, that when they went on skis, no man or animal could escape them. They could follow tracks over snow or ice for miles and never grow tired and the arrows they fired never missed their target. Gunnhild begged Eric to help her escape, and together they devised a cunning plan. Before long, the two Finns returned to the hut. They spotted footprints in the snow outside and became suspicious, but Gunnhild had concealed the king and his men so cleverly that they could not find them. After they had eaten their meal, the sorcerers began to argue over which one of them should have her. You can imagine their delight when she offered to give both of them a cuddle! She put her arms around them and straight away they began to feel drowsy. Soon they were so deeply asleep that nothing would wake them. Gunnhild took two large sealskin bags, drew them over their heads, pulled the drawstrings tight, and trussed them up like chickens. Then Eric’s men leapt out and killed them with their spears. The king brought Gunnhild back to Saltfjord in Halogaland and asked her father for permission to marry her…’
There was a loud crash as Halfdan sprang to his feet, knocking over his chair, and swiping all the pieces off the board. ‘That’s enough about that woman! Enough!—do you hear?’ he shouted. Then he turned and stalked angrily out of the room.
Jorund and Helgi exchanged mystified looks.
‘I thought he was on the mend, but he’s worse, if anything,’ said Jorund glumly.
Helgi got down under the table and started picking up the pieces. He too was sick of the tension and brooding anxiety that pervaded the house as a result of his father’s strange moods.
A thoughtful look crossed Jorund’s face, and he said, ‘Strange that a man of such exceptional courage should take fright at a seafarer’s tale. I’m quite certain now that Gunnhild is trying to weaken him through harmful spells.’
‘My father’s not afraid of Gunnhild, even if she is an old witch!’ Helgi replied hotly.
‘Well in that case, it must be the fog,’ said Jorund, smiling at him. ‘It’s making everyone jumpy.’
The fog that had laid siege to the island wasn’t only affecting people’s nerves. As the days passed, their chests grew clogged and wheezy and they developed bad coughs. The air was difficult to breathe: it smelt foul and congealed in their lungs like thick soup. The watchmen complained about having to stand outside for hours inhaling the noxious vapours. There was little point keeping watch, they argued, when the whole bay was smothered in a thick grey blanket and there was nothing to see.
One night, when the fog was particularly stifling, the guards who were taking the late shift decided they had had enough. They crept indoors and found that someone had left the storeroom door unlocked, so they opened a cask of beer, found a comfortable nook, and settled down to fortify themselves with a jug or two before heading back outside. It must have been a potent brew, for it wasn’t long before a wave of drowsiness overtook them. They blinked and rubbed their eyes, but the room seemed blurred and their thoughts gave way to swirls of cloud and darkness, as if the fog had penetrated their minds. Their eyelids drooped, their heads started to nod, and they fell asleep where they sat.
In the middle of the night, Helgi woke with a start from a dream that he was surrounded by a pack of wolves. They were snarling and leaping at him from all sides, and he was trying to fend them off with the scramasax he had borrowed from Jorund. When he opened his eyes, the horrible animal howling did not cease and he knew at once that something was wrong. There was a smell—of burning—and smoke was filtering in through the wooden panels of the wall.
Helgi leapt out of bed, bounded across to his father’s bed-closet and shook the humped shape under the woollen blankets. ‘Wake up, wake up, there’s a fire!’ he cried. Halfdan jerked bolt upright, then in one swift movement swung himself out of bed, grabbed his sword and a spear, roared at everyone to get up, and ran into the hall. Helgi followed him out, as far as the entrance room. Smoke was rolling in underneath both doors.
The sounds of panic and uproar came from the living room as men stumbled out of bed, shouting, pulling on clothes, and seizing weapons. Halfdan came back, pushed past Helgi, and strode into the living room, yelling, ‘Order!’ to get everyone’s attention. ‘Listen! We’re under attack, but the hall is strongly built and they’ll find it hard to overcome us by smoking us out! You men,’—he pointed at the men standing in the left-hand aisle of the room—‘douse the flames with water and whatever we have in the storeroom!’ Then, gesturing towards those in the right-hand aisle, he said, ‘We’ll check the doors to see if there’s any way out through the flames, and how far the house is surrounded.’
Men ran into the hall and started dragging barrels of ale and wine and the vats of sour whey, used for pickling food, out of the storeroom. Some stayed inside the storeroom to defend the gate and prevent a break-in.
Halfdan and his men went to the entrance room; Helgi took up his spear and followed them. They removed the doorbars and wrenched the front and back doors open. Their attackers had built great piles of kindling outside and they were met by two walls of roaring flame. It was a terrifying sight, but Halfdan said scornfully, ‘Just bundles of dry sticks. The walls of the house won’t burn so easily—they’re damp from the winter and there’s still snow on the roof.’ Four of Halfdan’s men staggered forward with vats full of whey and tipped the contents over the shooting flames. There was a black pool of water where the fire had been, but the dark shapes of Grjotgard’s men loomed outside the doors and began to close in, bearing lighted torches and armed with swords and spears. They’ve probably surrounded the whole building, thought Helgi. Through both doorways he could see the pitch-black shapes of the burners, stoking the flames and capering about in the smoke and fire. ‘She’s blazing now!’ one of them shouted, with an exultant laugh. Halfdan slammed the back door shut, cutting him off.
Gerda grabbed Helgi’s arm as she passed him on her way into the hall, and said, ‘Stay with me.’ Helgi hesitated for a moment. He didn’t want to be separated from Gerda, but he also wanted to be useful to his father. But the thought of confronting those fiendish shapes, the flames and darkness … He ran after her into the hall. She handed him a jug and told him to help her and the servants drench the walls with whatever liquid they could find, to delay the fire from taking hold. They ran back and forth, dipping jugs and pitchers in the ale and wine barrels and sloshing the liquor at the smoking walls. Through the storeroom partition came the noise of blundering hooves, shrill squeals, and agitated bellows: the animals trapped in the barn were panicking or else the burners had broken in and were slaughtering them.
‘Stay close to me, Helgi,’ Gerda told him as they worked. ‘I’ll find a way to get you out safely.’ Helgi balked at that: he certainly didn’t want to leave the house on his own.
‘I don’t want to be parted from my father,’ he told her. ‘I’d rather share the same fate, whether we live or die. I’m going to help him. You look after Malachi and the older servants—if you need me, you’ll know where I am.’
He returned to the entrance room, just in time to see Jorund step through the doorway and lunge two-handed at the figure that was closest with a great barbed spear. The burner thrust his shield in the way but the spear passed right through it and buried itself deep in the man’s chest. Grjotgard’s man fell aside but a second one armed with an axe sprang at Jorund who was now weaponless. The fisherman darted back inside the house, and Halfdan—who was standing to one side and sheltered by the doorway—brought his sword down like lightning between the man’s shoulder-blades and sliced his back in half. Helgi reeled back and clutched at the wall, fighting the urge to be sick. It was the most horrible thing he had ever witnessed, though he knew that his father had killed men before and he was angry with himself for being so faint-hearted.
Two of Grjotgard’s men lay dead outside but there seemed to be an inexhaustible supply waiting to replace them, and the walls were all ablaze, Helgi could tell, because snaky flames were darting and curling around the doorposts. Halfdan sent men to guard the other exits, to extinguish the fires built there and take the lives of as many of their attackers as they could reach. ‘I don’t know how much longer we can defend the hall this way,’ he said. ‘Much as I enjoy picking Grjotgard’s men off one by one, we can only play this game while the walls are still standing.’ He stepped outside briefly and thrust again with his spear, catching a third man on its point and wounding him badly in the stomach. ‘We can’t hold them at bay forever,’ agreed Jorund. ‘Perhaps they’ll allow the women and servants to leave; then the rest of us can break out and fight them in the open.’
Halfdan shouted through the doorway, ‘I want to speak to Grjotgard!’
A disembodied voice, harsh and deep, came to them out of the darkness. ‘I told you to expect us, Halfdan. I am hoping you will choose an honourable surrender, to save yourself and your household from complete annihilation. Have you decided to make peace with the king?’
‘It’s too late for that,’ answered Halfdan. ‘You and Gunnhild and the king have shown that you will resort to any treacherous, underhand means to destroy those you suspect of rebellion. I wouldn’t trust any of you to keep to a peace agreement. You shall earn men’s undying scorn by this deed, for only cowards would work sorcery and burn their enemies while they sleep, rather than face them in fair battle. My men and I are prepared to fight to the death if need be. But I want to know, Grjotgard, whether you have the decency to allow the women, children, and servants to leave the house.’
‘Women and servants I shall allow,’ proclaimed Grjotgard, ‘but you can expect no other terms from us. We’re not leaving until every man among you is dead. You’re trapped—we have surrounded the house. I’m fully aware that anyone who escapes will want revenge, and I’m taking no chances.’
Halfdan called Gerda to him. ‘You, Malachi, and the other servants are allowed to leave. I want you to smuggle Helgi out too—put him in a woman’s gown and headscarf.’ Helgi stamped his foot and protested vigorously. ‘I’m not leaving my father! And I’m not dressing as a girl!’
One end of the rafters had now caught alight and the entrance room was filling with smoke. Everyone’s eyes were stinging and watering; Gerda’s were filled with tears. She put her arms round Helgi and pleaded with him. ‘I can’t be parted from you, Helgi—I couldn’t bear it. You are too small to fight with the other men—you’re only a child. You must leave now with us—you will die if you stay here. Nobody will blame you for leaving—you should come with us, and when you are older you’ll be able to avenge this wicked crime.’
Helgi shook his head. ‘I want to make sure my father escapes. I know he won’t try to save himself unless I stay with him. We shall escape together.’
For a moment Halfdan looked astonished and almost chastened, as if he had been forced to confront an unpleasant truth about himself. He looked at his son, tenderness, pride and exasperation mingling on his hot and sweaty face, and said, ‘Helgi, if you stay, we are both more likely to perish.’
‘I want to stay with you all the same!’ Helgi clung to his father’s shirt and refused to let go. Halfdan ran a hand over his harrassed, smoke-begrimed face and said wearily, ‘Go, Gerda—and when you get a chance, slip away in the darkness and wait for us by the rowing boats we hid in the overgrown bank—you know where to find them. I’ll make sure Helgi gets out alive.’
Weeping, Gerda hugged Helgi close to her one last time, gathered the servants, and left the house through the back door.
The blaze had caught quickly on the dry timber that supported the roof: one end of the roof was engulfed in fire and almost burnt through, and spurts of flame were licking hungrily along the rafters and supporting pillars. ‘Back!’ yelled Halfdan thrusting Helgi into the hall. ‘Get back! Everyone into the hall!’ They got out just in time: the last man to leave was almost hit by a burning rafter which fell from the ceiling.
They could hardly breathe for the smoke that filled the hall. Helgi tore several large strips off the table cloth, tied one over his nose and mouth, and did the same for his father. Without warning, a heavy beam came crashing down, pinning a man beneath it. They dragged the burning beam away and beat out the flames, but nothing could be done to save his life. The fire had eaten a gaping hole in the roof: flurries of loose sparks were drifting up into the night sky.
‘It’s too dangerous to stay here any longer!’ cried Halfdan, pulling his mask down so he could be heard. ‘Fetch a bench—we’ll ram a hole in the back wall of the storeroom—they won’t be expecting a breakout there. If the smoke’s drifting in that direction, it’ll give us some cover.’
The men did as they were ordered; they drove the bench again and again at the storeroom wall. The inside panels shattered almost at once—they were less sturdy than the walls in the hall and living room—but it took longer for the overlapping planks behind to give way. Once they had punched a hole, they knocked the splintered planks upwards and outwards until the gap was large enough to squeeze through. Cold air rushed in, feeding the blaze in the hall behind them. One by one, they crawled through the breach, coughing and spluttering from the smoke, and disappeared through the storeroom wall into the dark outside. Halfdan held Helgi back for a moment. He placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder and looked him steadily in the eyes as he spoke.
‘We’re going to have to fight our way out of here. Keep close to me; draw your weapon just in case, and don’t be afraid—I shall protect you.’
Halfdan ducked and peered out through the gap.
‘I’ll clear us a path. We must aim to get down to the rowing boats,’ he muttered. Then he looked back at Helgi with a strange smile and said, ‘I had intended to stay and fight to the end, but that doesn’t matter now. Your safety is more important. Anyway, why should we die like vermin cornered by dogs, just for Grjotgard’s entertainment?’
He sounded as though he was desperately trying to convince himself he was doing the right thing. Helgi suddenly understood the nature of his father’s dilemma.
‘What about the other men? We can’t just leave them!’
Halfdan’s eyes shone with a fierce elation.
‘We’ll take as many of our friends with us as we can. And we’ll send as many of our enemies to Hel as possible.’
He came over to Helgi and dropped on one knee before him. The deep shadows and reddish glare cast by the fire accentuated the wildness of his appearance, and when he spoke his voice, though low pitched, was feverish and exultant.
‘Helgi, the chances are that death is waiting for us both outside and this may well be the last battle we ever fight. And knowing this, I have never felt happier! When you refused to leave with the others, I never felt more proud to have you as my son. A timid man may live a long life, but he will never truly live—he will never know how powerful and liberating it is to laugh in the face of death. I’ve lived as a warrior all my life and I don’t know of a better way to die. You made the right choice to stay.’
Helgi did not find his father’s strange speech particularly comforting. Halfdan hugged him close and then held him at arm’s length for a moment, smiling at him with tears in his eyes. Tears sprang into Helgi’s eyes too and he was about to say that he hoped they wouldn’t die, when Halfdan stood up and drew his sword. With his left hand he picked up a piece of fallen timber that was burning like a torch at one end. He slipped through the gaping hole in the wall into the infernal night. Helgi had no choice but to follow. He clung to his father’s coat, trembling, his other hand curled around the hilt of his knife. Immediately, a shadowy figure came at Halfdan out of the thick acrid smoke and aimed an axe blow at him. Halfdan swung his sword and sliced through the shaft so the axehead toppled before it reached him. He then struck again; there was a gutteral howl and the man dropped to his knees in agony. Halfdan shoved the man into the defensive ditch and leapt down after him. Helgi followed, slithering down the mud wall, and climbed gingerly over the body. The other side rose up to around shoulder height. His father was already scrambling out of the trench and gave him a hand up. Smoke billowed over them in thick clouds.
They advanced a few steps through the swirling mass of smoke; shadows stumbled past and the clash of iron and shouts of men rang all around them. Halfdan brandished the flaming torch before him and hurled it at the next warrior who tried to intercept them. The man screamed as his clothes and hair caught alight and threw himself to the ground, frantically rolling in the frosty grass to extinguish the flames. Helgi and his father were less conspicuous now that they had jettisoned the torch. They ducked low as they ran, using the thickest smoke for cover, though it was difficult to breathe, let alone see where they were going. They heard a splintering crash behind them as the roof of the hall caved in; Helgi glanced back and saw the fire die down for a moment and smoke pouring up into the black vault of the sky. Men were screaming inside and desperate voices shouted for help. Helgi thought of Jorund; he hoped his friend had escaped unhurt.
The barrack walls were almost burnt down to their foundations but a firestorm was raging inside the houses, fuelled by the fallen roof debris. Black figures scurried to and fro before the fire and cries and shouts were heard above the crackling of the flames. A man stood on the unburnt topmost part of a wall, thrown into stark relief by the orange light behind him. The flames blazed up at that moment: he leapt and Helgi could no longer see him.
They found their way blocked by two of Grjotgard’s men; Halfdan sprang at one of them, wounding his sword arm. But his adversary simply switched his sword from one hand to the other and struck back with his left. Halfdan found himself engaged in a furious duel. While they battled, Helgi saw the second man approach his father from behind and raise his spear. His father was blind to the danger. Without a moment’s thought, Helgi dived at the man’s legs and drove his scramasax hard into his foot, skewering him to the ground. He let go of the hilt and scrambled backwards, appalled at what he had done and revolted by the sensation of the blade passing through leather and bone and gristle. Roaring with pain, the man bent down, grasped the hilt and extracted the blade from his foot. He staggered towards the cowering boy, dragging his broken foot which left a bloody trail in the snow. Helgi remained frozen to the spot, paralysed by terror and fully expecting to die. He had no shield with which to guard himself. The man raised his hand to strike: Helgi saw the flash of the descending blade and winced, anticipating the blow, the terrible pain. But it never came. He realized that the scramasax had in fact dropped from the man’s hand. The burner’s back was arched, his eyes open wide in shock, and a moment later he fell on his face, with an axe lodged in his spine. Behind him stood Jorund the Red. ‘You’ve got a name for that scramasax now,’ he said. He grinned at Helgi, yanked out his blood-smeared axe and vanished into the smoke.
Halfdan’s face was streaked with blood from a deep gash on his head, but the burner had come off worse: he lay dead on the ground with a gaping hole in his chest. ‘Come on!’ shouted Halfdan, pulling Helgi to his feet. Helgi’s legs would barely hold him—he was numb with shock at having come so close to death. He only just had enough presence of mind to retrieve his scramasax. Halfdan was pulling him by the hand, dragging him away from the house; his legs began to work clumsily and mechanically. Crumpled bodies lay sprawled in the bloodstained snow. Halfdan released his hand and set off down the long slope of grassland in a crouching run. Helgi followed him down the incline, feet skidding on the frosty grass. Someone shouted ‘Stop!’—Helgi wasn’t sure if it was one of Halfdan’s men or the enemy, but he didn’t look back. He could see his father intermittently through the drifting clouds, sprinting several yards ahead.
Suddenly the smoke rolled away and they were dangerously exposed: bathed in garish red light in the middle of the open field. An arrow struck the ground just behind them and another whizzed low over their heads. Helgi ran for his life, all attempts at concealment abandoned now. More arrows whistled past barely inches from his ear and hit the ground just in front of him. He wanted to throw himself flat on the ground but feared his pursuers would overtake and kill him. There was nowhere to dive for cover, no trees, nothing taller than well-cropped grass to hide in. Then he remembered the small plantation of spruce trees down by the boathouses—if only they could reach it.
More shouts and the thud of running feet behind them. Time seemed to slow down as he ran. He could see the dark trees, his sanctuary, a hundred yards ahead, but it seemed to be taking an age to cross the field. He was running flat out, yet he felt as though his feet were going nowhere. Would this nightmare never end? His blood was pounding in his ears, his breath coming in short, painful jerks, each gasp searing his lungs. But the border of the trees loomed before them. They plunged between the trunks, through tangled brambles, like hunted animals going to earth, barely noticing the thorns that scratched their hands and faces and snagged their clothes. There was no undergrowth thick enough to hide in so they ran further into the wood where the trunks were more densely packed: Halfdan, seemingly tireless, leaping over the fallen branches like a stag (‘probably used to this sort of thing,’ thought Helgi, who was finding it difficult to keep up with his more powerfully built father). The trees began to thin out again; Helgi realized that the fog must have lifted, because there was a distant glimmer of sea. Halfdan darted behind a thick trunk and pulled Helgi after him. Helgi flattened his back against the rough bark. They both listened, panting hard. Helgi stared at his father in wide-eyed fear. He could hear twigs snapping and footfalls drawing closer.
‘Two men following us, I think,’ murmured Halfdan. ‘Hide in there, and leave this to me.’ Helgi crawled under the bushy arms of a stunted fir tree, knees placed awkwardly between the roots, feeling the cold dead pine needles under his hands. Peeping out from his shelter, he could make out the shadowy form of his father, lurking in wait behind the tree. He doesn’t want to lead them to the inlet where the boats are, Helgi thought. He tensed; there was movement among the trees. Two men emerged, looking around warily. Halfdan crouched, sword at the ready, waiting for the right moment to spring out on them.
Then one of the men hissed in a loud whisper: ‘Halfdan!’ Halfdan visibly relaxed and stepped out from behind the tree. Helgi recognized Jorund and Karl and scrambled out, filled with inexpressible relief.
‘Running away, Halfdan?’ growled Karl in a voice heavy with sarcasm.
Halfdan lunged at Karl and slammed him against a tree. ‘Are you daring to question my courage? You think I don’t know how to face death with my men?’ he roared. He raised his fist and for a moment it looked as if he was going to knock Karl to the ground, but then he relented and stepped back. ‘You can take Helgi now,’ he said, thrusting Helgi towards him. ‘He wouldn’t leave my side. Take him to Gerda—she’ll be waiting where we hid the boats. I’m going after Grjotgard.’
Halfdan strode off purposefully back the way they had come.
‘No!’ cried Helgi in an agony of despair—‘Please, please, don’t let him go!’
Karl ran after Halfdan and accosted him, grabbing hold of his arm. ‘Don’t be a fool, Halfdan! There’s no point—you’d be throwing your life away. The battle is already lost. We must leave while we can – save our own lives—there’ll be opportunities for revenge later!’
Halfdan’s expression was furious; he bit his lip and looked longingly back through the dark trunks, where the lurid red glare cast by the fire could still be seen. ‘Wait for me by the boats—I want one last look,’ he said. He jogged back through the trees. Helgi stumbled after him, almost blinded with tears. At the edge of the wood, a scene of devastation met their eyes. The walls of the longhouse had gone: only the turf bank remained standing but the wreckage still blazed like a torch where the roof had fallen in. The magnificent gabled hall had been reduced to a vast, smoking ruin, and all the treasures within it, everything Helgi’s father and grandfather had painfully accumulated over the years, every symbol of their wealth and status which had been bought so dearly, would soon be burnt to ashes.
The flames had already sunk down within the barracks. The houses where Halfdan’s men and their families had lived were now no more than a heap of charred ruins wreathed in smoke. The air was foul. A thick fog of smoke hung in the sky, stained red by the rising sun. Dozens of bodies lay strewn across the field. Sleet was beginning to fall and the bodies were already shrouded by a thin white sheet of snow. Faint cries came from the wounded who lay in the trampled bloody slush. The few animals which had not been slaughtered wandered aimlessly about or stood in subdued groups of two or three. Grjotgard’s men were kicking the smouldering timbers aside, picking among the debris, and turning over corpses, looking for anything worth salvaging, with no thought to spare for those whose lives were slowly draining away.
‘It would have been better to have died defending the hall than to have to endure this sight,’ Halfdan said in a broken voice. He stood staring at the ruin, as if trying to fix it in his mind forever. Helgi felt the sleet dripping off his face mingle with his own tears.
‘Let’s go,’ he pleaded, dragging at his father’s arm. He could not bear to look.
‘The murderous bastard’s gone back to his ship,’ Halfdan muttered.
They went back into the wood and found the others were waiting for them. At the edge of the wood, where the land sloped gently down to the beach, Halfdan called a halt. Off to their right, the smooth dark waters of the bay were lit up by a yellow light. The wind blew the smell of burning wood and the roar and crackle of fire in their direction. The two massive boathouses were in flames. Out in the bay the Midgard Serpent lay alongside two great warships. It had fallen into enemy hands. Halfdan made a deep growling noise in his throat.
Dawn was beginning to break. Through the thinning trees Helgi could see armed men loitering on the jetty. The wood skirted the path to the boathouses, which they would have to cross without attracting the attention of the guards. On the other side of the path lay a tumble of boulders and jagged rocks, and from there it would be possible to work their way round to the hidden inlet where they hoped Gerda and the boats would be waiting.
They stopped beside the path in the shelter of the last trees. ‘We’ll have to cross; there’s no other way,’ thought Helgi.
‘You first,’ Halfdan said to Jorund, ‘Helgi will go second.’
‘What about you?’ Helgi asked his father.
‘I’ll be right behind you.’
Jorund crept through the bracken and looked down the road to the men by the boathouses; then darted silently across the path, unnoticed, and disappeared from sight among the rocks and crags. Crouching at the edge of the trees, Helgi watched the men—if they caught him in the open, none of them would escape … Then suddenly, wishing himself already on the other side, he was racing across the bare strip of ground, expecting to hear a guard call out to the others, and although it was just a short span, it seemed to take an age before he among the rocks and saw Jorund waiting for him. Karl came up behind and Helgi saw his father cross last, in a sudden dash, head down like a charging boar.
The six survivors—Halfdan, Helgi, Karl, Jorund, Gerda, and Malachi—lay low among the rocks for the rest of the day. The island was occupied by Grjotgard’s forces, so there was no possibility of getting away unseen until nightfall. Gerda told them that the guards had prevented anyone from leaving but an argument had broken out among burners over the spoils and while they were quarrelling, she and Malachi had contrived to escape. Helgi wondered how many of their household had survived. He hoped that others might join them but no one did. Everyone was in a state of shock. They sat in a stunned silence much of the time, lost in their own thoughts. He and Gerda held each other in their arms and wept. Helgi did his best to comfort her, but broke into sobs whenever he pictured the devastation in his mind. The servants had been right: it was the end of the world.
When it grew dark they rowed across the bay and found the narrow inlet where they had hidden the Swan. The two men whom Halfdan had entrusted to guard the ship—Hrolf the silversmith and Ivar the potter, both craftsmen on the estate—helped them aboard. Food and water had been brought on board and everyone drank thirstily. Once they were refreshed, Gerda insisted on tending to Halfdan’s injuries.
They sat out the rest of the night on the deck, discussing what they should do next. Everyone agreed that they needed a safe place where they could retire to nurse their wounds and recover from defeat. Jorund wanted to join Earl Hakon’s forces in Trondheim straight away, but Karl pointed out that now Halfdan was an outlaw with very few friends, there was a risk that they would be captured and put to death if they attempted to sail down the coast. Halfdan said he did not care much for his life, but he still had his pride. ‘I have too little to offer the earl at present and I deplore the idea of throwing ourselves on his charity. I’d rather everyone thought I was dead.’
‘Let’s just go,’ said Helgi suddenly. ‘Let’s go abroad and start a new life.’ Gerda made a small approving noise, and the others looked at him with interest as this bold idea caught their imaginations.
‘I don’t know if I can bring myself to abandon this place to the enemy,’ said Halfdan in a dull, bitter voice, fixing his eyes on the rugged coastline that lay across the water.
Karl closed his eyes and groaned, ‘It’s over, Halfdan!’ Halfdan slowly turned to look at him and Helgi felt afraid for Karl, because he knew exactly what was going through his father’s head. A look of wild fury flared up in Halfdan’s eyes; he leapt up and sprang at Karl so violently that he almost overturned him. Gripping the older man hard by the shoulders, he roared, ‘Never let me hear you say that again! It’s not over yet!’ A look of pure terror swept over Karl’s face. Halfdan pushed him roughly away and strode off up the deck by himself. The others waited in a nervous silence. Helgi felt full sympathy for his father. He could appreciate how painful it was to admit defeat and to have to contemplate the grim future. He too would have been reluctant to give the order to retreat. But defeat had to be faced: they were in terrible danger if they stayed here.
When Halfdan came back, his rage had subsided. He sat down beside Helgi and said quietly, ‘Very well, we shall go abroad. We’ll go to my brother in Iceland. But I promise you this: as soon as we are strong enough we shall return. I swear by the names of all those who perished in this hideous massacre, that I shall have vengeance and I shall not cut my hair or comb my beard until I have brought about Grjotgard’s death!’
At the first glimmer of dawn, they set a course for Iceland, steered the ship out of the inlet and headed for the open sea.
The Adventures of Helgi the Viking 