The Great Pagan Army Read online

  Bjorn taught him how to cant his wrists just so, twist his torso faster and deliver the axe with storm giant power. Under Bjorn’s critical eye, he hammered tree trunks and sheared through saplings until his wrists and shoulders ached. At night, his thighs throbbed and he ate like a hog. As he shivered asleep on dirt, Bjorn sat beside him and rumbled heroic tales. When he awoke, Bjorn still sat there, finishing a story whose beginning Heming sometimes remembered from his dreams.

  A week passed, two, three.

  In the middle of weapon’s-training one cloudy afternoon, as Bjorn taught him how to deflect a whirling blow with the handle of his axe, the huge berserk stepped back and hammered his weapon against a birch tree. He indicated that Heming should do likewise and then turned away, presenting his back. Heming hesitated only a moment. (The desire to sink the sharp edge between Bjorn’s shoulder blades was strong.) Instead, he chopped his axe beside Bjorn’s weapon. When he attacked again, it would be at his choosing and not their prodding. He had grown wary and cunning, he told himself. Bjorn grinned over his shoulder, and Heming had the uncomfortable feeling that the champion had read his thoughts.

  “Do you know how the ancient Romans trained a leopard to fight in their arenas?”

  Bjorn had spoken before about the Roman games. It was old lore, a treasure from the past. It seemed odd that such a giant with a low sloping forehead and beady eyes should know so much. The knowledge came, he said, from berserks of old who had fought in companies against the dread legions and passed down from generation to generation this hard-won lore.

  “It is said that the Romans had wise animal trainers,” began Bjorn. “They only used an aggressive cub. As it grew, a trainer played with it. Whenever it swatted, the man fell down, feigning injury. Later the trainer wore a leather coat hooked with strings of bloody meat. The cub learned to attack and eat the meat as if from flesh. Later they fed the half-grown cubs abandoned babies. In this way, the beast learned to relish man-flesh. After a time, the trainers bought old slaves, knocked out their teeth and broke their arms. In a pit, the half-grown cub killed and ate these helpless slaves. As the cub grew into a young male, the trainers sent in heartier slaves and then a slave with a good arm. Now, however, the leopard had grown cunning in the ways of men and his taste for such flesh had become keen. Soon during the fights handlers shouted from the sides, or with polished metal, they flashed sunlight into the leopard’s eyes. In time, cudgel-armed slaves faced the beast. A gladiator with a spear stood behind this armed slave. If the slave proved too tough for the leopard, the gladiator jabbed a leg or torso, crippling the slave and once again, the beast knew victory. At last, they let the man-slaying leopard into the great arena of Rome. Crowds roared like thunder and the white sand sparkled like the sun, but the leopard had long ago become accustomed to manmade noises and flashes of light. He stalked into the middle of the arena, while the wild, untrained beasts slunk along the shadowy sides. When a sword-armed wretch faced him, the leopard knew courage and cunning, dodged the swings and slew the man to the roar of the crowds. In such a fashion the Romans turned a beast into a warrior.”

  I am the leopard cub, Heming told himself. That’s what he’s saying. Yet how hard could berserk fighting be? Swing an axe and go mad with fury during battle.

  The next day instead of the sack of iron, Grimar handed him his broad axe. Four berserks joined them as they threaded into the forest. By custom, they went single file, Grimar in the lead. He was indeed like a wolf and squeezed between thickly grown branches and thickets. For a time they padded along a deer run, then lapped from a stream and paused once as Grimar lifted a torn piece of cloth from a branch. He motioned for silence and passed back the cloth. Each berserk whispered, “Franks,” as he handed the cloth to the man behind him.

  Heming tightened his grip around the haft of his she-troll. The weeks in the forest had accustomed him to its sounds: the whistling robins, the angry squirrels and bigger creature like deer or wild pigs rustling through the thickets. Now he heard something strange and foreign: childish laughter, giggles, screaming girls playing tag. His heart grew heavy as the berserks grinned at one another and readied spear or sword. Grimar slid ahead and out of sight and soon made owlish hoots.

  When Heming saw him again, Grimar was crouched behind a bush. The berserk patted the ground. Reluctantly, Heming crawled to his side. The lean berserk grinned and then eased back a branch. In a forest clearing were five huts made of interwoven branches smeared and caked with clay. Children ran around them. The Frankish women, old hags, sat in the dirt as they carded wool or stitched torn tunics.

  “Who are they?” Heming whispered.

  “Fools seeking sanctuary in the depths of the forest,” Grimar whispered. “It’s an old peasant trick. But today their luck has run out.”

  The back of Heming’s throat burned as the four other berserks sidled around them. Their eyes shone with bloodlust. He had seen it before in hunting hounds, the straining eagerness before a kill. It wouldn’t have surprised him if these four had whined and scratched the dirt like dogs. He found them more terrifying than ever, bestial in ways he hadn’t understood before.

  “You will lead the charge,” Grimar whispered.

  “We’re taking them captive?” asked Heming.

  A berserk grunted in amusement.

  “We will slaughter them,” Grimar said.

  Heming blinked in confusion as his palms turned sweaty. A vile taste entered his mouth. “But they’re only women and children.”

  “Blades grow rusty that are not continually whetted with blood,” quoted Grimar.

  Heming wiped his forehead. He had never slain a man, never mind a woman or child. He was a good hunter, had provided back home with deer meat, hare, duck and once helped slay a boar. He swallowed hard. Could he rush into this clearing and chop his axe, his she-troll into those giggling children, into those old Frank hags? He lurched to his feet and staggered past the four berserks. He stumbled away from the clearing and deeper into the forest until he leaned against a maple tree. He panted, with his breath short, his heart hammering. He kept shaking his head. No, no, he wasn’t a child slayer. This was monstrous, wrong.

  He flinched as Grimar laid a hand on his shoulder. He whirled around. The four berserk watched. They glowered and frowned. His palms became slicker. They weren’t men, but beasts, creatures of Odin. Did they want to butcher these harmless folk?

  Grimar pushed him away from the four and then pushed him down onto a mossy rock. The lean berserk squatted beside him as he shrugged a leather strap off his shoulder and uncorked a jug. He tilted his head, swigged and then passed the jug to Heming. Heming sniffed. It wasn’t the berserkergang brew. It was regular ale. He drank; sucked air and then greedily drank more. As the alcoholic fumes settled his brain, the roiling in his stomach settled and his hands quit shaking.

  “You can’t really mean that we’re supposed to kill them,” Heming said. “There’s no reason for such a thing.”

  Grimar shrugged and took the jug, swilling again. “Running is thirsty work, yes?”

  Heming nodded, taking the jug. Madness, this was madness. Somehow, he must trick these terrible men. How could he? He was deep in the Frankish forests, without a friend and companioned with his father’s killers. He swilled ale. Every swallow meant one instant of relief, of not having to consider his plight.

  Grimar and he traded the jug back and forth, and in time, the problem no longer loomed so breathlessly. There was screaming in the distance, sobbing and children’s pleas, but those didn’t last long. Later, a bird trilled. It made Heming smile.

  Perhaps Grimar noticed. “Walk with me, Ivarsson.”

  Heming heaved himself up and stumbled with Grimar toward the glade.

  “Do we have to go there?” slurred Heming.

  Grimar shrugged, saying, “Why not?”

  Heming concentrated and finally shrugged, staggering, letting Grimar steady him. There was no evidence of the four.

  Grimar paused at t
he bush and drew two daggers, wickedly sharp knives. “Take a peek into the clearing,” he suggested.

  Heming blinked owlishly, yanked aside a branch and started in shock. Mangled little bodies, bloody bodies, lay all about. There wasn’t any movement, just corpses. Then he noticed an old woman rocking back and forth as she sat on a stool. She held out her hands and moaned as tears flowed down her wrinkled face. She had glazed eyes and her mouth was slackly open. Behind her, by the huts, the four berserks crouched as they traded a jug. They seemed impervious to the dead and impervious to the old woman.

  “They didn’t kill her,” Heming said.

  Grimar smiled and with a dagger poked him ever so gently in the stomach. “You’ve trained hard these past weeks, eh? You’ve learned the axe and learned how to run like a deer. You took your beatings and finally fought back. Your father was a stout warrior, a lucky man in his day. Your blood is that of a chieftain, a hero maybe, but you’ve never killed. You’ve never drawn blood. Do you think that Bjorn will train a berserk who fears to shed blood? Do you think that you’ll ever leave this forest alive if you cannot slay your enemies?”

  The vile taste reentered Heming’s mouth, but it wasn’t as horrible as before. His lips and tongue were too numb for that. “Women are my enemies?” he asked.

  “Heming, Heming,” Grimar said. “There are tests and there are tests. You have entered our company. You have drunk the sacred mead of Odin. You are become hardened, but such toughening isn’t only physical. Your spirit must become one with the Lord of the Dead.”

  “Slaughtering children is a test?”

  The friendliness departed Grimar’s eyes. Ever so gently, he prodded Heming’s stomach with the tip of his dagger. “Odin shows himself to his chosen. Those chosen know resounding victory, the death of their foes, but the Slayer doesn’t reveal himself to the squeamish, only to those who revel in butchery. You stand at the threshold, Heming. Cross over and become unbeatable. Isn’t that what you desire?”

  The words were like fog. Heming had trouble focusing. He clutched his she-troll with manic strength, wondering if he might impress the haft with his handprint. The Frank hag was a dead woman one way or another. Did it matter if he slew her or if Grimar did it?

  I do this for vengeance, which I am oath-bound before the gods to achieve. I do this so that someday I may hang Bjorn in the Odin Tree.

  Heming began trembling, and then with an inarticulate howl he burst through the bush and charged the keening woman. She never even looked up. Afterwards he stumbled away, dropped to his knees and vomited as tears of shame and something indefinable leaked from his eyes.

  20.

  Heming forced himself to stare into those small, dark eyes. He refused to flinch, look away or even blink as he gazed into the depths of evil. Gnarled trees pressed around them and the air was close, almost dense. Bjorn filled the space with his mammoth bulk and rabid presence. He breathed heavily like a beast and radiated a rank stench. Rancid grease matted his garments from where he had wiped his hands.

  It had been two days since the old woman’s death.

  “Blood, Heming, blood is one of Odin’s demands.” Bjorn spoke with certainty, with utter conviction, leaning too close and spewing his dog-like breath as he rumbled in his low voice. “It is Odin’s delight to set kings a-warring, to weave dooms upon the mighty and thus fill his great hall, his skalli with heroes. You have heard the skalli’s name. Valhalla. It has many doors, Heming. Many valiant champions sit among the benches. Shields and byrnies hang on the walls. The wolf and eagle haunt it. Every day the warriors in Valhalla fight. They swing axes and swords and stab with spears. At night, the slain arise and reenter the hall with the others. There the warriors feast on pork from a boar whose flesh never gives out. They swill mead, feast, laugh and begin the next morn to war anew. The names of these champions are the einherjar.

  “Odin knows that doom for both man and god approaches. Ragnarok, the Last Battle, will occur some frightful day. Then the sons of Muspell—it is a fiery land—will ride across the rainbow bridge Bifrost and lay siege to Asgard. Bifrost will shatter under the weight of that terrible host, and storm and frost giants will war against the gods. Then Heimdall shall sound the great horn and the gods will ride forth to do battle. It is then that Odin will summon the champions of Valhalla, the einherjar, to fight with him. They are doomed, Heming, as the gods are doomed, as man is doomed. The warriors of Valhalla will fall with Odin. Thor will fall and so will Frey. First, they will slay uncountable numbers of giants and monsters like the Fenris wolf and Garm the hound. Surt of Muspell alone will stand on that day and fling fire across Heaven and Earth, bringing everything down to chaos and destruction.”

  Bjorn shifted his massive lower jaw as he squinted thoughtfully. “Doom in the end for all, but a hero faces it with laughter, with scorn. I may die, but I will go unbowed. I will call no man my master, no man my better.” The huge berserk drew a deep breath. His wide nostrils flared. “Odin chooses warriors for his hall, Heming. Sometimes, too, he grants gifts to those who follow him, but you must beware the God of the Dead. You must accept his gifts with eyes wide open. Consider King Harald War-tooth. Odin came to him one day in the guise of an old, one-eyed man wearing a wide-brimmed hat. He promised the War-tooth victory in battle if he would sacrifice to him all those he slew with his sword. King Harald readily agreed, and for years, he won, and for years, he hanged the slain in groves dedicated to Odin. He burned their byrnies, bent their swords and left them in heaps as trophies to the one-eyed god. But the gray wolf watches the abode of the gods. The Fenris wolf howls and lusts to begin Ragnarok. Odin, always wishing to fill his hall with strong warriors, brought strife between King Harald and his ally King Hring. A war broke out, and in their chariots, the two kings went to battle. Odin in disguise took the place of King Harald’s charioteer. The War-tooth understood what that meant, but he begged for one more victory. Odin threw him out of the chariot and King Harald was pierced by his own sword and died, and therein awoke that night in Valhalla to the shouts of the feasters.

  “This is the moral, Heming. Odin will grant you victory—for a time, but in the end, the Lord of the Dead withdraws his favors. He does so because he needs his einherjar in Valhalla. For a season, the berserk shouts, roars and puts upon his foe fetters of panic. Yet the day comes when each of us will know panic or hesitate that fatal moment. That day you must laugh, Heming. You must meet your doom with valor.”

  Heming spoke not. He stared into those beady eyes, those hot orbs filled with fanatical fires. Gods, wolves and days of doom… he was sick at heart over the butchery of an old woman and a glade littered with little dead children. He needed ale, a good strong drink. Befuddled thoughts were best these days.

  “Do you understand?” rumbled Bjorn.

  Heming stretched his lips in a parody of a grin. Whatever it took—he wanted vengeance. He yearned to feel the hanging rope quiver in his hands as Bjorn gasped and kicked as Ivar Hammerhand had. To haul on that rope and laugh… He stared into those beady eyes, meeting the evil there with his glare.

  “I believe you do understand,” Bjorn said. “Good. Grimar had found a party of serfs. You will join him and battle those forest sulkers. A few have sickles and others clubs. Afterwards… afterwards we shall talk again. Now go, Heming, go and kill and learn the joy of shedding blood.”

  ***

  Autumn drew apace as the Great Army spread like the plague on either side of the Seine and several of its tributaries. The Vikings collected plunder. Soon, Bjorn said, the warbands would reunite. Sigfred planned to take the host all the way up the Seine, perhaps into virgin Burgundy.

  Bjorn and Heming squatted in the woods. A wolf snarled nearby, but since Bjorn ignored it so did Heming. He found it easier to ignore as he drank looted beer from a flask.

  “Not all berserks are alike,” Bjorn said. “Some are touched by Odin, some are consumed. Some must always drink the mead before the fury is unleashed. Some may bring it upon themselves
on the battlefield as they bite their shields and rake their fingernails across their faces, making blood spurt from the furrows. In some, the fury always bubbles near the surface. They are the most terrible. Even during the fury, berserks differ. In those the fury has been longest… those are strong beyond reckoning. In some seem to dwell a singular power of Odin, almost a spirit or Valkyrie unborn in them. They are possessed most deeply.”

  “What the Christians call demonism?” asked Heming.

  Bjorn closed his huge hand. “What do I care what the Christians say? Their priests wear robes like women and shriek at the sight of us. We, the favored sons of Odin, stride with death in one hand and glory in the other.” Bjorn scratched at fleas in his hairy chest, catching one and squeezing it between his fingers.

  “There are many kinds of berserks. In practice, there are only two. I am the first kind. I am bigger than most men are, larger, stronger and heavier. I wade into battle. I rise up and give mighty buffets. Men liken me to a bear. I am that kind of berserk. I fight as a bear fights, by the power of my blows, by my strength. The second sort of berserk is fast, fleet of foot, with blows that fall like lightning. He is strong, of course, when the fury is upon him, and yet he fights as much by speed as he does by strength. He darts in, slashes, and jumps back. He dodges, weaves and—” Bjorn snapped his fingers. “A foe is laid open before he even knew to be aware. That berserk fights as a wolf. Such a berserk is Grimar, lean, long and quick. You are like him, Ivarsson. Your father, if Odin had called him, would have been a bear-shirt. Grimar is a wolf-shirt, Ulfhednar. Some think the ulfhednar become wolves, so great is the fury of Odin upon them. Trust your speed over your strength, just as I trust to my strength over my speed.”

  Heming listened keenly.

  “You wear rags, Ivarsson. It is time you won new garments.”

  Heming reached for his axe.

  “Leave it,” Bjorn said. He held out a knife. “With this you will slay your coat. Then you must cut out the heart, eat it and drink its blood. Thereby you will gain wolf cunning, wolf speed and rage. Rise up and kill, Ivarsson. It is time to become Ulfhednar.”