Simpleheizer: переводы

→Perhaps that was the raven’s omen, Sigurd thought, for the bird had stopped its croaking now. Styrbiorn had woven his last piece of fame as he came to the end which the Norns had spun for him. Either way it was a savage blow for Sea-Eagle whose men were stunned at losing their prow man so early in the fight. Wielding Styrbiorn’s big axe, a fearsome fighter named Erlend muscled up to the prow and looked good for it, cleaving an arm off at the shoulder and doing Styrbiorn proud until an arrow took him in the face and he tipped over the side before the others could grab hold of him.

→‘Damned whoresons,’ the greybeard muttered, shaking his head, and Sigurd wanted to tell Svein that perhaps it was not a serious wound and he looked at Aslak who shook his head. For there had been enough muscle and fear in that spear thrust to stop a charging boar. That had been clear even from the top of the bluff and from the giant’s grunt that had carried across the water even above the battle din. Besides which, Styrbiorn did not wear a brynja because he could not afford to have one made that would fit his massive frame.

→Styrbiorn doubled over and his comrades managed to pull him back into the thwarts and Svein’s hands clawed into his flaming red hair.

→Neither had Sigurd ever heard of such. It was the stuff of fireside tales, but so was the next part of it, for all worthwhile tales have their sour parts. Styrbiorn should have climbed down then and got behind a shield for a breath or two and been happy with the fame he had woven for himself. Instead the blood-lust was on him and maybe too much mead was in him for he brought the axe round in another big loop but this time the shaft hit Sea-Eagle’s prow beast, snagged on the creature’s pointed ear perhaps, and before Styrbiorn could correct the swing a man at the other prow reached out and thrust a spear into his belly.

→Back in the pine wood behind them a raven was croaking and Sigurd felt Svein’s eyes on him because Svein knew Sigurd attached meaning to such things. But Sigurd kept his eyes riveted on the battle below them and Svein let the thing go before giving it voice. Yet the raven kept up its protest, a gurgling croak rising in pitch that had Sigurd thumbing the runes he had etched into his spear’s shaft. Not that the spell, a charm to make the spear fly straight and true, would do much to ward off the ill-omen that Sigurd heard in the bird’s call, tangled like a sharp fish hook in a ball of twine. Not unless he could spear the bird itself, which Asgot would tell him was the same thing as spitting in Óðin’s one eye.

→But Little-Elk’s crew had other ideas and they presented a wall of shields the length of the karvi, a second row thrusting spears over heads and through the gaps. Asgot the godi was aboard her and he was as good with a spear as he was with the runes. Her skipper, a man named Solveig, was probably as old as the greybeard up there on the bluff but he was a solid fighting man who had earned Harald’s trust. The chances were Solveig would need help from Reinen at some point, but he would not ask for it before it was absolutely needed and Harald knew it. If Harald could kill Randver before that happened he might win the battle before King Gorm even had to draw his sword.

→The other men at the prows were jabbing with spears and probing with long-axes and some archers were climbing up onto the sheer strakes to loose their arrows from deadly range, but it was Slagfid who was doing the real killing. And yet Randver’s other ships were like hounds desperate to get their teeth into the prey and one of them came alongside Little-Elk, hauling in their port-side oars quickly before the hulls banged together and Randver’s men shot arrows and hurled spears as others threw grappling hooks into Little-Elk’s thwarts. These men put the rope around their backs and pulled with all their strength, bringing the ships together in the hope that their weight of numbers would see them clear Little-Elk’s decks.

→They cheered again, and then again when Slagfid hooked the next man’s shield and leant back, hauling him over the top strake into the sea where he flailed, crushed between the ships’ bellies. But Sigurd held his tongue and looked to Fjord-Wolf’s stern because he knew what would happen then if Jarl Randver was any type of leader at all. Sure enough the jarl was striding forward now, flanked by retainers with shields raised before him as he sought to let the sight of him raise his men to greater deeds.

→‘Slagfid!’ Svein roared as those on the bluff cheered and Jarl Harald’s men beat their swords, spears and axes against their shields with pride for their champion. The dead man was hauled away and the warrior who took his place was wise to keep his shield high, but Slagfid had killed more men than were on Randver’s ship and this would be simply one more. Gripping the huge axe in two hands he reared up like a bear, bringing the axe over his head in a great, death-promising arc, and the blade sliced into the warrior’s shield, the lower horn cleaving the shield in two, the upper horn cutting through the man’s collar bone and tearing down into his breast and trunk, splitting him like oak.

→Randver’s prow man was too eager to make his fame and as he lowered his shield, pulling back his arm to hurl a hand axe, Slagfid cast his spear with the speed and fury of Thór’s lightning and it ripped through the prow man’s throat in a spray of gore, embedding in the shield of the man behind.

→‘Talking of skalds, I thought Hagal would be here,’ Aslak said. ‘It’s not like him to miss a fight.’

→But it was no easy thing to take the edge off Svein’s eagerness, especially when he was talking of fighting, and now he turned his smile on all three of them. ‘You will know sure enough when I have stood in the skjaldborg, Runa,’ he said, dreaming of the shieldwall, ‘for the skalds will be singing of it for a year after.’ He tugged his fledgling beard. ‘And the women will blush redder than these hairs whenever I am near.’

→‘Then a man just keeps his shield up and his head down,’ Svein suggested helpfully, at which Runa asked, a wry smile on her lips, if Svein had learnt all this from the many battles he had fought in.

→‘Not when there are arrows in the sky,’ Sigurd replied, grimacing at the thought of a shaft streaking out of the sun’s glare to bury itself in a man’s eye socket.

→BY THE TIME they came to the place they were sweat-sheened and the ponies were lathered. The sun had passed overhead and now sat high in the western sky like a golden shield hung below the gabled roof of Valhöll, Óðin’s hall of the slain, and Aslak said it was a good day for a fight.