A few more groans came from the ground around them. The noise of battle resumed up the hill. The sounds of arrows had stopped, and now there was screaming. Oddi took off up the hill, and Ragnvald had started to join him when Heming’s hand on his arm held him back.
“We leave tonight for Tafjord,” said Heming. “That is the land I want—not this. My father spreads himself too thin, in pursuit of this dream of King Harald’s. Maer will be my kingdom. All of my father’s jarls will respect me then.” It took Ragnvald a moment to realize what Heming was saying: that he was planning some different assault even while fighting these men. Ragnvald would not have been able to split his attention so.
“You mean your father will,” Ragnvald said. More yelling sounded from up the hill. He needed to be there, with Hakon, where he was sworn. “Let me go.”
“Only if you come with us,” said Heming. “Otherwise you die here. My sword is always hungry for more blood. You should be my sworn man, not my father’s.”
Ragnvald stayed silent. He could not make his mind move from the battle at hand to think of this, except to know that his dreams had been dealt a blow here. Between Hakon and his son was where Jarl Runolf had died.
Pressing what he must have thought was his advantage, Heming continued, “My father thinks to make himself young by surrounding himself with young men.” He spoke quickly and angrily, words well rehearsed. “You can be one of my jarls when Maer is mine.”
“Must we leave this very moment?” Ragnvald asked. The sounds of fighting from the hall tore at him. His place was there, by Hakon. He had sworn it.
Heming did not seem to hear the sarcasm. “No. Only do not drink overmuch when we celebrate tonight. We leave when all are sleeping.”
“We must help them,” Ragnvald said, pulling out of Heming’s grasp, hoping Heming would not realize that Ragnvald had not agreed.
His legs felt weak as he sprinted up the hill, until he heard Heming’s footsteps behind him, and fear lent him a burst of strength. Heming would not kill him in the open, not when he thought he had Ragnvald’s agreement, but Ragnvald still reached the hall a half dozen paces ahead of him.
Torches lit the area now. Some of the men had dragged women into the shadows and raped them. One still screamed. The others only whimpered. A girl clutching a kitchen knife, her skirt streaked with blood, sat against a tree. She snarled at Ragnvald when he passed by, making Ragnvald think of Svanhild at her fiercest. He walked past her, trying not to see her. He would not hurt her worse.
He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that the sounds he heard had only been those of pillage, not of the slaughter of Hakon and Harald’s men. Some men had attacked with bows from the roof, but their arrows ran out before Hakon and Harald’s forces did. After their men fell, women fought back when they could—some had armed themselves with daggers and kitchen knives—but they were no match for Hakon’s men.
“Where were you?” Hakon asked when he saw Ragnvald approach. “I thought you were right behind me.”
“There were men in the woods,” said Ragnvald. He smiled, cheeks tight from the deer’s blood earlier and now the drying blood of men. “There aren’t anymore.”
“The men on the roof, the men in the woods. They meant to trap us in between,” said Guthorm. “Did they know of our coming? Did someone betray us?”
Ragnvald shrugged. “Perhaps they had watchers we did not see who glimpsed Guthorm’s scouts.” He hoped it had been that, and not a companion of the boy he had captured. Heming, at least, had not betrayed Guthorm in this, but he was planning a betrayal tonight.
Guthorm clapped Ragnvald on the shoulder. “You are right. I start at shadows in these fractious times.”
“We have taken but few losses,” said Hakon. “Perhaps they hoped to ambush us from the grove and the hall, but we brought too many men for them. It was wise of you and Harald to ally with me. Where is Heming?”
“Heming?” Ragnvald asked. “My lord, I must speak with you about—”
“Later,” said Guthorm. “We have work to do.”
Guthorm’s men had surrounded the hall with great bales of tinder, ready to be put to the torch. Archers on the roof, with now-empty quivers, tried to climb down, only to be prodded back up onto the turf by the warriors who surrounded the hall. Guthorm’s men banged on their shields.
“Kings of Hordaland,” called out Harald, once the noise subsided, “we will burn you in your hall, along with your crows on the roof, if you do not come out and swear to me.”
The great doors to the hall opened a crack.
“I am King Harald of Vestfold,” Harald proclaimed in a mighty voice, low-pitched enough to avoid the boy’s breaking that troubled him in more casual conversation. “I am the conqueror of King Gandalf of Akershus, the prophesied king of all Norway.” He presented himself with authority, at least. Guthorm had chosen his figurehead well. “If you swear allegiance to me, I will make you more powerful than you could ever dream. Your enemies will shake before you, and your sons will inherit great wealth. If you do not, your lives will be forfeit.”
The doors of the hall opened slowly. Two kings walked out, surrounded by a cadre of guards: Hogne and Frode Karusson, the brother kings of two adjoining Hordaland kingdoms. They were short, stout men, the kind of stoutness that gave strength. Both men looked as though they could wrestle a bear and win.
“But . . . you’re just a boy,” said King Hogne. Ragnvald had not heard much of the Karusson kings, except that Hogne was all bluster, and his brother Frode was all rage.
“I am what I am,” said Harald. “I will grow older, and Norway will be mine. You will not grow older than you are now if you do not swear to me.”
They did not swear, for who had heard of such a thing? Ragnvald could hear their thinking as though they shouted it. Harald, or Guthorm who drove him, was a madman or a visionary. Norse kings killed one another, or made alliances of equals. Men raided and sometimes settled, but this talk of conquering was a new language, from another land. They rushed forward, their guard band against Harald’s hundreds.
Harald gave the signal for his men to burn the hall. Hordaland men ran forward to die on the swords of Harald’s army. Ragnvald killed a few, for he was standing near Harald, where the fighting was thickest, but they would have died no matter who held the swords, trapped between fire and blade. The hall burned as the king’s men fell. Skalds later sung that Harald killed seven kings that day.
When this spasm of fighting was over, the hall still blazed. Ragnvald staggered off to find some watered ale to slake his thirst. Oddi stopped him, telling him Hakon wanted to speak with him.
“We’ve taken these prisoners,” said Hakon, gesturing to men bound and gagged, lying on the ground. One curled around a bloody stomach, moaning. “Some of them may know where the other Hordaland kings have gone. I have heard tell that Gudbrand is not here. He must have been here, for this is his own hall.”