God of Vengeance by Giles Kristian Read Free Book Online

stern to protect
Sea-Eagle
’s steerboard side.
    ‘Not before time,’ the greybeard said, turning his sunken eyes on Sigurd. ‘He’s left your father in the fire too long already.’
    ‘Ha! I’ll wager you wouldn’t say that to King Gorm’s face, old man,’ another youth said.
    ‘And why not, youngen?’ the old man asked. ‘As you can see I’d be long dead before Shield-Shaker got around to sending someone to kill me.’
    This might have got a few laughs had things been going better down in the strait. A warrior named Haki had stepped into Slagfid’s place at the prow now to give Harald’s champion a chance to catch his breath, for axe work will have muscles screaming and a man puffing like nothing else. But though Haki, Olaf, Thorvard and the others were holding Randver’s crew at bay, the rebel jarl’s other crews were pressing their advantage. In making his floating bulwark Harald had drawn the enemy in so that now four of Randver’s six ships were committed. All King Gorm had to do was either deal with Randver’s remaining two or at least keep them out of it while he took Randver’s ship at the stern, cleared its deck and thus put an end to it.
    The two allied ships had rowed round
Reinen
’s stern, but instead of coming alongside those two dragons that were attacking
Sea-Eagle
they manoeuvred up to that ship, whose crew were yelling at King Gorm’s men to get into the fight.
    ‘Óðin’s bollocks,’ Svein said, as the first arrows streaked from Shield-Shaker’s ships into
Reinen
and
Sea-Eagle
’s thwarts.
    ‘Treachery!’ the greybeard yelled. ‘You can never trust a king.’ He looked over at Sigurd but Sigurd could not take his eyes from the scene below. ‘Your father is a dead man now, youngen. Best get back to your kin quick as you can.’
    ‘It’s not over yet, you old goat,’ Aslak said. ‘Not while Slagfid still fights.’
    Sigurd spat a curse and hoped the Allfather heard it, for such treachery was lower than a worm’s belly and Óðin should not see it played out. And yet Óðin loved chaos. Had Asgot not told Sigurd that a thousand times?
Little-Elk
was on its own now and holding its own too, and that was largely down to being so much smaller than the ship lashed against it, for its warriors were concentrated over a smaller area which enabled them to present a shieldwall three men deep. But exposed out there on the steerboard side of Jarl Harald’s raft
Sea-Eagle
was doomed and everyone knew it. For the most important thing now was to preserve Jarl Harald, which meant his best warriors must stay with him aboard
Reinen
lest they be overrun by Jarl Randver’s hearthmen from
Fjord-Wolf
.
    Sea-Eagle
’s skipper Gudrod was at the centre of the shieldwall bristling his longship’s side, jabbing a spear at those who sought to climb aboard his ship. But men were falling in that rampart now and the gaps could not be plugged. Sigurd and his friends were watching men they had known all their lives die, hacked and stabbed, falling into the thwarts, and Sigurd growled at Runa to look no more but she refused.
    Then Gudrod went down from a spear thrust and one of Randver’s brave warriors saw his chance. His shield before him, he threw himself over the top strakes into
Sea-Eagle
, forcing the breach, and though he undoubtedly died a heartbeat later those behind plunged after him. Once a shieldwall is broken like that it nearly always spells disaster, so Sigurd had been told by Olaf who, in the maw of it at his prow, must have known what was happening aboard
Reinen
’s sister ship, though he could do nothing about it. Thorvard was still in the thick of it too, fighting like a champion, but now Harald came to the prow himself bringing Sigmund and Sorli, so that Sigurd felt pride bloom in his chest at the sight of his brothers wading into the steel-storm, refusing to accept that they were beaten.
    Seeing his jarl striding into the carnage, Slagfid stormed back to his place at the prow