The city chief and his soldiers walked back to Dunkeld. Inside the fortification, on the walls, the Vikings Hárekr had chosen for their short stature barely leaned out to stand guard, making the ambush look like a normal scene from the outside.
"Open the gate! Those pagans are cowards."
He looked annoyed, but at the same time satisfied for having scared off the two Viking ships. As he began to cross the entrance, he noticed that everything was completely silent. He thought the civilians had simply gone to the monastery to pray for them.
The troops continued advancing down the main street. Suddenly, one of the smartest soldiers looked toward the houses and saw shadows of men hiding in the corners. Sensing the danger, he screamed with all his strength:
"It’s an ambush! Don’t go on!"
At that very instant, an arrow pierced his chest and left him lifeless. The Pictish chief, who was at the front of the column, realized the deception and roared:
"Hurry or we will all die!"
Seeing that they had not lowered the gate behind them, the leader thought with desperation: ’I must retreat... We can no longer recover the city’.
Hárekr, who was hidden a few steps away, came out of his hiding place and gave the order shouting:
"Get out! Let’s kill them all! KILL THEM!"
Thus began a ferocious slaughter. For two hours, the Picts tried to withstand the clash, but the lack of space and the poor position left them cornered. Of the two hundred soldiers, only fifty managed to escape because they were at the end of the line and were able to run in time.
At the end of the fight, Hárekr glanced sideways at the archer who shot first. He wanted to blame him for rushing the attack, but he preferred to sigh and let it go. Things had not turned out exactly as he wanted: fifteen of his men had fallen in combat.
Thorir approached him upon seeing his serious gesture and said in a low voice:
"They are already in Valhalla."
Hárekr nodded in silence and, still panting from the effort of the fight, asked:
"What happened in the monastery?"
"We plundered everything. We found some kind of sacred bones and a lot of gold... There is too much gold and silver, Hárekr."
The young leader nodded again. As he listened, he thought to himself: ’If this is what there is in a city without a king, how much will there be in the capital?’.
Torstein, who had received a cut on the shoulder during the fight, cleaned the blood while laughing with satisfaction. Seeing Hárekr pensive, he cheered him up:
"Everything went very well."
Hárekr saw the joy of the old warrior and ended up laughing with him. Then, Thorir spoke in a more serious tone:
"What will we do now? We already have the riches, but carrying all this loot on foot is going to be very difficult..."
Hárekr agreed with him. He immediately called a scout and ordered:
"Go quickly to the river and tell Einar to bring the ships closer."
Then he looked at Thorir:
"Take some men and go secure the shore. That is where we will stay."
Thorir nodded. He decided to give his warriors a few hours of rest before leaving, to recover their strength while the scout advanced.
In one of the largest houses in the city, several Vikings were celebrating the success of the raid, drinking Pictish alcohol and resting with some local women. Hárekr, who was walking around checking the streets, decided to enter the place.
As soon as the men saw him cross the door, they stood up instantly and greeted him with total respect. He was no longer the same young man who had sailed from Norway; he was now a proven leader in the eyes of his people. Hárekr looked at them and said calmly:
"Do whatever you want, just leave them a way to stay alive."
The warriors nodded with smiles, continuing their party and sharing the drink. One of the women, who stood out for her beauty, noticed the treatment Hárekr was given. She tried to approach him, but upon seeing his cold and distant gaze, she preferred to stay in her place before one of the Vikings called her back.
Hárekr turned around, left the house, and walked directly toward the monastery.
Inside the monastery, the priest was sitting on a wooden chair, beaten and bleeding. Around him, the local nobles and their women lay on the floor, tied hand and foot. Get faster updates on novelping.com.
One of the nobles, trembling with fear upon seeing the Vikings guarding the hall, shouted at the priest:
"Father... What are we going to do? They have abandoned us..."
The priest, trying to stay calm, replied:
"God is with us... These pagans cannot harm us."
At that instant, Hárekr crossed the door. Seeing him enter, the priest immediately noticed that this young Northman stood out above all the others, as the guards at the entrance slightly bowed their heads as he passed in a sign of respect.
The priest spoke to him directly in the Saxon tongue, trying to find out if he understood anything:
"You are their leader... Right?"
Hárekr said nothing; he simply looked at him coldly. Receiving no answer, the priest closed his eyes and began to pray aloud in front of his face.
Thorir, who had just entered the monastery, saw the scene and became enraged. Believing that the prayers were some kind of spell or curse against Hárekr, he lunged at the priest and gave him a brutal blow to the face that threw him to the side.
"What are you doing cursing him?!" Thorir shouted at him in fury.
Hárekr pushed Thorir away to prevent him from killing him right there and asked the rest of his men, quite annoyed for not understanding what the locals were saying:
"Does any of you understand this language?"
None of the warriors present knew how to speak the local tongue; the Norwegian trader who served as their interpreter had stayed with Einar aboard the ships on the river.
With nothing else to do, Hárekr took a seat on a wooden bench to wait for the arrival of the rest of his troops. Thorir went out to supervise the patrols outside the temple. Meanwhile, the priest, with his face swollen and bloody, did not take his fixed gaze, full of hatred, off Hárekr.
Very far from there, the fifty Pictish soldiers who had managed to escape the ambush rode in haste, scared and desperate, straight toward the capital of the Kingdom of Alba to alert their king.
And at an even more distant point to the south, in East Anglia, the great heathen army led by the other sons of Ragnarr continued to camp. They received hundreds of horses, provisions, and supplies, preparing to attack Northumbria.