Along with several other accomplishments not usually possessed by vikings, I could speak a number of languages besides my own. Angle was one of those languages and using that language I addressed the Angles.
“Throw down your arms.” I said, “It is useless to fight longer. You are surrounded by many times your number, Gathlaff, your chieftain, is slain. And see,” I continued, pointing to the other ships, “your other ship is taken.”
On its deck a few Angles, at bay against the main-mast, stood off Ragnar’s victorious Norsemen. I bade Sigurd hail Ragnar and stop the battle.
“If you will throw down your arms you shall be spared.” I went on, “I offer you the choice of entering our ships and becoming part of our company, on the same footing as the Norse vikings.”
Angles and Norsemen stared at me in astonishment. Such offers were not over common, then.
“We will never join with you, we will not go aboard your ships.” an Angle answered briefly, “Slay us if you will; at least we will go down fighting.”
The Norsemen moved restlessly, shifting their weapons. I motioned them back.
“Your long-boat has not been touched.” I said, “It should hold all of you. The dragon-ship will not float to land. Take the long-boat and go. The islands of Orkneyar are not far. You should be able to reach them safely.”
“You mean we are to go free?” asked an Angle, hesitatingly.
“Yes.”
They could scarcely comprehend the fact. Such things were uncommon on the North Sea.
The Norsemen muttered dissaproval.
“What child’s play is this?” grumbled old Rane.
“The act of a weakling!” shouted Wigstan, “What, will you let these Angles, our foes, depart in peace with their boats and their weapons! What say, ye, vikings?”
“Ye have heard my command.” I said, swinging about to face the grumbling Norsemen, my sword in my hand, “And here I stand to back my orders.” I looked full into the eyes of the Norsemen and they gave back, abashed. I noted Sigurd standing near, a mocking smile on his face as he watched the vikings, his hand resting on his sword-hilt.
There were some twenty Angles from the other dragon-ship, whom Ragnar realeased with their weapons at my word, though he raised his brows and then shrugged his shoulders.
The two long-boats from the Angle ships held the men easily and they embarked, setting their course for the shores of Orkneyar, which were just visible on the far horrizon.
Just before they pushed off, a tall, keen-eyed Angle who had done most of the speaking, addressed me, “What do men call you?” he asked.
“Hakon.” I answered.
“I am Oslaf of the White-sword.” he answered, “And I will remember.”
With those words, he swung down into one of the long-boats and took the tiller. The Angles bent to the oars and soon the two long-boats were speeding toward the distant Orkney islands, lifting to the waves.
Tostig, it turned out was not slain. Gathlaff’s sword descending on his bronze helmet, had merely knocked him unconcious. He came to, cursing savagely, and wishing to renew the battle.
He cursed more when he found that the battle was over.
“Were any prisoners taken?” he demanded.
“No.” replied Sigurd.
“They were all slain?”
“All but some twenty on each ship.” Wigstan said, “And those Hakon sent away with their boats and weapons.”
Tostig was furious. “You take much upon yourself, Hakon.” he thundered, “I am chieftain here.”
I gazed at him with a calculating eye. It was in my mind to draw sword and decide the chieftainship then and there but I decided it was not time. Too many men were still for Tostig.
We found much plunder in the Angle galleys. The Angles were fierce, far-ranging pirates and they had taken many ships and sacked many villages.
The loot we took from the two ships more than paid them for taking them, the Norsemen considered.
The Angles had fought bravely and skillfully and some twenty Norsemen had been slain.
But to fight, to slay and be slain was the Norsemen’s idea of life. They cared for no other.
We salvaged the two dragon-ships and having repaired them, manned them with men from the “Kraken” and from the “Cormorant”, Ragnar’s ship.
Later we sold them to the Juts at Brunanbuhr.
Endnotes
*1 Sea of Silent Waters = Pacific Ocean
*2 Neandertals
*3 Cro-Magnons
*4 Mediterranean Sea
*5 To avoid confusion I have used the modern terms for places and clans. – AUTHOR
Appendices
ROBERT E. HOWARD AND THE PICTS: A CHRONOLOGY
CIRCA 1918–1919
Howard discovers, in a ‘Canal Street library’ in New Orleans, a book in which he first learns about the Picts. (See excerpts from Letter to H.P. Lovecraft, ca. January 1932, and Alvin Earl Perry, A Biographical Sketch of Robert E. Howard [1935], below.)
UNTITLED ESSAY, CA. 1920–1923
Howard wrote this report on the history of the Picts, possibly for school. An initial page or pages are clearly missing, and are presumed lost.
which has characterized them through all the ages. The cavemen that were left took refuge in deep forests and mountainous wilds from which they occasionly emerged to steal cattle, burn and murder and furnish the basis for tales of a later ages, telling of giants and ogres.
Later on the great Celtic race swept over Europe and the Picts in their turn fled to the forests and caves, furnishing the basis of fairy tales of gnomes, elves and other fairies.
But that was not until a much later date. The Picts scattered all over Europe. Some are still found in the mountains of the Pyrenees. But they made their longest stand in the British Isles and it is there that we are interested in them.
The Picts of Britain underwent several complete changes in appearance and manner. There is no greater difference between the first Picts and the Indian than there was between the first Picts and the Picts who opposed Hengest.
I have already described the Picts who first came to Britain. This type remained unchanged for several hundred years. The people remained peaceful, gaining their food by agriculture and becoming more and more civilized and more skillful artizans.
Then came the great Celtic invasion and the laborious work and progress of half a thousand years was overturned and undone in an instant for that is a Celtic characteristic. The dawning Pictish generation was nipped in the bud.
The Picts could not stand before the race of warriors skilled in the work of metals and the make and usage of weapons, but vastly inferior to the Picts in artizanship.
So they fled to the northern mountains. Many descendants of the early cavemen lurked in the mountains and Pictish cunning concieved a plan of utilizing together the great strenth and brute courage of the aboriginals with the shrewdness of the Picts, to the discomfort of the Celtic invaders. So hunter and artizan banded themselves together against the warrior and the ancient enemies were united. So when the Celts grew tired of Britain and marched north, they met with so many unpleasant surprises, mostly in the shape of ambuscades and night attacks that they retreated back into Britain and it was not until the Brythonic invasion, years later, that the Celts ever gained a foothold in Scotland, though many went on into Ireland.