Andrew Offutt - When Death Birds Fly

Tensely they waited, in the creaking gloom of the hold.

Not long after dawn, someone called that Norn was approaching the docks of Nantes. Wulfhere sent Halfdan and Knud on deck, and sweated. The business of mooring followed, and after that, more of waiting. And sweating.

At last, Odathi came down the ladder.

“Chieftain,” he said, as one who knows what the answer will be but asks for form’s sake, “this enemy of yours; be he brown of hair, with Romish dress and manners? One who erst was handsome but is no longer?”

“Ye have seen him?” Wulfhere demanded, thrusting his face forward.

“He’s in the custom-house yonder. He is there, now . I spoke to him and answered his questions. There be sword-scars upon his face that he hasn’t had for long; not so long as a year, surely.”

“Sigebert!” Cormac breathed. “Why should it astonish us, after all? Chief customs assessor is the office he holds. Why should he not be there?”

“Within our reach!” Wulfhere shouted joyously. The hold reverberated to his voice. “Here on the waterfront! Cormac, we can slay him now! ’Tis needless to wait for night and attack his manse!”

“The place is aswarm with Frankish soldiers,” Odathi warned.

“The worse for them. It needn’t deter us. So would his mansion be!”

Cormac was thinking quickly. Wulfhere’s impetuosity, oft had much to commend it. Their original plan had been to wait, and seek the Frank’s house after dark, although that left the entire day for some unforeseen little thing to betray them. Now they could strike quickly from Norn , retreat to her as quickly after slaying Sigebert, and make escape.

Against that was to be weighed the seeming madness of an attack in full daylight. Cormac considered it, briefly. He decided it was no real objection. The very audacity of the notion gave it promise. Besides-holding back Wulfhere now were bull-wrestling.

“True for you, Bush-face,” he said with a savage grin. “It’s better Black Thorfinn’s ghost will rest this night. Let’s be at them!”

That morning was spoken of on the Nantes waterfront for years thereafter. Nigh three dozen fighting men appeared as from nowhere, to spill over the decks of an ordinary trader and charge down the gangplank, yelling. Many did not wait, but sprang to the rail off the ship and thence to the dockside, drawing swords as they landed. Steel blades and helms flashed in the sunlight like silver and flame. Their beards and bright helms announced them. Folk scattered before them on the crowded waterfront.

“Saxons! The Saxons are here! ”

“Follow me to Sigebert’s heart! Wulfhere roared, striding through the panicked rout. He did not trouble to smite such unarmed folk as inadvertently got in his way. He simply shoved or shouldered them aside or dealt the merest love-taps with the flat of his ax. Cormac, beside him, acted similarly. Behind and about them their men widened the path their leaders had opened, with battering shields and jabbing spears.

“There’s the custom-house!” Cormac snarled, pointing with his sword to a powerful stone building. “Behl and Crom! It might be a little fortress!”

“We will take it!” Wulfhere said.

Even as he spoke, Sigebert’s bodyguard of Franks came arunning from an alley beside the custom-house. Their long oval shields rattled together and they howled like demons. Cormac had time to judge their numbers at thirty, before the two parties met.

They clashed like colliding waves of bone and metal. No civilized fighters these! The Franks in their leather vests, with their deadly long swords and hand-axes, were as ruthlessly fierce as the Danes. If the tough oxhide protecting their torsos was somewhat less strong than the Danish scale-mail shirt, it was also less weighty and allowed greater freedom of movement.

Blood spurted; deep fierce war-shouts drowned the first death-yells.

Cormac glared into a snarling face under a fringe of mouse-coloured hair. The Frank warded a cut with his long shield, then chopped at Cormac’s shoulder. The Gael’s point flickered like lightning to drive into the fellow’s mouth and through the back of his neck. His spine severed, the Frank toppled, emitting a death-gurgle. Cormac trod ruthlessly over the corpse, his blade taking further toll as he went.

Wulfhere was howling like a berserker. His terrible ax made nothing of the Franks’ oxhide vests, splitting leather and ribs alike, while the iron boss and rim of his skillfully handled shield broke limbs as they had been twigs. Aye, for this day he wielded his ax one-handed.

“Sigebert One-ear!” he thundered. “Dog! Cur and torturer of wounded men! Where be ye? ”

“Here, you blundering oaf!” Sigebert’s voice answered, mocking and amused. He leaned in the custom-house doorway, sword in hand but as yet unblooded. “Come if you can reach me. You shall be welcome.”

Wulfhere snarled his frustration and his blue eyes blazed. A knot of Frankish soldiery stood betwixt him and Sigebert; he could only fight his way past them. His ax thundered, rose and fell with a racket of breaking shields. Three Danes broke from the melee to aid him. The Franks went down in their welling blood.

“Come!” Wulfhere panted, and charged.

The custom-house door slammed in his face.

No matter that it was made of iron-bound oak. Wulfhere attacked it with an ax he wielded like a madman. The door began to splinter.

Cormac, cool and deadly in battle, had seen and heard what befell. Guessing that Sigebert had gulled Wulfhere into charging the front and would now vanish out the back, he sent five Danes to prevent it. His powers of command were tested greatly to separate them from the murder boiling in the alley and make them go. Just as he made to accompany them, several Franks came running. Mac Art found himself in a desperate rearguard fight.

The Franks spread out to flank him. Cormac got an alley wall at his back and glowered at them. One lean wight moved in too recklessly; his foot slipped on the blood-greasy stones.

Instinctively, Cormac leaped forward, a man who was ever happier taking the initiative. His shield-rim broke the man’s exposed neck almost in passing. Then immediately, it was interposed between himself and a Frankish sword swung two-handed. Cormac’s own point vanished into that man’s belly, and his knees buckled.

In the mean time, Sigebert One-ear departed the customs-house by its rear. With him were three stout soldiers. They emerged just in time to meet the five Danes dispatched there by mac Art, and Sigebert ceased to laugh and mock. He tasted cold fear. The red-bearded giant would be upon him at any moment.

Snarling in desperation, Sigebert fought like a demon.

This was his first experience of real battle, and he went well at it, goaded by fear and necessity. Hungry Danish swords sought a way past his shield and blade. Dropping almost to one knee, Sigebert rammed his point into a bearded pirate’s crotch. Though that harsh thrust failed to pierce the skirt of the man’s shirt, it dropped him writhing in agony for all that. His face a snarl, Sigebert straightened and all in that motion his point ran into a Danish throat. Beside him an ax cut through the cheekpiece of a Danish helm and into that pirate’s brain through the temple.

Sigebert took that opportunity to run. His horse was tied in the customs yard and he knew he had acquitted himself well. With a sweep of his blade he cut the black animal free, and sheathing his sword he leaped to the saddle. Behind him, ignored and unsung, his Frankish guards were dying.

Wulfhere burst into the yard in time to see the horse’s tail vanish.

He wasted no time in outbursts of rage or disappointment. Striding like a colossus, he crossed the yard and gained the street on its far side. Sigebert had kicked the horse into a gallop, to trample pedestrians as if they were so much rubbish. His short cape flapped from his shoulders.