God of Vengeance by Giles Kristian Read Free Book Online Page A

and, leaving his axe with Haki, worked with an enormous boar spear, thrusting and cutting, his skill matched only by his strength. When Randver’s men saw Harald’s champion back amidst the blood-fray they raised their shields and pulled heads back into shoulders and a youth near Sigurd exclaimed that Jarl Randver looked like a berserker as he frothed and fumed at his warriors to show more steel and less limewood.
    ‘We can still win this,’ Aslak said. ‘If the king sides with Harald and brings his ships across.’
    ‘Fool, boy! The king wants the fishes feasting on Jarl Harald tonight!’ the greybeard said, pointing at the king’s two ships that were raining their arrow storm on Harald’s floating fort. ‘They’ve carved that ambition clear as runes on a standing stone.’
    ‘Those ships have sided with Randver, that is plain, old man,’ Sigurd said, ‘but that is not to say that Biflindi himself is with the rancid pig’s bladder. The king fights on. See.’
    ‘You call that fighting, lad?’ the greybeard said. ‘Pah! My wife puts more into it when she scolds me for being drunk or looking too long at some pretty young thing.’
    Sigurd felt the grimace on his face but did not bite back, because he knew the old goat saw the truth of it even with those withered eyes. The arrow fight going on between those seven ships was perhaps more dangerous than a hailstorm but not by much. It was a show, like a leashed dog growling at another passing by.
    ‘See how far they’ve drifted,’ Aslak observed and Sigurd nodded.
    ‘There’s more current in that sea than you would know to look at it,’ he said, for Harald’s raft of ships and Randver’s lashed to it, having sat in the middle of the strait when the battle started, had now been brought much nearer the shore. ‘They will have to cut themselves free soon. All of them,’ Sigurd said, ‘or risk being smashed on the rocks.’
    ‘Then Father can escape?’ Runa suggested, ‘if they cut the ropes?’ There was a spear-blade’s glint of hope in her blue eyes.
    ‘Aye, that’ll be the only thing that saves your men now, girl,’ the greybeard said, ‘but old Njörd has already forsaken them, I am sure of it. He gives thin hope but not the wind or waves that Jarl Harald needs.’
    ‘Any more talk from you, old man, and we will see how your warped bones fare against the rocks,’ Sigurd growled. Aslak flapped his arms at the old man who must have seen enough steel in Sigurd’s eyes to believe it was no empty threat for he shuddered, hitched lips back from rotting teeth and held his tongue.
    ‘Bollocks,’ Svein said as a cheer went up from Randver’s men, for the shieldwall on
Sea-Eagle
had suddenly shattered like a clay pot dropped on a rock and the rebel jarl’s warriors were winning, clearing the deck and washing it in the blood of Harald’s hirðmen. Some of those fought on, trying to link up with their sword-brothers in twos and threes, but more of the enemy were spilling into the thwarts and it was clear that
Sea-Eagle
was lost. Men were hacked apart and speared in the back as they tried to scramble over the sheer strake onto
Reinen
, whose men thrust spears or hefted shields to try to protect those seeking refuge.
    Over on the port side
Little-Elk
was a scene of butchery too. The enemy had somehow come aboard at the stern and, with her shieldwall thinned to face this new threat, gaps were not being filled and Randver’s weight of numbers was telling. The scales had tipped and there was no bringing it back now.
    Sigurd tasted bile in his mouth, could feel it rising from his stomach and burning as it came. The men from Skudeneshavn were being slaughtered and he could do nothing.
    ‘Get back to your people, boy,’ the greybeard said, risking Sigurd’s wrath. ‘You need to tell them what is coming. Give them a chance to scarper. For you can mark my words this foul thing won’t end here.’
    Sigurd thrust his spear down amongst the birch roots