Swords of Good Men

Book 1: The Valhalla Saga

by Snorri Kristjansson

Genres: Fantasy; Epic Fantasy; Historical Fantasy

Synopsis

A deadly war is coming to Stenvik - and in the clash between old and new, only the strongest will survive. As punishment for disgracing his father, Ulfar Thormodsson has spent two bitterly uncomfortable years on the road, tasked with taking his highborn cousin Geiri on a tour of the kingdom. Now his journey is almost at an end - the walled town of Stenvik will be their final stop. But Stenvik will soon become the battleground in a deadly war between the old gods and the new: King Olav is bringing the White Christ to the masses at point of sword and edge of blade, while a Viking horde led by a mysterious woman is sailing from the north. And Ulfar is about to learn that not all enemies are outside the walls . . . 'For Vikings done right, come to Snorri Kristjansson' - Mark Lawrence, bestselling author of Red Sister

Release date: August 1, 2013

Publisher: Jo Fletcher Books

Print pages: 305

Sample

A line of pale grey moonlight crawled across the water. The heavy clouds drifted apart and a faint outline of the coast shimmered into view.

The man at the rudder broke the silence and pointed to shore. ‘That’s Stenvik there.’

Ulfar heard it before he saw it. Voices, shouts and cries carried across the sea, skipped past the line of moonlight, over the deeper, darker swathes of water and blended to form the noise of a town at night. A year ago his heart would have lifted to hear it. Now he just ached and stretched, moving slowly to work the cramp out of his long legs. When he’d sat up he nudged the man who slept in the boat next to him. ‘We’re here.’

‘… What?’ his cousin Geiri mumbled and rubbed his face, still more than half asleep. ‘When do we land? Where are we?’ He clambered to a sitting position and winced. ‘Next time I suggest sailing because it saves time—’

‘— I’ll just punch you in the back a couple of times and find a horse, shall I?’ Ulfar replied. Behind them the quiet sailor smirked. The merchant who owned the boat was sound asleep on all the furs he intended to sell in Stenvik. He’d left the two young men to squeeze in between sacks of wheat, planks of carved wood and blocks of amber. Geiri was shorter, so he’d had an easier time finding a comfortable position. Ulfar had retaliated by poking him in his sleep. Still, they couldn’t complain. Geiri had negotiated free passage from Hedeby all the way to southwest Norway just by mentioning his father and hinting at some undefined favour in the future. They could have navigated most of the way just by the blaze of greed in the merchant’s smile.

Tiny dots of fire caught Ulfar’s eye. He pointed them out to his cousin and they watched as Stenvik grew out of the dark.

‘Doesn’t look like much, does it?’ Ulfar muttered.

‘After Hedeby? Not really. But we still need to go there. Cheer up, you miserable goat. It’s the last one. After this one we go home.’

‘Good,’ Ulfar replied, and thought of Svealand. After the … accident, after Geiri’s father had intervened on his behalf and suggested – no, forced him – to go travelling with his cousin, he’d spent the first six months of the journey cursing his own stupidity, the next year or so enjoying the travel and the last four months being thoroughly done with the road. He touched the rune on the string around his neck. After Stenvik he was going back home no matter what.

‘Who’s there?’ someone cried from the docks.

‘Friend,’ the sailor yelled back. ‘Bringing a merchant with goods to trade and two passengers.’ At that the merchant awoke with a start, grabbed for his chest and fondled for his pouch. Satisfied that he had not been robbed at sea he sank back down, mumbling to no one in particular.

‘Dock over here,’ yelled another voice. The sailor pulled on the rudder and the boat changed course. A torch flared on the jetty and a big, grubby dockhand’s face emerged from the dark. ‘You’re out late, sailor,’ he barked.

‘Caught calm seas and tide out of Hedeby, thought I’d push it. Out late is better than out cold,’ the sailor replied.

‘That’s true,’ the man on the dock grunted. The two men went about the business of mooring the boat with easy, practised movements, and before long Ulfar and Geiri stood on the pier. Ulfar glanced at his cousin, who was still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. A full head taller than Geiri, right now Ulfar looked nothing like the son of a lesser noble. He brushed a strand of long black hair away from his eyes. Geiri was a good man, there was no doubt about it. They’d practically grown up together, and Geiri’s father was a great man, Ulfar knew. It was just frustrating to watch his cousin sometimes. He simply wasn’t … sharp enough. He hadn’t realized that the dockhand was going to offer them a place to stay, for one. Ulfar sighed and counted. One, two …

The grubby-faced man turned to Ulfar. ‘If you boys need somewhere to sleep I reckon I could help you out,’ he wheezed.

Ulfar would have brushed the man off, but Geiri spoke. ‘Thank you,’ he replied. ‘Stenvik impresses with its kindness to weary travellers. We’ll be glad to take you up on your offer.’

Wincing inwardly, Ulfar resisted the temptation to elbow his cousin and instead took the time to look around. Truth be told, the town of Stenvik didn’t impress with much apart from its gap-toothed hospitality. The jetty was serviceable enough, which made sense for a town this far west. He knew they raided the isles from here, and even down to the land of the Franks, but for all the stories he’d heard of their chieftain he’d expected … more. Something fiercer, maybe. Dragons’ heads and huge raiders on watch. The big, paved half-circle in front of them must be some kind of market area, he reasoned, but the houses around it looked rickety and run down.

‘Heh,’ the man replied. ‘You won’t be staying in the new town, so don’t get too chirpy about your lot.’

‘The new town?’ Geiri asked.

‘This is the old town,’ the dockhand wheezed. ‘Now we just unload the ships and such here. Nobody really lives here any more if they can help it. The new town is up there’ – he pointed to some kind of hill or mound. Unsure what to say, Geiri glanced at Ulfar. As usual Ulfar took pity on his cousin and rescued him from the awkward pause.

‘Yes. Very nice,’ he said. ‘It looks very … new.’

‘It’s good, isn’t it? But you’ll probably see it all in the morning. Follow me,’ the dockhand said. He shuffled out of the small circle of torchlight and towards a clump of houses. Geiri made to follow him.

Ulfar sighed. He had a mind to let the boy wander into the shadowy alleys of an unknown town by himself. He didn’t; instead he walked behind Geiri and looked after him, as he’d promised. As he’d been made to promise.

The man led them into the shadows between lean-tos, houses and wattle-woven shacks. Ulfar briefly felt for his shortsword, just to be sure. ‘Ain’t done too much to the old part since we built the new town,’ the dockhand rumbled as they tiptoed along the wooden walkway between the houses. ‘Still, it serves its purpose. Here we are.’ He stopped outside a hut. ‘Give me your packs, I’ll throw them in and then I’ll take you down to the old longhouse so you can get a bit of refreshment and maybe meet some of the locals.’ Ulfar grimaced in the dark. He’d met enough locals to last him a lifetime.

‘Thank you,’ Geiri said. ‘You’re a credit to your town.’

‘Heh,’ the dockhand said. ‘Not so sure about that. Not so sure at all. This way, boys, if you please,’ and with that he disappeared back into the shadows. Ulfar looked at Geiri, who simply shrugged.

‘We’re here now,’ he said. ‘Might as well go see what this town’s like. It’ll give us a head start on tomorrow.’

‘Lead the way,’ Ulfar replied, and they followed their guide’s fading footsteps towards the feeble pools of torchlight.

They found him waiting for them by the doors of an old long-house. ‘Here you go,’ the dockhand said. ‘This is where we feed the workers, the traders and whatever else might be floating around. As you know we’re in market season, so there might be some guests there as well. Take care of yourselves.’ With that he nodded to them and shuffled off into the darkness.

‘After you, my lord,’ Ulfar said.

‘Oh shut up,’ Geiri snapped back.

‘My sincerest pardons, highness,’ Ulfar said.

Geiri rolled his eyes. ‘One day I’ll find out what I’ve done to the gods and why they sent you to punish me.’

‘I think your majestic good looks offend Loki,’ Ulfar replied.

‘Probably,’ Geiri said as they stepped in.

Steam drifted lazily up to the smoke-stained rafters from the pots at the far end of the hall. Sturdy tables lined the timber walls and the smell of roasted meat lingered in the air. The long-house was about half-full. Without thinking Ulfar scanned, counted and evaluated. A handful of boisterous groups, jostling and laughing. About half of the others were tired-looking workers, quietly resting. The evening seemed to be winding down and turning into night. Ulfar spotted a table where a slim young man with thinning hair and sloping shoulders sat nursing a mug. He saw Ulfar looking and shrugged by way of permission.

‘I’ve found us a table,’ Ulfar said.

‘I’ll go get the ale,’ Geiri said.

‘Wait and watch, cousin,’ Ulfar said as he took a seat. ‘Wait and watch. One of these days I may be able to teach you to … observe.’ He gestured for Geiri to sit and nodded towards a big pillar on the wall halfway down the hall where a big, dishevelled man sat alone at a table, muttering to himself. Everything about him spoke of poor manners and worse grooming. Thinning, limp, dirty blond hair crept forward over a creased forehead, ending just above beady eyes and a mouth stuck in a permanent sneer of displeasure.

‘You bastards!’ the big man suddenly shouted, his pockmarked face beetroot-red. He squinted at the others inside the hall and banged on the table for emphasis. Snarling, he raised a battered wooden mug to his lips. ‘Y’think you’re so much better’n us just because you live in a stupid town! Think you’re—’ The rest of his words drowned in ale. He sputtered, swallowed and coughed. ‘And you charge too much for this piss!’

‘Shut up, pig-lover!’ someone shouted.

‘Who said that?’ the farmer yelled back, furious. ‘Who said that?’ He rose and staggered out onto the middle of the floor, his big frame swaying. ‘Come on then! I’ll have every last one of you!’ he shouted, brandishing his mug.

‘What are you going to do – grab us by the tail?’ someone shouted from another table. Pig snorts bounced off the walls, followed by raucous laughter.

Ulfar and Geiri watched as the farmer spun around, trying in vain to find the source of the insults. Groups of workers sat on benches up against the walls, eating, drinking and talking. No-one seemed to pay him any special mind, but his blood was up. He staggered over to a man sitting alone at a table in the corner by the door. ‘You!’ he shouted. ‘You’re in my seat.’

Ulfar nudged Geiri and pointed discreetly at the groups behind the pig farmer. Some of the men had stopped talking and were watching the exchange in the corner intently, but the fat pig farmer didn’t seem to notice. The man in the corner ignored him.

‘I said you’re in my seat. Move.’ The farmer’s voice was strained but the man at the table still ignored him, as if willing the big drunkard to disappear. ‘Move now, dogface, or I will break your head.’

One by one, the tables in the longhouse grew quiet. The sitting man sighed, reached for his mug of ale, drained it and rose.

‘… oh,’ Geiri whispered. A deadly silence filled the longhouse.

There was a tangible sense of mass about the man in the corner. A shock of unruly blond hair. Big shoulders, long arms, calloused hands with thick fingers. The man was short, but built like a bear. He put his mug down carefully and looked the pig farmer straight in the eye. Two steps took him to within fighting range. He stopped for a heartbeat. Then the stocky man moved past the pig farmer and walked towards the door without saying a word.

No one in the old longhouse spoke.

The farmer looked at the lone man’s back and seemed to struggle with the impulse to shout something, but thought better of it and sat down in the corner as the blond man left the longhouse.

Ulfar grinned. ‘See, Geiri. I am fortune’s gift to you. If it weren’t for me you’d have been pig fodder.’

‘It looks to me like the pig farmer had all the luck tonight,’ Geiri replied.

‘If that’s what you want to call it,’ the thin man next to Geiri said curtly. ‘Maybe fighting with Audun would have knocked some stupid out of him. Although if you want to pick someone for a drunken bash, maybe not the town blacksmith.’

‘No,’ Ulfar said, nodding. ‘No. Maybe not.’

They looked over to the corner where the pig farmer sat hunched over his mug, looking even more miserable than before. ‘I’m glad he didn’t – I’d have to clean up the mess. My name is Valgard, by the way. I make potions and mend wounds in this lovely town.’

‘Glad to meet you,’ Geiri said. ‘I am Geiri and this is Ulfar. We’ve come from Hedeby on business.’

‘Really?’ Valgard said. ‘You’re not drunk, you’re not slavering and you don’t smell of sheep. Are you sure?’

‘Yes,’ said Geiri. ‘We’re here to meet with Sigurd Aegisson.’

‘Ah,’ Valgard said. He finished his ale, stood up and smiled. ‘I wish you the best of luck.’ Then he left.

Geiri gave Ulfar a puzzled look. ‘What do you think that meant?’

Ulfar frowned. ‘I don’t know. I somehow doubt that it’s anything good. But on the other hand, with danger averted and the table to ourselves, you may now fetch us that ale.’

Geiri rolled his eyes. ‘You’re too kind.’

‘I know,’ Ulfar replied, grinning.

A few days’ sailing further north, the cold moonlight danced on decks, slid over tarred wood, caught on edges, hilts and the eyes of hard men. Some murmured to themselves. Others touched small tokens on leather thongs underneath their armour. They looked like ghosts gliding across a sea of silver. Moving nimbly, an armed man picked his way to the prow of the foremost ship. ‘We’ll be at Moster soon,’ he whispered into the shadows cast by the big masthead.

‘Good,’ a deep voice replied. ‘Good. She will get what she needs.’

A sharp wind whipped the salt-caked sails and drove the twelve sleek ships forward. Above, grey clouds scudded over the waxing moon. When they passed, the pale light fell on a small island ahead of the ships. A handful of stone buildings clustered in the lee of a hill; trees shied away from the cold sea winds.

The ships landed like a whisper.

Sails fell, sixty men leapt overboard and suddenly the beach was alive with moving bodies. A big shape emerged from the shadow of the masthead and made to leave.

‘Come to me.’ The voice was a whisper, a breeze on a freezing winter’s night, drifting in from the stern. A woman followed the voice, and walked to the mast. The big man walked to her and suddenly everything was quiet around them. ‘Here,’ she whispered. ‘Take this.’ She handed him a length of wood.

As he took it, she touched his bearded cheek and smiled.

‘Burn them. Burn them as they want to burn us.’

The spar of wood burst into green and white flames, revealing three vicious scars on the big man’s neck.

Screams and cries for help pierced the stillness. He jumped over the side of the ship and ran towards the house with the cross.



This had to be the mother of all headaches, Ulfar reasoned. Surely nobody had ever suffered like this. His skull seemed to be bursting slowly. Even the morning sun, shining cheekily through crevices in the walls, added to the pain. As did the sound of every laughing child, every hammer blow, every squealing pig. Especially the bloody pigs.

Maybe he shouldn’t have goaded Geiri into a fight last night. He liked his cousin; he was good company for travelling and had his head on straight most of the time. But they’d drunk too much, he’d been bored and Geiri was an easy target. Besides, the girl had been all right, and worth besting him for. Ulfar frowned, trying to remember. Inga, probably. Damn, his head hurt!

Ulfar smiled despite the pain. He’d always had it easy with girls. Although to be fair he hadn’t really had that much in the way of competition. He was handsome, clever and quick-witted. Most men he saw were either ignorant boys or oafish lugs with the grooming skills of a blind cow, so he’d learned to feel confident about his chances. Besides, he was a man of the world by now.

He stretched on his pallet, yawned and sighed. This constant travelling was such a chore. ‘I suppose it’s time to go find the chieftain of this pig town,’ he said to no one in particular, and got to his feet.

*

Audun sneered and spat. He did not like the market traders one bit. Idiots selling useless crap to fools. Changing things. Getting in the way. He’d been so close to letting go on one of them last night in the longhouse. So close.

‘Move!’

The stocky blond blacksmith grabbed a small, nervous cloth merchant and pushed him out of the way. The autumn market seemed to bring an endless supply of them from all over the world, shouting and yelling, pitching tents around the old town, hawking their wares in the streets, in the square and anywhere else they could find room. Drinking too much and trying to get him to fight. That ugly bastard last night had almost succeeded, too.

And now they were blocking the gate.

Of course the broken cart didn’t help.

He’d seen it happen, seen the driver, who was obviously another idiot, lead the cart too close to the side of the road in an effort to squeeze past another wagon and slip through the south gate, towards the harbour. He’d seen the rock and the hole, he’d seen the wheel bounce off one and into the other, and he’d heard the sharp crack when the axle gave. As the cart lurched, the man had tumbled off and banged his head. Served him right, Audun thought. Shouldn’t have let them in to begin with. But the road was blocked and this would not do. It would slow people down, keep them from the smithy and cost him business. And that he couldn’t afford.

He shouldered through the crowd in the market without thinking. Shouts and curses followed, but he didn’t care. Never had, never would, he muttered to himself. Talk is air.

When he first came to Stenvik, he’d been awed by the sheer size of the walls. At a towering twenty-five feet, covered with turf and sloping upwards at a steep angle, they had seemed impossibly wide at the base. Audun had admired the construction as he rode through the north gateway with his travelling companions. A stone-walled corridor wide enough to take two carts and high enough with room to spare for a man to walk upright, it had still taken their caravan a decent time to get through. He’d thought highly of the stonework, although some of the logs in the ceiling near the inside had struck him as oddly placed. On both ends of the gateway massive wooden gates were suspended over the openings, secured by thick ropes used for raising and lowering. What they lacked in the craft shown in the stonework they more than made up for in reliability. The gates were essentially sturdy, iron-bound pine logs stacked horizontally and set to be lowered into grooves in the walls. A short tour of the town had confirmed that the other three gates followed the same model.

At the time he’d been pleased with the craft of it.

Standing in the shadow of the same walls nearly two years later, looking at the suspended south gate, it seemed more like a cage door. And now the gateway was partially blocked by the cart. The space around the cart was crammed with the usual group of useless onlookers that seemed to gather on every such scene to lay blame, give pointless advice and avoid taking any action whatsoever. Audun gritted his teeth. Three of them were standing around the rear of the cart looking particularly miserable and staring alternately at the wheel, the broken shaft and the placid draft horse still tied to the trace.

He grabbed the nearest shoulder and yanked, forcing the man to face him.

‘You. Lead that half-dead nag on my signal.’

The man blinked and stared blankly back at him.

‘Now! Move!’ Audun half shoved the man towards the horse and turned his attention to the broken axle. Huge bags of feed had been piled topsy-turvy on the cart, and the jolt had proved too much. A quick inspection confirmed his suspicions. The other wheel would stay on, but this one was gone and would not carry weight. The cart would not be mended here, and there was hardly space to unload it.

Audun took up a position at the rear end, feeling under the collapsed side for a grip. When he’d found it, he spat into the palms of his hands, rubbed them together and grabbed the edge of the cart.

He bent his knees, straightened his back and growled low. Breathing through his nose, he slowly straightened his legs and lifted the corner of the cart. Moving his leg behind the wheel, he pushed it away from the wagon. The two men at the back stood by and gawped, as did the hapless farmer standing by the horse. ‘You two – help me, or by Thor I’ll drop it on your feet and smack you in the head!’ Audun hissed through clenched teeth. He turned to the front and snapped: ‘And you – get the bloody horse moving!’

After a brief moment of confusion, the farmers bumbled into action.

The two men in the back squeezed in on either side of Audun and tried their best to help bear the weight, and the third farmer started leading the horse. Sporadic cheers followed them through the gate and out of Stenvik.

‘Off the road!’ Audun commanded as soon as they’d cleared the gateway.

‘But …’ one of the farmers protested meekly.

Audun bit off the words, each a measured threat. ‘Off. The. Road.’

A couple of moments later the wagon was off the path into Stenvik, jolting among hastily pitched tents and rickety wattle huts outside the walls.

‘Down,’ he commanded. ‘Softly. Don’t break anything else.’

The farmers complied, and slowly the cart was brought to a halt.

While the two at the rear coughed and tried to catch their breath, the farmer leading the horse approached Audun, dragging his feet and staring at the ground.

‘Thank you for helping us. We could have been stuck there all day. Now we can—’

‘So this is yours?’ Audun cut in, bent double and breathing heavily.

‘What? Yes … yes it is.’

‘Seven silvers.’

The farmer looked at him, stunned.

‘… What?’

‘Seven silvers.’ Catching his breath, Audun straightened up and looked the farmer in the eyes. ‘I go get the tools and fix your cart. You give me seven silvers.’

‘But … I’ve not … It’s been a poor market for us!’

‘If you’ve made enough money to buy and pile feed bags on your cart until it breaks, you have no cause to complain.’ Audun walked over to the single wheel on the back end of the cart. He put his foot up on the axle, casually testing how much weight it supported. ‘I could always convert it into a sled for you …’

The farmer looked at him, dejected.

‘… Five?’

Audun frowned, then nodded. ‘Five silvers it is. Stay here.’

He turned around and headed back into town.

*

‘Valgard! Come quick!’

The boy who poked his head in through the doorway could not have been more than eight years old. Golden rays slipped past him, casting their light on dust motes dancing in the air in the tiny wooden hut.

A slim man with sloping shoulders sat hunched over a workbench in the corner. Jars and bowls of various sizes were ordered all around him on the surface. A small carved wooden figure of a woman holding a bundle of plants looked down on the tabletop.

‘Calm down. What’s happened?’ His voice was soothing, but he did not move a single muscle to acknowledge his visitor.

‘A cart broke in the south gate and a farmer fell and hit his head. He’s not moving and everybody’s angry.’

Valgard kept his eyes trained on the workbench. In his hand was a short but very sharp knife, on a small slate of stone in front of him a handful of black berries. He had just pierced the skin of a berry and was pressing it into a bowl, counting the drops. Sensing the boy was still hovering in the doorway, he sighed.

‘I’ll be there in a moment.’

‘I’ll go tell!’ the boy shouted as he sprinted off.

Valgard listened to the tread of the boy’s feet fading into the sounds of the town. It had been a good morning so far. He was nearly done with the juice for the mixture. Just two more … His knife hand began to shake. Valgard clenched his teeth and hissed: ‘No. No, you don’t. No.’ He forced himself to breathe as he’d learned. Slow. Slow everything down. He watched as the spasms in the hand died away till at last it was still and steady.

He cut twice more into the berry, collecting the juices into the bowl with practised ease and stowing the berries in a box. Then he took a satchel near the doorway and made to leave, but paused and reached for another small bag that sat on the far right of the workbench, grabbed it and left the house.

Behind him, a drop of black juice dripped from the knife point onto the bench.

It didn’t take Valgard long to find his patient. The cart driver was powerfully built, thick-limbed and out cold. He came to with a shriek and a moan as the cold water hit him in the face.

‘You just banged your head. It’s going to hurt for a while. Chew this when it does. Try not to move too much for a couple of days.’ Valgard pulled something that looked like a sliver of wood out of his bag. The driver eyed it and frowned. ‘Don’t be a fool. Take it. It’s just willow bark. Not too much at a time and you’ll be fine in a week,’ Valgard said gently.

Accepting the bark with reluctance, the driver looked at Valgard, the satchel and the empty water bucket at his feet. He blinked rapidly and his mouth moved, but no words came out.

‘Don’t worry,’ Valgard assured him. ‘You drive carts; I patch you up when you fall on your head.’ He stood up and headed back to his house, leaving the driver to look in confusion at a single wheel on a broken axle and wonder where the rest of his cart was.

*

‘If I ever have a son, I will send him out with gold enough to afford better lodgings than these.’ Ulfar ducked under the rickety doorframe and stepped into the street outside. The dockhand’s shack looked considerably worse in daylight than it had under the stars last night. ‘In fact, I think we might be sleeping in somebody’s outhouse. Indeed, if I ever have a son, I’ll buy him better lodgings, better—’

‘— clothes, prettier wenches, better food, finer wine and a golden chariot to cart your lily arse between silk pillows,’ Geiri finished as he emerged from the doorway behind the tall young noble.

Ulfar flashed him a winning smile. ‘Are we a little bit prickly today, my brother?’

Geiri shot him an annoyed glance. ‘Be quiet if you value your teeth, you traitor. And our fathers may share the same mother, but that does not make me your brother.’

Ulfar threw up his hands in a gesture of mock innocence. ‘Am I not your brother in arms, in travel and in song?’ he said, eyes glinting with poorly hidden amusement.

‘Not after last night you’re not. I’ve a mind to dump you back home and have them collect their debt of honour like they’d planned.’

Ulfar dismissed Geiri with a wave. ‘Forget it. I was bored. It was just one kiss. And you didn’t miss much. She smelled of sheep. Now, do you know your way around this town?’

‘Of course I don’t. Have you been to bloody Stenvik much?’ Geiri shot back. ‘Here’s what I know. It’s the only sizeable town this far west. Most defensible outpost on the west coast, apparently. D. . .