Free Raven by Giles Kristian Page B

Danes, tough and loyal, if a little wild in a fight, and as I sat in that hollow stone place, watching them sharpen their poor blades and throw insults back and forth, my mind summoned the new oath we had forged on that windswept island off the Frankish coast.
    Each man had begun by proclaiming his ancestors and boasting of their deeds, if any was worth mentioning. I had dreaded my turn, for I did not even know my father’s name, let alone whether he had been a farmer or a warrior or had done any deed worthy of a hearth-side tale. Not that I believed half of what blew through the beards around me that day. Had Svein the Red’s grandfather really slain a family of giants? Could we believe that with the giants’ blood still wet on his sword he had plunged into the breaking waves to slaughter a great sea monster? To my nose that had more than a whiff of Beowulf about it and I wasn’t alone in smelling it. But when the man next to me had spent his words, filling the world with a silence heavier than a mountain, and all eyes turned to me, I had swallowed my fear and spoken as best I could.
    I swear this oath before my sword-brothers. That I Raven, foster-son of Ealhstan of Wessex, am Jarl Sigurd’s man and that my sword is his . We had said the words with our right hands on the hilt of Sigurd’s sword, which had belonged tohis father before him. I will not flee from any man who is my equal in bravery and arms. I will avenge any of my oath-bound brothers as though we are brothers by blood. I will not utter words of fear or be afraid of anything, no matter how hard things look. I will bring all booty to my jarl and he will reward me as a ring-giver should . Men nodded and murmured and I folded my fingers around the sword’s grip to stop my hand from trembling, because an oath is the heaviest thing a man can give and an oath-breaker is no better than a murderer or a man who steals from his friend. I will slaughter my enemies and they shall know the name of Raven of the Wolfpack, who fights for Jarl Sigurd . I felt Sigurd’s eyes boring into me and I could not meet them so I caught Olaf’s eye instead. He grinned and winked at me as though he had just caught me sneaking from the warm furs of my first whore. If I break this oath I betray my jarl and my fellowship and I am a pus-filled nithing and may the All-Father riddle my eyes with maggots though I yet live . And then it was done and I had barely taken my hand from Sigurd’s sword when another man’s hand was on it, his words ringing out amongst the rocks.
    When it was all done and every man but for Father Egfrith had sworn the oath, it was as though a sodden blanket weighed on our spirits. It is always said that a wise man gives few oaths and breaks none, and all of us knew then that we bore fetters stronger than those which had bound some of us in that rotting Frankish hall, stronger even than Gleipnir which holds Fenrir Wolf. But soon I felt that burden lift and I knew it was because there is also strength in an oath because you know you are a part of something enduring and true.
    In Gerd’s Tit a shout brought me back to the present. A man up on the balcony was seeing a thin twist of smoke rising from the south-east beyond the enemy camp and the hillocks that concealed the seashore. I nodded, satisfied with the company I kept. Each man was oath-bound, each warrior like a branch of Yggdrasil, the great World-Tree, and together we would standtall enough that the gods in Asgard would see our great deeds, no matter if my real father had never done a brave thing in his life. The gods would see me. They would mark me as a man worthy to be taken into Valhöll in preparation for the last battle.
    ‘How is your shoulder?’ I asked Penda. He was grimacing as he rolled his elbow in cautious circles, testing the fit of bone and joint.
    ‘It’s not my sword arm,’ he said with a pained grin, ‘and I don’t have a shield anyway.’ But the pain had sharpened his eyes to