The Invaders

by John Flanagan

  Unless he could place the oil there without being seen…

  The germ of an idea began to form in his brain. But at that point, he heard a light footstep squeaking in the sand. He turned quickly and saw Lydia’s slender form a few meters away.

  “Can’t sleep?” she said sympathetically.

  He nodded. “I’m trying to work out all the things that can go wrong,” he said. “So far, I’ve come up with about a dozen.”

  “Only a dozen?” she said, and he could sense the smile in her voice. He glanced at her, but her face was in shadow.

  “Well,” he said, trying to match her light mood, “that’s just for starters. I haven’t really hit my stride yet.”

  “Let’s isolate your biggest concern,” she said, her voice more serious, “and see what we can do about it.”

  He paused, thinking. What was his biggest worry? What was the one link that, if it broke, would be hardest to replace? It didn’t take him too long to realize what it was.

  “Ingvar,” he said quietly. “I’m worried about him.”

  “Ingvar?” she said, surprised. “How could you doubt him? I’ve been watching him and he absolutely worships you. There’s no way he’d ever let you down.”

  Hal was shaking his head before she had finished.

  “I’m not worried he’ll let me down. I know he never would,” he said. “Quite the opposite. I’m worried that I’ll be putting him in such a position of danger. I feel as if I’m letting him down.” He could sense that she didn’t understand, and realized that, of course, she’d never seen them shooting the Mangler.

  “He’s the only one strong enough to load the crossbow easily,” he explained. “That means he’ll be exposed in the bow of the ship when he’s doing it.”

  “How close do you have to get to the target?” Lydia asked.

  Hal took a deep breath and stared out to sea for a few seconds before answering. He wanted to increase the distance but he knew that he would be compromising the accuracy and power of the massive bow if he did.

  “About a hundred meters. Maybe less,” he said finally. Even in the darkness, he saw the whites of her eyes as they widened.

  “That is pretty close,” she said. “I thought you said this bow of yours had a range of three hundred meters?”

  “The bow does. I don’t. If I’m going to hit what I aim at, I need to be about a hundred meters away. That means Ingvar will be exposed when he’s loading. He’ll be the most prominent target on the ship. And he’s pretty hard to miss. I’m wondering if I have the right to put him in such danger—particularly because I know he will never refuse me if I ask him.”

  “Of course,” she said, “you’re forgetting that you’ll be exposed as well. The pirates may well see you as a more important target. After all, you’ll be the one shooting at them.”

  “I’ll be behind the Mangler,” he pointed out. “It’d take a very good shot to hit me. But Ingvar…” He paused. “Well, aside from anything else, if he’s hit, we’re in big trouble. He’s the only one strong enough to load the bow.”

  “What about Thorn?” she asked. “He’s not exactly a weakling.”

  “It’s a two-handed job,” he said. “Even for Ingvar. Thorn may well be strong enough, but I doubt that his hook would take the strain. It’d probably pull off the end of his arm.”

  She turned and paced away a few steps, thinking. Then she returned.

  “Maybe I can help,” she said. “If I was up in the bow with you…” She saw him start to open his mouth to protest and she forestalled him quickly. “Don’t worry, I won’t be standing out in the open. I’ll stay under cover.” She paused and Hal nodded cautious agreement. “Anyway, if I keep watch, I could cover both of you. I could pick off any bowman who starts to take too much interest in you.”

  “With those darts of yours?”

  She nodded.

  “Are you that good?” Hal’s question wasn’t at all skeptical. It was a case of genuine interest. He was unfamiliar with the atlatl as a weapon. He had never seen one in use and had no idea of its range or accuracy.

  “I can hit a man-size target at one hundred meters,” she said confidently. Then she paused and qualified the statement. “Probably three times out of four.”

  Hal whistled softly. “That’s pretty good,” he said. “I’m not sure I could do better with my crossbow.” He thought about it. “And of course, if you pick off one or two of them, the others will be less keen to be heroes.”

  She smiled at him and he saw her teeth gleam in the darkness. “It’s good to think I’ll be serving a useful purpose,” she said. Then the smile faded. “That’s another reason I wanted to stay with you and the boys. Barat would never let me get close to the action.”

  “Perhaps we won’t mention it to him.”

  She sighed. “I’m sorry about the way he behaved. He just can’t help himself. He’s very possessive about me.”

  “I can see why.” The words were out of Hal’s mouth before he could stop them and he hesitated awkwardly, realizing they sounded like the clumsiest of heavy-handed compliments. But Lydia touched his arm gratefully.

  “Thank you,” she said simply.

  He was glad the darkness meant she couldn’t see how his face had reddened. He cleared his throat awkwardly and changed the subject.

  “Well, now that we’ve solved the problem of Ingvar, I think I might be able to sleep.”

  “Me too,” she said. “Good night, Hal. And thanks again.”

  “Good night,” he said, and they turned and made their separate ways back to their bedrolls.

  A little way up the beach, Stig had been awakened by the low murmur of their muted voices. For a few seconds, he lay frowning, trying to identify the sound. Then he raised himself on one elbow and looked down to the water’s edge. He could recognize the two silhouetted forms in the dim moonlight. Hal and Lydia, he thought. He saw her lean forward and touch Hal’s arm in a familiar gesture and felt a sudden stab of jealousy.

  Then he flushed, angry with himself. Hal was his best friend, after all, and he hardly knew Lydia. It was foolish to let jealousy come between them, he told himself. But no matter how many times he repeated the sentiment in his mind, he couldn’t get rid of that small niggle.

  “I’m as bad as Barat,” he said to himself. He rolled over and pulled his blankets up to his chin. But sleep eluded him for some time.

  In spite of what he’d said to Lydia, Hal remained sleepless as well, staring wide-eyed at the dark sky and the brilliant stars above him, turning over the problem of the beach gate.

  Oil, he thought once more. That was the answer. If he could drench the wood in oil, and then set fire to it, the burning oil would eventually cause the dried timbers to catch as well. Once they had burned, it would be relatively simple to break down the gate.

  It would also be simple to set the oil on fire. He could do that with a fire arrow from his crossbow, or from the Mangler. But first, the oil would have to be put in place on the gate. And that brought him back full circle. Anyone trying to throw oil on the gate during the battle would be shot down by the defenders before he could reach it.

  He shifted his position. There was a ridge of packed sand under his shoulder blade. He’d been trying to ignore it for the past few minutes but now it had become a real frustration—probably because of his inability to think of a way around the problem of the gate.

  Angrily, he threw his blankets off and sat up. He folded back the waterproof canvas he was using as a groundsheet and smoothed the offending ridge flat. Then he replaced the groundsheet and, while he was about it, plumped up the roll of sheepskin he was using for a pillow.

  Sighing with satisfaction, he turned and studied the beach once more before lying down. Heron and Wolfwind were canted over at an angle now, he saw. As the tide had receded, the ships had been left standing on the wet sand and had gently toppled over to their present position.

  The tide had run out quite a long way. There was a strip of gli
stening sand on the beach between the ships and the sea some twenty meters wide. Just as well they didn’t have to launch in a hurry, he thought. Of course, by morning, the tide would come in again and the boats would gradually rise from the sand and float upright once more.

  The tide fascinated him, as it did most sailors. A great deal of his life was governed by it and the strong currents that it created. There was a fascinating inevitability about the tide, about the way it rose and fell twice each day.

  He knew that some of the older Skandians believed that it was caused by a mythical Great Blue Whale as it breathed water in and out. He glanced around the dark huddled forms on the beach. He wondered how many of the Wolfwind’s crew still secretly believed that fable.

  Not Svengal, he thought. Svengal was too practical. Thorn? Almost instantly, he dismissed the idea. Thorn was too skeptical to believe such a fairy story. But then, if it wasn’t the Great Blue Whale that caused the tides, what did cause them?

  He sighed. The inventor in him wanted to understand how it happened. But so far, nobody seemed to have a logical explanation. Perhaps the answer was simply to accept the fact that the tide came in and the tide went out, and that was that.

  And as he had that thought, he realized how he was going to get the oil onto the beach gate.

  chapter twenty - five

  Hal, Stig and Jesper were in a skiff borrowed from Barat’s people, two hundred meters offshore from Limmat’s eastern watchtower.

  “Aren’t you worried that they’ve seen us?” Stig asked. The pirates manning the tower were shouting insults at them as they rowed past, but although they had sent arrows toward the skiff, none had come close.

  Hal shook his head. “They know that Barat and his men have small boats, so we’re not giving anything away. And from this distance, they can’t recognize us as Skandians.”

  Stig nodded uncertainly. But, as ever, he deferred to Hal’s reasoning. “If you say so.”

  “They can’t even see you’re an Araluen,” Jesper put in, grinning.

  Hal rolled his eyes, realizing Jesper’s comment was meant as a joke.

  “Too true,” he said. “Ironic, isn’t it? These pirates may well be the first people to think of me as a Skandian. Ah, there’s the gate.”

  A hundred meters beyond the watchtower, the palisade turned at right angles and headed inland, to the north. There was a small stretch of beach just beyond this turning point, and a heavy wooden gate was set into the palisade, giving access to the beach.

  “It’s closed,” Jesper said. He was mystified about this reconnaissance trip. Hal hadn’t told him anything about his plans; he’d just said that he wanted Jesper to see it—so he’d understand what Hal had in mind—and point out any possible problems.

  “Lydia says it’s always closed, unless there are ships drawn up on the beach,” Hal said. “They’re an untrusting lot and they don’t let strange ships into the harbor.”

  “With good reason,” Stig said, resting on the oars. “Look what happened last time they did.”

  “Exactly,” Hal agreed. “So if a ship arrives that they haven’t seen before, that’s where they tell it to land. The strangers can unload their cargo on the beach and the townspeople use the gate to bring the goods inside the palisade.”

  “Very well,” Jesper said slowly. “So here we are, after a pleasant boat ride, and we’re looking at a gate that’s kept locked. I assume they won’t be opening it for us?”

  “No. We’re going to burn it,” Hal said. “Then Ingvar is going to hit it with a battering ram to break it down.”

  “Well, if anyone can do it, Ingvar can. But how are we going to burn it?”

  “We’ll drench it with oil, then light the oil with a fire arrow from the Mangler.”

  “So far,” Jesper replied, “I can’t fault your logic. Except for one small, and I have to say potentially vital, point—”

  “How do we get the oil on the gate in the first place?” Hal said.

  The ex-thief nodded.

  “We’re going to put it there the night before. We’ll hang a full oil bladder on the gate. If we place it high enough, it won’t be visible from the palisade. Then, on the morning of the attack, we puncture the skin with an arrow or a bolt. Oil flows out down the gate and we set fire to it with another arrow. Simple.”

  Jesper turned from his study of the gate and cocked his head at Hal.

  “You have an interesting concept of the word simple,” he said. “And you said we’ll hang an oil bladder. How will we manage that exactly?”

  “Well, actually, we won’t,” Hal admitted. “I’m hoping you’ll do that part. Could you get from the water’s edge to the gate without being seen?”

  Jesper studied the ground between the gate and the water’s edge. He stuck out his bottom lip.

  “At night? I should think so. There’s plenty of undulating ground to give me cover. Might take me ten or fifteen minutes, but I can do it.”

  “How does he get to the beach?” Stig asked. “Even at night, they’ll see us if we try to take a boat in that close. And if they know someone’s landed there, they may well check the gate and find your oil bladder.”

  “We’re not taking a boat in that close,” Hal told him. “We’ll get to within three hundred meters. A small boat should be pretty hard to see at that distance and at night. Then Jesper and I will float in—on the last of the tide.”

  “Ah… there’s another problem,” Jesper said, holding up a hand. “I don’t float. I sink.”

  Hal was an excellent swimmer. Jesper, like most Skandians, couldn’t swim a stroke. But Hal had anticipated that problem.

  “I can swim,” he said. “And I’ll be coming with you.”

  “Excellent,” Jesper replied sarcastically. “You can watch me drown.”

  “You can’t drown. I need you. We’ll build a raft. Or better still, we’ll find a log that’s washed up as driftwood. We’ll tow it behind the skiff till we’re a few hundred meters off the beach, then slip overboard. I’ll tie you on, Jesper. You won’t sink.”

  “So you say,” Jesper said doubtfully.

  “If we stay in the water behind the log, we won’t be seen. The pirates, if they notice anything, will see a piece of driftwood wash ashore. We’ll give them ten or twenty minutes to get used to it, then you slip up the beach with the oil bladder.”

  “And how do you get out?” Stig asked. The workings of Hal’s mind fascinated him. The idea seemed quite feasible now that he heard it.

  “Same way we came in. We’ll let the tide take us out again and you can pick us up out of sight of the towers.”

  “Me?” Stig said, surprised.

  “You’ll have to take the second group of Barat’s men down the bay while we’re attending to the gate. On your way back, wait offshore, out of sight, and we’ll drift out to you.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Just like that.”

  “What if we miss you?” There was genuine concern in Stig’s voice.

  “That would be embarrassing,” Hal admitted.

  Jesper eyed him with some alarm. “I’ll be more than embarrassed,” he said. “I’ll be downright disappointed. We could drift halfway to Teutlandt if Stig doesn’t spot us.”

  “Could this possibly be one of those small details that you so very occasionally overlook?” Stig asked innocently.

  Hal frowned as he considered the problem.

  “It should be all right. We should be able to predict where we’ll drift to. And once we’re off the beach, we can raise a flag on the log, so you should be able to see us.”

  “You know, I’m not fond of should,” Jesper said, with some spirit. “I think I prefer will. Forgive me if I’m lacking enthusiasm for this scheme.”

  Hal pursed his lips, deep in thought, then he gestured back the way they had come.

  “No need to keep hanging around here,” he said, changing the subject. “I’ll think of a way round this on the way back.”

  “I’d
appreciate that,” Jesper said.

  Stig hid a grin. Jesper, a non-swimmer, was being asked to float into the beach, holding on to a log, make his way to the gate, avoiding being seen by any sentries patrolling the palisade, hang a bladder of oil on it, then drift out to sea again on the vague assurance that Stig and the other Herons would be able to find them. Welcome to Hal’s world, he thought.

  Stig set the oars in the water and began rowing back. He had been planning on suggesting that Jesper might spell him on the way home, but he decided that he had enough on his mind already. But he couldn’t resist one final sally.

  “You know, I’ve heard Teutlandt is very nice at this time of year,” he said. “They do have very nice sausage there.”

  Both Hal and Jesper glared at him. He chuckled to himself. Hal will come up with something, he thought.

  But by the time they arrived back at the camp, Hal still hadn’t found a way to solve the problem.

  “It should be all right,” he said to himself as he trudged up the beach, deep in thought. “I should be able to calculate where we’ll drift to and Stig can be waiting for us there.”

  The problem with that, he realized, was that, while Stig was an excellent helmsman, he wasn’t a very talented navigator. He was competent, of course. He’d been through the brotherband training course and navigation was an important part of that. But Hal had done the advanced navigation classes, and knowing what a superb navigator Hal was, Stig had tended to skim through the theory work, assuming that his friend would be around to do the difficult part.

  I’ll work out reference points for him, Hal thought. That way, he could give Stig two points on the land on which he could take bearings, and that would set him in the correct position. But even that wasn’t totally satisfactory. A lot of the finer detail of navigation came down to instinct and judgment. If the wind grew stronger or changed direction, for example, it would take their makeshift raft off the predicted course. Hal would be able to sense that and allow for it.