Six Icelanders rowed up to
Shearwater
. With their aid the company
dragged the knarr along
Shearwater
’s port beam. Before the ships had closed, baggage began to shower onto the deck. A young Icelander took a flying leap to safety. Raul slapped him in the chops. ‘Weakest first, you selfish little shit.’
The knarr grated alongside. Its crew passed ropes through the oar ports to make it fast and the passengers began scrambling aboard. The Vikings still hadn’t taken to their oars. They were saving their strength for a last spurt.
‘Hey! Are you deaf?’ Raul shouted at a man staggering onto the gunwale under two bales of woolcloth. ‘No trade goods.’
‘Let him be,’ Vallon said. ‘We’re nearly done.’
Only Helgi and his entourage remained on the knarr. Drogo sprang on board, followed by Fulk. They skirted Vallon and his company like rival dogs. Caitlin balanced on the rail, her face begrimed and her hair a mess. Her eyes, wide with appeal, engaged Vallon’s.
‘For God’s sake, what are you waiting for?’
Drogo assisted her to the deck. Her two handmaids followed, and then Helgi and two of the men who’d been with him at the lake came forward leading the three horses.
‘What do you think you’re doing with them?’ Raul bellowed.
‘We might need them,’ said Vallon. ‘For food if nothing else. God knows what’s waiting for us on that shore.’
Helgi’s men propped planks against the gunwale. Two of the horses were well-schooled and nimble. They negotiated the ramp and jumped down without putting a foot wrong. Helgi’s mount balked. He whacked its rump and tried to push it onto the ramp. As he did so, the oars on the longship flashed.
‘Leave your horse,’ Vallon shouted. ‘Get on board.’
Helgi grabbed the horse’s bit and stood on the ramp and began hauling it up behind him. The longship was three hundred yards away and flying through the water. ‘Cut us loose,’ Vallon ordered. Raul and Wayland ran down the ship, slashing through the ropes. All except for the one by Vallon. He hesitated. Helgi had managed to drag the horse to the top of the ramp and his men were holding him while he urged the beast to take the last step.
Raul darted past Vallon and wielded his knife. ‘I ain’t dying for no horse.’
Helgi hung on to the horse and his men hung on to him. The horse
tripped forward too late. The ships were drifting apart and the horse bellyflopped into the gap. Helgi would have followed if his men hadn’t got such a tight hold of him. They dragged him onto the deck. He shook himself loose and reeled backwards in a half circle, reaching for his sword.
Raul ran at him and aimed his crossbow from a range of three feet. ‘Draw and you’re dead!’
Drogo flung himself at Helgi and dragged him away kicking and struggling.
Raul and Vallon ran to the stern. The doomed horse struggled in their wake, its head thrown back and its eyes rolling. Raul’s crossbow twanged. The longship was only three or four ship’s lengths behind them, coursing through the water. Raul cursed as he reloaded. The shields slung over the Vikings’ backs made them difficult targets. Their chieftain held his position at the prow. Golden hair streamed from under his helmet. At a distance he’d looked like a god. This close, only his stature was god-like. The giant had a face like a horse – massive jutting jaw filled with splayed and discoloured teeth.
Shearwater
had reached her maximum speed. Not fast enough. The longship was only sixty yards behind, her stem throwing up wings of foam. Raul had reloaded and Wayland was drawing his bow. The chieftain crouched, only his helmeted head showing above his shield. ‘Aim for the helmsman,’ Vallon ordered.
Wayland shot first and missed. Raul loosed his bolt and the helmsman sagged over the tiller. The longship veered to port and some of the rowers crabbed oars. One of the Vikings pulled the helmsman away from the rudder and strained to bring the longship back on course. Even now it looked as if the longship would catch them. They were towing the boat from Helgi’s knarr and one of the Vikings in the bow swung a grappling hook to snag it. ‘Cut it loose,’ Vallon shouted.
Before Garrick could reach it, Wayland shot two more arrows, releasing the second while the first was still in flight. It flew in a hissing parabola and struck the new helmsman in the face. He reared up screaming, the shaft sticking from his eye like a ghastly wand. In almost the same moment, Raul’s next bolt pierced one of the rowers through the chest and left him vomiting blood. Vallon roared defiance,
his cries echoed by Drogo and Fulk and half a dozen sword-wielding Icelanders.
The Viking chief glanced back at the carnage. His men were committed to their oars, unable to defend themselves. He hadn’t expected such lethal opposition. He shouted and his crew let their oars trail. The wave curling at the longship’s bow died. Like a carnivorous water beetle that hunts in short dashes and never wastes energy, the longship slowed to an idle.
Jubilant cries rang out from the Icelanders. They thumped Wayland and Raul on the back. Vallon watched the longship fall astern, turn and row back towards the abandoned knarr. They’d left it too late. It was sinking. Before they reached it the gunwales sank beneath the waves and gouts of air erupted from its hull. It was gone.
Vallon turned to find every square foot of
Shearwater
’s deck crammed with refugees. Their grins thinned when they saw his expression.
‘We haven’t seen the last of the Vikings,’ he told Raul. ‘Separate the fighting men from the passengers. Everyone who can lift a sword to port, the rest to starboard.’
Helgi tried to interfere with the muster. Vallon ignored him. When the two groups had been separated, he took stock. Twelve men, most armed with swords, represented the Icelandic fighting force. The non-combatants numbered five – the old woman and her husband, and two younger women, one of them carrying a baby in arms. Helgi’s party with Drogo and Fulk stood separate from both groups.
Vallon approached them in a tense silence. ‘Don’t you know which side you’re on?’
‘I won’t take orders from you,’ Helgi said. ‘Nor will the Icelanders. They’re my people. They’ll do as I command.’
‘In that case, choose a patch of shore where you and your followers would like to settle and I’ll drop you on it.’ Vallon eyed Drogo with scorn. ‘I expected better from a professional soldier.’
‘I have to take Helgi’s side.’
‘Then you can take your chances with him.’
Drogo’s throat chugged. His hand drifted away from his sword and he glanced over his shoulder at the oncoming shore. ‘This isn’t the time to argue. We’re nearly there.’
Shadows were lengthening along the coast when
Shearwater
entered the estuary. Their lead over the longship had stretched to more than a mile. A flood tide carried them up the river and the alien shores began to close in on them. A country much like parts of Iceland for the first few miles, rolling tundra flushed with autumn, studded with bald granite outcrops. What amazed the Icelanders was the bounty of dead trees tangled in the backwaters and unharvested by any living soul. Soon they came on stands of birch and solitary spruces standing on the banks like spiral obelisks. The river had narrowed to less than a mile when they rounded a bend and put the longship out of sight. Along this reach the trees merged into a sparse forest that straggled away to the furthest ridges. No trace of habitation. Not a sign that any human had set foot in those wastes.
Darkness was beginning to settle when they broached the forest. They navigated another bend. A tributary led away to their right. They passed a scrubby island and a huge hump-shouldered animal patched out of the gloom went splashing away through the shallows. Some of the Icelanders crossed themselves.
Raul stood at Vallon’s side. ‘We’d better find a place to land while there’s enough light.’
‘Keep an eye out for a quiet inlet. If the Vikings go past us, we can slip back to sea on the ebb tide.’
Shearwater
held to the centre of the river. Soon it would be too dark to pick a landing site.
‘What about in there?’ Wayland said, pointing at a backwater between wooded bluffs on the left bank.
‘We’ll take a look.’
Shearwater
nosed round, still under sail, running with the tide. Vallon glanced downriver. No sign of the longship. He heard the riffling of broken water.
‘Shoal!’
Before Raul could steer away, the keel struck with a tearing squeal and heavy crash. The shock threw almost everyone down. Vallon picked himself up to find that
Shearwater
had run aground fifty yards from the bank.
He glared up at the heavens as if he knew where the agent of this fiasco were seated. Forget that. It was his own fault. He should have taken in sail and posted a leadsman. ‘Raul, check the damage.’
He paced and fidgeted while Raul investigated. It didn’t take long.
‘We’re holed and jammed. What makes it worse is that the tide’s nearly full. We won’t float her off tonight.’
Any moment the Vikings would come in sight. Think, Vallon told himself. Think.
‘Launch our boat. Bring the other one alongside. Row the women and other non-combatants to shore, then take off the cargo. Wayland, I’m putting you in charge. Round up as many Icelanders as you need. Raul and Garrick, get the horses out of the hold.’
People were gathering up their possessions and staring fearfully downriver. Vallon wiped his lips.
‘We must protect the ship at all costs,’ said a voice beside him. ‘Lose it and we’re dead.’
Vallon glanced at Drogo’s shadowed form. ‘Ship or no ship, none of us will escape if we’re constantly looking over our shoulders in fear of each other.’
‘Agreed. A river of blood separates us, but I’ll delay making that crossing until we’ve dealt with the Vikings.’
‘You accept my command?’
Drogo hesitated. ‘If I agree with your decisions, I’ll back them.’
‘Not Helgi, though. He’ll try to thwart me at every turn.’
‘Issue your orders through me.’
Vallon’s eyes rested on Drogo before stealing downriver again. ‘What would your strategy be?’
‘Safeguard the ship but engage the Vikings on land. We have five horses where they have none. That’s worth a dozen men.’
It had been a long time since Vallon had talked tactics with a fellow professional. ‘We’ll leave the swordsmen on board and post archers on the banks. I don’t think the Vikings will press home an attack tonight. They’re weary and must be feeling star-crossed after losing men and seeing two prizes sink.’
Wayland came rowing back. ‘That’s all the women and old folk landed.’
‘Supplies next. When you’ve finished, muster the Icelandic bowmen and station yourselves at the edge of the forest.’
Raul and Garrick had rigged a derrick to hoist the horses out of the hold. Helgi and his men herded their own mounts over the side.
Vallon turned back to Drogo. ‘Are your ribs mended?’
‘I’ll fight if called upon.’
‘On the right side, I trust.’
Every man on board watched the bend downriver. Swirls of water welled up mysteriously and subsided back into blackness. The tide had ebbed, leaving
Shearwater
high and dry. Deep in the forest an owl gave a funereal hoot. Weapons chinked. Mosquitoes whined. Somewhere out in the river a big fish jumped.
‘What’s keeping them?’ Fulk muttered.
‘They’ll struggle against this current,’ said Drogo. ‘They might have stopped for the night.’
‘They won’t call a halt until they find us,’ said Vallon. ‘They’re searching every bolthole. Having forced us into a dead end, they’ll make sure we don’t escape.’
A mosquito bit his cheek. He raised his hand to swat it, then stopped, arrested by the eerie illumination unfolding in the northern sky. Down from the top of the heavens scrolled a gossamer curtain of pale green, its shifting drapes fringed with bands of purple. The folds undulated with a kind of beckoning motion, fading and returning.
‘What in God’s name is that?’
‘The northern aurora,’ said Hero. ‘The Icelanders say it’s the flames of Vulcan’s forge reflected in the sky.’
In this unearthly glow the longship made its entrance, stealing around the bend with its sail reflecting the ghostly fire, pinpoints of light winking at its oars. It drew nearer and someone shouted as he caught sight of
Shearwater
. The Vikings rowed closer, then held station, feathering their oars. Laughter and jeers carried across the water when the Vikings realised that the knarr was stranded. The pirate chief stood at the dragon prow and bellowed a lengthy challenge or ultimatum that made the Icelanders gabble with dread.
‘They know him by reputation,’ said Raul. ‘His name’s Thorfinn Wolfbreath, a pagan feared for his cruelty all along the Norwegian coast. He eats the livers of his opponents. Eats them raw on the battlefield to feed his valour.’
The warlord shouted again.
‘What’s he saying?’
‘Surrender the ship, our trade goods and our women, and he’ll leave us to God’s mercy. If we resist, he’ll cut the blood eagle on every man he takes alive.’
‘Blood eagle?’
‘A cruel torture. I saw it performed on a thief in Gotland. They tied him face down, hacked away his ribs close to the spine, then reached into his chest and pulled his lungs out through the back. The Icelanders say he’s a berserker, a warrior who can’t be defeated by mortal means. Swords can’t bite him and he can walk through fire without being burned. He can blunt a weapon just by looking at it.’
Vallon snorted.
‘You and me know it’s bollocks,’ said Raul. ‘But that’s what the Icelanders believe. If Thorfinn attacks us now, half of them will jump over the side.’
‘Remind him of your sting.’ Vallon turned. ‘Wayland, give them a volley.’
The bolt struck with a meaty thud. A flight of arrows whispered through the dark. Thorfinn laughed. Another volley of arrows swept overhead and a yelp of pain told Vallon that one of them had made a lucky hit. Thorfinn shouted. The longship began to fall back with the tide.
‘Wayland, follow them and mark where they put in. Keep watch on them. Take someone to report back.’