The Saga of Halfdan the Black by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub

19: THE BATTLE OF THE FROZEN RIVER

On the feared glacier called Nis, which covered the mountains between Fjordane and Sogn, cold wind bit at scarf-covered faces and gnawed into layered wool clothes. The Fjordane army skied across plains of old ice, pulling heavy sleds and carrying wooden poles with iron hooks for pulling men from cracks. They sometimes stopped to pull strips of fur onto their skis for shuffling uphill.

It was much colder than down at the fjord.

The glacier was covered by powdery dry snow, swirling over pale blue ice. The brown tips of the mountains in all directions were gripped between white chaos below and low grey clouds. Brown gravel made occasional dark streaks in the blue ice and dry white snow. Some parts of the glacier were jagged and deeply cut.

The army skied in a long single line in the middle-part of the glacier. There the ice was usually flatter and safer.

Occasional boulders were somehow balanced on pillars of ice.

The blank white face of Nis was lined with ice-cracks. Snow swirled down to dark depths, some with ice-spikes waiting at the bottom. Covered with a thin bridge of snow, some of the cracks were invisible.

In some places, the winter sun had melted the ice into patterns of scooped bowls or sharp-tipped waves. Here, the surface would be too rough for skis. The two hundred or so Fjordane fighters walked slowly and in a single file across these rough places with strips of notched reindeer-bone tied to boot-soles for extra grip. Moving was very slow and took a lot of effort. Everybody was tired.

The air was so thin that even thinking took effort. Many men had constant head-aches. Most faces were scabbed with frost-sores. Every day, fighters fell on slippery ice and twisted an ankle or broke a wrist.

At night, when the fighters lay in their wind-whipped leather tents, they would often hear the SNAP! of nearby ice-cracks splitting open. Sometimes they heard a thundering boom echoing from distant cliffs as the ice-field shook. Some mornings, men would step out of a tent to see that a new ice-crack had yawned open nearby.

They all wore back-harnesses to pull their heavy sleds. Each man was also roped to the men in front and behind.

Scouts led the way, probing the surface ahead with the long-handled hooks. In good weather, it was usually easy to see any cracks hidden by snow. The snow looked slightly greyish over solid ice and more blue over hidden cracks. In darkness or fog or when snow was falling, the cracks were hard to see. The safest way to move was by stabbing the snow ahead for hidden cracks at each step.

When a crack was found, Halfdan would decide whether to find a way around or jump across. Before jumping across a crack, each fighter would throw across their sled and pack and weapons. After checking the ropes attached to the man in front of him and to the man behind him, the fighter would hop over the blue gap.

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