“First chance I have had to speak with you,” he said. “I have talked with Leofric, and he has told me the story. One thing licks in our gullets.”
"Yes?”
“What made you slay your own kin?”
Niall turned to look back at the fire. “The baby.”
"Baby?”
“The baby tossed on the spear.” Still staring at the fire, and the slanting darts of gold and red flashing through its glow, he sought haltingly for words to tell his horror and shame, that had forced that choice on him.
Odda nodded heavily. “If you felt it so—aye.”
But it stuck in his gullet none the less, Niall knew. The blood-bond had plainly never galled him as it had the half-bred sailor. Niall had but one kinsman who had not scorned him, and he had quitted him to join Ubba’s foray.
“How comes a Dane to be a Christian?” Odda abruptly demanded.
“My father was one of the first Norsemen to settle in Waterford. He loved an Irish chief’s daughter, and to win her was baptised. They were joined in Christian wedlock, and I was bred in the faith.”
“Aye. But what took you to sea?”
“When my father died my mother gave me to the Church. I could not abide to be made a monk, and after her death I fled. A friend of my father’s, Bjorn the Wanderer, gave me ship-room.”
“A peaceful trader, this Bjorn, no doubt?” Odda inquired dryly.
Niall chuckled. “Peaceful above all else, so long as no man stood between him and his lawful profit. You would have liked him.”
“We judge Danes by those we meet, which in this case was your ill-luck.”
“No hurt done. My neck is whole.”
“And what of the morrow, you will ask?”
“No. I will ask nothing until I know I have a morrow to reckon on.”
“You must be proof against drowning, hanging or battle, so you will doubtless die in bed of old age. And if Wessex has a morrow, which God grant, there will be room for you.”
“This fight is mine,” Niall pledged himself, without qualm or regret; indeed, with a calm sense of fulfilment.
“Be very sure,” Odda warned him soberly, lifting a hand to the orange glow outlining the bank, a wordless warning that he was most likely pledging himself to death. Niall grinned.
“Very sure, whether it be for one day or fifty years!”
Odda gently tugged at his wet beard. “Oh, I reckon you can count on two days,” he stated judicially.
Niall laughed softly in perfect understanding. “Long enough for Ubba’s arrogance to get the better of his wits?”
A kind of underground rumble indicated that Odda, too, appreciated the jest. He clapped Niall on the shoulder, a gesture of goodwill that surprised him, and turned away. Niall hunched his shoulders inside his wet cloak and squelched back to the dispirited fire. The rain was slackening, and a sensible man would catch up on his sleep before discomfort grew too acute to permit it.
Day came in a cold wet dawn, and the west wind hunted rain and sun over them to another dismal night. The levies endured dourly. There was no food, but the rain ensured that water did not lack, for which Niall, whose experiences in southern waters had included thirst, was devoutly thankful. A few wounded died. The enemy kept a strong guard alert all day. More foraging parties went out, but an alarmed countryside provided little booty.
The brothers treated Niall with a stern respect that presently thawed into some sort of friendliness. In time, he hoped, they would forgive his turning against his own kindred. The churls, badly shaken by defeat and the loss of two comrades, were slower to accept an accursed Dane, but they granted him a surly tolerance.
The weather improved with the second dawn. The sun had a strength which, in sheltered corners, reminded men that April was treading on the heels of March. Niall threw his damp cloak across a bush and tried to ignore the gnawing of his empty belly. Odda’s estimate of time was just. Any longer would weaken the Devon men beyond fighting, but now they were hungry enough to chew on Danes.
Ubba’s host had wearied of watching for beaten foes to show their noses beyond their walls. They contemptuously ignored them, save for a desultory watch along the hill’s foot on the eastern side, the only approach to the fort. A few Danes sprawled about the fires’ embers, talking, dicing, caring for their weapons, with hardly a glance at the ramparts. Today’s foraging parties were larger and more numerous than yesterday’s.
Impatient souls urged Odda to attack while they were so weakened, but he steadfastly refused. A surprise could not be effected in daylight. As for the foragers, the din of battle would summon them to fall on the Englishmen from behind, and raw countrymen could not withstand such an onslaught. He bade them instead rest out of sight until their time came, and the most intransigent obeyed him meekly.
Hatred corroded deeper into their hearts. Niall was not with Leofric when he took on himself the hard task of telling the men of a hillside farm that they had neither families nor home to return to, but he saw his face afterwards. He watched raiders whooping back to camp at the heels of captured cattle, and the anguish of men in terror for their dear ones filled him with their bitterness. Truly Ubba’s host was a plague that must be cleansed from the earth.
For the third night the fires answered the sunset, reddening the sky all along the fort’s black rim. Niall, lying on the rampart near Odda and watching the little dark figures scuttling like devils in Hell, dug urgently into his memory. “Odda, they are running short of fuel below.”
“Fuel?”
“They have cut no more wood today, and such fires need large feeding. They will not last the night.”
“Arrogance,” Odda rumbled. Faint sounds of singing drifted up in lulls of the wind, and the fires further below reflected in the river’s wide curve. “I pray they were as lucky with the mead as they sound.”
“Our mead,” another voice harshly commented.
“Grudge them neither flesh nor mead,” Niall advised, “for they will sleep the more soundly for them.”
“And we shall fight the more keenly to reach their leavings,” Edric murmured on his other hand.
They watched and listened. Sleep came hardly for the aching of hunger, and men groaned and muttered in their dreams, curled closely against the cold. Niall dozed and woke, and the Danes’ fires sank to dull ashes as the slow hours crept.
When the first grey of coming dawn scarcely outlined the eastern hills, a kind of murmur sped through the camp, and a stir of movement. No order had been spoken, but thanes and churls softly roused up, gripped their weapons and crept towards the eastern ramparts, to peer at fires almost burned out and the dim black shapes that were sleeping Danes, so sure in their contempt that they troubled no longer to watch.
“Wait until we can see their throats to cut them,” Odda muttered, and they gathered there behind the banks last defended before Rome knew a Caesar. The Polden Hills were dark against the paling sky, and swords and spear-points and axes made a hedge of dull-gleaming steel. Wolfish faces showed paler and clearer, turned hungrily towards the kill. Silently men cleared away the barricade from the entrance. Odda heaved himself up and stood on the crest, his sword swinging in his hand, and all eyes strained to him. Then he lifted the blade and pointed, and the men of Devon, without war-shout or clang of weapons, were over rampart and ditch, loping down the hill to the dying guard-fires, stabbing and hewing.
Niall by express command was one of Odda’s own troop, who had once guarded a beaten fyrd’s flight. At the hill’s foot they over-ran a watchfire and hacked briefly in the thin dawn at dark shapes half-risen from the ground before they were cut down and trampled back. Niall felt his axe jar, stooped to snatch up a shield, and as the yelps and death-cries and crash of blows brought the first screech of alarm from the main camp, they had formed a fighting wedge and were running hard. Then they were among the tents and shelters, and behind them the men of Devon were roaring, “Out! Out!” like baying hounds.
At first all was ma
d confusion for Ubba’s host. Men started up from sleep in the dim twilight, and steel was in their vitals before they could draw a weapon or tell which way to face. The wedge thrust deep into the camp before its formation was broken, and Odda’s men raged among the flimsy tents and rough shelters, overthrowing them to entangle their occupants and cutting them down as they struggled out. Niall, losing sight of Odda in the press, stayed fast with a handful of Devon men and did what work came to his axe. The Danes were steadying now after the first easy butchery, rallying to their commanders and hitting back.
A horn blared hoarsely again and again. Daylight was on them, and above the turmoil, near the ships, a great white banner spread on the fitful wind. On it a black raven spread its wings abroad, flapping with the folds as if alive. The Danes yelled and drove forward, forcing the men of Devon back upon their rearmost ranks, and a snarling, worrying fray rocked to and fro under the sunrise.
Niall and his comrades backed steadily and slowly, keeping unbroken rank with shields close as the foe surged forward, until they were checked by the pressure from behind and stood fast.
He crouched a little, waiting for men to come at him, beat up blows with a deft shield and swung the axe. A berserk, foaming with battle-frenzy, flung away his shield and ran howling at the line to breach it. The stocky man on Niall’s left clanged home on his helmet, but he crashed against him without heeding the blow and cut him down. The stocky man fell among their feet; a spearman ran the berserk through and he pushed at them along the spear. Niall leaned to slam his shield up so that its edge took him under the chin, and as at last he was halted, swung his axe at his neck and stepped over his twitching legs to mend the gap.
The sun was up, and in his eyes; his arm ached with the jar and wrench of axe-work; he fought in a purposeful, steady fury that took no heed of anything but yelling faces and red-streaked steel. Then the pressure from behind started to tell. The enemy slowly gave ground, towards the ships and the Raven Banner. Then a screech of loss pierced through the tumult to wits dulled with strife. Ubba was down. Ubba the conqueror, Ubba the undefeated, Ubba the sea-king was dead, and the cry of disaster chilled his men’s hearts so that they wavered. It thrilled fresh vigour through the weary men of Devon. They found breath for a jubilant roar and surged forward for the lurching banner.
A ring of Vikings locked shields about it, fighting desperately, but they were dragged down one by one, and then the remnants utterly overwhelmed in one wild rush. The Raven Banner reeled and toppled to a triumphant howl, and as it fell from unclosing hands, English ones seized it and flung it over. All at once the Vikings broke, fleeing to the ships. Here and there a shouting chieftain directed a depleted crew in orderly withdrawal, others rallied to hold the beach while ship after ship was launched. Then the fight raged down over the mud and into the shallows in wild confusion, while a handful of ships pushed off and fugitives splashed out to them.
Niall, loosed at last from the shield-wall’s bondage, stormed knee-deep through the water in a flying cloud of bright spray, one of the foremost in pursuit. Danes were wading and swimming out to the refuge of the ships, and the English churls, with no other missiles left them, were hurling stones from the shore so that he had to hold his shield high to protect his head. A few groups of Danes were still fighting as they backed to the water, but the battle was over.
A tall warrior a few yards away had the better of an Englishman, but as he swung his axe to cut him down, Niall yelled and charged. At sight of the black-maned monster he turned and fled, and Niall pounded after him as fast as he could run through the water and mud.
Close by a familiar voice screeched his name. “Niall! Niall! This way!”
He half-turned, and a stone hurtled past his shield’s edge and struck him over the ear. Light and fire exploded through his skull, and then he dropped into blackness. He soused headlong into cold water, struggling feebly as it closed over his head. For a moment the sting of it brought him back to his senses, and as he fought to rise, strong arms gripped him round the body and heaved him up. He wavered blindly on pithless legs, and his arm was seized, pulled over broad shoulders and held fast. He was held up, an arm was round his waist hauling him along, and a voice in his ear was saying urgently, “Hold on, Niall! Niall, keep moving—I cannot carry you!”
Niall dizzily responded to the appeal and staggered through deepening water that tugged at his thighs, conscious only of the need to keep his feet and the hard arms that dragged him along. Then he collided with something huge and hard and rough that rolled and surged when he tried to lean on it, so that he started to fall, pulling his helper down with him. More hands reaching down from over his head grabbed at him and hauled him back, the other hoisted from beneath, and he was heaved head-foremost over a hard gunwale. Sky and sea whirled over and over, and he tumbled into a roaring black void.
6
For a moment, before Niall opened his eyes, it was as if the last week had been but a nightmare and he was waking from it. All around him were familiar well-loved sounds; the creak and thump of oars, the chuckle of water, the song of wind and the cries of gulls. Hard planks were under him, and they swung to the accustomed rhythm of a ship at sea. Reality reached him through his battered skull’s throbbing, and as he became painfully aware of that he discovered also that his head and shoulders were propped on something firm and warm and slightly yielding. He opened his eyes, shut them against an aching dazzle of bright light, and cautiously blinked them open again to learn whether his glimpse of the incredible were vision or fact.
“Niall!” a voice he knew said joyfully, and a hand touched his brow. A yellow head came between him and the sun, and he blinked again into a pair of very blue eyes in a brown young hawk-face alight with relief and affection. He stared, shut his eyes, and then stared again. The face was still there. Its owner held him with head and shoulders across his thighs, bending anxiously over him, and he would know that carefully-trained yellow moustache and curly beard in a thousand. He lifted a hand weakly to his head, and felt the egg-sized lump that adorned it. That was certainly real. So was the planking he sprawled on, and the water slapping at the ship’s sides. His grandsire’s sister’s grandson must be equally real.
“Eymund!” he croaked.
“You great ox!” his kinsman cheerfully abused him. “You weigh enough for three!” And as Niall tried to get his elbow under him and sit up, he put his arm round his shoulders to aid him.
The sky, the ship and Eymund disintegrated into sickening circles of light and darkness, and he put his hand to his splitting head, screwing his eyes shut and leaning helplessly against his kinsman. Then his brain cleared, and he blinked about him. Planks beneath him, a low gunwale at his feet, the carved stern-post of a longship dark against silver water on his right—he was sitting on her poop-deck beside Eymund, running down the Severn Sea on the last of the ebb. His wits returned with a jerk, and he twisted round in blank dismay to stare at the Wessex shore sliding quietly past. Then irrepressible, crazy laughter bubbled into his throat as he realized how his friend and kinsman had rescued him into peril, and he turned back shaking with mirth.
Eymund grinned at him. “Take an axe to crack your thick head,” he commented. They knew each other very well. Eymund had made two voyages with Niall in the Raven, before he found the restrictions imposed on his enterprise by his captain’s Christian conscience too irksome to be borne. Niall should have expected to find him in Ubba’s host; he would naturally have joined his uncle Rorik Cropear. The thought checked his laughter, and his face hardened. Then Eymund flung an arm round him in a boisterous hug that made his ribs creak. “I am heart-glad to find you again, kinsman!” he exclaimed.
Niall stiffened to thrust him off, and then relaxed. He could not hate this wild young hot-head, Ubba’s man or not.
“Niall, why are you with Ubba? Where is the Raven? And whose ship were you aboard?” Eymund was demanding, the courtesies done with and his incredulous amazement breaking bounds.
“None,” Niall answered calmly.
The word apparently made no sense to Eymund; he merely frowned a moment in bewilderment and then rushed on. “I never knew you were with the host—not until I saw you running—Niall, what were you doing with Ubba?”
“I was with the men of Devon.”
Eymund gaped at him, the colour fading from his face as he understood the truth. He whispered Niall’s name through white lips. “What have I done?” he gasped, and then caught at Niall’s arm, shaking it fiercely. “Not a word more!” he ordered urgently.
“If Rorik ever learns—by Thor’s Hammer, he will cut the blood-eagle on you!” And he glanced forward apprehensively.
Niall’s skin crawled. No man could lightly contemplate having his ribs hacked from his backbone and his lungs torn out. He followed the direction of Eymund’s gaze, past the oarsmen swinging to the stroke, to the cluster of figures in the bows. Since he did not know Rorik by sight the look was not particularly rewarding, but he saw that wounded were being tended on the tiny foredeck. Then he turned his attention to the ship, while Eymund tugged distractedly at his cherished golden moustaches, completely destroying their symmetry in his agitation.
Niall broke the Tenth Commandment in that instant. His beloved Raven had been old and cranky, a wet ship in any seaway, and too many voyages under southern suns had shrunk her timbers and warped open her seams. This ship was new, half as long again as his Raven; she mounted sixteen pairs of oars and could have carried over five-score men. She was sadly undermanned now; she could hardly muster a second watch at the ours.
He became aware that the ship was scarcely moving now, though the oarsmen tugged more fiercely than before. The tide had turned; the strong flood was running, and it was as much as they could do to make headway against it.
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