The Ghostfaces

by John Flanagan

  Ingvar had offered to help her with the task and she had accepted gratefully. It would take a lot of hard work and muscle to lift and turn the huge body for skinning, and for pulling the skin away from the body.

  “Can you eat a bear?” he’d asked, eyeing the huge mound of potential meat.

  Lydia had pursed her lips doubtfully. “People do. But it’s an awfully strong taste. And with all that muscle I’d guess this one would be pretty tough to chew.”

  Hal looked around the spot where they had last seen the children. “I’m guessing there’s a settlement or a village of some sort relatively close by,” he said. “Maybe through the forest.”

  Up until now, the risk of running into the bear had precluded any extensive exploring, although they knew the area was inhabited after Thorn and Lydia had spotted their mysterious follower. The question was, who were the inhabitants and how many were there?

  Stig peered into the dimness beneath the trees, shading his eyes to block the bright overhead sun so he could see more clearly.

  “Should we go looking for them?” he asked.

  Hal considered the idea, but shook his head after a few seconds. “I think we’ll wait for them to come to us. So far they’ve shown no sign of hostility and they might resent it if we go barging around.” He paused uncertainly. “Let’s see what Thorn says when Edvin is finished with him.”

  Thorn had been hit hard by the bear, whose sweeping blow caught his shield and drove the ironshod rim into his ribs. He was badly bruised at best and possibly had a cracked rib. When he came round, Edvin sat him down by the cook fire, stripped off his shirt and began binding the ribs tightly with a long, linen bandage. As Thorn obediently held his hands in the air for the process, Edvin sniffed distastefully.

  “Whew!” he exclaimed. “Maybe you should wash more often.”

  Thorn glared at him. “Washing is for them as is dirty,” he growled.

  Edvin raised his eyebrows. “I think you qualify for that group now,” he told the old sea wolf. “Maybe you could give yourself a bit of a sponge-down when I’m finished.”

  Thorn grunted. But he couldn’t really disagree. When he’d raised his arms, he’d become conscious of the fact that he was less than dainty. Not that he’d admit to that, of course.

  Edvin continued to wind the linen bandage around his ribs. He’d started without too much pressure, but as layer after layer wound on, the bandage became more and more restrictive.

  “Take it easy,” Thorn managed to gasp. “I can hardly breathe.”

  “That’s the general idea,” Edvin told him. “When you breathe, your ribs move as they expand and contract. If they’re cracked, which I think they are, the ends will rub against each other and they’ll never knit. This way, you have to keep taking shallow breaths to stop them moving and give them time to heal.”

  He nodded a greeting to Hal and Stig as they strolled up to the cook-fire site. The two sat down on one of the large logs that had been placed by the fire, forming a convenient seat.

  Edvin stopped winding the bandage and Thorn lowered his arms, grateful for a rest.

  “How am I expected to fight in this condition?” Thorn grumbled.

  Edvin looked at him, unsmiling. “You’re not. People with cracked ribs are supposed to convalesce. Not fight—particularly when fighting involves swinging a whacking great club or an ax. Neither pastime is recommended for healing ribs.”

  Thorn scowled. He knew he would never get the better of Edvin in this discussion. The medic was dealing from a position of strength. He knew what he was talking about. Thorn was merely grumbling.

  “Scowl all you like,” Edvin said calmly. “The sooner you take it easy, the sooner those ribs will heal.”

  Reluctantly admitting defeat, Thorn raised his arms again. “Keep winding,” he said. “Let’s get it done with.”

  Edvin eyed Stig and Hal and shook his head. “He’s such a gracious patient,” he said. “Thank you, Edvin. How kind of you to help heal my ribs, Edvin. Tell me what to do, Edvin, and I’ll do it.”

  He spoke with a fair approximation of Thorn’s gruff tones and both the younger men grinned.

  Seeing Thorn was done arguing with the medic, Hal leaned forward and addressed the old sea wolf.

  “What should we do about the local people?” he asked. “They must have a settlement somewhere nearby.”

  Thorn pursed his lips. “Leave them be,” he said decisively. “They’ll come to us when the time is right.”

  “What makes you think so?” Hal asked.

  Thorn shrugged and immediately winced in pain. Edvin muttered an inaudible imprecation. Then Thorn recovered and, speaking more carefully, he said, “Well, we did save the lives of two of their children,” he said. “They were about to become that bear’s next meal.”

  “Probably would have, too, if it hadn’t been for Jesper,” Stig said.

  Thorn looked thoughtful. “Yes. He did rather well, didn’t he—dashing in to throw his spear at the bear, then leading it away.”

  “He did even better at the ship,” Hal said.

  Thorn, of course, hadn’t witnessed the way Jesper had decoyed the bear so that Hal could get a shot at it with the Mangler. He looked questioningly at Hal.

  “The bear had got behind us,” Hal explained. “We were in the bow and it was trying to climb aboard in the waist. Jesper actually somersaulted over it to get it away from the ship, then ran to the bow and brought the bear to where I could get a clean shot. He’d backed himself up against the hull of the ship to do it. If I’d missed, he’d have been Jesper on toast for that bear.”

  Thorn shook his head at the words. “It never ceases to amaze me,” he said, “how someone can drive you mad—questioning constantly, disobeying orders, complaining and whining all the time—then the moment comes and he turns out to be a full-blown hero.”

  “I guess there’s more to him than we all realize,” Edvin said without looking up from his bandaging.

  Hal nodded. “I guess so. Just when you have him pegged as an annoying whiner, he puts us all to shame.”

  “That’s how people are,” Stig said wisely, and they all looked at him.

  “Oh, is that so?” Hal asked him. “Who else have you noticed behaving in such a manner?”

  “You,” Stig said without hesitation. “One moment, you’re banging on about raising and lowering the sails, sheeting home, letting them fly and so on, and driving everyone crazy. Next minute, you find a safe anchorage like this for us.” He swept his arm around the big bay and grinned at his skirl. “Just when we were all ready to throw you overboard.”

  “Oh, do forgive me,” Hal said in a voice heavy with sarcasm. “Did I disturb your rest during the nasty storm? Was it all too inconvenient for you?”

  “A little.” Stig grinned. “In future, try to modify your behavior when you’re frightened by a little breeze, will you?”

  “I wasn’t frightened,” Hal said. And, when they all regarded him with disbelief, he continued. “I was terrified. There’s a big difference.”

  Hal returned to his original question. “Anyway, Thorn, why do you think we should wait for the locals to come to us?”

  Thorn took an experimental breath. He had to admit that he felt a lot less pain with his ribs tightly bound and held in place. The restriction was somewhat uncomfortable, it was true. But it was a lot better than the sharp, stabbing pain he’d been feeling before. He nodded his gratitude to Edvin.

  “Thanks, Edvin. That feels a lot better.”

  Edvin shrugged, more than a little surprised at the change in Thorn’s manner.

  Then the older man replied to Hal’s question. “If we did go off exploring,” he said, “I’d want to go fully armed. And with a fair number of us along. We never know what we’re going to run into, after all.”

  He paused and Hal nodded. “That soun
ds reasonable to me.”

  “To you, yes. But think how it would look to the local inhabitants. We’d look like a war party and they might resent that. And the odds are, they outnumber us.”

  “You and Lydia could go alone,” Stig suggested. “She can be very stealthy and she could probably keep you out of sight—clumsy as you are.”

  Thorn turned a stony gaze on the tall first mate. Stig grinned unrepentantly.

  “Amazing how disrespectful people become when you’re injured and unable to swing a club,” Thorn said. “As you say, Lydia can be stealthy when she wants to be. But the watcher still managed to find us and follow us yesterday, and he was stalking her the previous day as well.”

  “So we sit and wait?” Hal said. He tended to agree with Thorn but it was good to have his opinion validated.

  Thorn nodded. “We’ll give it another day or two and see what turns up. After that, we’ll look at matters again.”

  “One good thing,” Hal said. “With the bear taken care of, we can go back to single watch-keepers at night. So we’ll all get a little extra sleep.”

  “And that’s something I’m in favor of,” Stig said heartily.

  chapter twenty

  Hal was dozing comfortably on his bedroll, his blankets wrapped around him. He had enjoyed a full night’s sleep. Now that there was no need for a double watch, he had exempted himself from sentry duty the night before. There were plenty of people to take care of that.

  Now he was luxuriating in that best of all sleeping moments. He had woken early, as the first light was appearing over the bay, realized that he had no immediate responsibilities to attend to, turned over with a contented sigh and gone back to sleep.

  “Nothing like it,” he murmured contentedly. It seemed his eyes had barely closed when he felt a hand shaking his shoulder. He frowned under the blankets.

  “Go away,” he growled, hoping that if he sounded forbidding enough, whoever it was would leave him alone. But Stefan, for it was he who had roused him, was insistent.

  “Hal, you’d better come and see this.”

  Reluctantly, Hal tossed back his blankets and sat up, rubbing his eyes. The crew had completed the large sleeping hut, and he had a privileged position by the doorway. He glanced at the sun now. It couldn’t have been more than ten minutes since he’d decided the world owed him more rest. A quick look around the interior of the hut showed him that most of the crew were still in bed asleep. So much for stealing a little extra warmth and relaxation, he thought. He stood up and pulled on his trousers and sheepskin jacket. He paused to buckle on the heavy leather belt that held his saxe in its scabbard and, yawning, followed Stefan toward the barricade.

  Thorn, who elected to sleep separately from the rest of the crew, was crawling out of his low, one-man tent. Even though Stefan had kept his voice to a whisper when he roused Hal, Thorn had been aware of it.

  “He sleeps with one eye open,” Hal commented. Then he amended the thought. “One ear open, at any rate.”

  “What’s happening?” Thorn asked.

  Hal shrugged. “Ask Stefan.”

  “We have visitors,” Stefan said, pointing to the barricade.

  Those words banished the last vestiges of sleep from Hal and Thorn. Hal increased his pace, heading for the stile that led over the fence. The thought occurred to him that, if Stefan had left the barricade to rouse him, he mustn’t feel that the newcomers posed any threat to the camp. Nevertheless, he hurried, and Thorn, some meters behind him, broke into a trot to catch up.

  “There,” said Stefan, as they reached the rough ladder leaning against the interior of the fence. The outer ladder had been raised for the night and brought inside the stockade.

  Hal mounted the first few rungs to see more clearly, looking in the direction that Stefan had indicated.

  “Well, by the great tortoise that holds up the world,” he said, “will you look at that.”

  Standing some fifteen meters from the barricade, close by one of the beacon fires, were three men. Two of them were young and muscular-looking—warriors, Hal guessed. They were flanking a smaller, older man who stood between them.

  They were all dressed similarly. They wore long, fringed overshirts of what appeared to be deerskin leather, belted at the waist. The shirts reached to just above the knee and beneath them they wore leggings of the same material. Their feet were shod in soft, fleece-lined, flat-soled shoes.

  They were brown skinned and strong featured, with dark hair worn long and plaited into braids on either side of their heads. The older man’s hair showed streaks of gray and he wore a large eagle feather at the back of his head, held in place by a plain leather headband.

  The two younger men carried round, hide-covered shields and wooden spears, with what appeared to be stone heads. All three wore knives in their belts.

  As they saw Hal’s head appear over the palisade, the older man spoke a brief command. His two companions stooped to lay their spears and shields on the sand. Then all three stood erect, with their hands raised over their heads, palms outward toward the stockade in an obvious demonstration of the fact that they were now unarmed and came in peace.

  “Let’s go talk to them,” Hal said, and started up another rung in the ladder.

  Thorn placed a hand on his arm to stop him. “Not so fast,” he said. “Stefan, run and get Lydia. And tell her to bring her atlatl and darts. Then wake the others. Bring them here and tell them to bring their weapons.”

  “You’re not expecting trouble, are you?” Hal asked. “There are only three of them, after all.”

  “There are only three that we can see,” Thorn pointed out, as Stefan pounded back to the sleeping tent to rouse the crew. Lydia had a small cabin to one side of the communal sleeping area. Stefan stopped there first and they heard him talking urgently to her. A minute later, she emerged, pulling on her leather overjacket and carrying her quiver in her left hand. She ran lightly down the sand to join them.

  “What’s happening?” she asked.

  Hal nodded toward the three figures standing on the beach, arms still raised.

  “The locals have arrived,” he said. “I’m going out to talk to them.”

  “I’m going with him,” Thorn said. “You stay here, and at the first hint of trouble put a dart through that gray-haired one in the middle.”

  Lydia nodded, drawing one of the long, heavy projectiles from her quiver.

  “I can do the other two as well, if you like,” she said.

  Thorn grinned at her. “I’ll leave that to your judgment,” he said. “We don’t want to start a bloodbath.”

  By this time, Stig, Ulf and Wulf had arrived, with Stefan close behind. The rest of the crew were struggling blearily out of their blankets. Hal quickly told Stig what was going on and what he intended. As he did, the big first mate took a step toward the ladder.

  “I’m coming with you,” he announced, but Hal shook his head.

  “You stay here and take command if there’s any trouble,” he said.

  Stig looked rebellious for a moment, then yielded the point. It didn’t make sense for the three senior members of the crew to all put themselves at risk.

  “All right,” he said. “But don’t take any chances.”

  Hal couldn’t help a grin touching his mouth. “Like going out to talk to three armed strangers?” he said. “No, we won’t do that.”

  “There’s a point,” Stig said. “How do you plan to talk with them? Do we know what language they speak?”

  Hal paused as he heaved the outer ladder over the fence and placed it in position. “We’ll manage,” he said. “We’ll use sign language if we have to.”

  Thorn followed him up the ladder as Hal started down the other side. “I’m good at sign language,” he said. “I can sign things like No trouble or I’ll bash you.”

  For the first time, Stig
noticed that Thorn was wearing his fighting club-hand, instead of the utility hook that Hal had fashioned for him. Useful, the first mate thought. This way, Thorn could appear to be unarmed, while he was wearing a truly devastating weapon on the end of his right arm.

  Hal had climbed down the outer ladder and stood waiting for Thorn to join him. As the old sea wolf stepped down, Hal removed his saxe from its scabbard, held it up, then placed it point first in the sand. Thorn, after a moment’s hesitation, did the same.

  “Feel naked without it,” he muttered out of the side of his mouth as the two stepped out together toward the three newcomers.

  “You’re not exactly unarmed,” Hal replied, “with that great head-bashing knob on the end of your hand.”

  Their footsteps squeaked in the fine dry sand as they approached the three unmoving figures. The strangers still stood with their hands raised high above their heads, but as Hal and Thorn stopped, facing them and a few meters away, the older man uttered a brief command and they all lowered their arms to their sides.

  “Hal?” Lydia’s voice called from the barricade.

  Without looking, Hal knew that Lydia would have fitted the dart to the end of her thrower and was standing at the top of the ladder, poised and ready to throw.

  “It’s all right, Lydia,” he said, without taking his eyes off the center man.

  The older man’s eyes had flicked away from Hal as Lydia had called out. A wary light had come into them, but now Hal could see him relax. Obviously, Lydia had lowered the threatening dart.

  For a few moments, Hal studied the three men. They had dark eyes and prominent cheekbones. Their noses were strong and aquiline. All three were clean-shaven, but their black hair was long and parted in the middle of their heads, shaped into braids that hung down either side. The clothes they wore were skillfully made and neatly stitched. The material looked soft, supple and expertly cured. The leader’s long overshirt was richly decorated with colored beads and long quill-shaped needles set in intricate patterns. Their soft shoes were bound in rawhide thongs and came up past the ankle to mid-calf.