The tower of Northwatch loomed over them like a raised fist of stone. No matter how often he saw the heights of the old Imperial stonework, Gunnar was always impressed. His people were cunning craftsmen. Their smiths could work iron—and some even true steel—as well as any southerner. Svardic ships were, of course, the best in the sea.
But our keeps are mostly wooden longhouses, and our stonework mostly ringforts, Gunnar thought. These “Cassalines” were truly master builders.
Northwatch was nothing compared to the absurd grandeur of the city of Arcadia. Gunnar had been intimidated even seeing the outside of that city, and he had not had the courage to venture inside. Not with his accent being what it was, and Caedia at war with his people. Battle never scared him the way throngs of suspicious Caedians did.
In truth, Northwatch was not even particularly impressive compared to the river fortress of Torva. Torva’s bridges were a marvel unlike any Gunnar had seen, and the island citadel looked truly impregnable. Northwatch was none of these things.
Even so, Gunnar took a moment to stare at the tower.
It is so tall, he marveled to himself. The wooden walls below—Caedian made, and no more impressive than any wall back in Svarden—was less than half the height of the tower. Gunnar saw a few men on the wall, and more figures reluctantly peeking out from the top of the tower. A Caedian banner still flew.
Northwatch sat atop a hill. The hill was ringed with dense forest on all sides, but the trees were kept clear on the hill itself. That left anyone approaching exposed.
Most of Steelshod waited at the base of the hill, just at the edge of the treeline. Only three men rode their horses at a slow trot up the road to Northwatch.
Gunnar was among them.
“You are sure about this?” he asked quietly.
Yorrin looked like he was about to reply, but then he closed his mouth. Gunnar noticed the restraint, and approved. He is not the one that will be endangering himself.
Aleksandr, on the other hand, rode in silence for several long seconds. Up ahead there was movement on the wall, and hushed voices.
“Da,” Aleksandr finally said. “I am sure. Go ahead.”
Gunnar tried to stifle a sigh. What little discomfort he let show, Aleksandr and Yorrin kindly ignored. They were about halfway up the hill, and they could see more and more men gathering on the walls.
“Hail, I am Gunnar, son of Kjeld!” he called out in the tongue of his homeland.
The reaction was so abrupt it almost made Gunnar laugh. The men on the walls stared at him in shock, and murmured confusion rippled through them. He heard a mix of Svardic and Kriegar in the voices.
“We have come to talk!” Gunnar continued. “Who speaks for you?”
He heard a low, deep voice grumbling on the far side of the wall.
Oh no, Gunnar’s stomach tightened. Is that…
“I will speak!” called out a man on the wall. He was tall, sturdily built, his beard braided into plaits. “I am Erik, huskarl to Jarl Einsulf the Black.”
“You lead?” Gunnar asked.
Erik frowned, obviously hesitating. He glanced behind him, at someone behind the wall. “I will speak,” he said again.
“I speak for Aleksandr Kerensky, commander of Steelshod Company,” Gunnar said, gesturing to Aleksandr. “He challenges your courage, and your right to this holdfast. He challenges you to holmgang!”
Erik looked dumbfounded. Most of the men on the walls did, really. Then they began to laugh.
Shit.
“What’s going on?” Yorrin asked urgently. “Did you tell them what we discussed? Why are they laughing?”
“Ja, I told them,” Gunnar said. “We may have a problem. Aleksandr…”
“Da, what is it?” Aleksandr asked.
“What do you know of the bersarks?” He asked. Easy. He knows nothing. You should have told him sooner.
Aleksandr frowned, a confused look on his face. Just as he seemed about to reply, a sound echoed out from within Northwatch.
It was a roar, loud and feral. The sound of it made Gunnar’s blood run cold. It was not a sound that could have come from a man.
Because they are no longer men.
“We accept!” Erik shouted, and the gates began to open.
“What the hell was that?” Yorrin asked.
“That,” Gunnar said. “Was a bersark.”
The gates swung open, and something stepped out onto the shallow slope of the road.
He was over eight feet tall. His hair and beard were both dirty brown and hung in long tangled locks. He wore iron mail across his chest, and in his hands he carried a huge axe. But the thing that drew the eye most of all was the hide he wore across his back.
A brown bear’s pelt draped over him, its head resting atop his, its huge fangs hanging across his brow. The source of his strength, according to the stories Gunnar had heard. The spirit of the bear made him strong, made him grow, filled him with immense power.
“A giant?” Yorrin said, eyes widening. “He doesn’t—that’s not an ogre, not like the thing we fought beneath the mountains.”
He was speaking to Aleksandr, not Gunnar. Gunnar had little idea what he was even talking about. Even so, Gunnar answered. “He is a man,” he said. “Or at least… he once was.”
The bersark opened his mouth and screamed out another roar. The sound of it rattled Gunnar’s bones. When he opened his mouth again, it was to speak. His voice was unnaturally deep, and full of gravel.
“I stand!” the bersark growled in Svardic. He spoke an old dialect, the tongue of the far northern reaches of Svarden. It sounded strange to Gunnar’s ear. Savage.
“Gunnar…” Yorrin said, sounding agitated. “Aleksandr is not going to fight that—”
“Is fine, Yorrin,” Aleksandr said. His voice was calm.
That is the calm of northern stoicism, Gunnar decided. He knew it well. Aleksandr was afraid, but he would not show it.
“Wait,” Gunnar said. “Maybe… I have an idea. To even the fight.”
Yorrin looked skeptical. Aleksandr gave Gunnar a steady stare, his green eyes piercing.
“We trust you, Gunnar,” he said.
Gunnar nodded. He nudged his horse forward a few steps. “You are bersark,” he said to the huge hulking man. “From the northern clans.”
The bersark grinned a wide grin. “I am Áki!” he shouted in Old Svardic. “I serve Colbyrn Stone-Breaker, and the Taerbjornsen.”
“You wear the skin of a bear,” Gunnar said. He spoke his native Svardic, close enough that he knew the bersark could understand. “It is said you carry the bear’s spirit—and its strength—within you. This is so?”
“Yes,” Áki said, still grinning. “This is so.”
“The holmgang is a battle between men,” Gunnar said loudly. “One man fighting one man. This is how it has always been. But you are not one man. You carry two spirits. Fight with the strength of two men.”
“More than two men, little fool,” Áki growled. “I have strength of bear.”
“Yes, this is what they say,” Gunnar agreed. He kept speaking loudly, to make sure his voice carried to Erik and the others on the wall. “This man, Aleksandr, has no bear spirit to aid him. I say you are cheating. Two against one. Not fit for holmgang.”
Áki laughed. “Yes, some jarls said this to the Taerbjornsen when he came. He killed their champions one by one or two by two. Made no difference.” He looked at Aleksandr, and then at Gunnar. “You wish to fight alongside him? Fine. I do not fear you.”
Gunnar smiled. “Not me, no,” he said.
Áki’s huge brow wrinkled in confusion at that. Then he looked at Yorrin, and laughed even harder. “Him? He is so small!”
“Ah,” Yorrin smiled. “Gibberish or not, I think I know that look. Am I in?”
Gunnar nodded. “Ja,” he said. “This man, he is a champion—bersark they are called, in the savage north.” Gunnar realized that to Yorrin, everything north of Caedia was likely the savage north. “North even of Svarden, I mean,” he added. “It is said that they bind themselves to the spirits of bears, and gain their strength. I suggested that this made the fight unequal—him and his bear against you alone, Aleksandr.”
Aleksandr smiled. It was thin, but sincere. “And so instead it is Yorrin and I against him and his bear?”
“Ja.”
“Good,” Aleksandr said. He dismounted, and Yorrin did the same.
They approached side by side, drawing steel as they went. Aleksandr tilted his head towards Yorrin, and Gunnar thought he heard a few whispered words pass between them.
Those two are such an odd pair, Gunnar thought. Not for the first time.
Áki watched them come closer with a feral smile. His teeth gleamed yellow, his canines sharp.
Gunnar had never really seen a bersark so close before. The barbarians had come down from their northern territory with the Taerbjornsen, and swept through the lands of Svarden as conquerors. Gunnar had seen them at a distance, of course. Seen Taerbjornsen as he cut down Gunnar’s jarl, Sten, and many other huskarls. But Gunnar had been brought down by his fellow Svards, ones already brought into Taerbjornsen’s horde. The bersarks had always been one step removed from him.
It was easy to see the stories as exaggerations, he thought. At least somewhat. But he truly is more than a man. Whatever dark sorcery bound that bearskin to him has given him true power.
He worried for Aleksandr and Yorrin. The bersarks were said to be a match for a dozen men.
“If you flee off the hill, you forfeit!” Erik called down from the walls. Gunnar repeated the assertion in Middish for the benefit of his commanders. They did not break their slow advance or speak in response, but Gunnar saw them each give short nods.
As they grew closer to Áki, Yorrin shifted his angle of approach. He kept his sword and dagger up in a guard, and he kept a good distance as he circled to the left.
Smart, Gunnar decided. The bersark is so tall, his arms so long. His reach is greater than one’s instincts might suggest.
Aleksandr kept advancing straight up the road. He gripped his steel longsword in both hands, the blade held high in a stance that would give Aleksandr considerable defensive options against his huge opponent’s most likely attacks.
They can do this.
Áki struck first, ignoring Yorrin and sweeping his huge axe at Aleksandr. Aleksandr moved with surprising speed and grace, pivoting to the side and deflecting the axe along the flat of his sword. As the axe glanced away with the screech of scraping metal, Aleksandr’s counterstroke drove forward, slamming into the bersark.
His blow caught armor, resounding against the bersark’s mail-covered chest. The huge man barely even staggered. To Gunnar’s dismay, he saw Yorrin dart in on the flanks, stabbing with his sword and dagger, trying to reach Áki’s armpit.
It was impossible to tell if Yorrin’s blades struck true or caught the armor. What was clear was that the bersark was not slowed by Yorrin’s attack in the slightest. He swept one huge fist out at Yorrin almost casually, backhanding the small man across the shoulder. Yorrin flailed backwards, tumbling onto his ass.
Aleksandr kept up his attack, his sword flashing in the sunlight as it rose and fell in an intricate series of blows. Áki took several of the blows on his torso and arms, and Gunnar even saw scarlet blood arc through the air. But the bersark did not seem to care about the wounds. His response to Aleksandr was slower, and much more vicious. He hammered his axe down over and over, forcing Aleksandr to dodge and parry and backpedal. When one of the downswings found its mark, the crunching sound of Aleksandr’s breastplate was unmistakable. Aleksandr reeled, but he did not fall.
Yorrin, meanwhile, had regained his footing. Gunnar saw that he held only his dagger in hand—the elegant steel sword he carried had landed in the dirt a good ten feet from him, and he did not go for it. Instead, Yorrin sheathed his dagger.
Áki seemed to notice this out of the corner of his eye, and he let out a jubilant roar. Erik and the watchers on the walls began to laugh. They jeered at Yorrin in their own tongue, calling him coward.
He is no coward, and I have never seen him give up anything, Gunnar thought. So what is he doing?
Yorrin reached up to his throat and unclasped the cloak that draped over his shoulders. By this point Áki was completely ignoring him, focusing all his attention on Aleksandr. Steelshod’s commander traded blows with the bersark valiantly, but it was obvious to everyone watching that he was at a serious disadvantage. Every misstep resulted in a massive impact against his armor, and his own blows left—at best—a few superficial lacerations on Áki’s arms.
Then Yorrin leapt back into the fray. He had repositioned directly behind Áki, and he held his cloak in both hands like a net. He jumped at Áki’s back, sweeping the cloak over the bersark from behind. The cloth covered Áki’s face entirely, and allowed Yorrin to cling off of the bersark’s back like a squirrel hanging off a tree trunk.
Áki screamed in rage, and he reached back with one arm, trying to grab Yorrin or knock him away. Yorrin twisted back and forth, avoiding the bersark’s grasping hand. Aleksandr redoubled his own attack, maneuvering around Áki’s axe and slamming his sword into Áki’s legs in a flurry of chopping strikes. Blood sprayed, and Áki’s screams took on a different tone.
Áki dropped his axe and reached for the cloak with both hands, trying to rip it off of his face. In that moment, Yorrin let go and dropped off of the bersark’s back entirely, and the cloak pulled away easily. Áki looked ahead just as Aleksandr brought his sword down.
The blade cleaved halfway through Áki’s skull. The bersark twitched, sweeping his arm out in a flailing motion that knocked Aleksandr back. Then he toppled over, the sword still embedded deeply between his eyes.
No voices could be heard on the walls. Yorrin stepped over to Aleksandr and helped him to his feet in silence. Aleksandr panted from the exertion, and in the deathly quiet each heavy breath could be heard clearly. Gunnar could see where his plate armor was dented and gouged, and one place where his breastplate was cracked through.
Aleksandr advanced to Áki’s corpse with slow, deliberate steps. He took his sword in a firm grip and wrenched it out of the bersark’s skull. Blood and brain spilled onto the road. He looked up at the men on the wall.
“Go,” he said calmly. “You are not welcome here.”
They could hear a ragged chorus of cheers erupt from the top of the tower. The Svards and Kriegars on the wall just stared down in dumbfounded shock.
Gunnar scarcely even needed to translate.