Then what? Harald wondered. In his burst of enthusiasm he forgot that he didn’t know how to kill a whale.
Stab it, like you’d kill anything… he thought. He knew that a whale’s blubber was many inches thick, that it would take some stabbing to reach anything vital.
“Grab up spears, as many spears as you can find!” Harald shouted. “I’ll put the ship alongside, you finish it off!”
Again the men shouted with enthusiasm as they grabbed up their long-shafted spears. They were all, as far as Harald could see, just as game for this sport as he was. The whale would be a feast for them all, all the fleet, and the killing of it would make the men of Dragon a united crew, united under his command.
He pulled the tiller a bit toward him, turning Dragon to starboard, pointing her bow at the patch of water where the whale had last surfaced. He looked up at the sail. The yard needed bracing again for this new course, but there wasn’t time or men to do it. All of Dragon’s crew, more than thirty men, was crowded near the bow, leaning over the sides, larboard and starboard, spears held upright as they waited for their target to appear out of the sea.
Harald looked to the east. The fleet was noticeably farther away now as Dragon sailed a course perpendicular to the one they sailed.
Not a problem, Harald thought. Kill this thing in no time, haul it along behind us. Father and the rest will be grateful for it, once they see it.
A burst of shouting rolled down the deck and Harald pulled his eyes and his thoughts away from the fleet and back to the whale. The creature was arching out of the sea, the black flesh gleaming wet, the water rushing down its sides. It was not more than a couple hundred feet away. It seemed to have changed direction, as if it was trying to reach Dragon rather than fleeing the oncoming ship.
“Stand ready!” Harald shouted, his eyes on the animal’s back as it slipped under the water again. He had a feel now for where the whale was going and how fast. He would turned Dragon just to windward of the beast, bring her up into the wind alongside the whale, and as the whale surfaced again the spears would be there to greet it.
“Everyone to the larboard side! Larboard side!” Harald shouted. “I’ll put the larboard side right against this bastard’s flank!”
The men were grinning as they leaped and jostled their way to larboard, leaning out over the sheer strake, spears leveled now and ready to plunge down. Harald could see the roiling in the water, the mark of the whale just below the surface, right where he had figured it would be. He realized he was grinning, a great broad grin, and he shouted with exhilaration as he pulled the tiller toward him and swung Dragon up into the wind, and the men lined the larboard side, braced for the throw.
But there was nothing to throw at, no black hump breaking the surface, no rush of water running down the whale’s side. Silence swept the ship fore and aft as the men stared into the water, then the sail flogged and came aback and Dragon slowed to a near stop.
Harald opened his mouth and the first guttural sounds of his next words were forming in his throat when the whale appeared. Not on the larboard side, as anticipated, but to starboard. And not the easy arch of its back but a great mass of head and back cresting up out of the sea then slipping down again.
In the brief time the whale was out of the water Harald had time enough to glimpse the odd square shape of the beast’s head, the dark spot of its eye. He saw a row of teeth in the partially opened mouth which shocked him because he had thought whales had no teeth, and he wondered if this was a whale at all or some other creature of the sea. Or the gods.
The thought was barely formed in his head when the massive tail lifted clean out of the water, so close it doused the ship along its whole length, and Harald was put in mind of his father spraying blood with a branch over Fostolf’s body. Then the tail came down hard, the end of one fluke catching Dragon’s side and tearing the shields from the rack and smashing the sheer strake and the strake below it as well. The ship lurched to starboard and half the men forward were sent tumbling to the deck, their shouts drowned out by the horrible sound of shattering wood and rushing water.
“Oh, you bastard!” Harald shouted as the great tail slid beneath the surface. Dragon had rolled hard to starboard with the impact and now she was rolling hard back the other way, and the men who were trying to regain their feet were flung to the deck again. The sail was fully aback now, the ship making no headway, the tiller useless, so Harald abandoned it and ran forward as the ship settled back on an even keel.
“Herjolf!” he shouted as he ran, and then suddenly he found himself staggering, the deck beneath his feet moving in an unnatural way, out of rhythm with the swells striking Dragon on the starboard bow.
“By all the gods…” he managed to say before he stumbled and fell forward. His hands hit the warm, smooth planks and broke his fall, or slowed it enough anyway that he did not hit the deck hard.
The ship was still rolling under him and the men forward shouting — surprise, shock, anger, he could hear it all in their voices. He pushed himself to his knees. The whale was on the larboard side now, its back cresting up out of the water as it passed under Dragon’s keel, pushing the ship from under in a way that ships were not often pushed. She rolled hard to starboard once more, dipping her shattered sheer strake into the sea and scooping up a rush of water before rolling back again.
The whale passed under, and Harald knew what would come next, and he was not wrong. Once again the massive tail lifted up out of the water, rising like the hand of some god come to crush the puny men below it. Harald had seen whale’s flukes often enough, but never from just thirty feet away, and never as they were reaching up overhead, ready to come down on him, his ship and his crew.
His mouth hung open, his eyes went wide. He felt as if he was in a dream, the sort in which he was trying to act but could not will his body to move. Then the tail came flailing down, once again flinging water the length of the ship, and Harald clenched his fists. The ends of the flukes hit just aft of the stem, slamming down on the larboard rail and once again stripping the shields from the rack and tearing a length of strakes from the side.
Some of the men forward had recovered from the first blow and managed to keep their feet through the second, and they flung their spears at the great bulk of the whale. Harald saw the weapons strike, the points imbed themselves in the whale’s side, the shafts sticking out at odd angles. He did not know if they had wounded the beast or not. He doubted it. He doubted that the whale could even feel them.
He pushed himself to his feet, mind and body moving fast but neither one with much control. He felt no sense of doubt or confusion or fear. He felt only rage, near blinding rage. He had risked quite a bit to come after this beast — his reputation, his ship, his father’s approval — and now he risked losing it all. To a fish.
“You bastard!” he shouted as he ran forward. He snatched up a spear that was lying on the deck and the men along the larboard side stepped away as he raced up. He stopped at the broken section of rail and flung the spear at the whale, which was lying all but motionless twenty feet away. He threw with the considerable power in his arm and saw the spear sail straight over the water and drive itself into the whale’s side. He saw the animal twist a little, which gave Harald a tiny bit of satisfaction, but he got no more reaction than that.
“Give me that!” Harald shouted, pointing to the iron grappling hook lying on top of a coil of rope near the bow. The hook and line were there mainly to lash the longship alongside an enemy in the middle of a fight at sea. Perfect.
A man named Brand, about Harald’s age, a man who had already impressed Harald with his competence, grabbed up the hook and passed it back.
“What do you mean to do?” Brand asked, and Harald thought he heard a touch of concern in the man’s voice.
“We came to kill that son of a whore and we’re not going to let him escape now!” Harald said, taking the hook and letting it hang from the rope made fast to its eye.
Herjolf sp
oke up next. “I don’t think it’s trying to escape,” he said, but Harald made no reply. He didn’t much care what Herjolf thought or anyone thought at that moment. The anger was driving him now. He swung the hook around in a circle, building momentum, and then let it fly. The forged iron grapple sailed through the air in a smooth arc, the line trailing out clean behind it. It passed over the whale and fell into the water behind, the line draping over the whale’s back, and it occurred to Harald that it might not be as easy as he had hoped to hook the smooth-skinned creature.
He closed his hand around the line and stopped it from paying out, then he grabbed it with the other hand as well and pulled back. He felt the hook come toward him with no resistance and he had an image of it just sliding easily over the creature’s hide. He pulled again, and again the rope came easily. He pulled a third time and he felt the hook catch, felt the rope go taut in his hands. With that the whale thrashed more vigorously and Harald knew it had felt the thick hook dig in, in a way it had not felt the long, thin spear points.
“Come on! Grab on here!” he shouted and Brand and the other men close by took up the rope as well, as if they were ready to hoist the yard or sheet the sail home.
“Heave!” Harald shouted and the men leaned into the rope. The whale thrashed more violently as the hook dug deeper. The rope quivered under the strain and Dragon was hauled nearly sideways through the water, closer to her quarry.
“We’ll get alongside, close enough for the spears!” Harald shouted as they pulled again. “Kill it that way, with the spears!” He hoped it would seem as if that had been his plan all along. In truth he had had no plan until that very moment, and even now he knew it wasn’t much of a plan.
The men heaved again, Dragon slewing around as they pulled. The whale arched its back, rolled a bit to one side as if trying to rid itself of the iron hook. The prong of the hook was eight inches of curved iron bar, sharpened to a wicked point, but it seemed little more than an irritant to the whale. And that made Harald angrier still.
“Get that other hook back here!” he shouted. There were at least four of the grappling hooks aboard, Harald was sure. The men on the line heaved again and Dragon was pulled through the water in an awkward, part sideways direction. Then the bow hit the whale, sending a shudder through the fabric of the vessel. The whale shifted again, as if readying itself for a big move.
Harald was not worried about that. He was beyond worrying about much. The second hook was passed back to him and once again he took the line in hand, letting the hook swing as he ran his eyes over the whale’s gleaming back.
Where do you want this, you bastard? Harald thought. Halfway down the beast’s length he saw a fin of sorts, a meaty point standing proud with a series of humps behind it. Perfect, but there was no way he would ever get the hook to catch on the short, smooth protrusion.
Or perhaps there was.
“Clear away, clear away!” Harald shouted as he pushed his way forward and the men at the rails stepped back to let him pass. “Mind that rope, pay it out!” he shouted over his shoulder. He reached the place just near the bow where the first rope was running out over the side. He tossed the hook he was holding across the gap between ship and whale and saw it land on the whale’s back, bounce once then come to rest. He swung one leg over the sheer strake and reached out for the taut line made fast to the first hook.
“Harald, by Thor’s ass what do you think you’re doing?” Herjolf called.
“Going to hook this son of a bitch fish right,” Harald said. He swung his other leg over the sheer strake and slid down, his hands on the first grappling hook’s rope. The rope sagged under his weight and he found himself pressed against the cool dark side of the whale, his body submerged from the waist down. He could see swirls of blood on the surface now and he knew his men or the English had managed to do the whale some hurt.
He clenched his teeth and took a renewed grip on the rope. Hand over hand he hoisted himself up, and as he did the hook dug farther into the whale and the whale in turn began to thrash and twist.
I wonder if it’s tired, Harald thought. Maybe that was why it was not reacting more violently. Maybe the fight with the English boats had worn it out.
He pulled himself up over the whale’s side and onto the relative flat of its back and was able to get his knees under him. He let go of the rope and picked up the second grappling hook where it lay. He looked over at Dragon and nearly laughed at the looks on the men’s faces: leathered, bearded faces with mouths hanging open and eyes wide in surprise. They made no sound, as if fearful of waking a sleeping giant.
Harald stood awkwardly, realizing that this was going to be harder than he thought, not that he had thought much at all. The whale’s back was just breaking the surface of the water, and was more round than he realized, with only a narrow crest running down the center of the arch. Walking on that slick, smooth surface would be no easy task, and if the whale moved too violently it would be impossible. He considered crawling but dismissed the idea. Too slow. Too undignified.
Grappling hook in hand he stood slowly, then took a tentative step, moving aft along the ridge of the whale’s back. His leather shoes were soaked through and that gave them more grip, for which he was grateful. He took another step and the whale shifted and Harald felt himself thrown off balance. He stopped, held his arms out, spread his feet as wide as he dared and found his balance again. He could see the fin, no more than twenty feet away. Ten more careful steps.
He started moving again, getting the feel for the slickness of the surface, the curve of the back. He glanced over at Dragon and saw that the ship had drifted away, leaving a narrow but widening gap between it and the whale. And just as he noticed that he heard Herjolf call out in a loud whisper, “We’re drifting away! Give a pull of that line!”
Harald’s eyes went wide, the word “No!” forming on his lips, but he never got it out. The dozen men who were still loosely holding the rope now grabbed it tight and pulled, leaning back into it to haul the ship back alongside the whale.
And the whale felt it. It arched its back and rolled to the right and Harald felt his feet going out from under him. He abandoned his careful steps and turned and raced toward the fin on the animal’s back. The whale rolled left and lifted its head and the part under Harald’s feet seemed to drop away. He could see the water boiling along the whale’s length as it began thrashing harder.
He was going over the side and he knew it. His feet slipped as they searched for traction on the whale’s back. He planted his right foot and pushed off, flinging himself the last few feet toward the fin, one last desperate attempt to stay aboard.
Harald came down hard, on top of the fleshy hump. He threw his left arm around it as the thrashing grew more violent and knew right off that he would not be able to hold on. The skin was too smooth and slippery, the fin too short and wide to offer any real grip. With his right hand he whipped the hook around and dug one of the barbs into the fin, pulling it hard toward him to sink it deep. And he knew immediately that the whale felt that, too.
He took a tight grip on the rope just as the whale lifted its tail out of the water. Harald looked up in amazement as the massive flukes rose higher and higher until they were nearly overhead. He felt a twist in his gut, the familiar sensation of death coming close. And then he realized that he was the one person there whom the whale could not crush with its tail.
Then the tail came down again. It came down hard on Dragon’s stern. Harald saw the sternpost with its elegant carving snapped off and the entire aft end shoved down into the sea so that the water poured over the sides. The men forward shouted and the water rushed down the deck and Harald was certain that the ship was going down, that it would fill and sink right there.
But it didn’t. As the flukes slid off and hit the water and threw up a terrific spray, Dragon’s stern lifted again, rails clear above the surface, her deck awash.
One more and they’re dead… Harald thought. He was amazed that his ship
had survived that blow, but he knew she would not survive another. It did not occur to him to wonder what might become of himself.
He felt the whale buck and twist under him, felt the entire body ripple down its whole length. He saw the head go under and he thought the beast must be diving, but instead it made the rippling motion again and Harald saw Dragon moving astern, which confused him.
And then he realized Dragon was not moving astern, the whale was moving ahead. It had started to swim, trying to get clear of the danger it found itself in. Its body undulated again, head to tail, the big fluke propelling the beast forward, its speed increasing with every stroke. Harald felt the rope in his hand grow taut and he shifted his grip before it could trap his hand against the fin. He looked behind. The rope he held and the one made fast to the first grappling hook were still tied off aboard Dragon. As the whale made headway it was dragging the ship along.
He heard Herjolf shout, “Cut the ropes! Cut the ropes!” and then Brand yell, “No! No! We’ll lose Harald for sure!”
The whale twisted and Harald felt himself slip but he adjusted his stance to gain a more secure perch. He wondered for the first time just how he was going to get out of this situation. It seemed that there was nothing he could do but hang on and see what happened next. He wondered if maybe this had not been such a good idea after all.
Chapter Seven
Along the edge
a bloodstained serpent lies,
and on the guard
the serpent casts its tail.
The Poetic Edda
The rope that Harald was gripping was bar taut, running straight back from the hook in the whale to the cleat on board Dragon to which it was tied off. And then it went slack again as the whale slowed for a beat and Dragon slid down the back of a swell.
The Midgard Serpent Page 7