by Patrick Hart

The young peasant sat down on the wooden stool, and as he began squeezing the teats of the brown cow, he glanced down the side of the hill.  It had been a dreary winter, but newly blossomed wild flowers now covered the slope, and this sign that spring had finally arrived brought a smile to his face.

When the lad finished his chore, the four-legged beast trotted off to nibble on the freshly sprouted grass, while her master stood up and looked past the rocky cliffs to the west. This spot was only a couple hundred yards from the ocean, and from here he could see the white capped waves gently rolling onto the sand. To his surprise though, today he also spotted a ship, which had apparently dropped anchor a few feet off the shore, while he had been milking the cow.

Nor was this a mere fishing boat from some neighboring village. Rather with its seventy foot hull and huge red sail, it had to be the type of ocean-going vessel, which had traveled here from some strange land far beyond the horizon. Then as his imagination expanded, the peasant wondered if  someday he might have the chance to sail out to sea on such a magnificent craft.

At that point the lad blinked twice to make sure that the ship did not disappear. After all this was the west coast of Ireland, and few sailors were willing to venture this far out on the treacherous Atlantic Ocean. However, the mighty vessel was no illusion, and when he looked again, some of the crew had begun hopping over its side.

As the stern shifted on the waves though, the peasant also noticed a dragon head carved onto its bow, and a frown crossed his face. Then he saw the double-edged swords in the hands of the debarking sailors, and all at once he realized that these were not traveling merchants intent on trading with the people on shore. Rather this was a band of lawless marauders, coming to pillage whatever ill-fated souls lay in their path, and twirling around, he ran down the hill as fast as his legs would carry him.

Meanwhile in a thatched roof cottage at the bottom of the slope, a woman with long curly hair, which was starting to turn grey, was stirring an iron cauldron hanging over her fireplace. The matron was wearing a tattered brown dress with a linen veil wrapped over the top of her head, and as the oats came to a boil, she decided that it was time to summon her family for supper. So laying down her spoon, she stepped through the door of the hut, and when she saw her youngest son rushing in her direction, she could not help smiling at his enthusiasm.

“Ah Matthew,” she called out in a cheerful voice, “it’s good to see you so ready for your evening meal.

            The expression on the boy’s face though appeared more appropriate for someone, who had just seen a ghost, than for a child coming home to dinner. Furthermore, his body was shaking with fear, and as he approached the threshold, he screamed out a single word that immediately ended her delusion.

            “Vikings!” Matthew yelled, and his mother’s face turned as pale as a sheet.

 Like other Christians of her era, the peasant woman included in her nightly prayers a beseeching to the Lord “to deliver us from the scourge of the Vikings,” and probably no other proclamation could have generated such terror in her soul.

            “Oh Mother of God!” she shrieked.  “Where are they?”

            “On the beach!” her son replied, and struggling to regain his breath he added, “I saw their ship, while I was milking the cow.”

At this point the matron found herself unable to hide her hysteria, and spotting her husband a few yards away, she screamed out at the top of her lungs.

            “John!” she shouted. “We have to run, before those heathens hack us to bits.”

            Then without waiting for a response, the woman stepped back inside the cottage and grabbed her youngest child off the floor. The small lass sensed that something had gone wrong with the safe world she knew, and beneath the red tresses her face broke into tears. Yet her mother had no time to offer comfort.

            “Don’t lose a moment!” she shouted at her other offspring. “Those murderers could have followed your brother home!” and as the woman rushed toward the woods, her two older daughters fell in behind her.

At that point though, Matthew felt his stomach turn hollow. Without hesitation his mother had just abandoned their home, and once the barbarians had stolen everything of value, they would no doubt burn down the structure like kindling for a stove. As he well knew though, his family had had no choice. 

As lifelong inhabitants of this land, they would be far more adept than the Vikings at finding their way through the forest, and unless they retreated into this safehold, they would have little chance of avoiding a ferocious demise. Yet, as the boy was about to join them, he witnessed another event that common sense said could not be happening.  Rather than fleeing with his loved ones, Matthew’s father suddenly scooted inside the hut, and a moment later he emerged with a sword in his hand, causing his wife to come to an abrupt halt in her tracks.  

“John, what are you doing?” she wailed with tears streaming down her face that now rivaled those of the child in her arms. “You can’t stop those looters from taking what they want!”  

             Yet despite her protests, the lad sensed that his mother already knew that she would never see her husband again.

            “You run,” the man called in reply, “but I will not surrender my home without a fight,” and for an instant Matthew wondered if his father had gone mad.

Everyone considered John to be a mild creature, who was always willing to extend a helping hand to a neighbor, and unlike some men he was not even prone to pick a quarrel after a few strong drinks. So why was he taking on a challenge, which could only lead to a violent death?  Before the boy came up with any type of explanation though, the woman repeated her desperate attempt to make her husband see reason.

“If you fight them, they will kill you,” she argued between sobs. “These are Vikings sent by the Devil himself.”

            The peasant’s next reply though made it clear that any further discussion would be a waste of words.

             “I’m not leaving,” he stated, and as he lifted his arm holding the sword, his lifelong companion let out a gasp.

Yet the woman realized that for the sake of her children she had to try to live through this horrible day, and clenching the baby tighter to her breast, she turned to join her daughters, as they fled for the trees like deer running from a hunter’s arrows. Then Matthew witnessed something else that only added to his confusion.

At this point the lad’s older brothers, responded to their father’s statement by seizing a sickle and a pitchfork to use as weapons of their own. An unmistakable fear showed on their faces, but Sean and Daniel clearly believed that they had to stand beside the head of the family, and with his emotions pounding against the inside of his head, the youngest boy wondered if he should be joining them.

 Matthew was only twelve, and since he was far from full grown, he questioned whether he would be of any use in fighting armed warriors. He also suspected that his mother would be better off, if one of her sons survived this gruesome tragedy. At this point though five Vikings came over the top of the hill with the glare of the sun reflecting off their weapons. Then a moment later the scars of previous battles became visible on their arms, and the boy had little doubt that these had been battles in which no mercy had been shown.

However, as the lad watched these demons approach, neither his father nor his brothers were yielding before them, and suddenly realizing where his duty lay, he raced into the cottage. Then whispering the Lord’s Prayer, he grabbed the axe next to the fireplace.

Matthew had never wielded a weapon in combat, and with fear blurring his vision, he worried that his courage might fail him. However, he knew that they needed to create a solid barrier against the coming assault, and as he reemerged into daylight, he stepped between Sean and his father. Then just before the Vikings plowed into the line of resistance, they let off a blood curdling scream meant to crush any remaining hope in the hearts of their prey.

            As hand-to-hand fighting broke out around him, the lad found himself trying to dodge the sword of a warrior, who towered over him like a giant, and when he imagined what that shining blade could do to raw flesh, cries for help formed on his lips. However, no sound emerged from his throat, and even if his scream had been loud enough to reach the other side of the hill, it would not have made any difference. 

The attacker who faced Matthew would have ignored his pleas, and none of his family would have been able to come to his aid. At that point Daniel was trying to ward off a Viking with his pitchfork, but the invader’s sword flashed through the air like a streak of lighting, while the Celtic youth was barely managing to remain standing. Meanwhile, the plunderer, who had attacked Sean, had wounded him on his face, causing fresh blood to dampen the hair that marked the beginning of a beard. Furthermore, the head of the family was faring no better than his three sons, as he faced a barbarian who was swinging his battle axe with such skill that one might wonder if he had been born wearing the weapon on the end of his arm.

Still the youngest lad tried to resist, and to his surprise he managed to dance around several incoming jabs. Then however a sharp pain burned into his left arm, and as he realized that he had failed to see the blow coming, he felt a surge of panic. At this point he had no idea how deep the wound had penetrated, and he could no longer understand how he had ever believed that he should follow his father into this fight. By his lack of foresight the man had condemned his sons to pointless deaths, and he had forsaken the woman he had vowed to protect to the life of a homeless widow.

            As Matthew made these disloyal observations, John continued to yield to his opponent, but the barbarian’s battle axe was not letting up, and retreat could only delay the death, which the cold iron promised. Then after one too many backward steps, the peasant’s spine bumped into the log wall of his house, and with a shiver of horror, he realized that his foe had him trapped.  It appeared that now no chance of escape remained, except that like all living creatures, from the tiny spider weaving her web, to the roaring lion stomping through the jungle, the Celt possessed a desperate yearning to survive, and at the risk of creating a fatal opening, he plunged forward. Then, although he never would recall exactly what happened next, his thrust caught the Viking off guard, and with an ease that made the incident seem like a dream, his sword slipped past the barbarian’s wooden shield. 

The plunderer of innocent Christians stood still, as his eyes lost their focus, perhaps unable to comprehend what had just occurred. As the marauder’s blood oozed through the front of his bear skin shirt though, the body tumbled to the ground, and without pausing to question how he had achieved this feat, his opponent charged through the opening he had created. Then driven by his own momentum, he sunk his sword into the chest of the first Viking he came upon. The motion almost felt like a spade digging into soft soil, and the terrorized shriek of a man who was about to die suddenly filled the air. The cry of agony though had no effect on the peasant, who an hour earlier had been known for his even temper.

            Matthew had not seen his father’s breakthrough, and with each thrust of the barbarian’s sword sending more pain through his wounded arm, he was not sure how much longer he could remain standing. To his surprise though, the pounding blows came to a sudden halt, and as the blood spurted from his falling foe, his nostrils filled with the disgusting smell of a body losing control of its bowels. Then when he realized what had happened, he could not help bursting into tears. 

However, rather than offering consolation, his father immediately moved on to the Vikings, who were assaulting his other two sons. By this point both the boys were wounded, and as they panted from their efforts, they appeared to have little chance of defeating the invaders.  Yet the Nordic Warriors still needed to deal with this feeble resistance, and if as they now sensed, an inhuman fury was about to attack them from behind, they were hardly certain that they would be able to offer a full defense.

In the eyes of his enemies, Matthew now saw the terror of approaching death, which he had experienced himself moments before, and despite the knowledge that they had come to kill him, he felt a sudden sense of kinship with these men, whom he had so recently feared.  However, if the boy’s father bore any similar regrets, these emotions failed to register on his face, and within seconds the Irishman felt his sword sinking into the flesh of the man, who had wounded Sean. Then without waiting for his victim to fall, he moved on to the final invader.

            In an act of desperation the last Viking turned away from Daniel to face his assailant, but this proved to be a mistake. A wild thrust by the boy’s pitchfork whacked into his arm, and his faltering momentum allowed the humble peasant’s blade to slice into the muscles of his neck. The barbarian was still alive, but he was too stunned to react with any dexterity, and two more hammering blows from John’s weapon sent a severed head falling to the ground. Then for a moment the mutilated corpse stood in its tracks, spouting blood into the air like a fountain, before the once fearless invader collapsed to the earth, with all bodily functions suddenly having ceased.

            As Matthew stared at the scene in front of him, he felt light headed, and as his clumsy legs folded onto the grass, an overwhelming gratitude for his own existence flooded over him. Yet he could not escape the brutal sight of his disfigured enemies lying in the dirt nor the realization that saving his life had required the taking of theirs. Furthermore, for as long as he remained on earth, he would remember the fear he had felt that day, when he had faced the Vikings, as they had pursued their ruthless quest for plunder.

Patrick Hart is a lawyer from Beach Park, Illinois.  His previous publications include: “The Exploding Car” which appeared in the Muse Portfolio;“ King of the Dock” which appeared in The Storyteller; and “Coffee with Vodka” which appeared  in the Pennsylvania Literary Journal.  In addition, his narrative “Matthew at the Bat,” is a prior first place winner in the Warren Newport Library creative writing contest.