Olaf the Glorious: A Story of the Viking Age by Robert Leighton (rocket ebook reader .TXT) 📖

chiefs--as Kolbiorn Stallare, Thorfinn the Dashing, Ketil the Tall, and Thorstein Oxfoot--had their stations forward on the forecastle deck or in the "close quarters" nearer the prow. These stood ready with their spears and swords to resist boarders, and they were protected by the shield men, who were ranged before them at the bulwarks with their shields locked together. At various points of vantage groups of archers had been placed, the best marksmen being stationed before the mast, where no rigging or cordage would mar their aim. At this part stood Einar Eindridson throughout the whole battle. Loud and shrill sounded the war horns from both sides. Nearer and nearer King Sweyn of Denmark drew onward to the attack. The wind had fallen, the sea was calm; the sun hung hot and glaring in a cloudless sky, flashing on burnished helmet and gilded dragon head. King Olaf's prows were pointed towards the north, so that the enemy as they came down upon him had the strong midday sunlight in their eyes. King Sweyn Fork Beard opened his attack with a shower of arrows directed at the stem defenders of the Long Serpent. King Olaf's archers at once replied in like manner. This exchange of arrows was continued without ceasing while Sweyn's ships came onward at their fullest speed. Then, as the Danes drew yet closer under the Norsemen's prows, arrows gave place to javelins and spears, which were hurled with unerring aim from side to side.

Sweyn's men turned their stems towards both bows of the Long Serpent, as she stood much further forward than any others of Olaf's ships. Many who could not approach this coveted position turned their attention to the Short Serpent and the Crane. And now the battle raged fiercely. Yet the Norsemen stood firm as a wall of rock, while the Danes, assailed by a heavy rain of spears and arrows from the Serpent's decks, began to lose heart ere ever a man of them was able to make his way through the close bulwark of shields. Olaf's prows were so lofty that they could not be scaled, while the defenders, from their higher stand, had full command over their foes. Thrand Squint Eye and Ogmund Sandy were the first of the Norsemen to fall. These two leapt down upon the deck of King Sweyn's dragon, where, after a tough hand to hand fight, in which they vanquished nine of the Dane King's foremost warriors, they were slain. Kolbiorn Stallare was very angry at these two having broken the ranks, and he gave the order that none of the Norsemen were to attempt to board the enemy's ships without express command.

Sweyn's ship lay under the larboard bow of the Serpent, and Wolf the Red had thrown out grappling hooks, holding her there. She was a longship, of twenty banks of oars, and her crew were the pick of all the warmen of Denmark. Sharp and fierce was the fight at this side, and great was the carnage. While Kolbiorn and others of Olaf's stem defenders kept up an incessant battle with their javelins and swords, King Olaf and his archers shot their arrows high in air so that they fell in thick rain upon the Danish decks. Yet the Danes, and the Swedes from the rear, were not slow to retaliate. Although they found it impossible to board the Serpent, they nevertheless could assail her crowded decks with arrows and well aimed spears, and the Norsemen fell in great numbers. In the meantime Sweyn's other ships--not one of which was larger than the smallest of King Olaf's eleven dragons--made a vigorous onset upon Olaf's left and right wings. The Norsemen fought with brave determination, and as one after another of the Dane ships was cleared of men it was drawn off to the rear, and its place was occupied by yet another ship, whose warriors, fresh and eager, renewed the onset. All along Olaf's line there was not one clear space, not a yard's breadth of bulwark unoccupied by fighting men. The air was filled with flying arrows and flashing spears and waving swords. The clang of the weapons upon the metal shields, the dull thud of blows, the wild shouts of the warriors and cries of the wounded, mingled together in a loud vibrating murmur. To Earl Sigvaldi, who lay with his ships apart at the far end of the bay, it sounded like the humming of bees about a hive. Not only at the prows, but also behind at the sterns of Olaf's compact host, did the Danes attempt to board. The Norsemen, indeed, were completely surrounded by their foemen. King Olaf fought from the poop deck of the Serpent with no less vigour than did Kolbiorn and his stem defenders at the prow. He assailed each ship as it approached with showers of well directed arrows. Then, as the stem of one of the Danish longships crashed into his vessel's stern, he dropped his longbow and caught up his spears, one in either hand, and hurled them into the midst of his clamouring foes. Time after time he called to his followers, and led them with a fierce rush down upon the enemy's decks, sweeping all before him. Seven of King Sweyn's vessels did he thus clear; and at last no more came, and for a time he had rest. But a great cry from the Serpent's forecastle warned him that his stem men were having a hard struggle. So he gathered his men together and led them forward. Many were armed with battleaxes, others with spears, and all with swords. Calling to his shield bearers to make way for him, he pressed through the gap and leapt down upon the deck of Sweyn Forkbeard's dragon.

"Onward, Christ men, Cross men!" he cried as full three score of his bravest warriors followed close at his back. And he cut his way through the crowd of Danes, who, led by Sweyn himself, had been making a final rally and preparing to board the Serpent. King Sweyn was wounded in the right arm by a blow from Kolbiorn's sword. Kolbiorn was about to repeat the blow when several of the Danes, retreating aft, crowded between him and their king. Sweyn drew back, and crying aloud to his men to follow him, turned tail and led them over the bulwarks on to the deck of a ship that was alongside of him. This ship, which had not yet been secured by the Norsemen's grappling irons, he now withdrew to the farther shores of the bay. As he thus retreated from the battle he sounded his horns, calling off those of his ships that were not yet altogether vanquished. Tired, wounded, and despairing, he owned himself no match for Olaf the Glorious. He had made the attack with five and forty fully manned warships, and yet all this great force had been as nothing against the superior skill and courage of the defenders. Thus it befell, as Olaf Triggvison had guessed, that the Danes did not gain a victory over the Norsemen. While the Danes were in full retreat the Swedes hastened forward to renew the attack. The Swedish king, believing that Olaf Triggvison must certainly have suffered terrible loss at the hands of the Danes, had the fullest hope that he would take very little time in turning the defeat of King Sweyn into a victory for himself. He had already, from a distance, kept up an intermittent fire of arrows into the midst of the Norse ships, and it may be that he had thus helped to reduce King Olaf's strength. He now rowed proudly upon the left wing of the Norse fleet. Here he divided his own forces, sending one division to an attack upon Olaf's prows, and himself rowing round to the rear. Many of the disabled Dane ships barred his way, but he at last brought his own longship under the poop of the Long Serpent. This interval had given the Norsemen a brief respite in which to clear their disordered decks and refresh themselves with welcome draughts of cooling water which their chief ordered to be served round.

Vain were the Swede king's hopes. When he advanced upon the Serpent Olaf Triggvison was ready to meet him, refreshed by his brief rest, unwounded still, and with his warlike spirit burning eager within him.

"Let us not lose courage at the sight of these heathen devourers of horse flesh!" he cried as he rallied his men. "Onward, my brave Christians! It is for Christ's faith that we fight today. Christ's cross against Thor's hammer! Christian against pagan!"

Then, when the anchors and grappling hooks were fastened upon the Swede king's ship, Olaf hastened to the rail and assailed her men first with javelin and long spear, and then with sword. So high was the Serpent's poop above the other's stem that the Norsemen had to bring their weapons to bear right down below the level of their sandalled feet, and whenever the Swedish soldiers, emboldened by seeing an occasional gap in King Olaf's ranks, tried to climb on board, they were hewn down or thrown back into the sea.

At last Olaf of Sweden came forward with a strong body of swordsmen and axemen, intent upon being the first of the three hostile princes to plant his foot on the deck of the Long Serpent. Olaf Triggvison saw him approaching, and again calling his Norsemen to follow him, he leapt over the rail and landed on the enemy's deck. The son of Queen Sigrid stood still on his forecastle. His face suddenly blanched, but he gripped his sword, ready to encounter Norway's king. Here the two Olafs met and crossed swords, and a desperate duel ensued. Scarcely had they made half a dozen passes when Olaf Triggvison, with a quick movement of his wrist, struck his opponent's sword from his grasp and it fell on the deck.

"Too bold is Queen Sigrid's son," cried Olaf, "if he thinks to board the Long Serpent. Now have I got you in my power and might put an end to you and your worship of heathen idols. But never shall it be said that Olaf Triggvison struck down a foe who was unarmed. Pick up your blade, proud King of the Swedes, and let us see who is the better man, you or I."

So when Swedish Olaf stood again on guard, the two crossed swords once more.

"Now will I avenge the insult you offered my mother!" cried Olaf Sigridson, "and you who struck her on the cheek with your glove shall be struck dead with a weapon of well tempered steel instead of foxskin."

"Guard well your head," returned Triggvison, "lest I knock off your helmet. The man who taught you the use of the sword might have been better employed, for in truth he has taught you very little."

"He has taught me enough to enable me to slay such a man as you!" cried the Swede, gathering his strength for a mighty blow.

"That remains to be proved," retorted Olaf Triggvison. "Wait! you have got the wrong foot foremost!"

But without heeding, the Swede king brought down his sword with a great sweep, aiming at Olaf Triggvison's head. As with a lightning flash Olaf raised his sword to meet the blow. His opponent's blade was broken in two halves, while at the same moment he fell severely wounded upon the deck.

"Swedish sword blades are good," said Olaf Triggvison, "but the swords of the Norsemen are better."

He thought that he had made an end of the King of Sweden. But some of the Swedish soldiers who had been watching the duel rushed forward, and, raising their fallen king, carried him off on board another of his ships, while Olaf Triggvison went aft along the crowded decks, and men fell beneath his blows, as the ripe grain falls before