Forged in Blood

by Ken Hagan

  ‘Don’t pin your hopes on it,’ says Hrut. ‘My brother Vermund says that Ingvar’s plan won’t work.’

  ‘How’s that, lad?’ Asks Dantzk.

  Hrut has the older crewmate’s attention. He makes the most of it. He smooths the dust under the tree and draws a plan of the estuary with his finger. ‘Vermund reckons that he and Stein can tow the fire-ships to here on the ebb — but only as far as the bluffs. Beyond that, he cannot be sure how it will go. Once Ma has the fire-ships ablaze — and my brothers have unhooked tow-lines from the wherry — the floating fires can drift anywhere on the tide.’

  ‘And remember too,’ says Halp. ‘Flames will suck in a mighty draught of wind. The heat of fires can turn a sea-breeze into a gale.’

  ‘Enough to blow them to hell and back,’ says Fjak.

  Baldr pulls thoughtfully at his pigtail. ‘How can one woman do it on her own? Seven fires on seven ships, stoking one fire after another with only one pair of hands — it can’t be done. She needs help.’

  ‘The secret is a slow burn of pitch-tar and fat,’ says Hrut. ‘Ma has her tricks of boiling it up to a roaring blaze. She was offered help — one of the broth-hags offered to give her a hand for a share of the silver, but Ma refused. She doesn’t want anyone to know her secret — she prefers to do it on her own.’

  ‘Let’s say that she is able to do it, Hrut, which I doubt, how will your mother escape from the last fire-ship?’

  ‘By skiff and oars, Baldr,’ replies the lad. ‘How else?’

  ‘That’s only half a chance for her,’ says Fjak. ‘To scull ashore, your ma will have to jump ship before the bluffs.’

  Hrut had looked cocky. Now he has a startled blank expression — as if only now has it sunk in that his mother and brothers have been tempted into a foolhardy game.

  None of the crew — not even Hrut — has an inkling of the reward promised by Lodin: thirty ounces of silver to be shared between them, three times the amount first offered. But to smell the silver, Sae-Unn, Vermund and Stein will have to escape with their lives.

  The crew wait for me to speak.

  ‘Your brother is right, Hrut, Ingvar’s plan is plain crazy. And yet, crazy or not — who knows? It might be crazy enough to work! One thing is certain: if Ingvar’s fire-ships run aground at the bluffs or if Glun out-manoeuvres them in the estuary — let’s hope he doesn’t, but if he does, we are the ones who are in trouble.’

  Fjak screws up his nose. ‘Say again, Skip.’

  ‘It is simple, man. If Glun escapes the floating fires — if his ships make it past Vadrar-fiord and sail upriver, we cannot match their numbers; we will be crushed.’

  A witless smile comes to Dantzk’s face. ‘Let hope the shits do come, eh, Halp! They will have you and me to reckon with. Have we ever been found wanting with sword in hand?’

  ‘Not a bit of it,’ re-joins the midshipman.

  Dantzk licks his lips with relish. ‘Widow Derdriu will see what kind of man she is going to marry.’ The big man rubs his hand along a forked tree-root of oak crusted with dry cow-dung. He tastes the palm of his hand. ‘There are worse places than this to settle with a wife. I won’t have those shits from Linn-dubh spoiling it for me!’

  ‘So, Dantzk,’ I ask. ‘Can I take it you will be standing with me at the ford?’

  ‘Sure as hell, Skip,’ replies Dantzk staunchly, and he clasps the heft of his well-worn sword.

  ‘You can count on me too, Thralson,’ says midshipman Halp. ‘This old fool of a jib-man will need someone to watch his back.’

  Dantzk chuckles and pokes his finger playfully on Halpin’s nose. ‘Lanky lubbers have their uses, la, la, la, lanky lubbers — even on dry land!’

  ‘Enough!’ Halp protests cheerfully. ‘Don’t make a brew-house song of it — that’s my game!’

  ‘What about you, Pigtail, and him?’ Fjak points to Kru. ‘I suppose you are going to hang around.’

  ‘Whether life or death awaits,’ Baldr replies solemnly. ‘Our trust is in the holy cross of St Bhraan.’ He signs for Kru, who signs eagerly in return. ‘Gil-Phatric says that God will answer his prayers. The monk has had a vision. As long as he fights within sight of the cross, he will win the day.’

  Fjak grimaces. ‘His God might answer his prayers, but what of the rest of us?’

  ‘And you, Fjak,’ asks Halp. ‘Are you off to Cluddy to take your chances with Hakon?’

  ‘Not me,’ replies Fjak, somewhat taken aback. ‘Why would you think that?’ His face clouds over and he appeals to me. ‘I am with you, Skipper Thralson. Only one thing, I beg of you. Please don’t ask me to cross the river on that weird contraption of fish-traps. It doesn’t look safe to me!’

  *

  ‘I’m coming with you, Kregin,’ says Beyveen. ‘I will guide you to Cluddy by the higher ground. You can’t go direct by the water-meadows — already the river-flood will have made them swampy underfoot. There will be hidden sink-holes everywhere. If you take this young lad across boggy fields to Cluddy, you and he will be wading up to your knees.’

  ‘I am no lad,’ says Hrut importantly. ‘I haul amidships on the Meuris as good as any man on the crew. You will see how strong I am, when I stand at the ford. My father is in Cluddy. Who knows what will happen? I wanted a last word with him before the long-ships come.’

  ‘Well, Lubber Thrandtson,’ says Beyveen. ‘When I see your father, I will thank him in person, as I thank you now for your mettle.’ Her sudden kiss on Hrut’s unbearded cheek makes the lad blush. ‘If only our missing young men were with us, to stand as tall as you at the ford.’

  ‘My daughter is right, Thralson,’ says Shaynat, frowning at Beyveen for her daughter’s overly familiar manner with Hrut, and for being reminded of the herders’ desertion of their families — a betrayal, which rankles deep with Tioc’s wife. ‘My daughter is right, that is, about the sink-holes and swampy ground. She knows the upper paths to Cluddy like the back of her hand. Follow her by the hummocks and hawthorns, and you won’t go far wrong.’

  ‘Come, Kregin,’ says Beyveen. ‘We can’t delay. And it is better we go barefoot.’

  ‘Kregin is it?’ says Leasha sarcastically. ‘I didn’t know the young skipper and you were on familiar terms.’

  Beyveen returns with a laugh. ‘Do I need permission from my royal sister?’

  ‘What is with the whispering, Fjak?’ I look sternly at him and Hrut. ‘I can’t abide your mumbling. Out with it, man, if you have something to say!’

  ‘Nothing bad, Skip,’ says Fjak sheepishly. ‘If you don’t mind, I will tag along too. I would rather be on the move, with you and Hrut, than sit here twiddling my thumbs.’

  ‘Get your boots off, if you are coming,’ I reply. ‘We have to be off now — I can’t wait around.’

  ‘Beyveen,’ says Shaynat. ‘Remember to take the kindling-bag with you. The battle-beacon on Slieve Bhraan must be lit.’ She gives a stony glance to her other daughter. ‘It may be enough for Gil-Phatric to rely on God’s will, but we should at least try to alert the wilderlings.’

  *

  The water-meadows, only this morning dry as dust, now smell of river peat and mountain sedge, suddenly sodden, sweet and dank; claggy with a wet odour of cattle dung. The well-grazed grasses, flooded from underground channels, give off steam from the heat of the sun. They are soft and springy. The ground gives way under our feet, squishing watery dung up between our toes.

  We walk in a single file. I follow at Beyveen’s heels. Hrut is behind me and Fjak lags at the rear. Tioc’s daughter leads us in what seems, at first, a curious, winding ramble over the meadows. But soon I understand that she has her eye on firmer patches of turf, and is choosing a careful path across heavy, water-laden ground.

  Before the flooding of the water-meadows, I hadn’t noticed how uneven the cattle pastures were. I had thought of them as trodden smooth under hoof, grazed flat and gently sloping towards the river. But now, in flood, hummocky ridges have appeared in the meadows, showing up as patch
es of darker green. The hummocks stand firm against the flood, or at least firmer than the ground around them. Cloudy water bubbles up from hidden channels under the meadows. It flows off firmer hummocky ground and into the softer hollows.

  Beyveen chooses her path between the raised hummocks. Everywhere around is subsiding under a weight of swiftly trickling water. Tioc’s daughter hops quickly, lightly, across the swampy stretches that separate one hummock from another, for fear of sinking into a quagmire. We follow her, keeping eyes to the ground to check our footfall. She runs ahead more swiftly than us, and as she runs, the kindling-bag that her mother gave her swings from her shoulder.

  *

  Above us, to our left, a line of white hawthorns droops with blossoms now sour and faded. At the root of the thorn-trees — unseen in their shadows — is the dugout ditch that carries open water from the river. Dry as a bone before today, it now brims to overflowing. Swelling ripples of peaty water escape over the banks of the ditch, and gather in streams across our path, sparkling in sunshine, a blinding glare of glistening water. An odour of dung, steaming off the ground, catches nose and throat, and stings the eyes. We lift our heads, unable to see where we are going. Hidden below our feet, flood-water rushes swiftly through channels underground. From upriver the waters of an-Uir run unstoppably though open leet-gates into the dugout ditch. Flowing above ground and below, the river has taken possession of the water-meadows.

  *

  ‘Thor’s sake, help me, Skip!’ It is Fjak’s voice, rasping, though plaintive and childlike. ‘I have gone down a fecking hole!’

  Hrut and I turn to look. Beyveen is too far ahead to have heard. Our bald ship-mate has sunk to his thighs in squelch. In trying to escape — or perhaps to command our urgent help — Fjak swings his arms wildly, forceful movements that only pull him deeper into the pit.

  Hrut runs to him, backtracking quickly over waterlogged ground. ‘We will soon have you out.’

  ‘Lie back, Fjak,’ I yell. ‘Stop struggling! Don’t panic, man. Stay still or you will make it worse!’

  By the time I join them, Hrut has lodged his neck under Fjak’s arm-pit, and hauled his friend out of the mire. Fjak lies back, panting, catching his breath, his breeches covered in slime to the waist. Hrut kneels on a clump of rushes beside him. With a caring, muddy hand the young man wipes the sweat of shock and fright from the older man’s swarthy, bald head. Under our feet, a gulping, sucking and gurgling, as the sink-hole that almost swallowed Fjak fills with water.

  ‘Can’t stop here!’ I yell. ‘On your feet! Follow me!’

  Above us, Beyveen has made it to the line of thorn-trees.

  ‘Up here,’ she hails us between cupped hands, so that her voice will carry. ‘To the hawthorns! We must cross over the flood — we will have safer ground on the other side of the ditch.’

  *

  ‘I thought there would be more of you,’ says Beyveen.

  She eyes Bergthor and Thrandt, not disrespectfully, but nonetheless taking note of their advanced years. Her glance takes in the men standing at their backs — a dozen or so warriors — hot and red-faced in the scorching summer heat, kirtled for battle, kitted out with helmets and bucklers. Her darting black eyes come to rest on the lightly clad scratch crews: about twenty men with battle-axes from Hakon’s and Thrandt’s ships.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, young woman,’ returns Cullynan, the sturdy midshipman from Hakon’s crew. ‘You shouldn’t judge men’s clout by their numbers.’ The half-blood speaks in a coarse Erse tongue that I have not heard before. Crewmen off both ships rally to his call. Emboldened by his shipmates’ oaths, Cullynan hurls out a rallying call. ‘By Jesus, every man here is worth twice Lodin’s silver.’

  ‘No one doubts it, Cully,’ says Hakon. ‘Now, take four men and get yourself down to the blockade. I don’t want to see your ugly face until you have sight of their ships on an-Uir. Don’t be noisy raising the alarm, eh? We will be hiding in Cluddy woodlands, just above the waterfall.’

  ‘I can smell them,’ says Bergthor grimly, meaning the men of Linn-dubh. ‘Smell their bad blood, their foul intent. They can’t be far from us.’ I hear a cold edge to his voice, a hardness that I have not recognised before.

  Chapter 46

  Beyveen and I are on the ascent to the summit of Slieve Bhraan. Fjak and Hrut have set off without us on their return to the Rath. They bear a message from Hakon and Thrandt for Beyveen’s father, thanking him for his warning about the dangers in the water-meadows. Our men from Vadrar-fiord will know not to stray from the woodlands into fields they would not expect to be flooded in summer. Even if they gain an upper hand with stragglers from the enemy — if Bergthor succeeds in his marauding game — they will not be tempted to finish off their prey by an ill-advised hot pursuit that would lead them into boggy ground near the river.

  Fjak and Hrut will not return to the isle through the water-meadows. They didn’t need much telling from Beyveen to go by a different way to the Rath — neither man wants to be sucked into a deadly sink-hole. They have gone back on the safe, winding path under the hawthorns that runs above the leet-ditch. Beyveen has warned them not to cross the flooded ditch until they are within sight of reed-ford. The water at that part of the leet may be up to their necks, but they can trust the steady flow of the flood, ignore the frightening depth, hold fast to each other for support, and so wade across safely.

  *

  The last time that Beyveen and I climbed to the beacon summit of Slieve Bhraan we had horses with us on the trek up-fell. We had to be mindful of their safety under hoof, while being cautious for each footfall of our own. On that day, the final stretch was slowest of all, as we made our way, clambering to and fro through boulder fields to the tops. This time, without horses to hamper us, without having to coax our hesitant mounts over scree and shale, our barefoot ascent is swiftly done.

  The purpose of our climb adds urgency to every step. The battle-beacon needs to be lit. Hopefully its smoke will be seen from the western mountains and summon wilderlings to the defence of the isle. And another purpose grips us too, a purpose unspoken and yet knowingly shared, every time our eyes meet and our hands touch. It is as if, once we scan across open land from the mountain top, we will be able to steal a glimpse of our hidden future — as if from the advantage of its great height we will uncover what the day might hold for us, and the morrow. The sun has not yet climbed to first quarter in the clear sky. The summer day has not reached mid-morning, when we stand, hand in hand for a brief, indulgent moment, looking out to the south from the upper peak of Slieve Bhraan.

  *

  Seen from the summit, the open land, through which three rivers run to the sea, is bathed in milky light. A haze of summer heat has settled across the expanse of sky. To our left, eastward of an-Bharu, under a brightening morning sky, the lowlands around Slieve Coillte are a lustre of green in the haze. Westward of an-Bharu, to our right, along the meandering path of the river, the heathland has taken on a darker, duller hue. From the neck of the estuary, between the bluffs, where an-Bharu meets an-Shuir — not as far south at Criadain as Ingvar would have hoped — thin spirals of black smoke are smouldering off several fires and rising into the sky. Once risen off the water, the thin strands of oily smoke merge as one dark shadow over the estuary east of Vadrar-fiord.

  Beyveen’s hand tightens in mine. ‘Is the black smoke from Lodin’s fire-ships?’

  ‘Must be from the fire-ships!’ I reply. ‘But the fires are too small. And less than seven — only four or five burning at the most — they can’t have done much damage to Glun’s fleet.’

  ‘Does that mean that Iron-knee has survived the fires?’ she asks.

  ‘Yes, Beyveen, the men of Linn-dubh are on the river. If they haven’t put ashore at Criadain, they will sail north towards the tide-head.’

  My heart beats hard. I think of Sae-Unn, and of her sons, Vermund and Stein, pulled by greed for silver into Ingvar’s reckless plan.

  ‘But how many long-sh
ips?’ she asks. ‘And with how many men?’

  ‘That remains to be seen,’ I return. ‘But in whatever numbers, we will have to face them.’

  Tioc’s daughter unloosens her bag of kindling. ‘But first,’ she says resolutely. ‘Our task is to light the beacon.’

  ‘There is plenty of ancient firewood, gathered and cut for purpose. At least I won’t blunt my axe with wood-cutting.’

  *

  Beyveen and I have stacked the branches to nearly twice a man’s height, building them loosely to allow air and draught into a great heap of wood — one that will burn for days and be seen from the western mountains. But we struggle to get a flame going from underneath the woodpile, let alone a fire that will last. We are anxious to report our sighting of fire-ships alight in the estuary. Hakon must be told, and Beyveen’s father alerted — Thrandt, Thor help him, must hear the unsettling news. Our delay in setting off down the mountain adds to our frustration, but we cannot think of leaving the summit until the beacon has flared into life, and is at no risk of it going out.

  The stock of hazel, birch and beech, gathered from Cluddy woodlands many years before, is dry and mouldy, old wood that should burn well — but the branches are green with moss. No wind to speak of on the summit, not even a breeze. The wood smokes and smoulders, and the dead sap hisses without bursting into flame.

  We run out of dry tinder from Beyveen’s kindling-bag. In desperation, I cut off a tuft of heather from the heath with my hunting-knife and singe it from ashes at the base of the smouldering beacon. Blowing breathlessly on the sweet smoking brushwood, I gasp and blow until it flashes alight.

  More tufts of heather are gathered and twisted into makeshift torches; Beyveen and I blow the brushwood into flame. Tuft after tuft of heather we gather and blow alight. Not a single word wasted between us. We circle the woodpile in frenzied haste, our faces blackening with smoke, and poke the flaming heather torches in through gaps in the mossy green branches.

  I pull off my serk. Naked to the waist, all scars on show, I fan the beacon flames into life.