Gravelanders

A Short Story, by guest contributor 'Atropos'

(Note: Part One of this tale was published as The Tumulus Tombs, available here. Audio readings of both parts will be coming soon.)

Harold turned out to be a quiet child, leaving Eadric to his thoughts as they journeyed across the empty hills. At times the cry of fighting warriors drifted to them on a distant breeze, or a patch of torn earth and corroded armour marked a recent skirmish. Many hours passed before the boy spoke up.

“Master Eadric, what follows nineteen scores of scores of scores and nineteen?”

“What?” He reckoned. “The number you seek is… Twice a hundred thousands, I think. Why ask you?”

“I’m counting the number of steps since we slew the Saxons. I can’t count any higher. By my stride is half a yard. So we’ve travelled one hundred thousands of yards. Fifty miles.”

“Fifty miles in one day? Without food or drink? You must have counted wrong.”

“I didn’t.”

“Your legs will tell you when they have walked fifty miles.”

“Don’t get tired here.” Eadric realised the lad was right. Food, drink, and shelter had come to him as afterthoughts since he awoke. All the same, there couldn’t be fifty miles of barren downs in the whole of Midgard.

“Let’s stop for a rest,” he decided after cresting the next hill. There was a steep depression next to a huge stone slab of a tomb door, which would keep the wind off their backs for a few minutes. And the wind sliced with a cold edge, now that he thought of it.

“Don’t need rest.”

“It’s better to rest before you need to than after. Lean against that slope, it’ll keep off the wind.”

“What wind?”

“Hush, lad, give me a moment of peace. To think.”

Eadric gazed off into the mist, which parted briefly to reveal glimpses of more distant hills. He scanned patiently for settlements, or any sign of habitation, while Harold fidgeted beside him.

“This barrow’s a Viking’s, Master Eadric. It’s got futhark runes on the door. But there’s a Christian cross too!”

The old Saxon’s eyes had seized on a detail from the bland landscape. Far to the northeast, he thought he’d glimpsed a circling bird of prey. If wild, that meant wildlife, and if tame, there would be a falconer. How would he remember bearings…? The hills were oddly indistinct, and refused to take on firmer shapes as he stared.

It was almost peaceful, but for the boy’s fidgeting and the stale odour of sweat after miles of walking. In another place and time, he could have set a campfire here and roasted strips of salted hog with his shieldmates, as they waited and bantered ahead of the morrow’s battle with the invading warlord –

Sweat. Eadric never used to reek like the other warriors from his hall, and the scent that now drifted across the grassland was not his own.

Without turning his head, Eadric began to draw Windshear from its sheath, poised to rise and strike at any sign or sound.

“Stay arms!” cried a voice from the gloom. Harold yelped and cowered; Eadric sprang to action. An arrow scythed into the grass by his shield as he reached for it, turning to cover himself from the line of attack. Spearheads glinted as the warriors emerged from all sides, above and below, with their leader standing atop the lintel of the barrow door. There were dozens, too many to fight, plenty for a good death.

“Stay arms,” repeated the leader, pointing his sword at Harold. “Or the boy gets it. You speak norrœnt mál? Saxon? Yes? Drop your weapon.”

“I’ll have your name and hall before I drop anything.”

“Alfred of Norfolk, Housecarl to Prince Gyrth Godwinson.” He stood tall, a good six feet or more, with long blonde locks and the hale confidence of a mighty warrior. Fit indeed for a prince’s bodyguard, thought Eadric, lowering his sword. “You trespass on our land, stranger.”

“I didn’t know this land was claimed, Alfred of Norfolk. Any of it. Forgive my ignorance, I am Eadric of Wessex and new to this land. You’re from a settlement?”

“A great one. I’ll take your oath that you’re not with the heathen dog Tostig?”

“Upon my oath, I have never heard of a Tostig here.”

“Good. The last thing we need is another grave war.”

The atmosphere had softened; Harold stood nervously as one of Alfred’s bearded warriors retrieved his arrow.

“You’ll have to explain.”

“Later. We’ll open up this barrow and see what’s inside, then you’ll come back with us for a warm meal in front of a roaring fire.” He spoke as if his hospitality could not be refused, and Eadric had seen too much of the world to question it. Nor would he ask why Alfred had set out with a full two dozen warriors if he expected nothing but empty tombs.

“What, we’re taking this wilder with us?” whined a younger warrior. “And his brat?”

“Little Hengest’s hard of hearing today,” boomed Alfred. “Why don’t Ulfric and Ulfdan knock some wax out of those scrawny ears, while the rest of you open the tomb. The wilders are with me. Come.” He beckoned Eadric and Harold away from the door, and they retired to the crest of the hill as the runt called Hengest wailed in muffled protestation.

“In which battle did you meet your end, Eadric of Wessex?”

The bellow of a blood-crazed Viking warrior drifted through his memory, but nothing more was forthcoming. “I cannot remember.”

“Well, I am sure it was a good death. Everyone here has died well, even little Hengest and that thrice-beggared heathen fool Tostig had a good death, I tell you. My death was at a hill near Hastings, the greatest battle of our blessed King Harold. Long before your time perhaps, Eadric. Or long after.” He glanced down at Harold, who was stumbling to keep up with them. “What’s the boy’s story?”

Eadric looked back. It was a question he hadn’t considered – how had a child come to this land of warriors? Did Harold even remember? Perhaps it would be better not to remember whatever cruel fate must have forced a child to battle.

“He will tell it when he is ready, I think,” was all the reply he gave.

“Aye, and what is time in the afterlife? Men born two hundred years before me have fallen again to my blade in this one. Fitting, I suppose. I was one of few who cleaved to the true gods in my time, and Christians must have their own Valhalla.”

“We should have the true Valhalla, I’m told, but this seems like a very different land.”

“Aye, that it is, and I’d swear a King’s hoard that it’s the fault of that goat-faced buffoon Tostig. Perhaps when his head rolls into mist, it will open the gate to our deserved fate. That would be like Woden or Thunor, to reckon on a last test of arms for his warriors ere we join the Einheriar. Of course, if a slack-jawed runt like Hengest could join the Einheriar then we would face a dire struggle at the Battle of the World’s End. Eh?”

“I am a simple man, Alfred. This talk is beyond me. Who is this Tostig, to plague you so?”

“All in good time, friend. The Chieftain will explain better, when we return.”

“You mean Prince Gyrth Godwinson, who you mentioned before?”

“Ha! No, Gyrth was Christian, despite his noble character. The Chieftain is a man of a different sort. You’ll see, soon enough.”

Alfred stopped in his tracks, gazing out at the furthest hilltops. “There is a small problem, however. It’s hard to get enough food to support a whole Chieftain’s hold. The boy will have a seat of his own at the high table, but if I bring the two of you back, then one of my company must stay behind in your stead.”

He fixed his eyes on Eadric’s, and they were the same cold grey as the mist behind him. “I’m sure you understand.”

“You mean, stay behind to wander the lands?”

“I mean, stay behind to feed the worms.” Alfred sighed. “Can’t have a man finding his way to Tostig, or causing trouble on our gravelands. This is no country for the weak.”

“You’d see your own man slain to save some bread, Alfred?”

The air grew colder still as they stared each other down.

“Eadric, you are a good man, and I wouldn’t ask this if there were a choice. We are all warriors here. We earn our keep by strength of arms. But every hour sees another dozen frothing Norsemen awake among these hills. Only the strongest may endure.”

“Then I shall slay these Norsemen when they threaten me. I refuse to draw steel without reason.”

“Each man in my pack has a dozen kills to his name,” Alfred thundered. “The exception is Hengest, who has six. Pick whomever you will. If you kill them, their tally becomes yours.”

“And if I refuse?”

“Eadric, come, I am being reasonable. I give you a chance to find food and shelter in an honoured Chieftain’s hall. To save your boy from hunger, bloodshed, and madness in these blasted lands. You would spurn that chance?”

“There is no honour in this.”

“Hengest died badly,” Alfred continued, unblinking. “It wasn’t a battle at all, in my eyes, though Woden sees things different. They were bandits, raiding towns in Mercia when he thought he’d have his way with the spoils of some mud-slicked pigherders’ village. He was killed there. He’s a vicious thug who’ll put a knife between your ribs as soon as you show your back.

“Finish him, now, as soon as you descend the barrow. Or I swear by Woden’s Beard you shall not live to see Tostig’s lands.”

Harold clutched at Eadric’s trouser, his face white with confusion.

“There is no honour in this,” Eadric repeated, but his mind was made.

He descended from the roiling mist, sword and shield in hand.

“Hengest!”

The yell struck clear across the barrow downs, raising the heads of those who rolled shut the tomb’s stone door, packing coins and ornaments into rough knapsacks.

“Outlander! Ready to get gutted?” came the reply, as thin and nasal as Hengest himself.

“I challenge you to single combat!”

“I challenge you to take your stench off these hills! And bear it back to Svartalfheim where your rotten hide belongs!” The pack roared with laughter. “Who are you, Outlander, to challenge the mighty Hengest?” He loomed from the mist now, axe and shield in hand, teeth leering from his beard like maggots on a rotten haystack. “At sixteen summers I slew the finest warrior of the foes’ village! Jorgrund he was called, full seven feet tall, with a Viking for a mother and a frost giant father! At the summer solstice he could drink full three barrels of ale. He too came at me with sword and shield, bellowing and flailing. Who comes to share Jorgrund’s grave?”

Eadric wasted no words. They squared off and began to circle, each watching the other’s shield intently. Shields were the centrepiece of all combat; held in the centre by one hand, they could be turned left or right by a violent strike to either side, opening up the wielder’s body to a killing blow. A good warrior knew his shield was a weapon more versatile than any sword.

Hengest was a good warrior, for all Alfred’s talk. His shield was angled away from his body and never presented square-on, while the head of his axe rested at his shoulder. Eadric swung a testing blow with the rim of his shield, and a follow-up from Windshear, but neither bit home. Then Hengest came forward, axe and shield whirling, and Eadric matched his rhythm pace-for-pace as he fell back. They broke contact, paused, circled again. Now he adjusted his stance, pausing suddenly in his circling to cast an overhead swing at Hengest’s face – the shield came up to knock Windshear aside and then Eadric lunged. Hengest’s shield was turned and pushed into his axe-arm. Eadric drew his blade back and thrust deep into his opponent’s thigh, sawing open the artery in a mortal blow.

The body fell in spasms, a hideous shriek ringing from its throat.

Eadric cleaned Winshear’s blade as Hengest bled to death, more from habit than from necessity. Though rapid, that had been a more testing fight than he could expect from a mere plundering bandit. He stripped the dead man’s weapons and armour, and beckoned Harold over as the mail coat was laid out.

“These aren’t a great deal bigger than your own clothes, lad. Wear them for now.”

Eadric averted his eyes as Harold changed into the dead man’s clothes. It turned out that he couldn’t dress himself properly: Eadric had to adjust his chainmail and show him how to hold Hengest’s shield. The garments were slightly loose and hung from Harold’s spindly frame; it reminded Eadric of watching his son put on armour for the first –

Wait. My son?

The memory was gone, leaving mere shadow behind – a recollection of a recollection.

I have a son?

“I never knew mail was so heavy!” Harold complained. “It looks so flimsy, but it’s really solid.” He scratched at his mailed arm.

“Quiet!” Eadric barked, anger roughening the edges of his voice, as if silence could bring his memories back. His knuckles whitened against Windshear’s sheathed pommel as he mastered his temper. His eyes found Alfred of Norfolk first. “What you said about Hengest, Alfred. About him being killed in a bandit raid. Was that true?”

“Does it matter?” answered Alfred, eyes gleaming. “We head back to the Hall now. Don’t let yourselves fall behind.”