And Thorgrim knew perfectly well what ship it was. Blood Hawk.
Chapter Thirty-Four
A thirteenth I know: if the new-born son
of a warrior I sprinkle with water,
that youth will not fail when he fares to war,
never slain shall he bow before sword.
The Song of Spells
The sail driving Blood Hawk—two sails, really, hastily stitched together—was one of the ugliest, most ungainly things Harald Broadarm had ever seen. And now, ironically, his father’s life and the lives of all the men aboard Sea Hammer depended on that sail.
The sail was filled and straining at the sheets. Too much sail for the strong and building wind blowing from the east. Under any other circumstances Harald would have reefed the sail by now, or more likely taken it in entirely and run under bare poles. In any other circumstances he would not be charging down on a lee shore, driving his ship as hard as he could into the most dangerous of circumstances.
“What do you see?” he called up to Starri Deathless, who was getting a wild ride indeed at the top of the mast. The seas were rolling in, high and fast, but Blood Hawk was driving along even faster, racing up the backs of rollers, launching her bow out over the trough, then plunging down with a great welter of spray and an impact that made the whole ship shudder.
When that happened the taut sail would collapse and hang limp, just for an instant. And then the bow would rise and the wind would fill the sail again with a powerful jerk. The sheets would snap tight and the mast and shrouds would groan and Harald would grit his teeth and wait for the entire sail to blow apart. Which it had not done yet. But he knew it could not take that sort of abuse for long.
“Sea Hammer’s still there, and the other ship!” Starri called down. The motion at the masthead was so extreme that Starri had to pause in his reports and wait for a few seconds of calm to shout down to deck, something Harald could not recall his ever having to do before. “I can see a third ship!”
Starri stopped speaking as Blood Hawk surfed down a wave and slammed her bow into the next wave ahead, then rose again, shaking off the tons of water. “I thought they were fighting, but maybe they’ve struck one another!” Starri shouted next.
Hmmm, Harald thought. He squatted down on his heels so he could look forward, under the edge of the billowing sail. He could see the ships in the distance. Not as well as Starri could, but he could see them. They had no sails set, and it seemed as if they had been locked together at least since Starri had first spotted them. Harald had assumed they were fighting, that Thorgrim had managed to run Brunhard down and come alongside the Frisian, board the ship and slaughter the men aboard. But now he was not sure.
Harald straightened and turned to Louis the Frank who was standing next to him. Broccáin was there as well, but somehow the Irishman seemed more out of his depth in that instance than did the Frankish man-at-arms.
At first Harald had kept Louis in chains, but Broccáin had insisted that was not necessary, and that Louis, who was an experienced warrior and who knew Brunhard better than any of them, might be of help. So Harald had relented and set the man free. For the time being.
“What do you think?” he asked, speaking in Irish, a tongue foreign to both of them but their only common language.
Louis shrugged. “I would have thought they were fighting, but I cannot think it would take Thorgrim so very long to kill Brunhard and his men. There’s not so many of them, and they are not warriors.”
Harald nodded. “Maybe,” he said. “I just can’t tell what they’re doing.”
“It doesn’t matter what they’re doing,” Louis said.
“What do you mean? Why doesn’t it matter?” Harald was quite ready to take offense at this, quite ready to put Louis back in chains.
“I mean, that is your father’s ship. I know nothing of ships, but I heard you say it’s in danger of going ashore, which would be bad. That I can understand. So you must go help them, as fast as you can, which you seem to be doing. It doesn’t matter what Thorgrim’s up to. It does not change what you must do. You must get to him no matter what.”
Harald nodded again. That made sense. Louis was right. It really didn’t matter. Regardless of what was happening with Sea Hammer, he would continue to drive Blood Hawk toward her, just as fast as he could.
There was something about Louis that Harald liked, despite himself. He had not really noticed it before, when Louis had been their prisoner. But the man had a calm and professional air about him, even though he was fairly young. He had the quality of a man who had seen enough fighting and danger that it no longer ruffled him, of one whose mind remained calm and clear regardless of what was going on around him.
Like Thorgrim. Like the way he himself hoped to be one day.
“Broadarm!” Starri shouted. “Sea Hammer’s dismasted! The mast has fallen over!”
Harald felt his stomach twist. He thought he might be sick. His greatest fear now was that he had come too late, that his father and the rest would drown in the surf before he could reach them, and he would spend the rest of his life thinking about the moments wasted stitching the sails together, giving the Norse dead as proper a sea-burial as he could.
“Have they struck bottom, do you think?” Harald shouted. That would be the most obvious reason for the mast to fall. If the ship had come to a sudden, jarring stop, her keel striking the bottom as the water grew shallow, the whipping motion could well bring the rig down. Harald had seen it before.
“No!” Starri called. “They’re still some ways from the shore! Maybe they hit that other ship!”
It doesn’t matter, Harald thought, unconsciously echoing Louis’s words. “Starri, you can come down now!” he called aloft.
There was a pause, and then Starri called, “Very well!” with a decidedly disappointed tone that surprised Harald. He had thought he was doing Starri a favor, allowing him to leave the wildly swinging masthead, but the berserker apparently did not see it that way. Harald thought about changing his mind, letting the man stay, but he feared that would make him look indecisive, so he kept his mouth shut.
Overhead, Starri reached out and grabbed onto a shroud. He swung himself over just as Blood Hawk’s bow slammed into a wave that made the ship shudder and Starri, who was trying to wrap his legs around the shroud, took a wild swing fore and aft. It occurred to Harald that Starri could actually fall. He had never really thought about it before, just as he had never considered the possibility that Starri could be gravely wounded in battle until he was. There was no law set by the gods that said Starri could not fall from the rigging and die.
But he didn’t. He let his body swing back and forth once, twice, and then he caught the shroud with his legs and came sliding down, going quickly hand over hand. He dropped to the deck and with a few quick steps joined Harald and Louis and Broccáin on the afterdeck.
“So, Broadarm, what is your plan?” he asked. There was a smile on his face, his previous annoyance apparently forgotten. It seemed that here on deck, with the ship sailing just on the edge of control, the urgency of their task, the danger of rushing down on a lee shore, there was exhilaration enough even for Starri Deathless.
“We get to Sea Hammer as fast as we can, see what’s going on, see what we can do to help,” Harald said. “Keep Blood Hawk out of the surf if we’re able.”
Starri nodded vigorously. “That’s a good plan, Broadarm,” he said. “A very good plan.”
They were half a mile away now, but the seas had grown so big that they still obscured Sea Hammer and the others when they rose up around them. Harald could see the tiny shapes of men scrambling around, but he could not tell what they were about. He could see the ships turning as they drifted toward the shore. The third ship, the one Starri had reported from aloft, was visible now.
That’s one of Brunhard’s ships, Harald thought. Not the biggest one. Sea Hammer seemed to be entangled with the biggest one. That was the second largest, and like the other two
it seemed to be drifting out of control.
What by the gods could have happened? Harald wondered, but he kept the question to himself.
“By the gods!” Starri shouted. “They’re like drifting wrecks! What could have happened?”
Harald shook his head to indicate that he did not know. Louis and Broccáin said nothing. They did not speak Starri’s tongue.
Overhead the ugly lash-up of a sail collapsed again as the ship rode down the front of a wave, quivered as the bow struck, then snapped full as the bow came up again and the wind filled the oiled wool cloth. Harald would have loved this, and Hel take the danger, if he had not been so worried about his father, and so concerned that the sail would blow out before they reached him.
But they did not have long to go. Sea Hammer and the merchant ships were drifting fast toward the beach and the killing breakers, but Blood Hawk was moving faster still, living up to her namesake, swooping over the seas, driving relentlessly toward its prey.
Then Harald realized that in his concern for the present moment he had not considered what he would do once he reached Sea Hammer, how he could save his father and the others.
He looked out to the east. The wind had built to a near gale, the gray seas cresting white and building in height. And worse, it was blowing directly on-shore. They would have to get a line to Sea Hammer and tow her away from the breakers, but they would never do that under sail. If they tried to sail off that lee shore with Sea Hammer in tow, both ships would be driven onto the beach.
Oars, then, Harald thought. They would have to sail down to Sea Hammer, pass a line, get the sail in and pull her to safety with the oars. He looked at Sea Hammer, crippled-looking with her mast lying at an angle across her deck. Why aren’t you rowing, Father? he wondered. Why haven’t you tried to row free of the surf?
He stepped up to the edge of the afterdeck. “Listen here, you men!” he shouted and all the men of Blood Hawk who had been crowding along the starboard side, which gave them the best view of the drifting ships, now turned and looked aft.
“We’re going to grapple Sea Hammer and tow her clear of the surf!” Harald continued, trying to sound as commanding and self-assured as he could. “We can’t sail clear of the coast in this wind, we’ll have to row, and it’ll be a hard pull. We’ll sail right down on Sea Hammer, get the sail down and oars out right together. We’ll send a line over and row clear. Understood?”
Heads nodded all along the ship’s side.
“Good. Get the oars down now, and get them ready to run right out the oarports on my word!”
The men moved to do as instructed and Harald watched them and considered his next problem. There was only one man aboard whom he trusted to throw the grappling hook from Blood Hawk’s bow to Sea Hammer’s stern, and that was himself. And there was only one man he trusted to take the tiller for so tricky a maneuver, and that was also himself. But he could not do both.
“Gudrid!” he shouted and Gudrid left off pulling an oar from the gallows and stumbled back to the aft deck, any movement tricky and awkward with the ship pitching and rolling as it was.
“Can you throw a grapple far and true?” Harald asked. He did not know Gudrid well, but he had been impressed with what he had seen so far, and Gudrid was well made and powerful-looking.
“As well as any man, I reckon,” Gudrid said, a good answer as far as Harald was concerned.
“Very well. Get the grappling hook and the best length of line aboard. I’ll bring the ship in as close to Sea Hammer as I dare. You take your place here,” he said, pointing to a spot just forward of the afterdeck. When I tell you to throw, you throw, because that’s as near as I’ll be able to get. Then you make the line off to the cleat there and we’ll tow Sea Hammer clear.”
Gudrid nodded and there was nothing in his expression that gave Harald pause. “I’ll do as you say,” he said, gave a bit of a smile, then turned and headed forward.
A quarter mile now separated Blood Hawk from the others. Harald relieved the man at the tiller, took the heavy oak bar in his own hands. He wanted to get the feel for the ship’s motion, to get a sense for how she would respond in that wind and sea. He had, after all, less than two days’ experience aboard her.
“You know, Broadarm,” Starri said. He was standing behind Harald, standing on the edge of the sheer strake and gripping the tall sternpost. In circumstances such as this Starri could not bear to remain on deck.
“What, Starri?” Harald said, giving the tiller a twist to ease the ship up the back of the next wave.
“I think Sea Hammer is actually on top of Brunhard’s ship!”
“On top of Brunhard’s ship?”
“Yes! It looks to me as if her bow is resting right on Brunhard’s stern. Now how by the gods did they manage that? Ha! Thorgrim Night Wolf never fails to surprise!”
On top of Brunhard’s ship…Harald thought. What has happened here? But Louis was right. It did not matter. All that mattered was keeping Sea Hammer out of the surf.
And that would be a close thing, Harald could see. The ships were drifting fast. They were as close to the outer edge of the breakers as Blood Hawk was to them. And that meant that by the time Blood Hawk arrived, she, too, would be perilously close to shore. He looked at his men, standing along the centerline of the ship, the tips of their oar blades resting in the row ports, ready to run out.
I hope you bastards know how to pull, and pull hard, he thought.
Gudrid came aft, a coil of rope in his hands, a grappling hook tied to one end. He laid the line carefully on the deck and started looping a smaller coil over his hand. There was a thoughtful and competent quality to what he was doing and it gave Harald confidence, a thing he realized he was greatly lacking at the moment.
“Look, that other ship’s drifted clear!” Starri cried and Harald shifted his eyes from Gudrid to the ships just past the bow. He could see them clearly now, and it was only when they and Blood Hawk were both between waves that they were blocked from view.
The ships had turned a half circle. Whereas before Harald had been looking at Sea Hammer’s starboard quarter, now he was looking at her larboard side. And he could see that Starri was right. Sea Hammer’s bow was actually resting on Brunhard’s stern.
That’s not going to make things any easier, Harald thought. And then he saw the third ship, Brunhard’s other ship. It must have been caught up in that whole mess, but now that the two ships had turned in the seas it had drifted free. But it was still out of control and being blown toward the coast like the other two. And now it, too, would be in Blood Hawk’s way.
“Get ready!” Harald shouted. “When I give the word, let the yard come down on a run and haul the sail up! Just let it come down athwartships!”
The men positioned at the various lines waved their arms to indicate they understood.
“Gudrid! Ready?” Harald shouted and Gudrid, a couple yards away, nodded his head.
One hundred yards to Sea Hammer and Harald could see men on her deck and men on the merchantman’s deck, but he could not tell what any of them were doing. Brunhard’s ship was well down by the stern, but it was not clear if Sea Hammer was pushing it down or if it was sinking from the damage it had sustained. No matter. He didn’t care about Brunhard’s ship.
But that thought led to another. I wonder if Sea Hammer is damaged as well, where she rests on Brunhard’s ship? Maybe she’ll sink if I pull her free…
Fifty yards and Harald could see that the man he thought was Thorgrim was indeed Thorgrim. He was standing at the stern, gripping the sheer strake with one hand, the sternpost with the other, and watching them come on. They could have called to one another if not for the wind that was blotting out any sound from beyond Blood Hawk’s deck.
They halved that distance and Harald could see that his father was indeed yelling something, but the words were whipped away to leeward. He could see Godi like some giant carving standing at Thorgrim’s side.
“Stand ready, Gudrid, I’m about to
turn!” Harald called, and Gudrid nodded again, but his eyes were fixed on his target, his body poised to throw, and he did not speak or move beyond that.
Blood Hawk hurdled down on Sea Hammer, rising on the waves, pounding down, and every bit of Harald wanted to turn the ship now, but he gauged the distance and he waited. Gudrid would have one chance only, he could not miss, and Harald had to get Blood Hawk close enough that he wouldn’t. If he did miss, if he had to haul in the line and throw again, they would all be in the surf before he was half done.
And then the moment was right. Harald could feel it in every fiber. “Sail, down!” he shouted and the men at the halyard cast the line off the cleat and let the yard fall fast in a controlled plummet, while others hauled the buntlines to draw the sail up the yard.
“Oars!” Harald called next and the men at the oars, tensed and ready, ran the long looms out of the oarports and threw themselves onto the sea chests as Hall called the rhythm.
“Now, Gudrid! Now!” Harald shouted. The calm had deserted him in the frenzy of the moment. Gudrid drew his arm back and whipped the grappling hook around in a sideways throw. The dark iron hook made a lovely, clean arc through the air, sailing over the thirty-foot gap between the ships and right over Sea Hammer’s sheer strake. Some of Sea Hammer’s men leapt clear of the flying metal as others snatched the hook up.
“Pull!” Hall shouted and Harald felt the blades of the oars bite, felt the ship respond as he pushed the tiller over, turning Blood Hawk’s bow into the wind and seas.
Now he could hear Thorgrim’s voice, just audible despite his being not more than twenty yards away. Harald swiveled around to see him.
“Harald!” he shouted. “I’m going to cut you loose! You can’t help us!”
Raider's Wake: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 6) Page 34