Warriors of the Storm

by Bernard Cornwell

  We needed speed! We already had speed! The tide and wind were carrying Sæbroga faster than any boat I had ever sailed, but most of that speed was the current, and we needed to be faster than the seething water if the long steering-oar was to control the hull. ‘Row, you ugly bastards,’ I shouted, ‘row!’

  ‘Sweet Jesus,’ Finan muttered.

  My son made a whooping noise. He was grinning, holding onto the boat’s side. The waves were broken, slapping into white caps, shredding the heaving rowers with spray. We were racing into a cauldron of rock and churning seas. ‘When you’re past the entrance,’ Dudda was shouting, ‘you’ll see an island! Go to the east of it!’

  ‘Does it get calmer inside?’

  ‘It gets worse!’

  I laughed. The wind was rising, whipping my hair across my eyes. Then suddenly, we were in the entrance, in the jaws of rock and wind-driven foam, and I could see the island and I pulled to steerboard, but the blade had no bite. The current was stronger than ever, sweeping us towards the rocks ahead. ‘Row!’ I bellowed. ‘Row!’ I heaved on the steering-oar and Sæbroga slowly responded. Then the hills caused a wind shadow and the huge sail flapped like a crazy thing, but still we raced inland. To right and left were maelstroms where the water eddied and broke over hidden rocks, where white birds shrieked at us. The waves no longer heaved us forward, but the current was rushing us through the narrow channel. ‘Row!’ I shouted at my sweating men. ‘Row!’

  The green hills on either bank looked so calm. The day promised to be fine. The sky was blue with just a few tattered white clouds. There were sheep grazing on a green meadow. ‘Glad to be home?’ I called to Finan.

  ‘If I ever get home!’ he said morosely.

  I had never seen a channel so rockbound or so treacherous, but by staying in the centre where the current ran strongest, we stayed in deep water. Other ships had died here, their black ribs stark above the hurrying water. Dudda guided us, pointing out the whirlpool that ripped the sea’s surface into turmoil. ‘That’ll kill you,’ he said, ‘sure as eggs are eggs. I’ve seen that thing tear the bottom out of a good ship, lord! She went down like a stone.’ The pool was to our right and still we seethed on, leaving it safely behind.

  ‘The harbour, lord!’ Vidarr shouted, and he pointed to where two masts could be seen above a low rocky headland.

  ‘Row!’ I shouted. The channel was at its narrowest and the current was sliding us at astonishing speed. A gust of wind bellied the sail, adding speed, and we cleared the point of land and I saw the huts above a shingle beach and a dozen men standing on the rocky shore. They waved and I waved back. ‘Orvar has four ships, yes?’ I asked Vidarr.

  ‘Four, lord.’

  So two were probably ahead of us, somewhere in the long reaches of the loch, and that lay not far ahead, just beyond a low grassy island.

  ‘Don’t go near the island, lord,’ Dudda said, ‘there are rocks all around it.’

  Then suddenly, amazingly, Sæbroga shot into calm water. One moment she was in the grip of an angry sea, the next she was floating as placid as a swan on a sun-dappled lake. The sail that had beaten dementedly now filled tamely, the hull slowed, and my men slumped on their oars as we gently coasted on a limpid calm. ‘Welcome to Loch Cuan,’ Finan said with a crooked smile.

  I felt the tension go from my arms. I had not even realised I was gripping the steering-oar so hard. Then I stooped and took the pot of ale from Dudda’s hand and drained it. ‘You’re still not safe, lord,’ he said with a grin.

  ‘No?’

  ‘Ledges! Reefs! This place can claw your hull to splinters! Best put a man on the prow, lord. It looks calm enough but it’s full of sunken rocks!’

  And full of enemies. Those who had seen us did not pursue us because they must have thought we had been sent by Ragnall and they were content to wait to discover our business. The great axe on the prow and the huge axe on the sail had lulled them, and I trusted those blood-dark symbols to deceive the other ships that waited somewhere ahead.

  And so we rowed into a heaven. I have rarely seen a place so beautiful or so lush. It was a sea-lake dotted by islands with seals on the beaches, fish beneath our oars, and more birds than a god could count. The hills were gentle, the grass rich, and the loch’s edges lined with fish traps. No man could starve here. The oars dipped slowly and Sæbroga slid through the gentle water with scarcely a tremor. Our wake widened softly, rocking ducks, geese, and gulls.

  There were a few small crude fishing boats being paddled or rowed, none with more than three men, and all of them hurried out of our path. Berg, who had refused to stay in Ceaster despite his wounded thigh, stood high in the prow with one arm hooked over the axe head, watching the water. I kept glancing behind, looking to see if either of the two ships we had seen in the narrows would put to sea and follow us, but their masts stayed motionless. A cow lowed on shore. A shawled woman collecting shellfish watched us pass. I waved, but she ignored the gesture. ‘So where’s Sigtryggr?’ I asked Vidarr.

  ‘The western bank, lord.’ He could not remember precisely where, but there was a smear of smoke on the loch’s western side and so we rowed towards that distant mark. We went slowly, wary of the sunken ledges and rocks. Berg made hand signals to guide us, but even so the oars on the steerboard side of the ship scraped stone twice. The small wind dropped, letting the sail sag, but I left it hanging as a signal that this was Ragnall’s ship.

  ‘There,’ Finan said, pointing ahead.

  He had seen a mast behind a low island. Orvar, I knew, had two ships on the loch and I guessed one was north of Sigtryggr and the other south. They had evidently failed to assault Sigtryggr’s fort, so the task of the ships now was to stop any small craft from carrying food to the besieged garrison. I strapped Serpent-Breath at my waist, then covered her with a rough brown woollen cloak. ‘I want you by my side, Vidarr,’ I said, ‘and my name is Ranulf Godricson.’

  ‘Ranulf Godricson,’ he repeated.

  ‘A Dane,’ I told him.

  ‘Ranulf Godricson,’ he said again.

  I gave the steering-oar to Dudda, who, though half hazed by ale, was a competent enough helmsman. ‘When we reach that ship,’ I said, nodding towards the distant mast, ‘I’ll want to go alongside. If he doesn’t let us then we’ll have to break some of his oars, but not too many because we need them. Just put our bow alongside his.’

  ‘Bow to bow,’ Dudda said.

  I sent Finan with twenty men to Sæbroga’s bow where they crouched or lay. No one wore a helmet, our mail was covered by cloaks, and our shields were left flat on the deck. To a casual glance we were unprepared for war.

  The far ship had seen us now. She appeared from behind the small island and I saw the sunlight flash from her oar banks as the blades rose wet from the water. A ripple of white showed at her prow as she turned towards us. A dragon or an eagle, it was hard to tell which, reared at that prow. ‘That’s Orvar’s ship,’ Vidarr told me.

  ‘Good.’

  ‘The Hræsvelgr,’ he said.

  I smiled at the name. Hræsvelgr is the eagle that sits at the topmost branch of Yggdrasil, the world tree. It is a vicious bird, watching both gods and men, and ever ready to stoop and rend with claws or beak. Orvar’s job was to watch Sigtryggr, but it was Hræsvelgr that was about to be rended.

  We brailed up the sail, tying it loosely to the great yard. ‘When I tell you,’ I called to the rowers, ‘bring the oars in slow! Make it ragged! Make it look as if you’re tired!’

  ‘We are tired,’ one of them called back.

  ‘And Christians,’ I called, ‘hide your crosses!’ I watched as the talismans were kissed, then tucked beneath mail coats. ‘And when we attack we go in fast! Finan!’

  ‘Lord?’

  ‘I want at least one prisoner. Someone who looks as if he knows what he’s talking about.’

  We rowed on, rowing slow as weary men would, and then we were close enough for me to see that it was an eagle on Hræsvelgr’s bow and the bi
rd’s eyes were painted white and the tip of her hooked beak red. A man was in her bows, presumably watching for sunken rocks just as Berg did. I tried to count the oars and guessed there were no more than twelve on each side. ‘And remember,’ I shouted, ‘look dozy. We want to surprise them!’

  I waited through ten more lazy oar beats. ‘Ship oars!’

  The oars came up clumsily. There was a moment’s confusion as the long looms were brought inboard and laid in Sæbroga’s centre, then the ship settled as we coasted on. Whoever commanded the other ship saw what we intended and shipped his oars too. It was a lovely piece of seamanship, the two great boats gliding softly together. My men were slumped on their benches, but their hands were already gripping the hilts of swords or the hafts of axes.

  ‘Hail them,’ I told Vidarr.

  ‘Jarl Orvar!’ he shouted.

  A man waved from the stern of the Hræsvelgr. ‘Vidarr!’ he bellowed. ‘Is that you? Is the Jarl with you?’

  ‘Jarl Ranulf is here!’

  The name could not have meant anything to Orvar, but he ignored it for the moment. ‘Why are you here?’ he called.

  ‘Why do you think?’

  Orvar spat over the side. ‘You’ve come for Sigtryggr’s bitch? You go and fetch her!’

  ‘The Jarl wants her!’ I shouted in Danish. ‘He can’t wait!’

  Orvar spat again. He was a burly man, grey-bearded, sun-darkened, standing beside his own steersman. Hræsvelgr had far fewer men than Sæbroga, a mere fifty or so. ‘He’ll have the bitch soon enough,’ he called back as the two ships closed on each other, ‘they must starve soon!’

  ‘How does a man starve here?’ I demanded, just as a fish leaped from the water with a flash of silver scales. ‘We have to attack them!’

  Orvar strode between his rowers’ benches, going to Hræsvelgr’s prow to see us better. ‘Who are you?’ he demanded.

  ‘Ranulf Godricson,’ I called back.

  ‘Never heard of you,’ he snarled.

  ‘I’ve heard of you!’

  ‘The Jarl sent you?’

  ‘He’s tired of waiting,’ I said. I did not need to shout because the ships were just paces apart now, slowly coming together.

  ‘So how many men must die just so he can get between that bitch’s thighs?’ Orvar demanded, and at that moment the two boats touched and my men seized Hræsvelgr’s upper strake and hauled her into Sæbroga’s steerboard flank.

  ‘Go!’ I shouted. I could not leap the gap from the stern, but I hurried forward as the first of my men scrambled across, weapons showing. Finan led, jumping across the gap with a drawn sword.

  Jumping to slaughter.

  The crew of Hræsvelgr were good men, brave men, warriors of the north. They deserved better. They were not ready for battle, they were grinning a welcome one moment and dying the next. Few even had time to find a weapon. My men, like hounds smelling blood, poured across the boats’ sides and started killing. They gutted the centre of Hræsvelgr instantly, clearing a space in her belly. Finan led his men towards her stern while I took mine towards the eagle-proud bows. By now some of Orvar’s crew had seized swords or axes, but none was dressed in mail. A blade thumped on my ribs, did not cut the iron links, and I chopped Serpent-Breath sideways, striking the man on the side of his neck with the base of the blade. He went down and my son finished him with a thrust of his sword Raven-Beak. Men retreated in front of us, tripping over the benches, and some leaped overboard rather than face our wet blades. I could not see Orvar, but I could hear a man roaring, ‘No! No! No! No!’

  A youngster lunged at me from the deck, plunging his sword two-handed at my waist. I turned the lunge away with Serpent-Breath and kneed him in the face, then stamped on his groin.

  ‘No! No!’ the voice still roared. The youngster kicked me and I tripped on a stiff coil of rope and sprawled onto the deck, and two of my men stepped protectively over me. Eadger slid his sword point into the youngster’s mouth, then drove the point hard down to the deck beneath. Vidarr gave me his hand and hauled me upright. The voice still shouted, ‘No! No!’

  I rammed Serpent-Breath at a man readying to strike at Eadger with an axe. The man fell backwards. I was ready to slide Serpent-Breath into his ribcage when the axe was snatched from his hand and I saw that Orvar had pushed his way from the ship’s prow and now stood on a bench above the prone axeman. ‘No, no!’ Orvar shouted at me, then realised he had been bellowing the wrong message because he dropped the axe and spread his hands wide, ‘I yield!’ he called, ‘I yield!’ He was staring at me, shock and pain on his face, ‘I yield!’ he cried again. ‘Stop fighting!’

  ‘Stop fighting!’ It was my turn to shout. ‘Stop!’

  The deck was slippery with blood. Men groaned, men cried, men whimpered as the two ships, tied together now, rocked slightly on the lake’s placid water. One of Orvar’s men lurched to Hræsvelgr’s side and vomited blood.

  ‘Stop fighting!’ Finan echoed my shout.

  Orvar still stared at me, then he took a sword from one of his men, stepped down from the bench and held the sword’s hilt to me. ‘I yield,’ he said again, ‘I yield, you bastard.’

  And now I had two ships.

  Ten

  A smear of red discoloured the water. It drifted away, turned pink and slowly vanished. The deck of Hræsvelgr was thick with blood, while the air stank of blood and shit. There were sixteen dead men, eight prisoners, and the rest of Orvar’s crew were in the bloodied water clinging to oars that floated close by the hull. We hauled those men aboard, then searched both them and the dead for coins, hacksilver, or anything else of value. We piled the plunder and the captured weapons by Sæbroga’s mast, close to which Orvar sat watching as the first of his dead crewmen were thrown overboard from Hræsvelgr, which was still lashed to our larger ship. ‘Who are you?’ he asked me.

  ‘I’m the bitch’s father,’ I said.

  He flinched, then closed his eyes for a second. ‘Uhtred of Bebbanburg?’

  ‘I’m Uhtred.’

  He laughed, which surprised me, though it was a bitter laugh, bereft of any amusement. ‘Jarl Ragnall sacrificed a black stallion to Thor as a pledge of your death.’

  ‘Did it die well?’

  He shook his head. ‘They bodged it. It took three blows of the hammer.’

  ‘I was given a black stallion not long ago,’ I said.

  He flinched again, recognising that the gods had favoured me and that Ragnall’s sacrifice had been rejected. ‘The gods love you then,’ he said, ‘lucky you.’ He was about my age, which meant he was old. He looked grizzled, lined and hard. His beard, grey with dark streaks, had ivory rings woven into the hair, he wore golden rings in his ears, and had worn a thick golden chain with a golden hammer until my son took it from him. ‘Did you have to kill them?’ he asked, looking at the corpses of his men floating naked in the reddened water.

  ‘You have my daughter under siege,’ I said angrily, ‘she and my granddaughter. What was I supposed to do? Kiss you?’

  He nodded reluctant acceptance of my anger. ‘But they were good boys,’ he said, grimacing as another corpse was tossed over Hræsvelgr’s side. ‘How did you capture the Øxtívar?’ he asked.

  ‘Øxtívar?’

  ‘His ship!’ He rapped the mast. ‘This ship!’

  So that had been Sæbroga’s name, Øxtívar. It meant axe of the gods and it was a good name, but Sæbroga was better. ‘The same way I sent Ragnall running away from Ceaster,’ I said, ‘by beating him in battle.’

  He frowned at me as if assessing whether I told the truth, then gave another of his mirthless laughs. ‘We’ve heard nothing from the Jarl,’ he said, ‘not since he left. Does he live?’

  ‘Not for long.’

  He grimaced. ‘Nor me, I suppose?’ He waited for a response, but I said nothing, so he just patted the mast. ‘He loves this ship.’

  ‘Loved,’ I corrected him. ‘But he kept too much weight forward.’

  He nodded. ‘He always di
d. But he likes to see his oarsmen get soaked because it amuses him. He says it toughens them. His father was the same.’

  ‘And Sigtryggr?’ I asked.

  ‘What of him?’

  ‘Does he like toughening his crew?’

  ‘No,’ Orvar said, ‘he’s the good brother.’

  That answer surprised me, not because I thought Sigtryggr bad, but because Orvar served Ragnall and loyalty alone would have suggested a different response. ‘The good brother?’ I asked.

  ‘People like him,’ Orvar said, ‘they’ve always liked him. He’s generous. Ragnall’s cruel and Sigtryggr’s generous. You should know that, he married your daughter!’

  ‘I like him,’ I said, ‘and it sounds as if you do too.’

  ‘I do,’ he said simply, ‘but Ragnall has my oath.’

  ‘You had a choice?’

  He shook his head. ‘Their father ordered it. Some of us were sworn to Ragnall, some to Sigtryggr. I think Jarl Olaf thought they’d divide his lands peaceably, but once he died they fell out with each other instead.’ He looked at the floating bodies. ‘And here I am.’ He watched as I sorted through the captured weapons, weighing the swords one by one. ‘So now you’ll kill me?’ he asked.

  ‘You have a better idea?’ I asked sarcastically.

  ‘Either you kill me or the Irish will,’ Orvar said gloomily.

  ‘I thought they were your allies?’

  ‘Some allies!’ he said scornfully. ‘They agreed to attack the land side of the fort while we assaulted the beach, but the bastards never came. I lost twenty-three men! The damned Irish said the omens were bad.’ He spat. ‘I don’t believe they ever did intend to attack! They just lied.’

  ‘And they won’t attack,’ I suggested, ‘because of my daughter’s sorcery?’

  ‘She’s got them scared, right enough, but I also think they want us to do all the fighting for them so they can move in and kill the survivors. Then take your daughter to …’ he did not finish that sentence. ‘We fight,’ he said wryly, ‘and they win. They’re not fools.’