“Ah, they’re underway now, Broadarm!” Starri shouted down from aloft. “Two ships, and they are pulling apart and…” All hands waited, ears cocked toward the masthead. “And they are pulling for us! They are coming toward us!”
Harald felt a little quickening. He stood a little straighter, stared more intently ahead. He felt like Starri felt, perhaps, when the gods where whispering to him. And he thought the gods were saying, There is danger here…
And he hoped that he heard them right.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Nothing of that which was gained by fraud can go to the liberation of his soul.
Emperor Charlemagne the Just
They were spread out over many miles of ocean, Thorgrim’s ships and Brunhard’s ships, like pieces on some board game of the gods.
When the sun had come up that morning, Harald Broadarm had been standing at Blood Hawk’s bow and staring hopefully south after a long night of rowing and keeping the other men at the oars. He had seen nothing. All the things he had hoped to see were happening more or less as he imagined, but well beyond the range of his eyes.
Sea Hammer, his father’s ship, sporting the sail that should have been set on Blood Hawk, was driving along south, not just out of Harald’s sight but out of sight of anyone watching from the Irish shore.
The longship Dragon, under Fostolf’s command, was just pushing off the beach where they had gone ashore for the night. They had spent the afternoon of the previous day in chase of a cluster of ships, which Fostolf took to be Brunhard’s. Fostolf was trying to do as Thorgrim had instructed, drive the ships south to where Sea Hammer waited, but whether he was driving them or they were just sailing he did not know. In any event, he had lost them in the dark and hoped now to find them again.
And ten miles south of Fostolf and Dragon, the longship Wolf was also put off from the beach.
At least, Louis de Roumois guessed that the ship they had captured from the Northmen was called Wolf, judging from the leering, sharp-fanged, canine look of the figurehead. But he did not know for sure, and anyone who could have told him had been killed and tossed over the side the day before. And he did not really care.
He thrust his oar through the oarport and sat waiting for Áed’s orders. He had hope the way a man hanging over a cliff clinging to some scrubby bush has hope; he had not fallen to his death yet, and as long as he lived there was a chance, tiny as it might be, that he would continue to live, and find his way back to terra firma.
“All right, you bastards, row,” Áed growled. He spoke low, for no rational reason that Louis could divine, but idiots like Áed, with no experience or sense for the sort of work they were about to undertake, always did things like that.
Louis dipped his oar and pulled. He was used to the task now, and he did not make a mess of it. He felt the hope glow brighter.
Brunhard had kept his word, kept his filthy crew off Conandil, for the one night at least. Not an easy task; they had been denied their go at her once, and they were not happy to be denied again. But they feared Brunhard more and so they went away grumbling.
Brunhard had ordered Broccáin released from the chains and had called him and Áed over so they could discuss how he, Brunhard, might be further enriched. But Broccáin had insisted that Louis be included in the discussions, said Louis had been the clever one who had tricked the heathens the first time. And so Louis, too, was unchained and brought over by the fire.
The plan was simple enough, not much different from the way they had taken the first Northmen’s ship. In fact it would be easier this time because they would be using the captured longship. The second heathen ship would see a vessel they knew well, and assume it was manned by their friends. The Frisians could make right for the Northman, rather than let the Northman catch up with them. The heathens would think nothing of this ship coming alongside. They would not become suspicious until it was clear that the men aboard her were strangers and the arrows began to fly.
It was still dark when they loaded the weapons aboard. Louis suggested they dress the slaves in the clothing taken from the dead Northmen. Brunhard was not very enthusiastic. Louis was sure Brunhard was planning to sell the clothing and he did not want it bloodstained and torn. But he relented. Having the Irish dressed like Northmen could mean another half a minute’s confusion on the part of the heathens, and that could make the difference between Brunhard’s getting his hands on their plunder or not.
Once again, archers, sailors, and slaves were set aboard the ship. Broccáin was allowed to be free of the chains, but Louis was not. Broccáin argued that Louis, as one of the leaders, should not be encumbered, but that was not a point on which Brunhard would yield, and so Broccáin gave it up. And Louis was denied the tiny sliver of satisfaction he might have gained from going into a fight a free man, or something like a free man.
Brunhard’s merchant ships put to sea, heading south, and the captured longship followed in their wake, but turned north, intending to be well clear of Brunhard’s fleet when they intercepted the Northman still trailing them. That was Brunhard’s wish. When the fighting started he did not want himself or his precious ships to be anywhere nearby.
The coast of Ireland was on their larboard side now as they retraced their course of the day before. Louis recognized none of it; from two miles away every bit of the shoreline looked pretty much the same to him, and he wondered how the sailors could tell where they were. But of course they were not looking for a point on land, they were looking for a ship at sea. And it was not long before they found it.
One of the Frisian sailors was positioned up at the bow and he called out just a little while after sunrise that there was a sail to the north and making for them. That was repeated in Irish this time for the benefit of Broccáin and the Irish warriors.
Louis, facing aft on the rowing bench, tried to crane his head around to see, but he could not. The wind was from the north, which meant he and the other slaves had to row against it, while this newcomer could run down on them under sail. But that did not matter. Soon the distance between them would close, and then they would all be in a fight for their lives, and there was not much point in thinking beyond that.
Perhaps I’ll die a quick death with a weapon in my hand, Louis thought. It seemed the best he could hope for now.
Broccáin came aft from his place at the bow, stood next to Louis as Louis worked his oar. “They’re a mile and a half away from us, maybe a bit more,” he said.
“Any change to the way their sail is set, or anything that looks like they’re suspicious?” Louis asked.
“No, nothing,” Broccáin said. “Nothing that I can see. Are you in need of water?”
Broccáin, Louis realized, was grateful to him; grateful for his having saved Conandil from the sailors on that first night, despite having to forfeit his own freedom to do so, grateful for his not raping her himself, grateful for giving them all a chance to die fighting.
Lord, I’m like some hero of old, Louis thought, but the thought was more irony than self-congratulation.
The two ships continued to converge. “Half a mile, now,” Broccáin said, then soon after, “Quarter mile. The heathens are taking in their sail.”
“Are their oars coming out?” Louis asked.
Broccáin waited a moment before replying. “No, they’re just sitting there,” he said.
“Good,” Louis said. “They’re just waiting for us, it would seem. Are their shields still mounted in the ship’s side?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I don’t think they would be if they thought we were their enemy. They must think this ship is still in the hands of Northmen. They’ll expect us to come alongside and speak to them. Tell Áed to do that, just run the ship up next to them and let the archers set in.”
It played out pretty much as Louis had hoped it would, as he had planned it would. Another short bit of rowing and suddenly they were alongside the heathens’ ship, the carved head of a dragon looming above, the brig
ht painted shields mounted on the rack down the larboard side. As they pulled close someone from the Northman’s ship called out and one of the Frisian sailors, who could speak the Northman’s language, responded. Louis did not know what was said, but apparently it was good enough for the heathen, who did not seem to question their approach.
Louis and the other rowers pulled their oars in as the two ships came side to side, so close they were thumping together as the waves lifted them. It was then that Louis heard the first note of confusion from the heathens, a cry, loud and demanding, followed by another. He could hear a buzz run through the men on the other ship.
“Archers!” he shouted from his place at the rowing bench, at the same instant that Broccáin shouted the same. Ten bows appeared in the hands of men at the bow and stern, and arrows began to whip across the short distance, and the screaming came quick on their heels. Fore and aft the sailors tossed grappling hooks over the few feet of water that separated the ships and heaved them together.
“Wait to grab your weapons, wait!” Louis shouted to the men on the benches. As before, the timing was the thing, they had to pull their spears at exactly the right moment.
And they did. The heathens were shocked by the archers’ attack, had not the least notion it was coming until the first arrows found their marks. A dozen of them dropped bleeding to their deck before they recovered enough to act. Someone was shouting orders and the men were reacting to it, but Broccáin was on the lookout for that man, the master of the vessel, and on his command the archers put three arrows in him before he had even pulled his sword from its sheath.
By then the Northmen were moving, even with their master dead or dying. They came howling over the rails, weapons raised, and Louis shouted, “Now! Now!” and the spears came up from under the benches, just like the time before. And just like that, the heathens died as they came on, caught between the archers at bow and stern and the sudden appearance of thirty wicked spear tips and the sailors wielding axes and clubs.
The fight did not last long. A great, wild burst of activity, screams of battle madness, shrieks of agony as iron pierced flesh, the sticky, slippery feel of blood washing over the deck planks, and then suddenly, calm. Quiet.
The two ships groaned as they worked against one another, rising and falling in the long ocean swells. Men drew labored gasps, some moaning, some muttering in whatever was their native tongue. Louis still held the spear in his hand. He could feel the blood that coated the shaft growing sticky in his grip as it dried. He could hear his own breath in his ears. He looked around at the carnage, the dead Northmen spread out along the deck, and the Irish and a few of the Frisians as well. The iron collar around his neck was pulling at him. The man forward of him had been killed, a sword thrust through his chest, and now his corpse was weighing down the chain.
Then Áed recovered himself. “Put down your spears! All you slaves, put down your damned spears!” His voice was high pitched, near panic. As well he might be.
Louis turned toward the big Irishman. He was holding an ax that looked tiny in his massive hand. He pointed the head of the ax in Louis’s direction. “Put down the spear!” he shouted. Behind him an archer drew back an arrow, aimed it at Louis’s chest.
For a moment Louis hesitated. He wondered if he could fling the spear into Áed’s heart before the archer loosed his arrow. Probably not. He dropped the spear clattering to the deck.
Another time, he thought.
Once again the Frisian sailors went from man to man among the heathens lying on the deck. Those who were dead they stripped of clothes and shoes and weapons and tossed their corpses overboard. Those who were wounded they killed and did likewise. Then they climbed aboard the heathens’ captured ship and pulled up the deck boards to see what their prize held. Louis could only listen from his place on the rowing bench. But whatever they found, he knew from the shouts of triumph, the howls of pleasure, that it was good.
Áed and his men were some time in searching their new-captured ship and disposing of the dead and eating and drinking what they found aboard the Northmen’s vessel. Almost as an afterthought they gave food and water to the rowers. Áed made a point of describing to Louis what riches had been found in the Northmen’s bilges. He thanked Louis for his help in its capture, expressed his regret that Louis would share in none of it, and assured him he would be lucky if he lived long enough to be sold as a slave.
When he was done with that, Áed stepped up onto the afterdeck and looked forward. “We must be off, bring all this to Brunhard,” he said to his sailors. “Take half these slaves, set them at the oars on this new ship. Brunhard will have both vessels. And take this sorry bastard”—he pointed at Broccáin—“and put him back in chains where he belongs.”
Two of the sailors grabbed Broccáin and pinned his arms behind him. The dead man in the neck collar behind Louis was unshackled, his blood-soaked body tossed overboard, and Broccáin was chained in his place. Others of Áed’s men set to unfastening a line of slaves and shifting them to the other ship alongside.
“Good,” Áed shouted, looking over the two ships. “Now,” he began, but he was interrupted by a shout from one of his men standing on the afterdeck of the new-captured ship and looking aft.
“Áed!” the man called. “There’s another one, another damned ship! To the north! Making right for us!”
Áed turned and took three steps to the after end of the ship and looked astern. He stood motionless for some time, studying whatever it was coming at them. Finally he turned and Louis could tell from the look on his face he did not like what he had seen. He looked off to the horizon, looked up to the top of the mast, then began to issue orders to the Frisian sailors in a loud voice.
“Another one of these filthy Northmen, they’re like maggots crawling from a corpse!” he shouted. “This one’s bigger, pulling more oars. There’s no wind, so we must use our oars too, and by God we’ll have to row like the devil is after us, because you can bet he is!”
Louis could hear the fear in Áed’s voice. Even if they abandoned one of the captured longships, put all the rowers aboard the other, they would still be hard pressed to get away with the exhausted and unmotivated Irishmen at the oars. If the wind came up and they all set sail it would be even worse; the larger ship would no doubt be the fastest of the three.
There was no fear in Louis. A moment before, before Áed had spotted this new ship, Louis had felt nothing; not despair, not hope, not one thing. But now he felt something stirring in his breast. Because the ship astern was a second…no, a third chance for him, and even a sinner like Louis could see that it was a gift from God.
Chapter Twenty-Six
I counsel thee, Stray-Singer, accept my counsels,
they will be thy boon if thou obey'st them,
they will work thy weal if thou win'st them:
look not up in battle, when men are as beasts,
lest the wights bewitch thee with spells.
The Counseling of the Stray-Singer
Starri Deathless called down from aloft. “Dragon and Fox, it looks like,” he said. Harald, standing at the bow, had turned and looked up at the sound of Starri’s voice. Now Starri reached over and grabbed the forestay and swung himself onto it. He hung from the rope and made his way down, hand over hand, to where Harald stood, dropping lightly to the deck.
“I could see them pretty clear, now,” Starri continued as if there had been no break in the conversation. “They were rafted together, but now they’ve seen us and are heading our way.”
“Hmm,” Harald said. He could feel the disappointment creep in. If these were indeed the other ships of his father’s fleet there would be no fighting that morning. And now there would be the question of who was in command of the three of them: Harald, Thorgrim’s son, or Fostolf, oldest of the three of them, or Thorodd Bollason, senior to Harald in age, senior to Fostolf in the length of time he had been with Thorgrim.
These were not questions that Harald had any desire to ad
dress. Annoyed as he was at having Blood Hawk foisted on him, he realized he was enjoying his independent command.
“You think it’s Fox and Dragon?” Harald said, knowing that he was hoping for a different answer this time. “You didn’t sound so certain.”
“It’s them,” Starri assured him. “I can always recognize any ship if I’ve seen it a few times. Faces too, you know. If I see someone two or three times, their face is etched in my mind like carvings on a rune stone.”
“Hmm,” Harald said, his mind elsewhere. He turned and looked south once more. He could see the two ships clearly, even from the level of the deck, and they certainly did look like Dragon and Fox.
“Seems they failed to find Brunhard,” Harald observed with a bit of relish. “Wonder why they’re wandering around here and not out chasing that bastard.”
There was nothing to do but wait until the three ships were within speaking distance, so he turned and walked back to the afterdeck, standing beside Hall who had sailed with them and who now held the tiller. Starri followed him and stood beside him, looking forward past the bow at the approaching vessels.
“Wonder what they’re doing,” Starri said offhandedly, but his words echoed Harald’s thoughts. The two ships were about a mile off and bows-on to Blood Hawk, coming straight at them, as one would expect. But they were also moving apart, opening up the space between them, as if they meant to come along either side of Blood Hawk. Which was also not entirely strange, but still Harald felt something nagging at him.
“I suppose they want to put some room between them,” Harald said. “Less chance of some stupid accident like running into one another or fouling each other’s oars.”
“I suppose,” Starri said. They continued to watch Fox and Dragon approach. All of Blood Hawk’s oars were manned now and the big ship was moving fast through the water, quickly closing the distance to the two oncoming ships.
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