Blood Eye(36)

'No!' Ealdred cried as the Englishmen snatched up swords hidden amongst the floor rushes and cut down Sigtrygg and Njal. Some ran to block the main entrance, but Black Floki tripped one of them and was on him like a wolf, savaging the man with his bare hands.





'I'll rip out your heart!' Sigurd growled at Ealdred who stood behind the huge warrior with the silver rings on his arms. The big man scythed his sword through the air to keep the Norsemen back. Then the door flew off its hinges, battering Ealdred and his man to the floor as Svein the Red sprawled on to the rushes beside the Englishmen. Norsemen scrambled for their swords and axes as the English went at them in a fury, hacking and stabbing. In the crush I grabbed a sword.





'Here, Sigurd!' I called, and he took the blade and turned with a roar towards Ealdred's men, for I had seen that a Norseman has no fear of death if he holds a sword. A man's elbow struck my head and hot blood slapped my face, blinding me. I fell into a pile of guts that stank, and I slid in the gore, trying to stand as knees and boots battered me. Somehow, I wriggled clear to a dark corner of the hall where a dying man's shit had sprayed the rushes, adding to the stench of smoke and wood and blood and sweet mead. Bjarni and Bjorn were amongst the English, hacking and stabbing with their eating knives, desperate to make room for sword work. Black Floki ducked under a wild sword swing and thrust a blade into a man's neck, and Olaf made such a blow with an axe that an Englishman was cut in half at the waist. With slick hands I clawed at the blood in my eyes, trembling against the wall. A moment before, we had been sitting at Ealdred's table, but now the benches were slippery with blood and the room was filled with madness. Men screamed and the dark hall stank of open bowels and death. Then, like a cauldron boiling over, the fighting climaxed and ragged panting order won out. Norse and English parted into bloody knots, the dead littering the rushes between.





'Throw down your weapons, heathens!' Ealdred snarled. 'There need be no more killing.' He had survived the clash and now stood at the centre of his line which swelled as more warriors entered the smoky hall through a door hidden by the Christ embroideries.





'There are more of the troll-fucking goat turds outside, Sigurd,' Olaf said, breathing heavily at the main entrance where there was no longer a door thanks to Svein the Red. He turned to Sigurd, his expression unimpressed. 'But my wife puts more fear in my belly than these English.'





'What were you doing out there Svein? Weaving a wimple for your mother?' Sigurd asked, glancing at the thick oak door amongst the floor rushes. His yellow beard was matted with blood, though not his own. 'No one comes in that way, you hear me?' Svein nodded grimly. 'Olaf, Oleg, you stand with Svein. If I see an Englishman at my back, you'll be swimming home to your wives.' The three Norsemen rolled their shoulders and stood at the hall's threshold, their weapons inviting the English to come and die.





Inside, Ealdred's men were forming a solid shieldwall the width of the hall and three deep, and not all were men of trades. Some were clearly warriors, well armed with fine swords and helmets and some even with mail, though most wore leather armour. They were killers and Sigurd knew it. He must have known too that the trap we had sprung had been carefully laid.





'Tonight we drink in Valhöll!' he called and his men repeated the word, 'Valhöll! Valhöll!' They thumped their swords against their shields in a death rhythm and I slid up against a smooth timber post until I stood on unsteady legs. Sigurd turned to me then and I felt ashamed to be hiding in a dark corner like a mill mouse.





'The boy is no part of this, Ealdred,' Sigurd said above the din. 'We killed his kin and took him.' I stepped out of the shadows and wiped my gore-slick hands on my breeches. I was shaking.





'He wears your false god round his neck.' Ealdred's mouth was twisted with disgust.





Sigurd's hand went to his own neck and found the Óðin amulet was gone, lost in the fight. But I had snatched it up and now it hung at my throat. His eyes flashed, touched by a wolfish grin.





'Boy, tell Óðin we honour him this day,' he said.





'I will tell him, Sigurd,' I said, taking a step towards him. Then the Norseman turned to face his enemy. And the clash of arms filled Ealdred's dark hall like the coming of judgement.





CHAPTER SIX




OLEG STAGGERED BACK FROM THE DOORWAY CLUTCHING AT AN arrow in his face. Eyjolf lay in the blood that pumped from the sliced artery in his thigh, white as snow on the red rushes. Yet the English could not break Sigurd's shieldwall. They had lost plenty of their own to these Norsemen, these death dealers whose sword skill was a wonder to behold. I stood by Olaf now, ready with a sword and shield to take my place should he or Svein be cut down.