*
If the days of trying to catch Solvi had been nerve-racking, they were nothing to the constant effort to stay far enough behind him to remain unseen, without losing his force entirely. Ragnvald peered into the distance until squinting at the horizon gave him a pounding headache. Even when he closed his eyes, the world remained divided into dark and bright.
At least the wind favored them. Only a day and a half after leaving the southern headland, Ragnvald’s ship entered Oslo Fjord toward Vestfold. Ragnvald ordered them to slow further. If Solvi’s force turned and engaged them before making Vestfold, they would be slaughtered to no good purpose. Ragnvald sat in the stern, watching and waiting.
Without the moderating effect of the ocean, the land of Vestfold was still snow-locked. A storm had come and delivered snow to knee height since Ragnvald left. At every bend in the fjord, Ragnvald feared they would come upon Solvi’s ships.
At the last turning, Ragnvald put Arnfast ashore.
“Vestfold is just over this hill, and then turn down into the valley.” He took a brooch that Harald had given him from his pouch and handed it to Arnfast. “Give this to Harald or his uncle Guthorm, and say it comes from me. Tell him that Solvi and his allies are coming, and that I follow with aid.” He gave the numbers of Heming’s forces, far too small for Ragnvald’s comfort, but help if they remained a surprise.
He made Arnfast repeat the message back to him several times before sending him off. Arnfast moved between trees like a silverfish in the water and was soon out of view in the forest.
“What should we do now?” Heming asked.
“Wait,” said Ragnvald. “We must wait until Solvi’s ships are lashed to Harald’s and he cannot easily turn and escape, and then we attack.”
Ragnvald did not know how long that might take. The fjord made another bend before it reached Vestfold, an hour’s row, and even less time still to sail. He wondered if he might hear something, and then, when some time had passed, whether the silence was due to a battle already fought and lost. He should have sent Arnfast with another runner, to come back with news. Yet how many different things could happen? Solvi’s men would attack Harald’s, either on land or at sea. Ragnvald thought Solvi might prefer a sea battle. Harald knew his own land and defenses, and Solvi did not walk quickly.
Ragnvald heard something that might be fighting. If his messenger had gotten through, if Harald listened to him, if Harald’s forces could move in time, they would be out on the water as well. Ragnvald ordered the ships to move. He could not tell what kind of battle it was, and the agony of the last few days of waiting, the weeks since he had left Harald, made it impossible to wait any longer. The ships raised their anchors, and men began rowing toward the noise, the clash of what sounded like ships’ flanks against one another, the yells of battle, the thud of swords on shields. Or that was what Ragnvald imagined. It was too easy to paint any number of pictures in his mind.
When his ship made the last turn, Ragnvald saw that Solvi’s ships had been able to beach, and his men streamed toward Harald’s hall, milling among the buildings. The roofs of several structures smoldered, but none were yet ablaze. At once Harald’s warriors burst from among the buildings to confront Solvi’s, a moment of surprise. But they were far too few to defeat Solvi’s forces, unless he had called his allies earlier than Ragnvald hoped.
Ragnvald saw banners from Frisia, Iceland, and Denmark, among the Norsemen: Solvi had gathered his forces from far and wide. Ragnvald could not think what to do. He had hoped for a ship-to-ship battle. Still, some of Solvi’s ships had not beached yet. Ragnvald ordered Grim to bring his ship near enough to attack one of Solvi’s or his allies’ that held the rear, and for the others to do the same.
His ship came in close to one of Solvi’s, still filled with warriors waiting for their time to advance. With the attention of the enemy ship’s men turned toward the fighting on land, Grim piloted Ragnvald’s ship in tight before anyone noticed their approach. His men threw grappling hooks across to lash the ships together and form a fighting platform.
Ragnvald jumped across the gap as it narrowed. The moment he landed, he faced a grizzled warrior with gray in his yellow beard and a graveyard of half-rotted teeth in his mouth. Ragnvald attacked. This warrior was a steady fighter, but slower and less skilled than Ragnvald, less suited to a shipboard battle. Ragnvald fought him to the edge of his ship and finally dispatched him with a cut across his throat. He shoved the man into the water before he could fall. His body would only clutter the deck. Let someone fish him out later, if they wanted his sword and armor. Or better yet, let Ran take him as a sacrifice.
His next opponent, a young boy with dark hair and a pockmarked chin, widened his eyes in fear when he saw Ragnvald advance. Ragnvald killed him too, as quickly as he could, without thought for his age. He needed to keep a steady pace or he would grow tired, his body realizing how his pursuit, the days of tension and terrible weather, had taxed him. The grip of his sword chilled the scar on his palm, numbing his hand. He held tighter, so it would not slip on the blood and sweat wetting it.
He had a respite before the next warrior attacked, and in the strange clarity that he sometimes gained in battle, he realized that his trap could still work. Fight through Solvi’s ships that remained manned, then send men ashore to trap Solvi’s men between themselves and Harald’s. There was still a trap, only it would be on land.
Ragnvald and his men dispatched the remaining forces on this ship. From the strange words of their shouts, Ragnvald thought they might be Danes. These were not Solvi’s sea-weathered, battle-hardened warriors. They died too easily.
Oddi’s ship and Heming’s engaged with other ships, and seemed to be beating them as well. Those who remained behind were the weakest. Solvi must have put them here, not intending them to fight.
Ragnvald ordered his ship’s lashings cut from the now-empty enemy ship, and rowed ahead to engage with another. This one they dispatched as well, and the rising tide pushed them forward into a crush of empty ships.
Awareness of Ragnvald’s attack passed through Solvi’s ships more slowly than he had thought it would. Men abandoned the next ship in the face of his overwhelming force, while the one beyond still pressed toward Vestfold’s shore, unaware of the threat behind them.