‘They’re getting rid of the old and infirm – anyone who won’t fetch a price in the slave mart.’
‘Are they pagans?’
‘Likely they are if they’re from the north. Please, Captain …’
Vallon saw that Helgi’s ship was almost out of sight. ‘Make for the estuary.’
Raul clapped his hands. ‘Jump to it.’
Up went the sail, round came the bow. They’d gone about two miles when the longship left its victim and set off in pursuit. A mile further and the wind failed.
Shearwater
glided to a stop. Her sail flapped once and then hung listless.
Mist wafted from the surface in lazy coils. The air felt vacuous. Vallon consulted his ring and saw that the stone had turned as black as Cosmas’s eye. The Vikings stroked towards them. They were tired from their exertions and knew that
Shearwater
couldn’t escape. Vallon looked at the shore three or four miles away. Helgi’s ship lay becalmed in a wide fairway that channelled inland between bare and rolling hills.
‘You were right. I made a poor decision.’
Raul hefted his crossbow. ‘We’re in a pickle sure enough.’
‘They’ll have left a prize crew on the knarr. Reduces the odds.’
‘Four or five at most. Not enough to make a difference.’
Vallon watched the oncoming longship. The sea had settled into an oily calm. A feather of cloud brushed the sun and the sky was dulling over.
‘Do they have thunderstorms this far north?’
‘One of the Greenlanders told me he ain’t seen but one in all his life.’
The longship had closed to within a mile. The Vikings hadn’t bothered to lower the sail and in the slack air it rippled back against the mast. The ship had no deck and the crew rowed in pairs sitting on thwarts with round shields slung over their backs. They’d herded the survivors from the captured knarr into the stern.
‘What’s the plan?’ said Raul.
‘Fight. What else?’
‘To the last man?’
Vallon reviewed his force. Wayland had strung his bow and clad his dog in its spiked collar and a suit of armour tailored from walrus hide. Garrick, Hero and Richard had armed themselves with swords. That was all the defence they could muster. Vallon’s gaze rested briefly on Syth.
‘You make it sound as if we have a choice.’
‘They think we’re traders. If we sting them in their first attack, they might offer terms.’
‘Such as?’
‘Hand over our goods.’
‘Including Syth?’
Raul fiddled with his crossbow and grinned a crooked grin. ‘Ah, well, we all got to meet our doom sometime.’
‘We’ll take a few with us,’ said Vallon. He waved Wayland forward.
‘Shoot as straight and fast as you can. Make every arrow count.’
Wayland nodded, his features drawn. ‘However many I kill, we won’t be able to stop them boarding.’
‘If that happens, do what you must do by Syth, and then face your own end bravely. If you’re killed before then, I’ll make sure you aren’t separated by death.’
Vallon turned his attention back to the longship. It still had half a mile to cover, but the air was so still that he could hear the swish of its oars. He took another glance at the sun. The cloud had swelled into a baleful nebula.
‘Lower the sail.’
Everyone looked at the lifeless panel. No one moved.
‘Raul, Garrick, get the sail lowered. You, too, Wayland. Double quick!’
They stumbled into action. Vallon watched the longship approach. The Vikings had left a prize crew on the captured knarr, reducing their number to about two dozen. In the bow, rhythmically thumping the dragon-carved stem with the haft of his battle-axe, stood a yellow-haired giant wearing a chainmail vest.
‘Kill that one first,’ Vallon said.
Raul spat. ‘He ain’t going to be hard to hit.’
Vallon fell quiet. Raul was right. No man could foretell the time and place of his death and there was no point railing against this arbitrary assignment with fate.
The longship was only a furlong away when daylight drained away. The sea dimmed, as if a creature too vast to see had cast its shadow across the earth. From the Viking ship came the brazen blast of a war horn. A stroke of lightning flashed vertically down less than a mile away, followed by a dry crackle of thunder.
In a well-rehearsed move, every second Viking rower shipped his oar and ranged himself along the side. Several had bows. The others wielded swords, axes and spears. Two of them dangled grappling hooks. All of them carried circular wooden shields quartered in red and white.
Raul knelt beside Vallon and steadied his crossbow. Wayland took up position behind him.
‘Shoot when you’re sure of your targets.’
With movements that were ritualistic in their deliberation, the huge warrior at the stem donned a conical helmet fitted with a visor that ringed his eyes and transformed him into a figure of menacing power. He hefted an iron-bossed shield painted in the same colours displayed by the rest of his company. Only two other Vikings wore mail armour.
Water hissed around the longship’s bow. Its dragon stem grew taller.
‘They’ll engage to starboard,’ Vallon said.
Wayland lowered his bow. ‘Out to sea. Something’s happening.’
At first Vallon couldn’t make sense of it. The horizon seemed to be fraying, lifting in a deckled edge. He’d seen the sea boiling where schools of whales were feeding and for a moment he thought that a herd of leviathans had driven a shoal of fish to the surface.
‘Great God!’
It was a wave – a broken wall of water churning down on the longship. One of the Vikings shouted a warning, but they had no time to react. The wave hit the longship in a welter of spray and advanced tumbling on
Shearwater
.
‘Hang on!’ Vallon yelled, grabbing the stempost.
Wave and wind struck
Shearwater
, knocking her astern and
wrenching her round with a force that tore Vallon from his hold. He trotted backwards, the deck dropping away beneath his feet, and then he trod air before toppling over and whacking his head. He rolled helplessly, smacked into something solid and lay winded and dazed. When he tried to regain his feet, he couldn’t. He was lying almost upside down against the gunwale, the sea foaming at the same level as his head and the deck rising almost vertically above him. The squall had knocked them onto their beam ends. They were on the point of capsizing. He made another attempt to rise, struggling like a man trying to extricate himself from a tub. He managed to get his feet onto the gunwale and balanced with his hands leaning against the deck. The wind shrieked overhead. He grabbed a flailing shroud and looked around. Wayland and Syth had wrapped themselves around a thwart. Hero and Richard were clinging to the yard. Another cluster by the rudder.
The wind stopped as quickly as it had blown up. The churning sea quietened. With a slow sigh and a heavy splash,
Shearwater
swung back and settled at a steep list. Cargo and ballast had shifted. Vallon felt the lump on the back of his skull. He shook his head and looked for the longship.
It wallowed off to port, barely a foot of freeboard showing. Its mast leaned perilously and its sail hung loose from the yard, rent from top to bottom. Several crew members had been washed into the sea and a boat was being launched to rescue them.
Vallon hurried aft. A horse screamed in the hold.
‘Is everyone safe?’
‘We lost Father Saxo,’ Raul panted. ‘Never even saw him go.’
Father Hilbert was running from side to side, calling out to his companion.
Vallon searched the sea. The squall was heading towards Helgi’s ship.
Raul aimed his crossbow at the longship. ‘Like shooting fish in a barrel.’
Vallon slapped his arm. ‘Never mind that. Fix the ship. You and Wayland, repair the rigging. Garrick, do something about the horses. The rest of you, get us back on an even keel.’ He checked on the longship. Most of the hands were bailing with buckets and anything else that would hold water. ‘I don’t see the other knarr.’
Raul scanned the sea. ‘It must have sunk.’
Both crews laboured to make their vessels seaworthy, the men glancing up from their work to check on their enemies’ progress. Garrick reported that one of the horses had broken a leg and Vallon ordered him to kill it. The sea had taken Father Saxo. Judging by the mournful shouts coming from the search party in the longship’s circling boat, the Vikings had also lost some of their number.
Shearwater
had suffered only minor damage. By the time her company had trimmed the ship and replaced the broken shrouds, the Vikings were still emptying out the hull and trying to raise the mast.
Clean air from the north filled
Shearwater
’s sail. The Viking chieftain looked up from his work. Raul patted his crossbow and looked at Vallon. ‘I won’t get a better chance.’
‘Make your aim true.’
The bolt shot through the air so fast that Vallon couldn’t follow it, but the Viking leader must have seen it coming because when the blade thumped home, it was buried in his shield. He jabbed his axe into the air. Vallon turned away. The squall had dispersed back into its elements. He studied the coast.
‘What’s happened to Helgi’s ship?’
‘It’s lost its mast,’ said Wayland.
Raul spat. ‘Now let’s see how proud he is.’
Helgi’s knarr lay low in the water, its rudder half-torn off, its mast shattered close to the deck and everything above gone by the board. A human chain was bailing out the hold and the rest of the able-bodied were cutting away the wrecked mast and waterlogged sail. Helgi stalked about exhorting everyone to greater efforts. Vallon saw Caitlin working as hard as anyone. Drogo straddled the broken mast, slashing away at the lines that fixed the yard.
Vallon hailed him. ‘How badly are you damaged below?’
Drogo glanced at Helgi. ‘Some of the planks have sprung. We’ve tried to plug the leak but we’re still taking on water. As soon as we’ve cut away the mast, we’ll row in.’
Vallon gauged the distance to land. About two miles. He checked on the longship. ‘You don’t have time. We’ll tow you in.’
Drogo relayed the offer to Helgi. The Icelander gesticulated a furious negative. ‘We’ll manage without your help,’ Drogo shouted.
‘Let the fool sink,’ said Raul.
In the stern of the knarr stood a group of the old and the young, including the elderly couple who’d already lost one ship. A young mother was trying to soothe her crying baby. Three horses occupied the rest of the deck.
Vallon glanced back at the longship. ‘The Vikings took less punishment than you. They have more than twenty oars to your eight. They’ll catch you before you get halfway to land.’
Drogo searched for Helgi, then looked back at Vallon. ‘It’s not my decision.’
‘Are you going to let that fool dictate your fate?’
‘He’s in command.’
‘In that case, they can take what’s coming to them,’ said Raul.
‘No. Keep us hove to. They’ll come to their senses.’ He saw the expression on Raul’s face and cut him off with a gesture before he could give voice to it.
Vallon paced the deck, flicking looks between the longship and the knarr. The sun was halfway down the sky when Wayland confirmed that the Vikings were on the move again.
‘That’s it,’ Vallon said. ‘Bring us alongside.’
Shearwater
closed to within twenty feet. One brave Icelander had crawled out to the end of the half-submerged yard to cut the remaining rope-bands from the sail.
‘This is your last chance,’ Vallon cried. ‘Accept a tow or we’re leaving you.’
His words were foreign to the Icelanders, but his meaning was plain and they left off their labours and looked at each other with dismay. Helgi yelled at them to get back to work.
‘You tell them,’ Vallon ordered Raul.
‘Captain, there are five men on that ship who want to see you dead.’
Vallon grabbed a fold of the German’s tunic. ‘I don’t want to save Drogo and Helgi any more than you do. But there are two dozen innocent souls who’ll be taken by the Vikings unless you can make that imbecile see sense.’
Raul went to the side and pointed at the longship. ‘See that. That’s death coming. Death for anyone too old or feeble to fetch a price in
the slave market. For the rest of you, it’s the end of everything you cherish. Wives snatched away, children lost. Sold to the highest bidder. Lord high and mighty there will never see his sister wed, but he’ll see her maidenhead lost a dozen times.’ Raul paused. ‘Accept a tow or go to hell.’
A moan went up and a mob surrounded Helgi. Voices rose and a scuffle broke out. Drogo emerged from the scrum and spread his arms. ‘We accept.’
Raul threw a line to the ship’s master. He lashed it around the stem and it thrummed as
Shearwater
took the strain. The longship was little more than a mile off, bearing down under its torn sail.
Raul shook his head. ‘It ain’t working. We’re towing a dead weight.’
‘We’ll pick up speed,’ Vallon said.
‘Not enough. Captain, this time you got to listen. We ain’t going to outsail them. You got to act quick.’
Vallon looked at the longship. Even with only half a sail, it was catching up. The knarr was shipping water faster than the crew could bail it out.
‘You left it too late,’ Vallon shouted. ‘You’ll have to abandon ship.’
Helgi waved his fists. ‘Never!’
‘Stay and fight with us,’ Drogo cried.
‘You had your chance. If you remain on your ship, you’ll face the Vikings alone.’
A hush descended. Vallon nodded at Raul. ‘Cut the tow.’
Raul lifted his sword. ‘I ain’t pretending, Captain.’
‘Cut it.’
Drogo waved his hands above his head. ‘Let me speak to Helgi.’
‘Make it quick.’
Drogo sprinted over to Helgi and swung him round to witness the threat sweeping up on them. Others joined him. He ran back to the bow. ‘I’ve brought him round.’
‘Send a boat-load of your strongest men and we’ll haul you alongside.’ Vallon turned to Raul. ‘Tell the Icelanders to bring only life’s essentials – food, clothing, bedding, weapons. No trade goods. Tell them not to leave the spare sail for the Vikings.’