Norseman Raider (The Norseman Chronicles Book 4)

by Jason Born

The guard patted me for weapons. I had none. When I turned to face the mysterious king, I could still only see his red shoes. His face was concealed in shadow. “You are my witnesses to the transaction that just took place. I’ve got a man on my side and a man on Godfrey’s side.”

  The guard nodded. I agreed as well.

  “Good, then you know that I agreed to support Godfrey,” said Kvaran.

  My head bobbed up and down.

  “Then you also know I never told Godfrey any amount of men or supplies that I’d give. He asked for my support in his endeavor. I gave it. In return, I am king over it all.”

  CH

  APTER 11

  The guard and I were witnesses. It pained me but I agreed with the wily king of Dyflin in his telling of the accord. Kvaran didn’t have to send word to Dyflin. He didn’t have to supply much of anything. The men he had guarding the walls in his market town were all necessary just to keep the wild men of Ireland at bay, he said. Shrewd Kvaran had gained a renewed alliance with the potential to further acquire wealth and prestige from Godfrey’s toils. All he had to give in return was a band of the ten men who had been lounging on the shores of Iona while he sulked in the dark recesses of a church. Even that was generous of him, for Godfrey and he had clasped arms on such vague terms.

  Ten men! The rest of his crew, Kvaran required them be left behind on Iona so that he could safely make his way back home. We received ten men!

  Godfrey moaned at his foolishness the whole way down the shore to our ships. Killian grumbled at the king’s stupidity, though the diminutive priest had the sense to do it in only certain company, for our king spent the rest of that day angrily throwing dried nuggets of sheep dung at a sun-bleached piece of driftwood. In between his fits of irritation, the king challenged some of his warriors to wrestling matches. Such was his fury that Godfrey was able to throw much larger men to the ground. He won with punches, kicks, and gouging where none of those were permitted. The losers, seeing the king’s mood, dared not complain about the nuances of rule infractions.

  Godfrey had promised to make Kvaran king in his place. He’d sworn in a church. The rub, of course, was that Godfrey would do all the fighting. I’ll grant you that Kvaran was old and his days on the throne were to be numbered, but ten men? Gudruna was not pleased when she found out what her man had done. “He took my idea and dashed it against the rocks of that church!” she said. “King Godfrey is brave. He is good in the shield wall. I should do his negotiating.” The queen was right. It mattered not.

  After sleeping for just one night on our beached ships, far away from Kvaran and the rest of his troop, we left Iona. The winds had shifted against their natural course and we moved eastward, directly into them. Our sails were stowed. The oars were not. I sat on a chest aboard Charging Boar next to the men. The oar’s wood felt smooth in my hands. I pushed it down and leaned forward. I pulled the oar handle up and slowly leaned back. I hauled the blade through the glistening morning seas. The work was back-breaking and methodical. It took me no thought other than the memories housed in my young, bulging muscles. I peeked over the gunwale and watched our blades slice into the waves. They came out dripping their reflective waters back into the deep. Again they dove. Like the rhythmic, beautiful grate-slap sound, the motion repeated itself. It felt like my pumping heart beat at the same rate. I was one with our ship, which was at one with the sea. Many men would become bored or angry with the chore. I felt at home breathing in the salty smell of the sea, working as all men should. Scanning my fellow raiders, I saw that only a few felt as I did. The rest performed the job, no more.

  The men aboard every other ship in our fleet fought wind and wave as they attempted to move their oars in time. Their work was not good enough and so they made poor time against the wind to Lismore. Raven’s Cross danced poetically with oars shifting in unison. Most of the mercenaries, though tough like hogs’ hides, knew nothing of the ways of the sea, however. On the ships where they outnumbered experienced men, their oars rattled and fought against one another. I heard clacks and swearing in several languages echoing over the swells.

  At that moment, I recalled the ropes I had gotten from the witches. Their knots were supposed to harness the energy of the wind. Untying one of those knots was to change the wind’s course. Perhaps it would alter the intensity of the breeze, too, pushing us fast on the surf rather than slapping us in the face. I briefly toyed with the notion of calling for a break at my oar so that I could test the witches’ magic. The men of the fleet would welcome the respite. Once word got around that I had been the savior of their backs, I would be called a hero, minor, fleeting, but hero, nonetheless. I stayed put.

  My pleasures were simple: a good woman, mead, the hunt, crops, and the sea. I had become a raider who traveled by the oceans. Wealth, I fancied it as much as the next man. Riches taken from another, my mind was fine with the thought. Others would happily take it from me if I chose to be weak. I’d rather be strong and take it from them first. So, during those times, serving Godfrey, I was a raider who went a-Viking with and for his king. But the sea, that day, was me. It beat the back of my uncovered head. It blew my long, blonde hair around into my face. I reveled in the moment. My compatriots, be damned. The ropes remained stowed. The knots stayed cinched.

  Soon I questioned my decision.

  We stayed in our eastward direction, with land close by on the north. As we moved farther and farther, the land from the south began drawing nearer. We entered what I would call a fjord. The Scots, I’m told, call it a loch. This loch was known as Linnhe and its tide was flowing out to sea so that we battled against the wind and the tide. The frequency and volume of muttering from the men increased. Our armada became spread out wider as Charging Boar and Raven’s Cross pulled farther ahead of the others. ‘The knots?’ you may ask. I was too stubborn to change my mind. Though my back began to tire and ache, I chuckled to myself, especially when others groaned.

  My shipmates thought me mad. I probably was. I probably am.

  . . .

  The time for the midday meal came and went. That is when we would have seen Lismore had we been under sail with a favorable tailwind. In shifts we took momentary breaks to eat salted fish and then piss over the gunwale. Some of the men rested their backs on the useless mast, pressing against its smooth wood in order to ease a kink.

  I ran the steering oar while Magnus took my spot on the rowing bench. That’s when Killian shouted from Raven’s Cross. “Lismore!” The sleeve of his robe fell back to his elbow as his pale arm jabbed repeatedly from the prow of the king’s ship.

  Godfrey shoved Aoife out of his way. He stepped over men and arms and baggage as he moved to join Killian next to the dragon’s head. The king used one hand to steady himself on the forestay. The two, king and priest, conferred. Godfrey barked an order to Randulfr, who ran the rudder. Raven’s Cross eased over toward us slowly. Gudruna plopped onto a rowing bench and turned away so that her husband wouldn’t see her.

  Leif brought over a ragged piece of parchment on which Killian had hastily copied Godfrey’s map. We looked at it and compared it with the island that drew nearer. “Not a good representation,” I said.

  “He’s a priest,” said Leif in answer. Killian had drawn Lismore in the shape of a fat cross. In reality it was a long, slender island that ran from the southwest to the northeast.

  “Where’s the main settlement? Where’s the monastery situated?”

  Leif shrugged. “I don’t know. Killian’s map doesn’t show.” He pointed off to starboard, where there was much activity aboard the king’s ship. “But it seems that Godfrey means to land soon.” I followed Leif’s glance. Men were slipping their heavy mail or their hard leather jerkins over their heads. Belts were strapped. Spears secured. Bows found. Even some arrows were located as men rutted through the luggage like hogs searching the forest floor. Helmets adorned heads.

  “Around to the south!” shouted Godfrey over the wind. “Follow us! We’re not here to sneak up on t
hem from the rocks on the northwest like we did last time. We go directly to the monastery and town. We go in fast so that the cowardly bastards don’t have time to run inland.”

  I peered over my shoulder to the rest of our fleet straggling far behind us. “Shouldn’t we circle around or rest until they catch up?” I asked young Leif. Why I asked a babe for advice, I’ll never know. But I always, for my whole life, deferred to Leif. Perhaps it was because his father was my second father. Erik took me in when he could have rapped my head against a rock as a sacrifice to Odin.

  “No, Godfrey knows what he’s doing,” said Leif softly. He cupped his hands to his mouth and called back to Godfrey, “We’ll be ready!” Godfrey nodded and went back to growling at the men aboard his ship. The king slapped Brandr on his helmet with his palm. Brandr returned the gesture. Godfrey seized his man’s shoulders and shook them, laughing.

  “Just like he knew what he was doing at Anglesey? What about Watchet? Without us, he would have been crushed in both situations,” I grunted.

  “I gave him Anglesey’s capital. I’ll grant you. It was Aoife who saved us at Watchet. You were a mere butcher in both cases. Gudruna gave him Edana.” Leif began calmly suiting himself for the coming fight. “And Aoife and I will be at the king’s side even if the rest of his army is not.” Leif looked to Gudruna. “I’d say Godfrey will have all he needs.”

  . . .

  The men, who now sang loudly while lugging Raven’s Cross one oar bite at a time across the fjord, propelled the craft ever faster. It skipped ahead of Charging Boar on our starboard side. I heard Godfrey’s voice boom some indecipherable command and Randulfr hauled on the steering oar. The king’s ship danced across our path, making a true course for the south side of the center of Lismore. I had to quickly follow Randulfr’s lead or we would have rammed the king’s port and sent us both to Hel’s depths.

  Godfrey was eager. He raced his ship toward a low, rocky outcropping that sat like a lopsided shelf which angled out of the sea. Just based on the cliffs on either side of the shelf and the shape of the island, I suspected that there would be a more suitable beach or shingle on which to land just a bit farther east. Leif, and even Tyrkr, said as much. But Godfrey had waited for his revenge on Lismore for as long as he could. I saw him scramble up the bow of Raven’s Cross. With one arm he clung to the brightly colored, elaborately carved dragon prow. In his right hand he drew his shining blade, his +ULFBERHT+, and stretched it out ahead just as his longship’s keel began skidding to a halt on the flat rock. Killian and Aoife rolled onto the decking. Several rowers toppled backward into the man behind, or more precisely, to the fore of, them.

  Godfrey splashed down. His men poured over the sides. Loki slipped on algae that had grown on the rocks in the shallow water. He went down face first. His knees struck the rock. He fought the light undertow while pawing like a hound. Loki was weighted down by the armor. His feet slid off the ledge and he began sinking. He would have been our first casualty of the day had Killian not grabbed a hold of Loki’s hair and held him steady. Brandr wrapped his arms around the priest’s waist and together they hauled Loki upright. Alone, Godfrey was already climbing up a narrow ravine that led up to the island’s plateau.

  “Stow the oars!” screamed Leif when we were just five fadmr from the shelf. It would be a tight fit, for there was just enough room for two ships there. Our rowers made quick work of lacing the oak handles out through the holes and handing them back aboard. It would do no good to lop off our oars by ramming them into the stern of Raven’s Cross. I bit my lip then sent Charging Boar skidding alongside the king’s ship. Our keel bit so that we came to rest with our starboard side kissing Godfrey’s port.

  Godfrey had disappeared above. His men followed close behind. Only Randulfr, seemingly the only responsible one, lingered. He stretched a long rope that was tied to a knee aboard the king’s ship all the way to a single spire of a rock and tied it off. Randulfr knew that if the tide had been rushing out while we came in, the waters would soon rise and lift our ships free. They might still be smashed against the rocks, but at least they wouldn’t drift away.

  I slapped on my dented helmet and grabbed an extra spear. We jumped over our portside gunwale and chased after the reaching king.

  The reaching queen chased after her own version of glory.

  . . .

  I made it to the top of the ravine and peeked over my shoulder. A few of the other ships would arrive in just several heartbeats. However, since the rock shelf was packed, they would have to continue on and find a more suitable place to land, a spot like the one we should have found in the first place.

  The unmistakable clang of steel clashing brought my head back into the moment. Before me was stretched a short, rolling plain that led to a town. The open ground’s deep green grass was buckling down for the coming winter as each blade tipped its head and faded to a sadder hue. We were arriving up ahead in piecemeal fashion to what was shaping up to be a battle. Our tactic was not a brilliant one because we never once formed the shield wall. We never once could coalesce our force into a single fist so that we could drive the unlucky souls at Lismore into the ground in one motion. That would have been merciful to the defenders. After a few moments and a few deaths they could have thrown down their weapons and surrendered. We wouldn’t even have had our bloodlust up. Most of the island’s defenders would have survived to sheer their sheep after the coming freeze and inevitable thaw.

  Godfrey fought against a farmer who wielded a hoe. The king’s sword snapped the implement and hewed the man’s arm in one motion. His was a beautiful blade doing what the Franks had designed it to do. The sword killed. The +ULFBERHT+ rang and sang while it did so. The king hummed a tune that followed the melody spun by the blade. He was giddy in his piratical element.

  Gudruna found a man with a narrow, rectangular shield. He held a long spear and laughed when he faced his small, female opponent. It seemed that he was right to scoff because with one shove of his shield boss, the petite woman fell backward onto her rump. No amount of skill with a blade could counteract mass and momentum.

  She bent her knees and planted her feet. But her feet were walking on the back of her skirts. Gudruna fell on her back again. The man with the narrow shield carefully stepped forward. He was no fool. He hid behind the shield and held the spear pointed at Gudruna’s armored heart.

  Gudruna was the wiser. She flipped the front of her skirts up. The attacker’s eyes dropped to the naked crux between her legs. When those eyes again locked with Gudruna’s, the queen’s sword had cleaved out a wedge in his leg. Two more vicious hacks from the queen tipped the man over.

  Meanwhile, Killian ran up behind the king to protect his flank. The small priest faced two men who ran from the village that surrounded the towering stone monastery at the center. One of these men appeared to be a soldier. He wore mail, a helmet, and carried a spear with a sharp, steel point that had recently had a new edge drawn on. This man was younger and faster than Killian. The spear flicked. Killian fell back, clutching his arm that now ran red. Only his thick, coarse priestly robe prevented the spear from reaching the bone.

  The second man, clearly a butcher, for he was already covered in blood from his head to his boots before the battle had begun, wielded a fat knife, a tool of his trade. The weapon was about the length of my saex. The butcher scurried over top the priest, clamped a hand on his neck, and raised the tool. I dimly recalled the spear in my own hand. Without worrying about who else might be running between us, I cocked my arm, stepped, and released. The butcher’s side was pierced. His grip on the priest’s neck and his knife relaxed. He collapsed on Killian.

  Gudruna had recovered and ran in. She hauled the dying butcher off the priest while simultaneously defending against the soldier. Killian helped push the bloody butcher. He used the bottom of his war boot and kicked the soldier’s knee. The man howled. His scream was answered with Gudruna’s short sword in the eye. Killian kicked him again so that the soldier tip
ped backward, off the blade, sending what was left of his eyeball flying and a spray of crimson into the afternoon air.

  More soldiers now poured from the town. Godfrey had said nothing of a garrison being stationed on Lismore. He should have known, for it was where he’d raided many times before. It was where his men had been hanged. It was where he’d killed the abbot on Christmas. Never once did he mention a fort or a quartering of infantry. Even the Dal Riatans could learn, I suppose.

  One of Godfrey’s crewmen died from a hurled javelin. Well, the man didn’t die immediately. Rarely do men die instantly in battle. The missile pierced deeply into our comrade’s thigh. He folded in half and slumped. He yet sat upright, teetering for many strange moments. The man studied the javelin’s shaft as if it wasn’t jutting from his bleeding leg. Then he watched the battle roil around him. He didn’t show fear. That is, until he felt the pain. Once the wave of intense throbbing finally hit the surprised warrior, he threw up his salted fish and ale. His fingers feverishly tore at his ripped trousers. His hands began to shake when he tightly wrapped them around the javelin and pulled. The narrow head sprung free. The wound wasn’t wide, but it was nearly through the width of his thigh. Blood pooled on the grass. He struggled to get up, just once. It was almost over. Our man fell back down, groaning. Only then did he know his fate. His eyes scanned the earth, looking for his weapon. He found the butcher’s knife. It would do. The dying man clutched the handle and tipped back fully onto the grass. As I ran by him I saw the mixture of emotions on his face. Anger showed in the corners of his mouth. Defiance was expressed in the corners of his eyes. Disbelief and fear haunted his countenance, though I would never say so to a fellow warrior. He pulled the knife to his chest and passed into Odin’s hall.

  Aoife tugged on the bit of my mail that hung below my belt. “To the king, idiot!”

  I looked in the direction she pointed. Leif and Randulfr were there. They were fighting directly into a pack of the enemy. In the center of the enemy was Godfrey. He’d cleared out a circle with his shield and sword.