Dubh-linn: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 2)

by James L. Nelson

  Ruarc was out of his seat and out of the marquee before Finnian and Brigit had even quite understood the implications of this. They both leapt to their feet, but Finnian put a hand on Brigit’s arm. “One moment,” he said. He grabbed a cloak that was tossed onto Ruarc’s camp bed and draped it over her shoulders, pulling the hood up over her head. “I am sure my Lord Ruarc would not mind,” he said, and the two of them ducked out of the tent and into the hard rain and what appeared to be total chaos.

  Men were rushing in every direction, snatching up swords, spears and shields, fitting helmets on their heads. “To arms! To arms!” they could hear someone cry and the cry was taken up around the camp as men stumbled to grab their weapons and stand ready for action.

  They found Ruarc beyond the tents, looking out over the long stretch of open ground between them and the ringfort. He was flanked by Breandan mac Aidan and a few of his senior men, and they were talking in low voices and pointing here and there, seemingly oblivious to the madness behind them.

  “Princess Brigit, Father Finnian, pray join us,” Ruarc called, welcoming them in among the others. “See here.” He pointed toward Tara. “Men have come out, do you see them, before the gate?”

  Finnian squinted through the rain. He saw them at last. Quite a few men. More than a hundred, certainly. Distance and weather made it hard to see, but it appeared that they wore helmets and mail, or most did, the armor shining dull gray in the rain and low clouds. Finnian could see spots of color, which he guessed were painted shields.

  “Are they men from Tara?” he asked.

  “I would imagine so,” Ruarc said, “though why they have left the safety of the ringfort and taken the field I can’t imagine. I would not, if I was in Flann’s position, and I didn’t think he would. That’s why we weren’t ready for this.”

  They may not have been ready a few minutes before, but they were nearly so now, the men forming up behind and to either side of Ruarc and the other lead men. Ruarc’s men-at-arms were not a bunch of farmers filling out their military obligations to their lord, they were professionals and it showed.

  “What will you do, my Lord Ruarc,” Brigit said, “if I may make so bold as to ask?”

  “I’m not entirely sure,” Ruarc said. His words were slow and measured, as if he was working out his options as he spoke. “Once we’re formed up we’ll advance into the open, get some fighting room. But I won’t attack them, I’ll let them make the first move so I can see what they have in mind. I’m tempted to think they’ve made a terrible blunder, but I know Flann better than that. There’s something acting here that I have yet to see.”

  Finnian felt his stomach knot up. He had hoped that this might all be accomplished without bloodshed. Both he and Ruarc had thought the show of force would be enough to make Flann and Morrigan see the benefits of a negotiated peace. But now it looked as if they meant to fight, and it would be a bloody affair if they did. And that in turn meant he had precious little chance to make anyone see reason. Once steel met steel, that chance would be gone for good.

  “They’re making a shieldwall,” Breandan mac Aidan said. In the distance Finnian could see the men rushing here and there, organizing themselves, moving from an amorphous cluster into a line, an unbroken line with shields held chest high, dull colored dots against the brown walls of Tara.

  “Form our men up!” Ruarc called, loud but calm. There was no edge of excitement or alarm in his voice; he might have been calling across a yard for his groom to bring his horse. But behind them the men-at-arms fell into a line of their own, ready to counter any move the enemy might make. Finnian was impressed and heartbroken all at once. Irish fighting Irish. It was not right, and no wonder that the Northmen had so easy a time setting themselves up in that country. It made him ill.

  He turned his eyes from the men before Tara and swept the field, and was surprised to see a lone figure, one man, walking across the open ground. No one else seemed to have noticed him, or if they did, they did not think he was worthy of comment. One man. Not even walking so much as staggering, seemingly oblivious to the great machinations around him. And then Finnian realized who he was. It was the young Norseman who had escorted Brigit nic Máel Sechnaill to Ruarc’s camp.

  Now, I wonder what he’s about, Finnian thought.

  Arinbjorn felt the panic rising like a fast moving tide and he struggled to keep above it. It was not fear of the enemy or the possibility of injury or death, it was fear that Morrigan had once again played him for a fool. That, he did not think he could endure.

  “What by the name of Thor is the meaning of this?” Hrolleif the Stout roared out as the big doors shut behind them. It was the very same question that was shrieking in Arinbjorn’s brain. The buzz of conversation, the talk of the confused men around him grew louder, louder even than the rain drumming on Arinbjorn’s helmet, louder than the screaming questions in his head. He wanted to tell them all to shut their mouths, but he did not dare because he was afraid they would not listen.

  “There, look!” Ingolf called and pointed downhill and across the wide expanse of open, grassy field. There was a camp in the distance, about three quarters of a mile off, the camp that Morrigan had been pointing toward. Presumably that was the enemy with whom Thorgrim had joined up. Then, suddenly, Arinbjorn was struck by the truth, coming like a cowardly punch from the blind side.

  Oh, you cunning bitch… he thought, then, speaking loud so the others could hear over the driving rain, he said, “This is what the Irish are about. They know we’ll do anything to have our revenge on Thorgrim and those other traitors, so they’ve sent us out alone to fight their battle for them!”

  He was pleased with those words, the sound of them, so he continued on in his most inspirational tone. “Very well, then, if they won’t fight like men, then I say we kill them all, all those yonder with Thorgrim, and then we come back and kill every one of the miserable, lying bastards at Tara as well!”

  He had expected a rousing cheer to follow this bold statement, but he received only bewildered looks. To Arinbjorn’s further discomfort, though not his surprise, Hrolleif was the first to speak, prefacing his remarks with a great clearing of his throat, followed by a great glob of spit hurled in the direction of the distant camp.

  “Thorgrim?” he roared, which seemed pretty much the only volume at which he was capable of speaking. “No one but you cares a turd about Thorgrim! How do you even know he is over there? Who told you that?”

  Arinbjorn did not answer, because he realized how stupid the answer would make him appear. Unfortunately, the truth was not hard to guess, and Hrolleif did, and guessed correctly.

  “By Odin’s one festering eye!” he roared. “Was it that Irish bitch, Morrigan? Thor’s hammer, is there anything she could say that you wouldn’t believe? If she told you she could squat down and shit silver ingots you’d stand there with your hands under her arse!”

  Arinbjorn could feel his face flush and flailed around looking for a suitable reply, but there was none at hand. Happily, Ingolf saved him. “Look there!” he cried. “They are going to arms!”

  All eyes turned from Arinbjorn and Hrolleif to the distant camp, where the men seemed to be racing around like ants on an overturned hill. There was something rushed and disorderly about their actions, as if they had been taken by surprise, and it was no wonder if they had been. Whoever they were, if they had come to fight, they probably did not think the men at Tara would leave a perfectly intact ringfort and meet them on the open ground. Arinbjorn knew that he certainly would not have done so, given a choice.

  “It appears they are well armed and their numbers are great,” Ingolf continued. “We have no dog in this fight. We have our weapons, we have our freedom. Our ships are likely still where we left them. Let the Irish kill the Irish, I say, and let us return to Dubh-linn.”

  This met with considerable approval among the others, heads nodding, voices murmuring ascent. Arinbjorn pressed his lips together. Desperate as he was to do so, he di
d not dare order them to prepare to attack the enemy across the field. He was all but certain he would be ignored, and that would be more humiliation than he could endure.

  Thorgrim!

  “We can’t just turn our backs and walk away,” Hrolleif said, giving Arinbjorn a faint glimpse of hope, until the big man added, “If they do attack, and we’re unprepared, they’ll murder us all. We need to form a shield wall and back away across the field, keep our faces and our shields toward the enemy as we retreat.”

  This, too, was met with general agreement. No orders were given or needed. The Norsemen knew well how to form a shieldwall and they did so, quick and neat. Arinbjorn could see the effect that the move had on the enemy in the far camp. The men who had been rushing chaotically about tumbled into place, making a formidable line of troops, mail-clad, helmeted, stretching from one end of the camp to another. In numbers and equipment and discipline they made the Vikings look weak and puny.

  “Very well,” Hrolleif shouted. “Stand ready to move back. Nice and easy, we’ll be ready for these bastards if they charge, but if they stay put it’s back to the ships for us.” All eyes were locked on the distant men-at-arms, waiting, waiting for them to make a move, to roll forward and charge the shieldwall and turn the standoff into a bloody fray.

  All but Arinbjorn. Something had caught his eye and he half turned and looked across the field, right in line with the flank of the shieldwall. A single man, walking slowly along, as if he was out for a stroll, except that he seemed to be all but staggering as he plodded through the driving rain.

  Who by Loki could that be? Arinbjorn wondered. The man looked like he might be drunk. Indeed, he would have to be, to be wandering around in the open like that, with two armies facing off and him seeming to not even notice.

  There was something familiar about him, his size and shape and the way he moved. Arinbjorn squinted through the rain. And then it hit him. Harald? he thought. Harald Thorgrimson?

  They had slipped back into their familiar roles as easily as pulling on a worn pair of shoes; Ornolf loud, commanding and outrageous, Thorgrim doing the actual leading, making the decisions that were really Ornolf’s to make when Ornolf could not be bothered to make them. It was not an arrangement that was meant to fool anyone, and it didn’t. It was simply the most pragmatic division of labor, each man acting as his strengths dictated.

  Thorgrim did not want their presence revealed. He understood that surprise was the most precious of weapons, and like so many precious things, once it was lost it could not be had again. So, by his command, only he and Ornolf and a few others stepped from the tree line to the place where the road ran out of the woods and the ground opened up and rolled away to the walls of Tara, standing proud on the crest of its hill. There was little chance that the small knot of men would be seen from as far away as the ringfort, or the cluster of tents at the other end of the open ground, but even still they hung toward the edge of the wood, standing in the bracken that lined the road, lost against the trees behind them.

  He had meant for the rest of the men to remain back and out of sight, but that was as likely to happen as the tide was to stop flowing at his command. So, like the tide, the men had inexorably crept forward, inching closer, seeping into the open places at the edge of the trees. But they knew what Thorgrim wanted, and they kept hidden by the arboreal cover, never exposing themselves as they maneuvered to a place where they could see what was going on. And since they did not threaten to ruin the gift of surprise, Thorgrim did not try to order them back.

  “See here,” he said, pointing toward the ringfort. Across the distance Thorgrim could see some movement, which he interpreted as the big oak door swinging open, and a moment later men emerging, marching out in a something akin to a military fashion, but not so disciplined as good and experienced troops would be.

  “What do you make of them?” Ornolf asked.

  “I can make out little at this distance,” Thorgrim said.

  “Ha! Your eyes dim with your advancing age, Thorgrim Night Wolf!” Ornolf said. Thorgrim smiled. He knew that Ornolf, his senior by nearly two decades, would reckon himself lucky if he could distinguish the fort from the hill on which it sat. Instead of pointing that out, however, he turned to Starri Deathless, who was with them in the bracken.

  “Starri, what do you make of this?” All of Starri’s senses - hearing, sight, touch, smell - seemed preternaturally acute. He took a step forward and held his hand up to his forehead to shield his eyes from the rain, the way someone who did not live in Ireland might shield his eyes from the sun.

  “Armed men,” Starri said at last. “More than one hundred, sure. But I don’t think they’re Irish. Their armor, shields, the way they organize themselves, they look more like Norsemen.” He swiveled and looked off in the other direction. “Whoever they are, they have the attention of the men in that camp. Look at them, racing around like chickens when a fox is among them!”

  Starri found that all very amusing, though Thorgrim could not really see anything in the distant camp beyond the suggestion of movement, or, at Tara’s gate, the shuffling of the men clustered there. For some time no one spoke as they watched the two distant armies and waited to see what would happen, to see who would do what. It seemed to be a standoff, the two forces holding each other in check, neither one willing or able to make a move. It had a brittle feeling, like standing on new frozen ice, knowing it might break underfoot at any second.

  Who are they? Thorgrim wondered, looking at the men who had just come out of Tara. If not Irish, then who? If they were Norsemen, then the most likely answer was that they were Arinbjorn’s men. But he could not imagine why Morrigan would go to the trouble of poisoning them all and taking them prisoner just to hand them back their weapons and let them go.

  Something to do with this armed camp? he wondered. Might Arinbjorn have made a pact with Morrigan, freedom for him and his men in exchange for fighting this new host? That made sense. Thorgrim could well picture Arinbjorn’s desperate negotiations to free himself from an Irish prison. There was very little he would not promise, Thorgrim guessed.

  “Now what?” Ornolf asked, pointing toward Tara.

  “They are forming a shieldwall,” Starri said.

  Thorgrim could see they were moving again, the cluster of men at the gate, but as to their forming a shieldwall, he would have to take Starri’s word on that. He could not make out that sort of detail.

  “Only the Irish could take a simple thing like a battle and turn it into such a damnable mess!” Ornolf roared. “What by Thor’s ass are they doing, and what are we going to do about it?”

  “We’ll know more once Harald and Brigit are back,” Thorgrim said. “But this looks like their fight, no business of ours.” There were two things working on Thorgrim now. The first was that he could see the chance for plunder had dropped off precipitously with the appearance of not one but two armies. The second was the realization that the ship in which Ornolf had come was in fact his ship, taken by him from the Danes. He had a ship, and that meant he now had the means of returning to Vik without putting himself in debt to some whore’s bastard like Arinbjorn.

  “So where is the boy?” Ornolf demanded. “Been gone a long time. I hope he and his princess didn’t stop to rut like wild boars in the woods. He’s my grandson, you know, so if that’s what they’re about we might be hours waiting for his return.”

  Ornolf’s voice was like the rain - a near constant sound and nearly devoid of meaning. So, like the rain, Thorgrim hardly even heard it after a while. His eyes ran over the storm-swept field, from the ringfort to the camp, trying to imagine what the next move would be. Whatever it was, he did not think it would involve them. Once Harald was back, they would return to the river. To his ship.

  It was then that Thorgrim saw the man walking toward them, far off but headed in their direction. He was walking slowly, with no apparent purpose, not strolling so much as staggering, as if he might have been drinking. He was still fairly fa
r off, and the rain made it more difficult to see, but there was something very familiar about his shape and the way he moved.

  “Starri,” Thorgrim said.

  “Yes. It’s him.”

  “Harald?”

  “Harald Broadarm. Your son. Yes, that’s him. He’s alone.”

  Thorgrim nodded. Alone…. That spoke volumes. And then another thought occurred to him. “Is he wounded?”

  Starri shielded his eyes and for a moment did not speak. “I can’t see that he is,” he said at last. “But I can’t see that he isn’t. He’s walking along fully exposed in the face of two armies and doesn’t seem too concerned.”

  “I’m going after him,” Thorgrim said.

  “I’m going with you,” Starri said.

  “No,” Thorgrim said. “This whole thing hangs in the balance. If we tip it too far it will all go.”

  “Two will not tip it. More will, but not two.”

  Thorgrim considered this. Two might tip it, or they might not. But Starri was a good man to have when he could be kept in control. What’s more, if Harald had to be carried back across the field, Thorgrim was not at all certain he could manage by himself.

  “Very well, let’s go,” he said, and the two of them stepped from the brush, stepped into the ankle high grass and headed off across the green, green fields and through the driving Irish rain.

  Harald was walking because that was what his legs seemed to be doing, though not through any conscious decision that he had made. Each step appeared to be taking him back to the place from which he had come, but he was not really sure and certainly did not care. He did not care about any of it. There really was no place he wanted to be.

  And now you may go… That was what she had said. And now you may go… He heard the words sounding over and over in his mind, like the constant peal of a bell. Standing in the tent, free of the rain for the first time in hours. The candlelight had played off her wet skin. Her clothes clung to her body, which was still lithe and strong, though the soaked fabric, tight over her belly, made her… condition…more obvious than it had ever been. She had that haughty look that she could get. It made her more beautiful than ever.