Tim Severin - Odinn's Child

Ospak bluntly turned me away, saying that he had no work for me. However, in the few hours I spent inside his stockade I was able to glean enough information to report on Ospak's force and defences to Snorri when I got back to Saelingsdale.

I told Snorri what I had seen, and as usual he made little comment. He had been talking with the local chieftains about organising a unified attack on the brigands, and he was prepared to wait until all his allies were free to join him, and also for an excuse to assemble them without arousing Ospak's suspicions. The one person he did summon to Saelingsdale in advance of his attack was a former member of his household who had now set up as a farmer on his own account — Thrand Stigandi.

Thrand was the sort of person who causes people to lower their voices nervously when they catch sight of him. A head taller than any other man in the neighbourhood, he had a leathery, competent air and was known to be handy with sword and axe. He also looked formidable, with a craggy face, a great prow of a nose, and bushy eyebrows that he could pull down in a ferocious scowl. Anyone facing Thrand in a quarrel would have second thoughts about resorting to physical violence. But within moments of Thrand walking into Snorri's house I knew that there was another, hidden reason why Snorri had summoned him. When Thrand entered the main hall, I was standing slightly to the left of the entrance, and as he came into the room, he glanced to one side and caught my eye. The moment that happened he paused in his stride and waited for the space of a heartbeat. In that instant I recognised the same cool, calm look I had seen eighteen months before in Vinland, on the day I had stumbled across the two Skraelings in the forest. It was in the eyes of the Skraeling shaman when I blundered into the sick man's shelter. I guessed at once that Thrand was a seidrman, and my intuition was confirmed when Snorri and Thrand went that same evening to Thor's temple and spent many hours there. Thrand, I was sure, was communing with the God.

Thrand's arrival had the same effect on me as when I saw the blood-stained shirt in the company of Thorodd's mother, or when I saw the ghost of my dead uncle with Gudrid. The presence of someone who could also see into the spirit world aroused the spirit energy within me. On the second night after Thrand's arrival I had my first omen dream.

I dreamed of a farm that was under attack. Half awake, half asleep, I was in a dimness that was neither night nor day. The attackers had surrounded the building and were pressing home their assault with great ferocity, and I was conscious of the shouts of the combatants and the screams of women inside the building. Several times the thud of blows jolted me part awake, though they were sounds that could only have existed within my dream. The first time I woke, I told myself that my nightmare was a memory of all the horrors that I had heard about the Burning when Njal and his family had been massacred. But as I slipped back into the nightmare I realised that the farm I was watching was not being attacked with fire. There were no flames, no smoke, only the figures of men running here and there, occasionally hurling themselves at the rampart. Then I saw that it was Ospak's farm, and among the assailants was Thrand. His tall form was unmistakable, but he seemed to have an owl's head, and there was something about the conflict which reminded me of how the Skraelings had fought when they attacked us in Vinland. I woke up sweating.

In the morning I recalled Snorri's warning about keeping silent about my visions, particularly if they involved death or harm, and I told no one.

Snorri moved against Ospak's farm some three weeks later and with overwhelming force. Every able-bodied worker from the farm, including myself, joined the expedition. On our march across the moor we met a column of fifty farmers led by a neighbouring chieftain, Sturla, who had brought his people to assist in the campaign. Our joint company must have amounted to at least eighty combatants, though, as usual, there were very few trained fighters among them. Everyone carried a sword or an axe, plus his dagger, but there was a noticeable shortage of defensive armour. A few men wore leather jackets sewn with small metal plates, but most of the farmers were relying on their wooden shields and thick leather jerkins to protect them from any missiles that Ospak and his cronies would hurl at them from the rampart. In our entire war band I counted only a dozen metal helmets, and one of those was an antique. Instead of the conical modern style with its noseguard, it was round like a pudding bowl and the wearer's face was hidden behind two round eyepieces. I was not in the least surprised that the man who carried that helmet was Thrand.

Ospak's scouts must have been watching the trail because when we came in sight of the farmhouse the gates were already shut and barred, and we could see his men had taken up their positions on the elevated walkway. Snorri and Sturla held a short council and agreed that to make the best use of our own superior numbers all four sides of the farm should be attacked simultaneously. Snorri found that he was facing the forces commanded by Hrafh the Vikingr, while Sturla and his men attacked the section of the rampart where Ospak led the defence.

The siege of the farmhouse opened with a barrage of rocks and small boulders which the opposing forces hurled at one another. In this phase of the battle, the defenders on the elevated walkway held a considerable advantage, as they were able to drop boulders on any of the attackers who came too close. Their weakness was their limited supply of boulders and other missiles, so Snorri's and Sturla's forces spent the first hour or so of their attack making quick feints up to the palisade, shouting insults and throwing stones, then turning to run back as they dodged the counter-hail of missiles. When the defenders' supply of stones ran low, the attackers began to run right up to the palisade, concentrating on the fortified gateway and attempting to break through by hacking and levering at the planks. This tactic, however, had little success as the gates were too stoutly built, and the assaults were beaten back. The attackers threw few spears because they tended to bounce off the ramparts, or if one flew over the wall and landed in the compound, one of the defenders was likely to pick it up and hurl it back with more dangerous effect. Only a couple of men on either side used bows and arrows because, quite simply, they are seldom used among Icelanders in their quarrels — they much prefer hand-to-hand fighting.

The rather untidy assault had been in progress for a couple of hours when it seemed to me that the enthusiasm of the attackers was waning. It was at that moment that Thrand showed his worth. Wearing his antique helmet, he sprinted forward from our group, ran up to the palisade and, using the advantage of his great height, sprang into the air so that he leaped high enough to hook the blade of his battleaxe over the top of the palisade. He then grabbed the handle of the axe in both hands and pulled himself upwards, so that he got a leg over the rampart and was able to jump down on the walkway on the far side. There he came face to face with Hrafn the Vikingr, who rushed at him with a great roar of anger. Thrand dodged the Viking's clumsy spear thrust, knocked the plait-bearded warrior off balance, and hacked at the outstretched arm that held the spear. The axe blow was perfectly aimed. It struck Hrafn on the right shoulder and severed his arm from his body. Hrafn reeled sideways, slipped from the walkway and fell with a heavy thud into the compound below. As Ospak's men looked at the fallen body of their champion in shock, Thrand took advantage of the moment to vault back over the rampart, drop to the ground and run back to rejoin us. His intervention demoralised the defenders. Ospak's men began to fight with less bravado and, seeing this, Snorri sent me with a message for Sturla, who was attacking the opposite side of farm. I was to tell him to launch an all-out assault now that the defence was in disarray.