SNAFU: Hunters

For the first time in hours, Blake saw the sun. It beamed down on him and Carroll and Pollin and the injured Fernandez.

Blake had seen Hell and maybe this world wasn’t heaven, but it was good enough for now.

Only Stones In Their Place Christine Morgan

“We ride!” cried Kjarstan. “We ride for slaughter, for wealth, and for glory!”

His men shouted in answer, voicing great cheers. They rattled spear-shafts on shields in a drumming wooden thunder. Their banner, a white sword on a triangle of red, flapped from the pole Kjarstan’s nephew held aloft.

“Our king has sent summons!” Kjarstan went on, his stallion’s hard hooves striking up muddy splashes from the soft, thaw-soaked earth. “He has need of us, those good and loyal, oath-sworn! Need of our sword-might, our strength and our courage!”

Heartier still were the cheers to greet this. Even the humblest of peasant-horses, seized from plow’s purpose, tossed their heads and snorted like proud battle-steeds.

“Shake from your limbs the weight of this long winter’s weariness! Rouse your blood and war-fire! When we are old men, white-haired and wizened, we may sit by the hearth-stones… those of us not yet then gone to gold-shingled Valhalla! For now, there are foes to be cut down and plundered!”

Oh, but their blood and war-fire were roused. They’d struck at Pedham with the ending of autumn, when the harvest was in, the livestock butchered, the smoke-houses and granaries full. Once they had taken the village, there’d been little to do but wait. Wait, tend their weapons, gamble, and talk.

Under such circumstances, even the best of men would grow restless. The simplest squabble, a dispute over dice or rivalry for a woman, an ill-spoken insult or ill-timed jest could flare into violence as an ember into flame.

Now, though…

Kjarstan grinned, teeth a broad flash through his face-plate and a blond bristle of beard. His mail-coat, helm, and arm-rings gleamed in the morning’s thin light. It was a grey day and clouded, the land wet from recent rain and snow-melt, and the wind off the sea carried a damp, heavy chill … but spring had come.

Spring had come, as had the summons.

The king’s messenger went by ship around the headlands and along the coast, bringing word wherever allies could be found. But there were not ships enough to carry them all with their war-gear and horses. Kjarstan had sent Udr and Anbjorn, two of his own best warriors, back with the messenger as proof in good faith of his oath and intent; the others, almost sixty strong, would meet them again in a matter of days.

And then they would put an end to the armies of Gunnleif Guthnarsson. Gunnleif the outlaw, the traitor, the oath-breaker and kin-slayer.

“What say you?” Kjarstan asked his men now. “Are you rested and ready? Do your swords thirst and your axes hunger?”

Many throats as one bellowed back their affirmation.

“Will you see our foes flee before us, and fall to our fury?”

Again, they bellowed, and louder – so loud the skies shook.

“For Earl Kjarstan! Kjarstan and the king!”

“The king!”

“King Jorfyn!”

“For Thor, Tyr and Odin!”

“Death, death to Gunnleif and his craven piss-dogs!”

Yes, they were eager, they were rested and ready, and they would ride!

“We will have victory!” Kjarstan told them. “Victory and rich reward! Let us fatten our purses on Gunnleif’s stolen silver! Let us earn generous gifts, our king’s gratitude in gold! We’ll drape our women in amber and jet, and bring jeweled trinkets as toys for our children!”

Further back, where hovels and thatch-houses huddled around a log-timbered hall, the surviving villagers looked on with dull, beaten eyes. They would be hungry in the weeks to come; Kjarstan and his men had feasted well from their larders, drained dry their ale-barrels, and depleted their stores.

But such was their lot. They were farmers and swineherds, not warriors. Those who’d fought back had been slain. These remaining could count themselves lucky enough. They still had their lives, their homes were un-burned, and some even had their families intact.

If, of course, a few young widows and daughters would not be staying, preferring to follow those whose furs and fleeces they’d warmed through the cold nights…

If, perhaps, a promising youth or two had decided to forsake farm and field in hopes of proving his worth alongside the men from the north…

Well, such it was and so it would be.

“And,” Kjarstan said, slowly drawing his blade from its scabbard with a scraping hiss of metal, “we will make name for ourselves!”

His men roared their approval.

“Make name by action and deed, such that the skalds will long sing of us and see us never forgotten! To honor our fathers and theirs before them; to leave lasting legacy of pride for our sons and their sons and their sons’ sons after!” He swept his sword in a shining arc.

“Kjarstan! Kjarstan!”

“To battle and slaughter and glory!”