Chapter 35

The Siege of Fécamp

Adrenaline surged in his veins. His mouth was bone dry, his gut clenched, and his pulse thundered in his throat. Every limb twitched, his muscles jumping with energy, primed for the impending battle. As the Dragon of Denmark, he’d led countless raids and won numerous victories against the Franks. But now, as he led a fleet of fearsome drakkar warships and a formidable army of two thousand Viking warriors into the greatest combat of his entire life, Sk?rde found that he no longer yearned for glory on the battlefield.

He wanted to live for Ylva.

In Denmark, he’d always thrived on Viking raids, expeditions, and conquests. He’d sought to win his father’s attention and approval through ferocity and triumph in battle. He had not wanted a forced marriage for political alliance and had never considered taking a wife. Being sent to Normandy had seemed like a banishment. A betrayal. Another abandonment by a father who had always spurned his bastard son. Sk?rde had always thought he would die in battle. And feast with Odin and the Einherjar —the valiant Vikings chosen by the Valkyrie—in the splendor of Valhalla.

But now, as his enormous longship Dragonclaw sailed at the head of the fleet toward Fécamp, he prayed for the very first time that he would survive the battle so that he could return to his beautiful Breton bride and his oceanfront castle atop the white chalk cliffs.

“Just beyond the next bend, the beach curves into the sheltered inlet at the mouth of the Valmont River. Richard’s castle is on the right bank facing east, which gives us an advantage when we land on the western shore. I will fly ahead now and scout the fortress—determine if they have an onager atop the battlements which could launch boulders or flaming projectiles at our ships. I’ll return shortly to report back to you and summon the seabirds to coordinate with the arrival of your ships.” In a shimmer of golden light and a glimmer of gilded feathers, the vitki shifted into a peregrine falcon and soared into the sky.

Twenty minutes later, the raptor returned to the ship and resumed human form. “There is a large trebuchet on the flat top of the highest tower, and an onager on the battlements facing the beach. The trebuchet could take out a few of our ships, and the onager could hit our warriors forming a shield wall. I’ll summon the birds to swarm the men manning the weapons and the archers that line the battlements. As soon as we round this upcoming curve of the cliff, they’ll spot us and begin firing at our ships. The birds will be our best offensive move, enabling us to land on the beach and disembark.”

Once the Dragonclaw flagship rounded the curve, a resounding boom from an ominous horn blasted a warning from the sentinel in the watchtower on the eastern point. As Frankish soldiers scrambled into position, archers nocked their arrows, and fortress defenders prepared to launch the trebuchet.

Haldor Falk, standing on the prow of Sk?rde’s dragonship, raised his outstretched arms and painted face toward the pale afternoon sun. Like wings of a falcon, his feathered cape fluttered and flapped in the westerly wind as a piercing, eerie shriek tore from his lungs and streaked across the cloud strewn sky, emitting the Falcon’s Cry.

Within moments, the skies darkened as hundreds of sea ravens, gannets, gulls, and guillemots swarmed the castle battlements and swooped down upon the hapless men. Squawking and screeching, claws and talons extended, the raptors gouged eyes and pecked at the faces of the Frankish soldiers who howled in terror and agony. While the avian assault was in full force, Sk?rde and his fleet landed on the beach, the Vikings storming the shores and forming shield walls as they advanced up the sand.

Hissing arrows thwacked against wooden shields, the screams of the Viking wounded mingling with the shrieks of the Frankish soldiers being plummeted and pecked atop the battlements. As the trebuchet from the tower launched heavy boulders toward the drakkar ships docked along the coastline, the thunderous boom and cracking of hulls added to the shattering and splintering of the warriors’ wooden shields.

Again, Haldor raised his arms within the winged cape and his feather painted face to the dark sky, summoning stinging insects which swarmed the archers firing upon the shore. Weeping and wailing, the Franks vainly fought to repel the hornets and wasps, some plummeting to their death from the watchtowers and ramparts at the top of the white chalk cliff.

“To the castle!” Sk?rde bellowed above the din, directing his men toward the west bank of the river just as hundreds of Franks poured out of the fortress and stormed down upon the beach.

Steel clashed as axes met swords, the cacophony of shrieks and shouts punctuated by the rhythmic creaking of the trebuchet and the thunderous thud of boulders hitting the beach, spraying sand into blood stained faces. As he blocked a staggering strike from a Frankish blade, Sk?rde spotted Haldor Falk from the corner of his eye. Standing on the shore at the base of the cliff, the vitki was a conspicuous target with his fierce face paint, feathered cloak, and unfurled arms raised toward the skies.

As if Falk had read Sk?rde’s thoughts, he swiftly shifted into a peregrine falcon and tore from the beach, blending into the flock which swooped and swarmed the Frankish soldiers on the ramparts and towers of Richard’s captured castle.

Distracted by the sight of the Falcon taking flight, Sk?rde suffered a crushing blow to his chain mail helmet, the blunt impact from the enemy sword dizzying and disorienting as he struggled to maintain his balance and parry another swift, incoming strike. At a sudden blaze along the riverbank, he realized with horror that the defending Franks had poured boiling oil over his advancing army and had set his men afire. The earsplitting shrieks of hundreds of Viking warriors being burned alive tore up his spine as another staggering slash sliced through the links of his armor, severing flesh on the left side of his torso under his shield arm.

Enormous boulders and flaming fire barrels hurled from the onager had shattered the Viking shield walls and scattered his men, the constant barrage of projectiles taking its gruesome toll. While the coppery stink of blood and the overwhelming stench of bowels and vomit assailed his nostrils, Sk?rde observed in paralyzed shock as a Frankish knight severed Viggo’s beloved head and Gunni fell beneath the blow of an enemy sword. Amidst blazing ships and burning shields, a thick, acrid smoke hung in the salty, stinging air, the pitiful wails of dying men piercing the charred, chaotic carnage. Mangled bodies, torrents of blood, and glistening gore littered the pebbled beach and stained the sandy shore.

Blood poured from his throbbing wound. His head spun, and bile roiled in his gut. A crippling blow to his left leg dropped him to his knees. As the armored knight hoisted his gleaming Frankish blade to inflict the fatal strike, Sk?rde thought of Ylva.

And remembered the enchanted emerald talisman hidden beneath his hauberk.

Through the Nordic rune of Eihwaz —imbued with her galdr magic and etched in her Viking blood—Sk?rde summoned the aid of the Nordic gods.

“Thor, grant me your thunder. Tyr, infuse me with your strength. And Odin, blessed Allfather, guide my sword. To victory or Valhalla!”

As Sk?rde’s booming voice bellowed across the beach, a sizzling jolt of energy shot through his veins. He lurched to his feet, a sudden surge of strength pulsing through his limbs while bolts of lightning sparked from his Ljósálfar sword. Encased within the silver hilt, the dazzling emerald emitted a deep green glow, blinding in brilliance and preternatural power.

He spun, slashed, and struck, disarming and disemboweling the stunned Frankish soldier who moments before had been poised for the kill. Like a berserker in a bloodlust rage, Sk?rde slew enemy soldiers left and right, the momentum of his sudden charge spurring his disheartened, despondent men. As another swarm of aggressive birds swooped down from the skies, the deafening blast of a horn resounded from the forest at the crest of the embattled cliff.

The Duke of Normandy had arrived to reclaim Fécamp.

The Franks who had been fighting Sk?rde’s men from the superior vantage point above the beach now turned to face the unexpected reinforcements of Richard’s allied army from behind. In the blink of an eye, the tide of the bloody battle had turned.

A thunderous thud reverberated from the castle, the rumbling vibrations from the impact sending tremors from the ground up into Sk?rde’s very bones. Another crashing boom collapsed the southwest watchtower, the devastating blast dispersing fragments of shattered stone and splintered wood like perilous projectiles in a powerful, explosive wave.

As Sk?rde and the remnants of his devastated army reached the top of the cliff to join Richard’s men, he saw teams of Norman knights pulling, pushing, and rolling three massive siege towers of thick, solid timber with narrow window slits and iron hinges from the edge of the woods toward strategic positions along the exterior castle wall. Richard’s two trebuchets launched a continuous volley of boulders, logs, and quicklime at the Frankish defenders, causing shrieks of agony as the projectiles killed, maimed, or incapacitated their intended targets.

Castle archers along the wall scrambled into position, firing flaming arrows at the towering siege engines and the armored warriors straining and groaning with the effort of moving them. With a final heave, the wooden giants reached the wall, their massive wheels grinding to a halt.

As the assault ramps were lowered, Frankish defenders along the battlements of the castle wall—armed with pots of boiling oil and flaming torches—prepared to set fire to the Viking attackers, as they had done to Sk?rde’s army on the bloody beach. But Haldor Falk, standing beneath an enormous oak, raised the arms of his feathered cloak like wings of a predator in flight and shrieked a shrill, piercing cry. Within moments, hundreds of owls, hawks, and falcons swarmed the skies, screeching and swooping down upon the Franks with sharp talons, pointed beaks, and curved rapacious claws .

While raptors gouged the eyes, ears, and faces of the Franks, castle archers took aim at Haldor Falk. Once again, the vitki shifted into falcon form, taking to the skies as the first wave of Norman Vikings poured forth like a relentless tide from each of the three siege towers, brandishing axes, maces, and swords.

William Towhead’s men from Aquitaine scaled the siege tower placed along the south wall, pouring from the assault ramps to engage the enemy atop the crenellated battlements. The knights from Anjou were quick to follow, filing from the siege tower on the eastern wall nearest the ocean.

As pecking birds swarmed the archers along the parapets, Richard led his armored knights into the siege tower positioned upon the western wall in his unabating attack to reclaim his ducal castle.

Sk?rde waved his men—swords unsheathed and shields raised—through the debris from the collapsed tower, over the breached outer wall, to engage with tenacious, tireless Franks on the blood soaked grounds inside the castle bailey.

Blocking a devastating blow which shattered his bossed shield, Sk?rde heard the unmistakable and welcome blast of an elkhorn which carried across the Narrow Sea.

His Viking father—with an army of two thousand Danish warriors—had finally arrived.

With Harald’s reinforcements storming the shores and swarming the castle, in less than an hour, every Frankish soldier was slain. Sk?rde, grateful for a few moments’ reprieve, sliced the lower edge of his padded, blood-stained gambeson with his dagger and wrapped the soft linen tightly around his wound. He joined Richard and lumbered up the stone stairs of the highest tower to the top of the castle keep.

Inside the observation room of the tower, Sk?rde and Richard found Badelbert—the Count of Embda whom King Lothaire had named The Frankish Duke of Normandy and had entrusted with defending the Frankish colony at Fécamp. The grotesque corpse of the count and the four knights who had vainly tried to defend him against the aggressive avian assault were a bloodied, disfigured mass of raw, gouged flesh. Each of their mutilated faces was missing eyes, nose, lips, and ears.

“Drag them down to the beach and burn them. Throw every last Frank into the fire.” Richard commanded the Norman knights who flanked him. Clenching fists over their fiercely loyal Viking hearts, the six warriors inclined their heads and immediately obeyed.

Richard grinned wolfishly as Harald and several Viking leaders joined him and Sk?rde inside the tower. “Come with me up to the deck.” Motioning for them to follow him up the stairs, he shouted to a pair of his personal guards. “Bring my banner and horn.”

Pulse pounding, wound throbbing, adrenaline surging, Sk?rde labored up the stairs after his father and Richard, the Viking warlords and knights close behind. At the top of the tower, he beheld a breathtaking view of the Narrow Sea, glittering like gems of the Sea Goddess Rán. As the inimitable thrill of victory rippled through his quivering limbs, he deeply inhaled the salty, cleansing breeze and faced east.

Toward Ylva.

Toward his grandmother and brother.

Toward Chateaufort and his Norman people.

Fierce pride surged through him. He was the pulsing heart of a powerful political alliance. A trinity of valiant Viking rulers. The victorious triad which had triumphed today.

Richard the Fearless, Duke of Normandy.

Harald Bluetooth, King of Denmark and Norway.

And Sk?rde the Scourge, Count of the Pays de Caux .

Eyes closed, spirit soaring, he whispered a prayer of gratitude to the trio of Nordic gods who had heeded his call.

Hail to Odin, Tyr, and Thor! Tonight, I will honor you with a worthy sacrifice and thank you with a glorious tribute for aiding me in my time of need.

A deafening blast from Richard’s Viking horn jolted Sk?rde from his respectful reverie.

While the standard bearer held the ducal banner high, strong winds whipped the red flag of Normandy as the golden light of the setting sun gilded the duo of lions rampant that marked the heraldry of Richard the Fearless.

Hundreds of Viking warriors, Norman knights, and allied soldiers stood at attention before the invincible Viking Duke.

Richard’s deep bellow resounded like a heavy bell from the highest tower of the keep, echoing through the dense forest, down the steep slope of the white chalk cliff, and across the Narrow Sea.

Battle fervor coursed through Sk?rde’s still shaking limbs.

“By the grace of Odin, victory is ours!” Richard boomed from above.

Swords and axes frapped against shields amidst triumphant shouts.

“Hail to the gods who granted us their courage and strength!” Richard roared like a lion.

Warriors responded with thunderous applause and riotous howls.

“Tonight, we honor the dead. Thank the gods. And feast to celebrate victory !”

Exuberant cries carried across the castle grounds.

When Richard stepped down from the top of the keep, men returned to the drudgery of clearing debris from the destroyed tower and damaged walls and the arduous task of transporting bodies of the fallen down to the beach for burning.

Sk?rde, Harald, and the Viking chieftains who had been on the ramparts with Richard returned to the ground, directing warriors to carefully convey the wounded into the Great Hall where castle servants, newly freed from subjugation to the Franks, scurried to set up pallets along the walls, procure supplies and bandages, and fetch healers to treat the injured men.

As Sk?rde summoned a messenger to deliver news of the victory to Ylva, he spotted a wounded falcon on the grass under the oak tree where he’d last seen Haldor Falk. Rushing toward the injured bird, he noted that the peregrine’s right wing had been pierced by an arrow and that the Falcon was lying in a pool of blood.

I must get him to úlvhild, Ylva, and Maeve and pray that the trio of healers can save him. I cannot remain here for the victory celebration—I must set sail at once. I’ll wrap him in wool padding and leather, to protect his body. A drakkar ship is smoother and faster than a horse or carriage, so it will jostle him less and get him home more quickly.

Sk?rde spoke soothingly to the Falcon. “I’m taking you to úlvhild. We’ll set sail at once. Hang on, Haldor. We’ll be back at Chateaufort in a few hours.” He summoned two of his nearby men. “Bring me a swath of wool and a leather cloak. And a few scraps of linen to staunch the bleeding.” As one warrior dashed off to obey, Sk?rde commanded the second. “Alert the crew to prepare my ship for immediate departure. We must return to Chateaufort at once.”

The Viking warrior lowered his eyes. Regret tinged his reluctant voice. “ Dragonclaw was lost in the battle, my lord.” When he raised his bowed head, renewed hope brightened his bearded face. “But Thor’s Roar is undamaged. I can have the crew ready to sail right away.”

Sk?rde’s spirit sank at the loss of his beloved ship. Of course the Franks had targeted it. With the heraldic banners of the Dragon of Normandy and the enormous carved dragon at the prow, they had known it was Sk?rde’s drakkar a nd had undoubtedly launched a relentless assault of boulders and fire barrels from the trebuchet until it was destroyed. He exhaled in sorrow but nodded in grim acceptance. “See to it at once.”

As the warrior ran off toward the beach where the ships were docked, the first soldier returned carrying a bundle of blankets and cloth. Sk?rde carefully wrapped a strip of linen around the Falcon’s torn wing and reassured the wounded vitki . “This will slow the bleeding until I can get you to úlvhild. Try to remain as still as possible and rest as much as you can.” He painstakingly wrapped the injured Falcon in soft wool, tucking him inside the leather cloak. Scooping him up gently, Sk?rde carried the Falcon toward the castle to speak with Richard and Harald.

Inside the Great Hall, Sk?rde was astounded to see a wounded Gunni laying upon a straw pallet. “Loki’s balls! You’re alive! But I saw you fall… ”

Gunni smirked and raised himself up onto one elbow, a snide grin stretching across his bruised, bloodied face. “It takes more than a feeble Frankish blade to kill a Viking redbeard.” He slapped his obviously injured leg and scoffed. “Just a nick. I’ll be on my feet in no time.” He indicated the wounded bird in Sk?rde’s arms, his eyes widening and his smile disappearing as comprehension dawned. “Is that Haldor?”

Sk?rde nodded and adjusted the Falcon in his arms. “I’ve got to get him to the trio of healers at Chateaufort.” An idea suddenly dawned at the thought of úlvhild’s apprentice. “Come with me! I’ll have two men transport you to the ship. Maeve can care for you while the v?lva treats her vitki .” Sk?rde hailed two warriors headed toward the door. “Secure this injured warrior aboard Thor’s Roar . He’s sailing with me back to Chateaufort .” To Gunni, he said, “ Dragonclaw was destroyed, so we’re taking another. I’ll see you aboard ship.” He searched the Great Hall and spotted Richard in a corner, kneeling beside one of his wounded men. “I need to inform Richard and my father that I’m leaving. I won’t be long. Haldor is losing too much blood.”

When Richard saw Sk?rde approach, he rose to his feet and strode quickly across the room. Concern etched his furrowed brow as he noted the injured Falcon cradled in the crook of Sk?rde’s arms.

“I can’t remain for the victory celebration. I must get Haldor to Chateaufort tonight. His wing was torn by an arrow, and he’s lost a lot of blood, He needs úlvhild, Maeve, and Ylva. Perhaps they can save him with galdr magic.”

“Of course. I’ll organize the funeral for the fallen. The sacrifice and the feast. Get home as quickly as you can.” Richard beckoned Harald across the Great Hall.

When his father joined them, Sk?rde quickly informed him of the plan to save the Falcon. He told Richard and Harald that he was bringing Gunni with him as well.

“I’ll remain here with Richard for the tribute to our fallen soldiers and the victory feast. I’ll set sail tomorrow. Tell Sweyn I’ll be there by sunset, Rán willing.” He indicated the Falcon with a dip of his head. “Tonight, during the sacrifice, I’ll ask the Goddess Eir to heal Haldor Falk.”

Sk?rde said goodbye to Richard, Harald, and his Viking chieftains and quickly exited the castle. He descended the charred path along the riverbank near the castle, grateful that his warriors who had been mercilessly burned by the Franks had been removed and brought down to the beach. When he saw the piles of bodies being prepared for the funeral pyres, a contradictory blend of profound grief and sublime joy nearly overwhelmed him.

He shouted so all his men could hear. “ Tonight, they feast with Odin and the Einherjar in the glory of Valhalla!”

Warriors all across the bloodied beach frapped their shields and roared. “Valhalla!”

Clutching the Falcon protectively against his armored chest, Sk?rde walked to the water’s edge, climbed the wooden plank, and boarded Thor’s Roar. While the bustling crew readied for departure, he selected an upturned, empty crate and fashioned a protective nest with a folded blanket. Carefully placing the wounded Haldor Falk inside, he adjusted the wool padding to keep him stable for the sea voyage.

When he spotted Gunni on a makeshift bed near the mast of the ship, Sk?rde secured the Falcon’s crate next to him and settled down between his two injured companions. He spoke softly to both Gunni and Haldor. “Try to sleep. We’ll reach Chateaufort at dawn.”

The crew maneuvered the swift drakkar out of the sheltered harbor of Fécamp under stars dawning in the evening sky. As the square sail unfurled and the ship reached the open sea, the rhythmic rocking of waves and the painful throbbing of his wound forced Sk?rde to succumb to the fatigue of battle. He closed his eyes and prayed that Thor’s Roar would arrive in time to save Haldor Falk.