“Stand ready!” Nothwulf cried out, loud enough to be heard all along his littoral defenses, but of course the men had been ready for some time. They had been ready for days.
Once Nothwulf had hit on this plan, and half convinced, half bullied Leofric into going along, they had marched quickly to this place and set to work. Trees cut down, driftwood logs collected, houses pulled apart, they fetched timber from every source they could to erect their walls, Nothwulf on the northwest bank, Leofric to the southeast. They had rounded up archers and bows and arrows. They had made ready and then they had waited. For this moment.
Nothwulf looked behind him. A series of small fire rings had been built behind the wall where they were hidden from the water. They made a line parallel to the wall and running its whole length. Each ring had kindling and wood arranged so that it would light up as soon as a glowing coal was put to it. But they were not yet lit. A line of smoke columns might alert the Northmen while they were still some ways away, put them on guard, or even make them turn around. But now it was time, because now it was too late for the Northmen to react.
“Go ahead, stoke the fires!” Nothwulf called, and the men who had been standing by, blowing gently on the embers, now set the embers to the kindling, and in no time at all each of the fires was burning well, the smoke rising up in a line. He looked across the water and could see the first columns of smoke rising up from the fires on Leofric’s side.
He looked back at the channel and the lead ship pulling toward them. It was a big one, maybe the biggest he had ever seen. It had the tall, elegantly curved prow that the Northmen preferred, with some sort of carving at the end, though Nothwulf could not make out what it was. Some pagan god or such. A row of bright-colored shields painted in various patterns lined the ship’s side, and the long oars were thrust out below them, moving with an impressive synchronization. The deck was crowded with men.
The ship had slowed, Nothwulf could see that as well. They had been pulling hard when they first came into view, coming around the south entrance to the channel, but they had slowed at the no doubt surprising sight of the fortification and the men standing there and waiting.
Nothwulf nodded his head. “Good, good,” he said. “Come on, you can do it…you can run past these miserable defenses…go ahead and try, you heathen bastards.”
There was another ship a short distance behind the first and nearly as big, and behind that, another. Nothwulf knew that there were seven ships in all, but the last three in line were not yet visible, which was also good. They would come blundering into whatever mess the first in line were tangled up in.
Nothwulf did not know a lot about ships, but he did know some things. He knew that they had more control going into the current rather than being pushed along by it. He knew they needed a certain amount of room to maneuver and turn, and wide as the channel looked, it was deceptive, with mud banks here and there below the surface. He knew they needed a certain depth of water in which to float.
“Good, good,” he said again. He turned back once more and looked down behind the wall. The archers were standing near, ready to climb up to the top of the wall, where they would get the most advantageous shot. The fires were all burning well. Next to each fire stood a half dozen men. Some held arrows with oil-soaked rags bound tight around the ends of the shafts. The others stood ready to touch the rags off in the fires and hand them up quick to the archers on the wall.
“Now!” Nothwulf shouted. “Now! Light them up!”
The defenses on shore, the handful of men standing on the walls, seemed to pose no real danger to Sea Hammer or the rest of the fleet, as long as their crews did not go ashore. And Thorgrim did not intend to go ashore. Not at all. He wanted to get clear of the channel as quickly as he could and leave the shore behind.
And even if they did go ashore, Thorgrim was certain that they could just brush the Englishmen aside. No, there did not seem to be any danger there. And that fact sounded a warning, loud and clear, in Thorgrim’s mind.
So why build the walls at all?
“Hall, slow your stroke,” Thorgrim called. Hall nodded and with the next stroke he pulled back on the oar with half the force he had been using, and the rest did the same. Sea Hammer’s speed through the water slowed noticeably and the momentum came off her. No sense in rushing into this unexpected situation.
“Starri, what do you see?” Thorgrim called aloft.
“Just the walls,” Starri called out. “Some of those miserable bastards standing on them, more shirking behind. Some cook fires.”
Thorgrim was about to tell Starri to stay put, that he needed him as lookout, but even before he could speak Starri grabbed onto the shroud and came down, half sliding, half hand-over-hand, until his feet hit the sheer strake and he hopped to the deck. There would be no keeping him at the masthead now. Starri would remain aloft as long as navigating was the greatest fun to be had, but now there were men-at-arms near, and the possibility of a fight, and there was no chance Starri would be willing to watch from on high.
Indeed, Starri had hardly recovered his footing before he pulled his tunic up over his head, preferring to go bare-chested into battle. His arms were starting to do that strange jerky thing they did when a fight was near.
Thorgrim looked behind. Blood Hawk was in his wake, about a hundred feet astern. He looked from bank to bank. The men-at-arms were lining the top of the walls and more were climbing up to join them.
What do you think you’ll do from way over there? Thorgrim thought. Then, as if in answer to his question, he saw an archer raise his bow, an arrow on the bowstring. He was more than a hundred feet away, not an unreasonable distance for a good bowman. Thorgrim could not make out the details, but the motion was unmistakable. Still, there was something odd about the whole thing, something that did not look right, but Thorgrim could not tell what.
The archer drew, he released, and the arrow made a dark streak through the air as it sailed over the water and embedded itself in one of the shields mounted on Sea Hammer’s side. It quivered there for a moment, dark smoke whirling up from its head, and then the painted canvas face of the shield burst into flames.
“Oh, Thor’s arse!” Gudrid shouted. Thorgrim was thinking much the same thing. Flaming arrows. And immediately the next thought came to mind: The sails!
It would be a hard thing to set a ship on fire with flaming arrows. Even covered in tar and pitch as they were, the timbers were too big to easily catch. But the sails were something else. Oiled wool, they would ignite easily. The burning sail might take the whole ship with it, and even if it did not, they could not afford to lose the sails. They had fought and died at Loch Garman to make these sails, and they could not be replaced now.
“Hall! Double time! Go!” Thorgrim shouted. Hall was not surprised by the order. He leaned forward quick, dipped his oar and pulled back hard. The muscles in his arms and the sinews in his neck stood out with the effort. Behind him, on either side, more than a hundred men on the double-manned oars did the same. Sea Hammer lurched ahead, her speed building with each stroke.
The arrows were coming fast now, flying in from either side. The shield that had ignited had been thrown overboard, leaving a gap in the line like a missing tooth. More arrows struck shields and the mast and lodged in the prow. As fast as they came in, men grabbed them and jerked them free and tossed them aside. Or, nearly as fast. Here and there an arrow remained lodged in the wood, smoking and sputtering. One, stuck in the mast, was dropping flaming bits of its oil-soaked cloth on the sail lashed to the yard below.
Harald was there, a bucket in hand. The arrow was too high to reach so he flung the water in the bucket up at it, a well-aimed shot that extinguished the flame, much to Thorgrim’s relief. Now Harald was shouting orders to those not manning an oar and they grabbed up buckets, hauled water up from the channel and doused the sail with it, soaking the cloth, making it more difficult to light.
Sea Hammer was almost even with the ad hoc walls on the beaches
on either side, the shoreline sliding quickly past as the rowers leaned in hard. The arrows were like a swarm of bees, flying in from either side, making a steady drumbeat of thumps in the wood where they struck. Up on the foredeck Failend stood with her own bow, a quiver of arrows leaning against the ship’s side. She was nocking and shooting as fast as she could, which was very fast. Thorgrim had no doubt that her arrows were finding their marks, that she was taking down their tormentors as fast as she could, but she alone was not enough to do much harm to them.
The walls were abeam of them now, Sea Hammer halfway past. Astern of them Blood Hawk was also enduring the rain of arrows. Thorgrim could see men grabbing for the flaming shafts and tossing them into the water. But Sea Hammer had nearly run the gauntlet, with Blood Hawk right astern, and then they would have the safety of sea room. The other ships were smaller targets and they would be moving even faster. These defenses, the flaming arrows, it all seemed a lot of effort for naught, and Thorgrim was surprised the English would not have realized how easily the fast ships could slip through it all.
Maybe they don’t know how fast our ships are, when pulled with a will, Thorgrim thought, and at that moment Sea Hammer struck something, something hidden by the muddy water, and lurched to a stop. Thorgrim was flung forward and he grunted as the tiller drove into his gut. To larboard and starboard rowers were tossed to the deck. The oars, which an instant before were moving in beautiful symmetry, now pointed off in every direction.
“Bastard!” Thorgrim shouted, straightening and looking around. Sea Hammer’s bow was lodged on some obstruction hidden below the surface and the ship was pivoting on that point, turning broadside to the channel as the now-ebbing tide pushed her along.
“What by all the gods…” Thorgrim began. He saw Harald jump to his feet and bound forward, leaping onto the foredeck where Failend was just pulling herself up. Harald looked over the side, down into the water.
“It’s a ship!” he shouted aft. “A ship, sunk in the channel! More than one, I think!”
Bastards, Thorgrim thought. But angry as he was with the English, he was angrier with himself. He had wondered how the English could be such fools as to think their arrows would stop the longships. But they were not the fools, not at all. It was him, Thorgrim, who was a blind idiot thinking that his fleet could just run past the fortifications with never a problem. He had underestimated his enemy, a common, often fatal mistake, and they had hooked him and hauled him right in like a fat cod flopping on the deck.
He turned quick and looked astern. Blood Hawk was only a hundred feet away, maybe less, and coming down on them. Godi was seaman enough to know not to try to turn his ship: with the current running with him, Blood Hawk would get swept down on Sea Hammer as she turned broadside to the channel. Instead he had the oarsmen rowing astern for all they were worth, trying to back away, but it was not at all clear that it would be enough. Beyond Blood Hawk Thorgrim could see Long Serpent coming on, rowing ahead, but slowly, apparently unsure of what was happening. Farther back, Oak Heart was just rounding the point and coming into view.
Forward, Sea Hammer’s rowers were sorting themselves out, those who had been flung to the deck pulling themselves up, those who had managed to stay seated on the sea chests getting control of the long oars. The current had Sea Hammer now, turning her crosswise to the channel. Thorgrim looked over the starboard side. He could see the indistinct shape of a ship just below the surface, like a vessel of drowned sailors, ghostly and frightening. The English must have weighted it with rocks, moved it in place, knocked a hole in the bottom. They knew the Northmen would wait for high tide to get through the channel. High tide, when the sunken ship would be hidden by the deep water.
The rain of arrows had built to gale force, sweeping in from both sides, the thump of arrowheads in wood as steady as the beat of hail on a canvas tent. Thorgrim heard a scream forward, short, loud, and sharp. The arrows, fired from the top of the walls ashore, were coming in over the shields on the rail, and one had found a living target up near the bow.
It was a man named Vandrad, long beard, shaved head, wearing a brown tunic that was now all but engulfed in flames. An arrow was sticking out of his chest, but somehow the man was still alive, screaming and flailing and still on his feet. Then Gudrid leapt over one of the sea chests and came down nearly on top of him, knocking him to the deck and beating at the flames with a blanket. Gudrid’s intent, Thorgrim knew, was to save the ship. Gaut was done for. Even if he could live with those burns, he would not want to.
The arrows were coming in faster than the men could pull them free and toss them overboard, and fire was spreading fore and aft. A number of the shields were fully involved, forming a wall of flame and smoke along parts of the ship’s side, keeping the rowers from their benches. Something up by the foredeck was in flames and Harald and two others were throwing buckets of water on it. An arrow took one of the men in the back and he arched and tumbled forward, knocking into Harald as he fell. A little farther aft another man took an arrow in the thigh, and he screamed in pain even as he beat at the flames.
“Rowers, take up your oars!” Thorgrim shouted. The men on the sea chests, those far enough from the flames, grabbed onto the grips of the oars, brought the looms up so they rode parallel to the water.
This won’t be easy, Thorgrim thought. The current was pressing Sea Hammer’s starboard side against the wreck, and the oars on that side would foul with the sunken ship as the men tried to pull. But without the drive from the starboard bank of oars, there would be no getting free.
Amidships, larboard side, Gudrid and four others drove the butt end of spear shafts into the burning shields. They thrust again and again and finally the shields gave way, breaking apart and falling down into the water. They might have made a sizzling sound, but Thorgrim could not hear it over the shouting and the crackling of flames and the screams of wounded men.
“Starboard oars!” he shouted, but before he could say the next thing he heard a voice cry out from behind him, surprising since he was the farthest aft. He looked to his left, back up the channel. Blood Hawk’s bow was twenty feet away, but rather than driving down on Sea Hammer and tangling with her, the other ship seemed to be completely stopped, hanging motionless in the water. Standing on the sheer strake, one hand on the prow to steady himself, a rope clenched in the other, was the massive form of Godi.
“Thorgrim!” he shouted. “I have an anchor out! I’ll throw you a line!” He held the rope up to make his meaning more clear.
Thorgrim waved his hand in acknowledgement, then stepped up to the ship’s side, his arms outstretched to catch the rope. I’ll give you a dozen silver arm bands for this, Godi, if we live through it, he thought.
Godi brought his arm back, then swung it in a wide, sideways arc. The rope flew away from him, unwinding neatly in the air and dropping on Thorgrim’s outstretched arm. Thorgrim did not even have to grab for it. Line in hand, he dropped down to the deck and took three steps forward, ready to make the rope fast to the heavy cleat mounted to the ship’s side.
Then he stopped. Not by the stern, by the bow, he thought. If they were going to be towed off, they should be towed off bow-first, so that the men at the oars could pull with force, not push the oars to make sternway. He turned back to Godi.
“Is there enough rope for me to take this to the bow?” he shouted. He got a lung-full of smoke and he coughed hard. He saw Godi look down at the rest of the rope coiled out of sight on the deck. He looked up and nodded.
“Yes!” he shouted, and then, in a less certain tone, “I think so!”
That was all Thorgrim needed to hear. He grabbed the bitter end of the tow rope and began to race forward, stepping up on the sea chest farthest aft, larboard side. Vali was there, oar in hand, and before Thorgrim could tell him to get clear he shifted inboard and pushed the grip of his oar down to make it easier for Thorgrim to step over. Vali could see what was going on and knew what he had to do.
The same was true
of the next man forward. All along the larboard side the rowers slid inboard, making a path for Thorgrim to race forward. But the men were not the only obstacle. There were still shields on fire all down the ship’s side, and arrows whipping in from the nearby shore.
Thorgrim leapt from sea chest to sea chest, pulling the rope along as Godi, across the water, payed out more and more of its length. Just forward of the beam, three shields were blazing, forming a wall of flame and smoke, but there was nothing to do but race past, dragging the rope, and with any luck moving quick enough to keep the flames from catching on it, or him. He plunged past, feeling the searing heat on his left side, on his face and hands and through the cloth of his tunic.
The rope caught on something. It pulled him up short and the end of the rope was nearly jerked out of his hands. Through the flames Thorgrim could not see what the rope was caught on, but he held tight and flicked the end, shouting at the intensity of the heat. The rope leapt free and Thorgrim continued his race forward. An arrow ripped past him, close enough to brush the front of his tunic, but he did not pause.
He reached the forward-most sea chest at last, jumped down to the deck and whipped the bitter end around the big cleat near the bow. He straightened and looked along the length of the line where it stretched from Sea Hammer’s bow to Blood Hawk’s. He feared he would see the rope engulfed in flame, but the tough strands of walrus hide were intact, with only a few inconsequential embers clinging to it. He lifted his arm and waved to Godi.
Godi waved back, then dropped down to Blood Hawk’s deck and disappeared behind the bow. Thorgrim turned and faced aft.
“Stand ready on the oars!” Thorgrim shouted. “Blood Hawk will pull us off, but once we’re clear you bastards row like your asses are on fire!” Which they would be soon, if they tarried a moment longer.
Kings and Pawns Page 23