gawped.
Einar took it from him, turning it this way and that. ‘A bowl,’ he hazarded. ‘Or a plate, flattened and bent. Good workmanship, though.’
‘It’s silver, right enough,’ breathed Valknut and would have gone back in, save that the stretch he had cleared out needed roof supports and it was too dark to see properly to put them in. The tunnel we had dug was six foot long, three high and leaking loose dirt like water because we were using wood sparingly; we needed all the carts to carry our haul away in.
All night long the men turned that bent semi-circle of age-black silver to and fro, cleaned it, marvelled at it, discovered the delicate border of leaves and fruit, birds in flight and even bees, all embossed in the silver in perfect little portraits.
Sighvat studied it with interest and said, ‘Those are the dreams of birds.’
‘You and your birds,’ growled Valknut. ‘What do they dream of?’
‘Songs, mostly,’ Sighvat replied seriously, then wagged a finger at Valknut. ‘If we scorn the wisdom of birds and beasts, we fool only ourselves.’
‘What wisdom?’ asked Wryneck, curious now, while he smoothed the notched edge of his sword back to sharpness in a comforting, rhythmic rasp of whetstone.
‘Well,’ said Sighvat, considering. ‘Bees know when fire is coming and will swarm. Hornets and wasps know the very tree that Thor will hurl his hammer at. And a frog is better at being a frog than a man.’
We chuckled at that, but Sighvat merely shrugged and said, ‘Could you live naked in a pool all winter and survive?’
‘What else?’ demanded Wryneck, for this was decent compensation for the sad lack of Bagnose’s wit.
‘My mother could speak with birds and some beasts,’ said Sighvat, ‘but never could teach it to me. She told me hedgepigs and wasps will not spy for anyone, but woodpeckers and starlings can be persuaded to tell what they know. And most hawks hate autumn.’
‘Why?’ demanded Einar, suddenly interested. ‘I have hunted a hawk in autumn, but it never does well and I have always wondered why that is.’
‘You should have had someone like my old mum ask it,’ Sighvat replied. ‘But it is simple enough. Here is a bird that hangs in the air, looking for the least little movement on the ground, which is its supper. And there are thousands of blowing leaves.’
Einar stroked his moustaches thoughtfully and nodded.
Valknut waved a dismissive hand, adding: ‘That’s just … sense.’
‘You did not know it,’ Sivhgat pointed out and Valknut fumed, having no answer to that.
‘And,’ I said, half dreamily, ‘you never see a cat on a battlefield.’
There was amazed silence for a moment, then Sighvat grinned. ‘Exactly – you know a thing or two, young Orm.’
‘All I know is that this’ – Valknut held up the battered silver – ‘is a sign that riches lie in that hill.’
‘Just so,’ declared Einar with a slight smile, ‘and here’s something for you to think on. Riches are like horse shit.’
We looked at each other. Some shrugged; no one could understand it and more than a few, never having heard him do it before, were not sure if Einar was making a joke.
Einar grinned. ‘They stink when they are in a heap in someone else’s patch, but make everything fruitful when spread about.’
And we laughed and felt almost like the old brotherhood, sitting by the fire, fretting for light so we could get back to digging.
But when morning did come, we had hardly blown life back into the fire embers, barely had time for a stretch and a fart, before the horsemen appeared on the steppe above the balka and everyone sprinted for weapons and armour.
This time, they were heavy horse, men in armour, with spears held low or overarm, with maces and cased bows and curved swords. They carried silver discs on poles that told us they were Khazars.
There was a pause then as we struggled into padding and mail, nocked arrows, hefted swords. Up on the lip of the steppe, two men talked … argued, in fact, waving arms. Wryneck chuckled. ‘They don’t like it one bit,’ he said. ‘The light horse can get down fast and hard, but we can see them off and even shelter from their arrows. Those big men aren’t so happy, for they will not have as easy a time coming down as we did.’
‘You have the right of it, old one,’ agreed Einar. ‘No speed, no shock – and charging into all this guddle underfoot.’ He waved one hand at the carts and gear and earth spill and I moved closer to it.
So it proved. The big men left their big horses and came down at us on foot, slithering unsteadily in their great, ankle-lapping armour of little plates like metal leaves, with round hide-covered shields and sabres and maces. Some snapped off their great lances to use as spears on foot.
No shieldwall. This time it was hack and slash and survive.
Illugi, his godi staff discarded in favour of a shield and axe, took a rushing charge at the stand and locked himself in a fierce grapple with the first of these armoured oxen to hit us. Einar and Ketil Crow moved fluidly as a killing pair; metal clanged on metal, curses and blood sprayed.
One came at me, eyes dark and fierce under his helmet rim, his teeth startling white in the bush of a black beard. He stabbed at my thigh and I blocked it, knocking the weapon sideways with my shield. He reversed the stroke with incredible speed, lunging at my head and I had to throw myself back as the point flicked like a snake tongue almost in my eye.
He darted in again. I half dropped, slashed, felt my sword bite and recoil from that armour. His point flicked out again; I blocked and hacked again to no purpose other than chipping metal leaves off him.
Something whirled next to me; the man shrieked and dropped. Wryneck popped up like some mad puppet, rammed his sword straight through the open front of the screaming man’s helmet and yelled, ‘Too many to go dancing with them, young Orm. Cut the feet from the fucks.’
I remembered, then, Gunnar Raudi’s lessons back in Bjornshafen: any way you can. Teeth, fists, elbows – aim for the feet and ankles. My father, teaching me how to survive …
There were too many. I had three on me, one with a spear, two flanking him with shields as guards. My breath was ragged; my whole arm throbbed from blows on the shield. The spearman waded in chopping in a cross-pattern, which was lucky for me. It let me know these men had no idea how to fight on foot.
I slapped the iron blade point away with a sweep of the sword, stepped, spun up inside it, rammed the shield against his armoured carapace and slammed the fat pommel of Bjarni’s old sword into his face.
I knew where they all were, as if I could see it. I spun out of that, weightless it seemed to me, went into a crouch and scythed round, taking a second one just above the ankles, feeling the blade bite, hearing him howl.
The spearman was on his back now, so I leaped up, landed both feet and drove the air from him as I hurled myself at the third man, who was snarling and swinging his sabre furiously.
The blow hooked up under my shield and slammed into my ribs so hard I felt them bend. Then I hit him hard, felt the searing agony of pain in my shield-arm as we collided, falling together like two steel trees.
I rolled right, over the sword-arm, came up in a half-crouch, shield up. My left arm was pure fire now, but I hacked viciously with the sword as he struggled like a trapped beetle in his heavy armour. It swept up under the nasal of his helmet, took his nose off in a flick of blood, ripped the helmet half off his head and left him yowling and scrabbling away from me.
I sliced again, seeing the spearman