Legends Never Die: A Moment of Reflection (ch. 116)

“Not to talk you out of this brother, but… what exactly is the goal here?” Halfdan questioned as my army bypassed Ribe, save for the two thousand Norwegians that were sent in to enforce a peace upon the burning city. There was a hum of anticipation in the air as word quickly spread about our aim -- to chase down the fleeing Danes. “It's about to start pissing down rain, and I thought you wanted one great big battle?” 

“I did. Do,” I amended, looking out at the road the fleeing army had traveled. The dirt path was nothing but a muck that had already claimed the boots of those that traveled at the rear of the column. “Which is why, like a herd of sheep, they must be shepherded. They'll splinter apart and flee to the ends of the land if we let them.” 

Halfdan snorted, “So, what I'm hearing is that you did too good of a job of putting the fear of Hel in them?” 

I considered it for a moment before I allowed myself a small smile, “Something like that.” I admitted, earning a chuckle from my brother. Five thousand men had already cut their losses and fled from any future battle. That was a great deal more than I had been prepared for, and, worse, it would cause future issues. 

Bands of men ten to twenty strong breaking off from the main army… they wouldn't just leave Denmark. At least not at first. Out of fear or need, they would become bandits that would be a constant thorn in my side as I would need to scour the lands for them. Given my own success against Charlemagne, it wasn't an issue that I wanted to deal with while I went about conquering around the Baltic Sea. 

So, we had two true tasks -- we needed to turn the five thousand men that had broken off from the main army around, and we needed to keep the main army intact as they fled to Alabu. There, I suspected that Horrik would muster up the last of his defenses. He would have no choice but to sally out and attack, as Alabu just didn't have the food reserves to survive a siege. 

The biggest issue, however, was making sure that Horrik had enough confidence to commit to the attack. If he jumped onto a longship and sailed off…? The very thought opened up a pit in my stomach. The thought that Horrik or Thorfinn could escape after I had done so much to prepare for my vengeance… I genuinely felt ill at the idea. Which is why I needed to be careful. 

“It shall soon storm, Wolfkissed,” King Widukind remarked, looking up at the gray clouds overhead. The air carried the scent of rain, feeling wet and humid. It was ideal for my purposes. 

“Then let us march,” I replied, urging my horse forward. My scouts would already be keeping an eye on the army, and they would undoubtedly have scouts looking at their back. “We know their destination. Let's force them to march through the storm,” I said, and I couldn't stop the grin that begun to tug at the corners of my lips. 

With that, a horn was blown as my army marched on. We avoided the already muddy path that Thorfinn had used, which would take us wide, but we were still able to shadow the larger army. As I predicted, the moment that they realized we were giving chase, they immediately picked up their pace. 

I had fought armies much larger than my own before, but only by carefully maneuvering several factors. In Crete, I had spent weeks drawing them out to respond to an opening so I could use the terrain to my advantage. In Bulgaria, I had taken advantage of what I knew of the commanders and sowed distrust between them so I was instead fighting two armies at once rather than a single large one. 

Now I was doing both at the same time. 

Horrik's grip on Denmark was slipping, and he knew it. By now, he would know the Danvirke had fallen. He would know that Hedeby had declared me king. He might even know that his army had retreated from Ribe. All of it painted a damning picture, and that would force his hand. He would have to confront me on the field. Defeating me was his only hope to restore his damaged authority. 

That gave me the battle I wanted, but just as in Crete, I had to cultivate the army that I would face. Hunger and exhaustion. Those were my weapons of choice in this battle. 

They would march through the rain and the mud. Through the night and day, if I had my way. They would have no time for foraging, and if their supplies were burned along the way? 

Days of marching through mud on an empty stomach, harried and harassed every step of the way. By the time we chose our field of battle, it would already be half won. 

…

My army lagged behind Thorfinn’s by nearly half a day, with a gap that steadily kept growing as each day, my men would stop to rest. Meanwhile, I was part of the raiders that nipped at their heels. There were two hundred of us in total, each changing out a time to attack. The mornings came with a heavy fog that was ideal for raiding up and down their column. It, however, cleared during the afternoon and with it came the rain that the army was forced to march through. 

It was no light drizzle either, but a true summer storm with fat droplets that struck with physical force and soaked you to the bone. My raiders would rest under a tent then, kept dry and warm by a low fire. 

Then, once night fell, the other group would set out to harass them. True Sight made it child’s play to see where they kept their supplies, and Thorfinn was no Hadi or Harun. On the first night, we burnt a significant portion of their food stores, and on the second, we cut through the guard and destroyed the rest. 

They started to send out bands to collect food from villages, but that swiftly stopped when their men never returned. Slowly but surely, they felt the noose tightening around their necks and their options getting more and more limited. Until finally, they had only two. 

They could slow down to hunt and forage, but in doing so they would allow my army to close the gap. Which would render their punishing march not only pointless, but counter productive. Or, they could grit their teeth and power through the hunger and exhaustion. Considering their flagging morale, and the fact that even with hunting and foraging they would struggle to feed such an army, they chose the latter. Exactly as I’d hoped they would. 

I'm certain that there were many that would want to defect from the army that was forced to march for days on end, through the mud and rain on empty stomachs and no sleep. Only our constant raids convinced most of them that there was no such escape. And finding the corpses of those few that tried anyway proved a compelling argument to seek safety in numbers. 

The journey, under ideal circumstances, should have taken around a week with a fast march. Twenty miles a day was fast enough to be quick, and slow enough it was sustainable. But with all the rain and mud? The fleeing army moved closer to ten miles a day. Then five as the hunger and exhaustion set in. Once again Thorfinn did exactly as I wanted and pressed on, trying to reach Alabu as fast as possible. It was tempting to just attack. He had largely hidden himself from me, but I knew that if I truly wished for it, I could find Thorfinn in the army. 

But that was contrary to my broader strategy, so I resisted. Barely. 

It was the better part of two weeks later when the army began to close in on its destination, limping forward with my own army less than a day's march right behind them. And, it was as we began to near Alabu that I realized that I had begun to recognize the wilderness around us. Paths that I had walked down as a boy, forests that I had hunted in. 

“We're near home,” Halfur muttered under his breath, realizing it just as Halfdan and I had. “I came down this path when I left home. We're not too far from the old village,” He continued, a frown tugging at his lips. 

I hadn't at all been prepared for the wave of homesickness that struck me like a bolt of lightning. I found myself clenching the reins of my horse with a white knuckled grip. All too easily, I  remembered the last time I had seen my home -- the house that I had been raised in. The moment that I found my eldest brother dead, slain by cowards who had attacked and slain more of my kin at my farm. I could recall the black anger that had possessed me like a vengeful spirit and how I had torn a dozen men apart so savagely that they looked like they had been ravaged by a wild beast. 

It was just a house, I knew. The parts that made it a home were long since gone. There was no point in going there. Not anymore. Yet, I still found myself moving forward, urging my horse down the path that would take us by our childhood home. Wordlessly, my brothers followed me. 

The path was at once entirely too long and too short, I found. The more I saw of it, the more I recognized, and the more memories were stirred up. Things that I’d thought I had long since forgotten came to mind. 

“I remember that tree,” Halfdan pointed out, a small grin rising. “Sieg got stuck in it and was too scared to come down.” 

To that, Haldur snorted. “Brandr had to climb up and push him out.” 

“Because you both said you would catch me. And didn't,” I felt compelled to point out. “I'm surprised I managed to live this long with the two of you looking out for me. I nearly broke my neck.” I couldn't remember for the life of me what had compelled me to climb up the tree as a young boy, only that I had climbed too high and I couldn't make my way down. I also vividly remembered both Halfdan and Haldur jeering at me from below, promising to catch me if I jumped. 

Even as a boy, I had been wise enough to not trust that.

Halfdan belted out a laugh, “I'm more surprised your mother didn't wring our necks. I still remember the noise you made when you hit the ground. ‘Ahhh- Oof’” he mimicked with a grin. It was a pretty faithful recreation. 

“I remember. I felt fine once I got up… for all of ten minutes.” I battered back fondly. 

“I remember that. You got up like nothing was wrong until you burst out crying and ran home shouting that you hated us,” Halfdan laughed. I had meant every word at the time too. It was strange how bitter memories could become our most treasured with enough time. Though, I think the fondness mostly stemmed from Mother assigning my chores to Haldur and Halfdan while I got a treat. 

I had avoided thinking of those times. I hadn't even been aware of it, not really. My life before the betrayal my family suffered felt so… tainted by it. Thinking of those happier times led me to think about Brandr and the others. Which would lead me to think about what I had lost. What had been taken from me. And then I found myself consumed by a wave of bitterness and anger that didn't have a target. At least not one in my grasp. 

I’m not sure what had changed. Perhaps time had healed the wound, or maybe it was the fact that the targets of my vengeance were at long last in my sights. But I found the memories weren't so bitter anymore as we made our way down familiar paths. Though, it was still something of a fist to the gut when we first caught sight of our old home. 

It felt like a betrayal that it looked so unchanged. That so much could be different, and yet it was almost identical to my memories. Smoke traveled up from the hearth, telling me that my home was now occupied by another. Yet, there was no one in the fields. 

“They put the firewood in the same place,” Halfdan noted, his voice thick with an emotion neither of us commented on. 

“They'll have a fine harvest too,” Haldur added, his gaze sweeping through the fields as we approached our old home. It was at this treeline where I had killed my first man with my trusty sling. And it had been in the doorway where I had slain three more men. I hadn't realized how young I had been at the time. I thought myself almost a man at twelve years old, but I really had been just a child with more strength than sense. 

I swung a leg over my horse, landing lightly on the ground. I also recalled slaughtering the men that I had found here in the aftermath of the raid. There were traces of the battle still, I realized -- noting the faded bloodstains that marked the building and the stones. “It's smaller than I remember,” I muttered, realizing that I would have to duck to enter the front door. 

Halfdan barked a laugh at that, “The house hardly shrunk, little brother. You've just become a giant.” I knew he was right there, but it felt as if the house truly had shrunk. I hadn't even realized it, not truly, but I had outgrown my father. He wouldn't have to duck his head to enter his home. 

I wasn't sure how I felt about that. My father in my memories had always been a towering man larger than life itself. The idea that if he were still alive I would be looking down at him… it made my heart squeeze in a way I didn't care for. 

“Why did we even come here?” Haldur asked, though the question seemed directed to himself as much as it was us. “The only thing this has done is frighten whoever lives here now.” That much was true. Given that there was smoke coming from the hearth, they must have hid themselves in a hurry. I couldn't really blame them for that. 

“I wanted to see our home again,” I admitted. “I doubt we'll see it again after this.” I would be king. Haldur was a Jarl in Norway. There would be wars to wage and kingdoms to manage. 

I- we, had outgrown the sleepy little farm we had been raised on. 

“I wanted to pay our respects to Brandr. You did bury him with the others, right Siegfried?” I looked at Halfdan, vaguely insulted that he would even consider the idea that I wouldn't. At my expression, he shrugged. “I imagine you had a rough time leaving, Sieg. It'd be understandable if you couldn't.” 

“I did,” I said, gesturing to the path in the forest that was our family graveyard. The bones of our grandparents were buried in that forest, as were the bones of our brothers. All but our father, Havi, and… wordlessly, we followed Halfdan into the woods, finding an overgrown dirt path. 

I half dreaded what I would see when we arrived at the graveyard, but I was surprised to see that I was both right and wrong. Exactly as I had feared, the graves showed signs of disrespect. Stones had been smashed and the graves dug up… yet, the bones had been returned to the graves at some point, and protective stones had replaced the ones that were destroyed. Someone had disrespected my deceased kin… and someone had corrected that injustice. 

Both Halfdan and Haldur said nothing of it as they offered their prayers to those that we lost. I considered what I would tell their ghosts, but I found that I didn't have the words. I would have to honor them with action. 

As the three of us left the forest to find that our horses were where we left them, I became aware of the weight on my shoulders. We saddled up once more, our business here done. Yet, it was as we began to leave that a flash of movement caught my eye, and I looked up into a tree to see a little girl looking down at me. She had young, dirty blonde hair, and looked down at me with wide green eyes that were filled with fear. 

I offered a thin smile to her and a small wave, and after a moment of confusion, she waved back. 

I didn't know who lived in our former home, but it was theirs now. For better or for worse, our fate lay in a completely different direction, far beyond the sleepy farm that should have been ours.

Our return was greeted with some confusion, but no questions as we set out on the path once more. The quiet moment was just that -- a moment. Now, once more, we were back to tightening the noose around Horrik and his kin and after that brief moment of peace I felt my resolve become that much firmer. 

The farm had been a day's walk from Alabu, but I found that the journey was dramatically shortened on horseback. Our band of two hundred horsemen chased the army to Alabu, almost to the very gates themselves. They managed to find a final burst of energy at being so close to their destination, and they almost fought each other to escape behind Alabu’s palisade. 

Unlike our old home, the town had changed since I’d last seen it -- it had been in the throes of celebrating our victory then, right up until I had been poisoned and rescued by Thorkell. It had expanded significantly in the years following our departure, even the brief glimpse I had gotten of it as we sailed by on our way to the Romans. It had become a town that was a peer of Ribe which… honestly, wasn’t saying much. Not compared to what I had seen in my travels.

But it wasn’t the town that had my attention. Not really. It was the two men standing on the palisade. 

Horrik and Thorfinn. 

Horrik looked older than I had last seen him. There were wrinkles that had gathered in the corners of his eyes and around his mouth, while there were traces of white in his beard. Stress had aged him, but he was putting on a brave front as he looked beyond the edge of his town that was now overstuffed with a starving and exhausted army, who would no doubt fracture in short order unless he took action. 

Thorfinn looked more like Horrik now -- his hair was pulled back in a similar hairstyle that his father used to have it in, while an eyepatch covered his missing eye. Unlike his father, however, his expression was one of pure black hatred as he glared in our direction. 

I thought that I would have a stronger reaction seeing them both once more. The others certainly did. I could hear Haldur grinding his teeth while Halfdan’s hands were trembling with rage. Yet, I found that I was strangely calm as I regarded the two who had begun it all. The ones who had inadvertently made me the man I am today. 

Slowly and deliberately, I raised a hand up to my neck and drew a line across my neck. The same action I had given them once before. Their expression tightened, but if they had a response, I didn’t care to hear it. I simply turned my horse around and turned to my army as it was marching up the dirt path. 

This had gone on long enough, I decided. 

By tomorrow, my quest for vengeance would be fulfilled.