Raider's Wake: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 6)

by James L. Nelson

  There… Brunhard thought. They would run more south, skirt around this bastard, and then they would see if he was a hunter or if he was prey.

  “Master Brunhard!” the lookout called down. “The ship is setting sail!”

  Damn! Brunhard thought, though he kept that to himself. This was not good.

  Perhaps he’s trying to get away from us, he thought next, then admonished himself for even thinking such a thing. He knew it was not true, and while he was happy to lie to anyone else for any reason, he knew it was pointless, worse than pointless, to lie to himself. This was the heathen, and he was lying in wait, and now he was coming for them.

  And that presented several problems. If they had been close in to land, Brunhard was sure he could have found some means of slipping away. But now they were several miles out, with nowhere to hide. The longship would be faster than his ships. And, more importantly, he was to windward of them. That meant he could sweep down as he chose, herd them like sheep. They were trapped between the Norsemen to windward and the coast of Ireland to lee.

  Damn him! Brunhard thought, but still he held his face expressionless. And then he thought of something else. There’s only one of him… And with that thought an idea began to form.

  “Silef!” he shouted forward. “I’m going to luff, so I might speak to the other ships!” Silef waved a hand in acknowledgement. Brunhard turned to the helmsman. “Luff up, meet here. Don’t put the sail aback or I’ll rip your heart out.”

  The helmsman nodded and slowly turned Wind Dancer to larboard, turning her bow back into the wind. The weather edge of her sail began to shake and twist, and then the rest of the sail seemed to collapse as the wind blew down either side of the oiled wool cloth. The ship’s forward motion slowed and she began to wallow as her momentum fell away.

  Brunhard looked astern. The two smaller ships behind were still forging ahead, their masters understanding that Brunhard’s maneuver meant he wanted to speak with them. When they were no more than fifty feet downwind they too luffed up, coming to as much of a stop as a ship on the ocean could come to.

  “There’s a ship, some heathen bastard most likely, to windward!” Brunhard shouted, using all of his considerable volume to be heard over the distance and the sound of flogging sails and the wind humming in the rig.

  “They’ll try to run us down!” he continued. “We’ll run for the coast, try to get into the shallows at the river to the west of us! You go ahead, I’ll hang back and try to fend him off!”

  The masters of the other vessels waved their understanding. “Now, go!” Brunhard shouted and aboard Two Brothers and Galilee the tillers were pushed over, sails pulled aback, and the ship’s bows turned away from the wind as the sails filled again. Hands on the ships hauled at the braces, pulling the yards around square to the ships’ keels, trimming the sails to allow the vessels to run straight downwind, back toward the Irish coast.

  “Fall off, now,” Brunhard said to Wind Dancer’s helmsman. The man pulled the tiller toward him and the ship’s bow began to swing away downwind. Forward, Silef already had the braces cast off and men standing ready to pull on his command.

  “Master Brunhard!” the lookout called again. “The ship to windward has her sail set now, and she’s making right for us!”

  “Let him come,” Brunhard said, speaking to himself.

  The Northman would come for Wind Dancer because she was the biggest of the three. And Brunhard would make it even more tempting by staying behind, letting the other ships take the lead. He would wait until the longship was nearly alongside, then spin around, head to windward, let the heathens sail right past. If he did that, then maybe the heathen would go after the other two, rather than get into a long chase to weather in that rising wind.

  “Worth a try,” Brunhard muttered to himself. It would mean the loss of the other ships, their cargoes of slaves and goods, and the men aboard. But it would also mean that Brunhard himself would escape with his life and his treasure. And as it happened, those were the only things about which Brunhard cared in the least.

  Chapter Thirty

  A third I know: if sore need should come

  of a spell to stay my foes;

  when I sing that song, which shall blunt their swords,

  nor their weapons nor staves can wound.

  The Song of Spells

  A fleet of ships always put Thorgrim in mind of a wolf pack: each individual swift and deadly, moving as one, acting as one, the whole so vastly more powerful than the numbers alone would imply. Thorgrim loved sailing in a fleet.

  This was something different, but it was good, too. They were one ship, alone. Not a wolf pack. Now they were the lynx: stealthy, patient, silent. They were not sweeping their prey in front of them, they were waiting motionless and concealed. Waiting for their victims to get within striking distance. Waiting to pounce.

  The distant ships were closing with them, getting closer to the spot where the rolling seas concealed Sea Hammer from sight. They had no lookout, Thorgrim guessed, or if they did he was blind, because there was no sign of alarm as the ships stood on.

  Wait…wait…Thorgrim thought. No need to spring on them yet, not when they were so actively aiding in their own destruction.

  Vestar was still aloft, still looking out, and now he called, “The one ship, the big one, in the lead, it’s falling off now!” Thorgrim jumped a bit, the sudden cry startling him in his sharp concentration.

  Falling off, turning away from the wind. Changing course. There was only one reason he might do that.

  “That’s it, they’ve seen us,” Thorgrim said to no one in particular. Then he shouted forward, “Get the sea anchor in! Set the sail!”

  And that was the end of stalking, and the signal to pounce. Every man had been braced, ready for Thorgrim to give that order, muscles taut, ears sharp. They moved, fast and efficient. The line streaming out over the stern was hauled in, hand over hand. The sail had been lashed to the yard with a series of loops that required only one tug of the rope for the whole thing to fall away, letting the sail spill from the yard.

  “Haul!” Godi shouted, but the men on the halyard had been waiting for the word, and even before he could speak that single syllable they were pulling on the thick rope. The yard, already athwartships, now rose quickly up the mast, the sail bucking in the wind, as men to larboard and starboard hauled back on the sheets.

  For most of the day Sea Hammer had been wallowing in place, but now she began to move. The yard was not yet up to the masthead, the sail not yet properly filled, but the long, narrow hull was starting to surge forward as if the ship, like the men aboard her, had just been waiting for the moment when the hunt would begin.

  “The one ship’s luffing up!” Vestar called down from aloft. “The other two ships are coming up with her! They’re luffing as well!”

  Thorgrim turned his eyes from the lookout to the seas beyond the bow. Sea Hammer’s stern rose on a wave and he could see the distant sails, three white squares a mile or more away, but his eyes were not sharp enough to take in more.

  And then they were lost to sight as the stern came down again. Luffing… Thorgrim thought. Brunhard was passing orders to the masters of the other vessels. No other reason they would do that. Because flight was their greatest concern now, their only defense, and killing the ships’ forward momentum by luffing would only thwart that effort. But Brunhard was a clever one, and he would sacrifice a few moments of time for the chance to implement some plan.

  Plan all you like, Thorgrim thought. It will do you no good.

  Sea Hammer’s sail reached the top of the mast and Godi called out, “That’s well! Make the halyard fast!” The ship was really moving now, her speed nearly as great as it could be in that wind and sea. She no longer felt as if she was at the mercy of the waves, but rather that she was brushing them aside. The lean bow was cleaving into the seas, sending spray high on both sides. She was moving faster than the waves were rolling now, driving through the backs of t
he rollers, surging over them, bow high, then dipping down and slamming into the shallow trough and surging into the next ahead.

  Thorgrim felt his lips turn up in a smile. He could see his men forward were already half-soaked by the spray, but they were smiling, too, reveling in the power of the ship underfoot, the straining sail overhead, the vengeance that would soon be theirs.

  Brunhard had turned. Thorgrim could see him now, and not just at the crest of the waves, but most of the time, save for when Sea Hammer’s stern dipped far down into the troughs. They were closing, and they had their eyes on the merchant ships, which had turned west and now were running for all they were worth back toward Ireland.

  No safety for you on the high seas, Thorgrim thought. This was what he had intended. Get Brunhard away from the coast he knew so well. Lure the prey away from its familiar warren and get it in the open. He looked beyond Brunhard’s ships to the coast off in the distance. Three, four miles. Brunhard would never reach the shore before Sea Hammer ran him down.

  Godi came ambling aft, his big, wide face split in a grin. “Your gamble has paid off well, once again, Thorgrim!” he shouted. “I must remember to never game with you if there’s silver at stake!”

  Thorgrim smiled, though he was never very comfortable with praise, and particularly not fond of it while the chase was still unfolding. He would never say such a thing himself because he was sure it would bring bad luck, and he hoped Godi’s saying it would not do the same.

  “Have you divided the men up?” Thorgrim asked, changing the subject.

  “Yes,” Godi said. “Twenty for the big ship, ten each for the smaller ones.”

  Thorgrim nodded. They had worked this all out in the long hours waiting for Brunhard to make his appearance. They wanted all three ships, not just one, and that would take some clever maneuvering. The plan was to come alongside the first ship they overhauled, grapple just long enough to get a gang of warriors aboard, then cast off and go for the next.

  Godi had divided the men of Sea Hammer into three divisions, one for each. It would not take many men to vanquish the handful of sailors they could expect to find on Brunhard’s ships. It was coming alongside in those seas, and in that rising wind, that would present the greatest problem.

  “Very well,” Thorgrim said. “It won’t be long now.”

  And it was not, though it was certainly longer than Thorgrim had anticipated. Brunhard’s ships were fast, and Brunhard a good seaman. Thorgrim was willing to admit as much, to himself at least. Brunhard had outfoxed him before, nearly wrecked his ship, disabled Sea Hammer by putting her sail to the torch. He had made Thorgrim work hard for the vengeance he would now take, but that would make the vengeance all that much sweeter.

  “I wonder where Fox and Dragon are,” Godi observed, and Thorgrim realized he had all but forgotten about the other vessels, so intent had he been on how he alone would take Brunhard down.

  “That’s a good question, Godi,” Thorgrim said. He looked up at the masthead. Vestar was still there so Thorgrim called out, “Vestar! What of Brunhard’s ships? And do you see anything of Fox and Dragon?”

  A pause as Vestar swept the horizon. He was sitting on the yard, hugging the mast, which must have been an easier seat to keep, but his ride was wilder now, with the ship plunging and bucking as it charged through the seas.

  “Brunhard’s still running like a dog!” Vestar called with undisguised glee in his voice. “Heading right for shore, but he’s not above half a mile ahead! He won’t make it! I see nothing of the other ships!”

  “Very good! Keep an eye out for them!” Thorgrim called. He felt an uneasiness in his gut and he tried to ignore it.

  Fox and Dragon don’t matter, he told himself. Harald is aboard Blood Hawk and she’s under oar so he’ll be lucky to catch up to us by nightfall. Few of the men on the other two ships had been with him long. He did not know many of their names. He supposed he should consider every one of his men’s lives as valuable as any other, and he did, mostly. Except for Harald.

  He’ll be along… Thorgrim thought.

  It was ironic, and Thorgrim knew it. It was he who put Harald in grave danger by taking him a’viking. But he felt sure that letting Harald spend his days as a farmer, and never know any other life, would do him no favors. A farmer’s life could be a good life, a safe life. For Thorgrim’s older son, Odd, it seemed to work fine. But it would drive Harald to madness. And farmers, Thorgrim was sure, did not spend the rest of days in Odin’s corpse hall.

  “Here’s that bastard Brunhard!” Godi said, pointing toward the bow. Thorgrim pulled himself from his thought and looked. They were close now, and they no longer had to be on the crest of a roller to see the ships in the distance.

  “He’s letting the smaller ships get ahead of him,” Thorgrim said. “Sure his ship, the bigger ship, is the faster. See how he’s spilling wind from his sail.”

  “Is he protecting them?” Godi wondered. “Holding his own ship back to let them escape?”

  “Perhaps,” Thorgrim said. “It would be a brave thing to do.” He was about to add that he doubted that Brunhard would do such a thing, but he stopped himself. The truth was that he knew nothing of Brunhard, nothing at all. He might be the bravest ship’s master on earth. Just because he, Thorgrim, had come to hate the man did not mean Brunhard was a coward.

  “It looks as if that bigger ship will be the first we’ll catch,” Godi said. “I’ll see that the men who are told off for that one are ready to go. Grappling hooks, too.”

  Thorgrim looked at Godi, up at Godi, at his big, honest face. They had not known one another beyond a year, had met fighting side by side at a place called Tara. They had been through many things together since that time. He smiled.

  “Thank you, Godi,” he said. Godi nodded and headed off forward to see that the men were ready when the fighting began. Thorgrim crossed over to Bjorn, who had the tiller. “You probably would rather get in on the fighting,” he said. “I’ll take that.”

  Bjorn, who did indeed prefer fighting to steering, willingly gave the tiller over to Thorgrim. Giving Bjorn his wish, however, was not the reason Thorgrim had taken the steering oar.

  This was going to be a tricky thing, coming up alongside Brunhard’s ship. And Brunhard, Thorgrim knew, was clever. He was not going to simply sail on and let the Northmen run him down. He would have some trick ready, and Thorgrim guessed it would be some maneuver, some way he would try to squeeze out of the trap. He might possibly try and turn right under Sea Hammer’s bow, head off upwind, hope that Sea Hammer would go after the smaller ships and let him run to safety. That would explain why he had let the smaller ships take the lead.

  Are you that much of a treacherous bastard? Thorgrim wondered. Brunhard’s ship was not much above a half mile ahead now. He would find out soon enough.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  In gusts of wind, that chillful

  destroyer of timber planes down

  the planks before the head

  of my sea-king’s swan.

  Egil’s Saga

  For weeks Conandil had lived with terror that was ongoing and visceral. It waned some during those times when the ship did not seem in any imminent peril, or when the Frisian sailors seemed to be occupied with other things, not paying any attention to her or to Broccáin. But then something would shift and the terror would be back in all its soul-rending constancy.

  The worst was when Broccáin and Louis had sailed off. They were the only men aboard who might offer her any protection, though she knew full well there was not one damned thing they could do, really. They were both in chains, both as vulnerable to Brunhard’s whims as she was.

  Still, their absence made her feel like she was on the edge of a cliff. By the time it was clear to her and to Brunhard that they were not coming back, the terror had dulled into an ugly, numbing hopelessness. She listened to Brunhard passing the orders to get the ships under sail, to make all speed for the cape and the open sea, and she felt every
thing slipping away.

  But for all her despair, a part of Conandil’s mind remained active and observant. It was just the way she was: fascinated by anything new or unfamiliar. When she encountered anything like that she had to find out what it was, how it worked, what it meant. That was why she was so good with language. Her curiosity was like a hunger, and it could never be sated.

  Brunhard’s ship was just such a puzzle. She had been on ships before, but only briefly, and both times as a captive of Northmen. Marched aboard Brunhard’s ship, she had been terrified and confused, her whole world just madness and uncertainty. But despite the fear she had watched the sailors at their work, had listened to the strange language they spoke—not Frisian, which she was familiar with, but the language of the sea. Words she had never heard before, but whose meanings she divined as she followed their labors with her eyes.

  Seafaring, she soon learned, consisted of quite a bit of monotony. When the ship was sailing, or being driven by the arms of the slaves, there was little to do. That was certainly true for Conandil, whose only duty had to do with giving food and water to the men. When she was not doing that she tried to be as small and inconspicuous as possible, crammed into a corner near the front of the ship—the bow, she had learned—while hoping none of the sailors would notice her and decide it was time to take their pleasure.

  During those times she remained generally motionless, less likely to attract attention, but her eyes and ears were active, taking it all in. She developed a good, basic understanding of the workings of the ship, how the wind and the sail interacted, the effect that the waves had on the vessel as it moved through the sea. When she heard an order, she knew what it meant, and she knew what the sailors would do even before they did it.