Raef drew a deep breath. He had no choice; even while he longed to escape he was following Conn back down the ship. Diving into the water again, and going back there, following.
C H A P T E R T W E N T Y - T W O
Looking inland from the Limfjord, Corban could see, across the woods and fields, people fleeing the distant farms, streams of people headed deeper into the country, driving their animals ahead of them. When he turned back toward the bay he saw wreckage.
Three ships lay on the stony shore below him, their hulls stove in, their oars broken, and men scattered around them dead or dying, in the water and out. Pieces of ships and oars and sails floated in the shallows. Two other ships lay unmanned on the water, one half swamped and listing hard, the other aground on an offshore bar, and more bodies.
He shaded his eyes against the slanted sun. There was no tide here; the water seemed no lower than when the day started, but the fighting had moved away from him. All he could see now was the dark tangles of ships, floating on the water like wooden burrs stuck together. The scream and clang of the fighting reached him in a thin featureless clamor, like a distant music, mostly lost.
He knew his boys were there. When Sweyn’s dragons first lined up, he had seen two men run back along them, as the ships rowed together, two men running, leaping from ship to ship, until they reached the shallows and splashed through the water to the dragonfly. He had kept them in sight as they rowed hard up into the line, into Bluetooth’s second attack, but he soon lost them in the crowded dragons.
He had watched the fighting all day long. At first Sweyn’s fourteen ships had driven back Bluetooth’s much larger fleet, whose own numbers hindered it, the ships in front blocking the ships behind, half of its hands useless. Sweyn’s fleet had kept well together, struck hard, overrun some of the vanguard dragons; then they had been much closer to him, he had seen the surge of fighting men along the narrow length of a dragon, the ship pitching and rolling, the bodies falling into the bay, living and dead. Then Bluetooth’s men had withdrawn a little, and Sweyn’s fleet had striven toward the inlet they had come in through, to escape.
Only now the wind was against them, and Bluetooth was ready. He swung a line of his ships down across the mouth of the inlet, and pinned Sweyn’s fleet in the cove.
There they had joined their lines, lashing their ships together in rows, and set on each other. Most of Bluetooth’s ships were still stuck behind his vanguard in the narrow bay, but Corban could see men moving steadily up through those ships, so that there were always more of Bluetooth’s men where the fighting was. Throughout the main part of the day Sweyn’s fleet held its line, but Bluetooth’s weight steadily told on them. By midafternoon the solid line of Sweyn’s fleet was breaking up, fighting separate fights against always more of the enemy. Then, at last, he saw the dragonfly again.
It was floating steadily down toward the cove, while two of Bluetooth’s dragons rowed up and down trying to get some line to attack it; each time, just as the big ships closed, the little one slipped neatly between them and away.
Corban let out a cry. He could make out two men on his little ship—no, as the dragonfly drifted closer he saw there were three; one had a bow and was shooting steadily into the King’s ships. Still the big dragons rowed up and down, circling, but they could not pin the dragonfly. Then one of the big dragons ran aground, just off the beach, in the shallows at this end of the cove.
The other ship pulled abruptly off. The dragonfly veered away at once, rowing hard back upwind, toward the rest of Sweyn’s scattered fleet. He saw the black hair of one rower, the white hair of the other. Back on the stranded dragon, the men jumped off and began hauling their ship back into deeper water.
The day was waning. The wind was fading away, leaving the water calm as a puddle. A haze blurred the air; the far headland was indistinct, the sky milky. Horns blew, out there on the water, brassy bird yells. Suddenly the two fleets were pulling apart. A gap of open water widened between them. One by one Sweyn’s dragons swept off into the cove. There they turned; they rowed back up into the opening to the shallow inlet, and turned, and lined up again, gunwale to gunwale, their prows toward Bluetooth.
The last to swoop down was the dragonfly, swifter and nimbler than all the rest.
But they were trapped. The King’s great fleet milled around, awkward, struggling to get some rowing room; they could not close on Sweyn’s men, but Sweyn’s fleet could not escape the cove. Slowly Bluetooth’s fleet pulled around in a broad arc facing Sweyn’s line, but they did not attack. Instead they drew back a little and set out anchors, and Corban realized they were settling down for the night.
On Sweyn’s fleet, they clearly saw this, too. Some of those men began moving down off their ships, onto the far shore of the cove; the dragonfly had run in onto the beach there. Somehow they had made a sort of truce; he wondered how long it would last.
Then, from Bluetooth’s fleet, a dragon was striding on its wooden legs toward the shore directly below him, and even from this height, and with the light going, he saw the bulky shape of the high seat in the stern.
He crouched down, not wanting to look obvious against the sky. The dragon ran into the shore, and the crew leapt out and hauled it up on the gravelly beach. The men in the stern got out. They talked a little, and then one led off, and the rest followed him straight up the beach, out of Corban’s sight along the sheer flank of the headland. After them, bent double under the weight, went the slaves with the high seat.
Corban went to the edge of the headland, where it fell off into a stand of young beech trees, hazy golden with their first spring leaf. He strained his ears; he thought he heard voices down there. He rubbed his hands on his thighs, looking over the cliff face here. It was steep. But there was a broken place he could get a foothold, some of the way down at least.
The sun was setting. The night air brushed cold over his face. He felt her snug against him, sleeping, as she did almost all the time now. Slowly he crept down over the edge of the cliff, feeling his way with his feet. After a few yards’ groping desperately in the dark he found a little trail angling down, only a few inches wide, and followed it.
Now he was sure he heard noises, somewhere in the beech wood, and through the damp smell of the mast he smelled smoke. He stopped where he could shelter against a tree growing out of the headland, and looked down and saw the glow of a fire through the tops of the trees, out on the low ground.
He saw men passing back and forth through the glow; he heard voices, and somebody laughed.
He crept on down, the cliff now leveling out to a gradual slope, thick with brush. The ground was crumbly. On all fours he wiggled his way through a bramble that ripped at his face with its thorns. Going slowly to make as little noise as possible, he still sounded to himself like a bull charging. The air was flavorful with smoke. He smelled meat roasting. Over there, in the stand of young trees on the lower ground, a great burst of laughter went up. The fire grew brighter, flickering through the trees, sending long streamers of light back and forth through the wood below him. His belly growled. Crouched on the slope above the encampment, he wondered what he could do, after all, against so many men.
He had to kill Bluetooth. Only that would stop this battle and save his boys. He recoiled from that. He hated Bluetooth, but killing Eric Bloodaxe had gotten him into all this. He realized he was fingering the puny little knife in his belt. He had no real weapon to kill with, not with Skull-Grim, there, and the other berserkers, not even his sling.
He pulled his cloak around him against the night chill. His belly growled with hunger. Everything he had done, all his life, had brought him down to this, that he had to kill another man, like a wolf on another wolf, and he had no will to do it.
He stiffened; the crunch of leaves came to his ears. Someone from the camp was coming toward him through the trees. He crouched down under some brush, wondering if he had been seen. Huddled on the slope, he looked down through the branches.
; A tall gaunt figure slouched in where the brush was thick, and there pulled his clothes aside and squatted down to relieve himself. When he did, he turned a little toward the fire, and the flickering light struck the side of his face. It was Bluetooth.
Corban clenched his teeth. He had his chance now. He drew the knife; he could leap down there now, and kill him with the knife. The old man hunkered long over his bowels, groaning. Kill him in his shit. He gripped the knife but he could not make himself move. He could not do it, not cold like that, like a murderer, not even this murdering king.
Then, from away on his left hand, higher on the slope, something hissed, sped past him, and struck hard. The King squatting below him groaned and pitched forward.
Corban did move, then, scrambled down the slope, breaking through small branches and clumps of brush. Bluetooth lay on his side in a stink of shit, but he was still alive. Corban put his hands on him.
“Help me,” Bluetooth said, and then louder, desperate, his breath whistling, “Help me!”
Corban said, “Here. I’m here. Where are you hurt?” and his hand, groping over the clenched body of the King, banged into the shaft of an arrow sunk deep in his lower back. Over by the fire somebody yelled, and then a chorus of bellowing rose, like frogs in the dark.
“Don’t leave me alone,” the old man said, between his teeth, the pain clenched in his jaws, his eyes wild in the unsteady light. “Don’t leave me.”
“I’m here,” Corban said, and took hold of his arm. Under his hand he felt the life running out of Bluetooth like the stuff in his bowels. The old King shuddered, his teeth chattering.
“God, I can’t remember what to say.”
He sagged, went limp. Then crashing through the trees came Skull-Grim.
Corban stood up quickly, backing away, glad anyway to be out of the stench. The giant gave him a single glance and bellowed, “Bring a torch.” He knelt down by Bluetooth; other men rushed up through the trees, and brought a light, and the thick ruddy torchlight washed over the King dead, Skull-Grim kneeling by him.
Corban stood where he was, knowing better than to run. Skull-Grim’s boulder-head swiveled toward him; his teeth showed. “You.”
“Not me,” Corban said. “See the arrow? I’m no bowman.”
Skull-Grim grunted. “Hold him.”
Men closed in around Corban, who did not move. None of them touched him. His heart was beating hard; he thought, I will die now for the King I did not kill. He put his hand up under his throat, into her warmth, wondering what would happen to her now, if they would be together.
She hugged him faintly. Not afraid.
Skull-Grim straightened Bluetooth’s body out. The other men murmured, some crossing themselves in Christian wise, all craning their necks to see, Bluetooth’s name over and over in the ripple of their voices. The arrow had come out the front of the King’s body, and Skull-Grim broke the shaft and drew the head out of the wound.
He looked at the arrow, and stood up, massive in the midst of the spindly trees, the smaller men. His face was expressionless. He said, “It wasn’t the wizard. Take the King to his ship.”
The Vikings who had been standing around Corban left him, going with the rest to lift the body and carry it away. Skull-Grim held out the piece of the arrow; as it moved, the oblique firelight rippled startlingly over the shaft.
Skull-Grim said, “Do you know this arrow?”
“No,” Corban said. He stared at the stub of the arrow; now he saw that three gold bands ringed it just above the break.
“Well, I do,” Skull-Grim said. He pushed the arrow at him. “Here, you keep this. Come with me.” His eyes sharpened, glinting in the torchlight. “No more magic.”
Corban said, “I have no magic. I keep telling people that.” He put the piece of arrow into his belt, and followed the berserker toward the fire, where the smell of roasting meat was delicious.
Sweyn clenched his teeth, his eyes watering, all the pain in the world in his nose, which Conn was carefully molding back into shape with his fingers. He said, to be saying something, anyway, “We gave it to them, we outfought them all day long. All of you, you all fought like Odin’s own. Ahh.”
Corm sat back on his heels. “You’ll never be pretty again, Sweyn.”
Sweyn’s eyes were bleary with pain; he felt tenderly of the great swollen sore lump on his face. “Ah, you couldn’t stand the competition, could you.” He blinked, trying to clear his eyes.
Conn laughed. He put another piece of driftwood on the fire. Sweyn looked from Conn to the other men, and said, “I just wish I’d planned it better. We wouldn’t be trapped here.”
Conn said, “It was a good plan, even if it didn’t work.” He slapped Sweyn hard on the back. “We beat them today. We’ll beat them again tomorrow.” His face was clear and open as a child’s.
“It would have worked, if I’d held my end.” Eelmouth was slumped down alongside the fire, one arm draped over his upturned knee, the other leg stretched carefully out in front of him. He had taken a hard blow to the shin and could barely walk on it. “We’d have been the other side of the door by now, and him looking in.”
Sweyn said, “We made him suffer. We’ll get out of here tomorrow.” He didn’t know how, but he thought something would come to him, somehow.
Conn said, “Is there anything to eat?”
“Lost it all,” Eelmouth said shortly. His ship had gone down, in the vain attempt to escape out the channel. He lay down, curved around the fire, his head on his arm.
“We can search the new ships,” Sweyn said. “And the wrecks.”
“Raef went over there,” Conn said. “If there’s bread anywhere around here Raef will find it.”
Eelmouth chuckled; he was going to sleep. “Wake me up if he brings anything.”
Sweyn inched closer to the fire. In spite of their problems he felt the swelling in him of a buoyant triumph. He had taken the fight to Bluetooth with a much smaller force, and used him hard, and no matter what happened next he had won a big victory today. Going at Bluetooth’s vanguard like that had worked, had gotten his men off his own ships and into the enemy’s. His men had taken ship after ship, sunk as many as they had captured, and sent their crews down dead or into the water, losing only two ships of their own.
Conn had been much of that, he knew. Everywhere Sweyn had needed someone, Conn had gone and fought, and Raef was everywhere Conn was. But it was Conn the other men loved, for his joy, his quick high spirit, as much as for his eye to the chances in everything—stranding Bluetooth’s ship had been his idea, and several other clever moves.
Sweyn stood up, looking around the gravel beach, dotted with low fluttering fires. Night had fallen, clear and cold. The line of his ships, lashed together beam to beam, stretched away into the dark, their crews all come ashore. He went to the nearest of the fires, where the men sat from Thorkel’s ship.
They greeted him in a chorus of voices; but Thorkel was not there.
“Got him just at the last,” said his prowman. “I’m captain now of this ship, you should know.”
Sweyn said, “I hate losing Thorkel. He’s feasting now in a greater hall than we’ll ever see on earth. But you men fought like Odin’s own, and I’m proud you follow me.”
They cheered him, and suddenly they were offering him a bit of bread, but he saw they had little, and he said, “No, I have my own. Keep together, and sleep well.” He got up, and went on to the next fire.
There also he heard who had died, and praised the ones who had won this for him. These men had something to eat also, but those at the next fire did not, and he put them together.
He went on from fire to fire, making sure his men were as well off as they could be; he thought a King had to do this, but also, it pleased him very much to do it. When he came back to his own place, Raef had shown up with a sack of food, and so he ate, too. He lay down by his fire still contemplating the rightness of this, and when he slept he slept sound.
Raef jarred awake
, hearing Conn’s voice, and sat up. It was still dark. He was still tired. He reached for his cloak, wanting to lie down again, but now Conn was coming up to him, and saying, “Let’s go. We’re going to try to break out, as soon as there’s light enough.”
“Pagh. Whose idea is that?” Raef looked around. The fire had died down and the night was still utterly dark, but he could see the other men stirring. He sat down and pulled his boots on; they were still soaked inside and icy cold, and he moaned.
“It’s Sweyn’s idea,” Conn said. “Come on. You know he’s right.”
Raef growled at him. He ached all over from the hard work of the day before. Two of his fingers felt broken, and his left shoulder hurt whenever he lifted his arm. Now it was so stiff he could barely move his hand. Groaning and muttering, he found his sword and trudged after Conn, down to the dragonfly on the shore.
The black night overhead was still pricked with stars, but off to the east, where the sky sloped down, the clear air thickened into mist and the lower edge of the mist was turning pale. Raef stopped by the dragonfly. Just down the shore from him the other men were creeping out along the chain of their ships lashed together across the cove; they moved along slowly, bent over, trying to keep the ships from rocking, to get to their oars before Bluetooth’s men saw what they were at. Raef wrapped his cloak around him and buckled his belt on over it. He liked this sword, which was the third one he had picked up during the fighting the day before.
His shoulder was feeling better. A leather flagon half full of something came by, and he drank deep of the liquor; his head whirled.
The Witches’ Kitchen Page 33