PART ONE
~ It was Many and Many a Year Ago ~
1101 A.D.
Hendocia
They had come from the sea.
A mass of Northmen longships had been sighted at sunset, riding the crest of the sea as a storm rolled in from the north. No matter the weather, Northmen raiders would ride their ships down the throat of the worst nature could throw at them and emerge the victor. Tonight was no exception. With the shore of England in sight, they had come for blood.
The storm surge was a bad one. The tide had washed up over the rocky shore and swamped half of the town as the villagers scrambled to gather what they could and flee. Winds whipped through the small and narrow avenues, blowing out candles and cooking fires. People were moving in darkness, fear filling every shadow and every corner of the night.
The timber and stone House of the King was on the northwest tip of the settlement, a longhouse with two floors that housed the king, his family, and the twelve mighty knights that served him. The fortress had an enormous bailey and the entire complex was surrounded by a timber and rock fence. The ends of the timber poles had been shaved away into sharp spikes, making it difficult to scale the walls. In all of this rain, the Northmen would not be able to burn the wood fences, so the storm, in a sense, was working towards the villagers’ advantage.
Soldiers, men who worked for and protected the king as well as the village as a whole, were riding into the village, urging the peasants to run. Run for the House! They would cry, their voices nearly drowned out by the slashing winds that were now starting to uproot parts of sod roofs, sending them sailing into people and things. Those buried beneath the sod and debris were being helped up by others, all of them making their way down the narrow avenues towards the House of the King.
Those inside the House of the King had come out, opening their pike-tipped gates and encouraging others to come inside. There was some warmth and light inside the House of the King, like a beacon of safety beckoning the terrified, and the villagers flocked towards it, pouring inside the massive doors that were open to the long room, the room where the king conducted his business. It was, literally, one long room that ran from one side of the house to the other, on the ground floor, while on the floor above, the king and his family lived in comfort.
But the long room was filling up as wet, frightened villagers filled it and the massive fire pit in the center of the long room was smoking terribly as the rain splashed in through the pitched roof, spraying water upon the burning embers. Beneath the longhouse, a natural depression had been dug out, creating a long tunnel that had three offshoots. Two of the rooms, carved into the dry, sandy soil and reinforced with stone, were for storage, but the third room was guarded all day, every day, and all night, too. Kongen’s Gull, the room was called. The King’s Gold.
It was a chamber forbidden.
Even now, the room was guarded by a figure in layers of leather protection and a heavy, iron sword that did not move from the door even as the villagers swarmed into the longhouse. The guard did not try to rush out to help; the sentinel remained by the door, in place, as was customary. Torches burned in iron sconces on the wall, on either side of the door, illuminating the warrior, creating phantom shadows against the walls of the low-ceilinged chamber. The smell, in this tunnel, was that of dirt and the sea.
The floor above the tunnel was causing vibrations in the subterranean rooms and even though they were reinforced with slabs of Northumberland sandstone that had been carefully formed and positioned, dirt still rained down from the ceiling simply because of the load overhead. Hundreds of terrified villagers, now crammed into the warm and smoky room, as the storm lashed the longhouse with vicious fury.
The guard at the door of the Kongen’s Gull remained steady even as the floor above was loud with frightened people. The storm outside could be heard even down in the depths. This level had been known to flood once in a while and if that happened, the guard would have to be ready to move the gold to a safe haven. Eathesfed, the Sea King, was very proud of his horde, as it was something that had been in his family for centuries, passed down from father to son. Although subsequent kings had expanded upon the horde, and a few had actually lessened it, the stash, for the most part, was intact and incredibly valuable.
But the fact remained that decades of Northman raids along the coast had left it alone, as they’d left Hendocia as a whole alone. Settlements up and down the coast were hit, and hit hard, but Hendocia had always been spared. Some said it was because there was more Norse than Saxon blood in the inhabitants but some said it was because the settlement itself was cursed and feared. It was a kingdom of sea people who buried their dead right along the coast, in a line, like an army of corpses between the settlement and the sea. Northmen weren’t particularly eager to cross the dead to get to the settlement beyond, but on this night, that superstition had evidently changed.
The longships had arrived.
Through the storm lashing the coastline, the great ships with heads carved into shapes of serpents and beasts had arrived. There were twelve of them in all, mighty ships with men who were fearless to attack during the heart of a storm. They essentially crashed onto the sandy shore, with the tombs of Hendocia’s dead creating a defensive line in front of the, but one of the leaders of the war party, a man named, oddly enough, Odintide Red Fist, was the first one to leap from the boat into the waist-deep water that was surging upon the shore.
Odintide was followed by many other men, men dressed in leather and furs, and in heavy wool, all of them struggling through the tumultuous water to reach the shore. Wind whipped about their wet kyrtills, the long tunics the Vikings tended to wear, freezing the soaked fabric and causing teeth to chatter. But it was of no matter; Vikings thrived on harsh conditions, for it fed their lust for glory and conquest. They looked upon it as a badge of honor to suffer the elements and not complain.
Bearing round shields of wood and steel, the Vikings brought forth their weapons as they made their way onto land. Vikings swords were fearsome; made of high quality steel for the most part, they could be anywhere from a foot long to three feet long, of different shapes. Some men drew swords they had stolen upon the numerous raids along the coast of the land known as Danelagh, now no longer in Northmen hands but still known by such a name. This land had once belonged to them but the Angles and Saxons had taken it over. Therefore, there was vengeance in their actions this night.
Vengeance for a land that had once been theirs.
Onto the sandy shore they came, passing the City of the Dead, the tombs of Hendocia’s ancestors, and through the sea grass that was gray-green in color. Like a great tide of beasts rising from the sea they came, finally entering the city outskirts and ransacking it as they went. No cottage went unexplored or unravaged but, because of the rain, they couldn’t set fire to those contents they didn’t steal, so they took the great war hammers that some of the men carried and smashed everything in sight.
Those same hammers smashed villagers who hadn’t yet fled. The body count began piling up as the Northmen pushed further into the village, heading for the House of the King in the distance. People were still running, taking the last of their belongings, or trying to move the elderly who simply didn’t move fast enough. Three Northmen burst into a small, neat home at the intersection of two avenues and found a very calm older woman sitting by the side of a very calm elderly woman who evidently could not get out of bed or who could not be moved.
While two of the men charge into the hut and began plundering it, a third man stood in the doorway and watched as his companions slit the throats of both women when they didn’t have any valuables for them to steal. Leaving the dying women behind, the pair charged from the home, looking for the next target, as the third man stood in the driving rain and watched the victims bleed out all over the floor and bed.
The third man was very tall, broad shouldered, and young. He had long, blond hair that he tied at the back of his head to keep it out of his way and on this night, his hair was sopping from the storm along with the rest of him. This man was different from the rest; he was the son of Nordjul Olafsson, also known as Nordjul the Fierce. Nordjul’s wife, Ufandia, had given her husband eight daughters and one son, and it was this son who was in command of this expedition. Odintide Red Fist was actually Nordjul’s lieutenant, a man who served the Gostomysl Dynasty, which Nordjul presided over. Nordjul’s son, his precious only son, was now proving himself as a worthy successor of his father’s legacy.
Which was why the son found himself on this raid. Long had his father coveted Hendocia; everyone in the settlement of Brons, where Nordjul lived, knew of it because it was said that the rulers of Hendocia had come from Brons centuries ago. Nordjul wanted it back but was, unfortunately, too ill to suffer through the difficult trip. His son, at twenty years and three, had already been a warrior for several years and was perhaps wiser and more skilled than his father was. As Nordjul remained behind, his son, Rhonan Nordjulson, also known as Rhonan Gray Sword for the very big steel broadsword he bore, went to take back the Kingdom of Hendocia for the Gostomysl Dynasty.
The reclamation of Hendocia would be Rhonan’s legacy.
Therefore, this was a very big test for Rhonan, who still stood in the doorway of the ransacked hut, thinking it had been unnecessary, and dishonorable, to kill two helpless women who had not put up a fight. But he would not reprimand men who were bent on claiming all they could from Hendocia, men who had been at sea for weeks and men who were determined to gain what treasures they could for themselves. It was simply the way of the Northman and Rhonan moved away from the hut, following his men as they continued to tear up the town, heading for the longhouse on the hill. The rain beat down on them and the wind tried to throw them off their feet, but still, they struggled onward, heading for the two-storied target, shouting the glory of Odin the entire way. Once they reached the perimeter of the longhouse, however, the real fight began.
The House of the King contained most of the villagers of Hendocia. Therefore, there was a good deal of manpower to fight back the Northmen of less than one hundred and fifty men in total. The villagers inside the perimeter numbered in the hundreds. But those superior numbers meant little to Rhonan, who sent his men off to find oxen or horses and strips of hemp rope. While he was waiting for his men to return with the goods, he and Odintide skirted the perimeter of the fortress, looking for a weakness to exploit, while those who hadn’t gone out in search of animals and rope kept the villagers busy at the main gate.
The entire circumference of the longhouse was protected by the same spike-ended pole fence that was now soaked from the storm. Normally, they would simply burn the fence down but with the rain of biblical proportions, that was out of the question. The fencing was sunk deep into the earth but because the longhouse was on a raised slope, much of the sandy soil was washing away and the fence, in places, was sagging.
In fact, Rhonan reached up his long arms and grasped a pair of sagging poles, using his weight to pull them down but he was fended off by some women on the other side who saw his hands and beat them off with whatever weapons they happened to have with them. He almost lost fingers before he pulled away. That told him they were using farming implements with sharp edges. He didn’t want to have his fingers hacked off by iron tools.
So he fell back and continued to troll along the fence line while Odintide distracted the women who had tried to make mincemeat out of his digits. Rhonan moved west while Odintide moved east. Rhonan stayed close to the fence, in the darkness and shadows, until he came to a portion of the fence that didn’t seem to be guarded well. He could see a few men, standing several feet away, but they were speaking to each other more than they were actually watching the fence.
Rhonan ran his fingers along the gaps in the fence, feeling the wood give and knowing he could make it inside providing he had enough time. As the rain began to whip sideways, blown by horizontal winds, he ran back to Odintide where the man was currently shouting and cursing at the women on the other side of the fence. He pulled the man back, muttering in his ear.
“There is a second place to exploit over on the northwest corner,” he said. “Keep these people occupied long enough for me to get inside. Then you shall join me. We must get to the gate and open it.”
Odintide nodded firmly, water dripping off his bushy beard and heavy brows. “It will be done, my lord.”
Rhonan slapped Odintide on the shoulder and ran off, into the darkness, losing himself in the shadows in case any of the women that Odintide was distracting decided to follow him. He grinned as he moved, hearing Odintide shouting curses at the women. Odintide was the bravest, and sometimes most reckless, man he knew. He was a bear of a man whom Rhonan had known since birth. He was outspoken, brash, and crude, but he was loyal and humorous. Odintide, the oldster, was all things a Northman should embody.
Rhonan wished he could be more like the old man at times, for Rhonan had a gentle side to him that his father had tried to beat out of him, a calm and philosophical edge to his personality that Nordjul had, at times, found shameful. Perhaps, that was why he sent Odintide with his son to reclaim the kingdom of the sea people. Perhaps, deep down, he feared that Rhonan would show too much compassion for what needed to be done. Odintide would not.
But Rhonan pushed thoughts of his father’s secret shame and Odintide’s killer instincts aside as he focused on the weakness in the wall. He crouched up against the soft fence line, where the wood was easily moved, and peered through the gaps to see the men on the other side, still speaking with one another. Pulling out his dirk, he put it between his teeth and slithered through the gap in the wood, buffeted by the wind and the rain, and slithering across the mud on his belly until he reached the two guards.
Quickly, Rhonan leapt to his feet, slitting the throat of one man before turning to the second man, who was just lifting his sword, and stabbing the man through the neck with his dirk. As fast as lightning, Rhonan had two dead men at his feet and he rushed back to the gap in the fence, throwing his weight on the fence posts and bending them over so far that they were nearly horizontal. Now, there was a clear opening in the wall and he could see Odintide bringing men around the side of the enclosure to exploit it.
But Rhonan couldn’t wait for them. The alarm was being sounded by men on the second floor of the House of the King who happened to see the breach in the wall. He had to try and make it to the gates to open them for the rest of the men and he took off running, throwing his shoulder into a man who tried to stop him and using his dirk against another. But more men were starting to rush him and he unsheathed his sword, wielding it defensively and preparing to take an onslaught.
He braced himself for the fight.
Men rushed at him and he began swinging his blade, but those same men were just as quickly distracted by the flood of Northman now pouring in through the gap in the fence. It took attention from Rhonan and he was grateful; his goal was to find the king himself at this point. Cutting off the head of the beast would assure victory, so his target was the House of the King. With more of his men following him now, cutting down farmers who were trying to defend their king, he charged for the enormous wood structure.
The first floor had a door to the rear which he immediately spied. He was quite sure it was locked but he charged up to it anyway, surprised to find that whatever bolt held it had either been improperly thrown or not at all, for the door gave way with very little prompting. He kicked it open, with some of his men behind him, and he instructed them to search for the king. They charged into the longhouse to the screams of the women and children in the great room, now terrified of the invaders descending upon them.
Rhonan, however, took a moment to study the room and the floor above, which he could see – there was a balcony structure above because the great hearth in the middle of the room, now blazing, sent smoke all the way to the roof of the longhouse where it escaped through small holes in the ceiling. It was Rhonan’s presumption that the king would not be upstairs. More than likely he would be either in this room, facing his fight bravely (which he did not see at all), or he would be someplace safe and defensible. A second floor chamber did not fit that need. But a solid, ground-floor chamber might.
Or a storage vault.
To his right, Rhonan saw a passage carved into the ground, steps leading down into a hole. He began to move towards it, warily, ignoring the sounds of screams around him as his men began to take sport with some of the women in the great room. That didn’t concern him; what concerned him was this hole in the ground, with steps carved into it, and the darkness below. It would be a perfect place for an ambush… or to hide a king. He paused a moment, trying to determine if there was any movement beyond. Seeing none, for it was perfectly dark, he kept his sword in front of him as he very slowly descended the steps.
Down, into the darkness….