Isle of Fire (33 page)

A knock at the door. “Captain Thorne?” came Bill Tarber's tentative voice. He was one of the gunners from the
Talon
. “Teach sent me to get you,” he said. “We're in sight of the mainland.”

“Very well,” Thorne growled. “I will be right there. In the meantime, alert Hrothgar's man Brandir. I want the broadsides and dragon necks loaded and ready.”

“Yes, sir, right away, sir.”

Thorne stood, glanced once more at the painting, and then went to the door.

Burn them all.

Thorne smiled. She'd come back after all. “I will,” he replied. Then he left his captain's quarters and went to the deck.

“How far to Västervik?” Thorne asked. He put down the spyglass. It was so dark on deck with all the lanterns hooded and the clouds hiding the moon that it was hard to measure the distance to the mainland.

“No more than two hundred yards,” Brandir replied.

Thorne smelled the mineral salt in the cool air. He looked down the deck at the crew, both the men he'd brought on the
Talon
and the broad Raukar warriors . . . they were a cold-hearted and menacing group. But Thorne knew there were a dozen men below, the Berserkers, who could, under the right conditions, slay everyone on the ship.

Twenty dragon necks lined each rail, and sixty broadside cannons on the four decks below. Thorne wondered if any ship's captain in history had ever sailed with so much firepower.
No, probably not.
Brandir nodded to his captain and descended to the main deck. It was time.

“Bring her about, Mister Teach,” commanded Thorne, his voice thickening.

Teach turned the wheel and the ship glided, turning its cannons toward the Swedish mainland.

The Viking Raukar leader Hrothgar stood at the rail next to Thorne and lifted his head to the dark skies. “Long has this day been coming,” he said. “And yet . . .”—he turned to Thorne—“I wonder if the Raukar would have awakened if you had not come.”

Thorne smiled and said, “I believe it is foolish to dwell on the past. I have come, and the Raukar have awakened. Let us just be certain that we do not cause our own future regrets. We control our own destiny.”

“You mean the gods.”

“What?”

“The gods control our destiny.”

“Yes,” said Thorne, “of course.” Thorne didn't believe any of this primitive god-speak, but he knew it was what Hrothgar wanted to hear. Then the captain of the
Raven's Revenge
removed the hood from the lantern on the quarterdeck rail. Crewmen on the main deck did likewise. And with mounting satisfaction, Thorne watched ghostly orange lights kindle one by one over the dark sea. The signal had been given. And like Brandir, the gunners on the other ships lit their fuses.
Whump, whump, whump!
The dragon necks disgorged their deadly breath. Each canister, as it rose and fell, left a thin, arcing trail of angry red in the sky. It looked as if some mythical giant-clawed beast had slashed the flesh of the night.

Then, all at once, over the sleeping city of Västervik, the sky exploded as canister after canister detonated, and liquid fire bloomed and streamed down upon the now-visible rooftops and steeples awakening the people. Ships in the Swedish port kindled, and tall masts went up like matchsticks. The city and the people in it were dying.

“Again!” Thorne commanded. He watched as the second volley careened through the sky, but these flew at a much higher trajectory—a height at which they would sail far deeper into the city. Flashes like lightning flickered behind the buildings near the water, and church bells began to toll. Cannon fire erupted on the coast as the men of Västervik sought vainly to defend themselves. But the shots were frantic and poorly aimed.

“Mister Teach, advance.”

“Yes, sir,” the quartermaster responded, and he brought the ship in closer to shore. That had been the plan: two volleys, then advance; two volleys, then advance. After six volleys it would be time to bring the ships in and let the foot soldiers go ashore.

The initial barrage lasted just two hours, and the northern horizon seemed aflame. The burning city of Västervik no longer even returned fire. Hrothgar, who had disappeared below, returned as the ships neared the shore. Behind him loomed the one hundred Berserkers. Thorne had seen these men before. He'd watched them train. He'd even eaten meals with them. But now, under the canopy of night, in the moments before battle, they took on a new visage. They wore menace like a cloak, and peril smoldered in their eyes. So grim and fell were these warriors that the other crewmen, the Raukar and Thorne's men alike, stopped what they were doing to stare. But none could look upon the menacing Berserkers for long without averting their gaze.

They were tall and broad as were most of the Raukar. But the Berserker warriors wore leather armor—sleeveless at that—so their bare shoulders and arms made them seem all the more immense and strong. Each man had a charging red bear emblazoned crudely upon his breastplate, and each man bore an array of weapons: spears, axes, swords, maces, daggers, and hammers. But none of these weapons gleamed as if polished, and none of them were smooth as if for display. These weapons were tarnished and gray, jagged and cruel.

Edward Teach watched the Berserkers line up on deck, and he found himself fascinated by the dread that these men projected. He watched curiously as Hrothgar uncorked a black bottle and passed it in turn to each of the Berserkers. Whatever was in that bottle must have had a bitter, biting taste, for each man grimaced as he drank it.

Hrothgar ushered his Berserkers into the waiting cutter ships. Bartholomew Thorne boarded a cutter with Teach and the rest of his men. Then came the Raukar warriors filling up six similar small craft that were lowered slowly to the surface. The slender cutters sliced swiftly through the water, the faces of the invaders lit eerily in orange from the raging fires. Thorne's cutter rode alongside Hrothgar and the Berserkers, and Teach found himself staring agape. “They . . . they burn,” he whispered. And so it appeared to him at first. Thin, writhing tendrils of white smoke swirled around the faces of many of the Berserker warriors and then dissipated in the sea breeze. A Berserker suddenly turned. His eyes, huge and bulging, stared out from the ghostly wisps of smoke. Teach looked quickly away.

“Waxed hemp,” Thorne explained. “The Berserkers weave strands of it into their hair and beards. It smolders very slowly, and the smoke gives them a most fearsome appearance.”

“It does indeed,” said Teach, thoughtfully rubbing the stubble on his chin. “And the drink . . . was that some kind of ritual they perform before battle?”

“Much more than that,” said Thorne with an ominous, gravelly laugh. “That flask was filled with a potent mixture of the strongest rum and ground-up bog myrtle roots. It enflames their blood lust until it is nigh unquenchable and deadens the pain that they feel. When the Berserkers reach the field of battle, it will be with such blunt violence . . . such a bloody frenzy, that few—if any—who come in contact with them will withstand it. My advice to you, Mister Teach: stay out of their way.”

The first cutters hit the stony Västervik shore and found it uncontested. Howling and shrieking, the Raukar Berserkers leaped from their boats and charged up the incline. Hrothgar and the other Raukar warriors sprinted after them. Thorne and his men followed.

The docks and boathouses had been abandoned to the flames, and the dwellings closest to the water were either engulfed in fire or already reduced to smoldering husks. Hrothgar's horn sounded from somewhere up ahead. Thorne and Teach led the others in pursuit. They found the heart of the city largely untouched by their eldregn barrage of fire rain. That had been a mistake—one Thorne did not intend to repeat against the British.

Only the tall steeple tower of a church and a few of the other buildings on the outskirts burned. But in the huge cobblestone square that divided the two sides of the town, a fierce battle raged. Västervik had a larger standing army than Hrothgar and Lady Fleur had anticipated. Their numbers were more than equal to the invaders' count. But this army was divided between fighting the invaders, fighting the fire, and escorting the women, the elderly, and the children to safety. And even had the Västervik army been four times its size, they still would have been at a disadvantage.

The Berserkers cut a bloody swath through the defenders. Screeching and growling like a pack of wolves, six Berserkers came upon a band of soldiers. These men looked at the red bear emblem, the dark, smoke-wreathed faces, and gleaming eyes of these wild men—but did not cower. The men of Västervik were skillful with their long swords and came at the Berserkers. One man, thinking his foe was dead, went to pull the sword out of his enemy's body. But the Berserker was not dead. He grabbed the man's wrist, pulled him close, and then butted his head with his own. The Västervik staggered backward. His enemy's sword still deep in his gut, the Berserker charged after him and hewed him with an axe. Then the Berserker yanked the sword from his stomach and howled to the sky. He ran off and looked for more prey until, finally, he had lost so much blood that he collapsed to the ground.

And that was the way it was with all the Berserkers. They did not feel pain, they did not tire, and they did not show mercy. Edward Teach watched as the Berserkers broke through the initial line of armed defenders and surged into the fleeing citizens of the town. And as he watched the carnage, Teach found he enjoyed it.

Hrothgar swept out a pair of fighting hammers and bludgeoned one foe after another until he stood on the edge of a fountain near the burning church, blowing his war horn, and called out to the combatants for someone worthy to do battle with the Lord of the Raukar. At first, no one answered and the battle in the courtyard became a rout.

Then Hrothgar began to watch one of the soldiers from Västervik. This golden-haired man wore green armor and had a very long, double-edged sword. His skill with the blade was considerable, and he moved with great speed. Once he dodged one Raukar's axe swipe and wickedly slashed the back of the man's knees. He rolled to his feet just in time to plunge the blade into the chest of a second Raukar.

One of the Berserkers spied this man's exploits. He lowered a bloodied pike-spear, howled, and charged across the courtyard at his new prey. Hrothgar watched from his perch, wondering if the warrior in green armor would turn in time. He did—at the last possible moment. He spun and brought his long sword down on the Berserker's spear, cleaving the shaft. The Berserker snarled at the man, tossed away the useless weapon, and unsheathed a jagged sword. He charged again, but the Västervik man did not quail at the onslaught of this bestial warrior. He made a “C” out of his body to avoid a swipe at his midsection, and then he slashed the Berserker's forearm.

It made a deep cut, and the Berserker dropped his blade. He looked at his own arm, gashed and bleeding, and seemed to wonder why it wasn't working. By the time the Berserker looked up, his enemy's sword was inches from his neck. Hrothgar's mouth fell open. He'd never seen a man move like that. No one except . . .

Hrothgar leaped down from the fountain and closed the distance between them in an instant. His hammers descended upon the green-clad warrior, but found nothing but the cobblestone. The target had rolled deftly away. He stood out of reach and looked up in astonishment.

“Hrothgar?” Surprise contorted into pure fury. “YOU brought this bloodthirsty storm upon us?”

“A very long time overdue,” said Hrothgar, “but a coward cannot cheat death forever.”

The man was incredulous. “You attack Västervik . . . you attack my people while we sleep and call me a coward?”

“You abandoned your people, Ulf,” Hrothgar replied. “You abandoned your family, and for what? This Christian myth?”

“It is no myth,” Ulf declared. “Did you not ever wonder why the Raukar was the last remnant of the Vikings of old to cling to the ancient superstitions?”