Loch Garman: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 7)

by James L. Nelson

  They moved on, the cart thumping and jolting over the uneven road. The bits of gravel strewn over the wooden boards jumped each time the wagon hit a rut or a stone. Harald rolled over on his back and looked up at the unbroken white blanket of clouds overhead. The ride seemed to be taking longer than he had thought it should.

  Then he heard Cathal’s voice, close by. “The house is about a hundred feet away now. Should we stop here?”

  “No,” Harald said. “I’ll slip out over the end. I’m hoping if they’re still here, they’re waiting to surprise us.”

  “So what do we do?” Cathal asked.

  “Surprise them,” Harald said. “Just be ready with your clubs and staff to fight anyone who gets close enough for you to hit.” With that he sat up quick and half rolled, half crawled toward the end of the wagon, then slipped over the edge and down to the road, keeping as low as he could.

  The wagon rolled on, and Harald, bent nearly double, followed in its wake. Once they had halved the distance to the house, he ran off to his left, still bent over, and crouched down beside the daub-built wall.

  The house, of course, had no windows, only a single door. The bandits might have seen the wagon from a distance, but they could not have watched it as it approached. They would have remained just inside the door and listened for the newcomers, timing their move that way.

  Harald kept his back to the wall, inched his way along. He would have loved to hide around the corner of the house, but, being round, the house had no corners, so he got as close to the door as he dared and waited.

  He cocked his head slightly, listening, but all he could hear was the creaking of the cart and the soft clopping of the horse’s hooves on the road. And then movement, off to his left.

  Three men stepped out from the dark interior of the house and fanned out as they moved toward the cart, just a few steps. Their clothes were tattered and filthy and they wore no shoes. Harald could not see their faces, but he could see their long, greasy hair, wild and unkempt.

  And they were armed, after a fashion. The man in the center of the three held a seax, its blade in sorry shape. The man to his right, closest to Harald, held a spear, and the one to the left had a long knife in his right hand, a cudgel in his left.

  Bandits… Harald thought. He had met this type before, half-wild men, beholden to no lord, who roamed the country looking for any opportunity they could find to enrich themselves, or just to eat. They were more vicious than any beast Harald had ever encountered.

  Cathal stopped and held up a hand to the others, and they stopped as well.

  “Who the hell are you?” Cathal demanded. His voice cracked a bit as he said it, the panic rising. The bandits took another step forward, bolder now. None of them thought to turn and look behind.

  “I said, who the hell are you? What did you do with the others?” Cathal said, his voice more assured this time. The bandits made no reply, but the man with the seax took another step forward and raised his weapon some, and the other two followed. Cathal and the Irishmen took a step back.

  Guess that’s all I need to know, Harald thought. He straightened and took two quick steps forward, drawing Oak Cleaver as he did. He intended to tap the nearest man on the back, to draw his attention, but he saw that would not be necessary. The bandits had caught his movement from the corner of their eyes and turned as he advanced.

  Harald’s eyes were on the face of the nearest man: his scraggly beard, his ugly sores, his mouth hanging open in complete surprise. That surprise was just lapsing into fear when Harald brought his sword back over his shoulder and swung it even as the man was starting to raise his spear.

  The tip sailed over the point of the spear, missing it by inches, and slashed across the man’s skinny neck. The bandit had been starting to yell something and the sound changed to something weak and liquid as Oak Cleaver opened up his throat. He began to topple sideways, but before he had even gone down on his knees Harald shifted Oak Cleaver to his left hand and snatched up the man’s spear with his right.

  He turned to face the one in the center, the one with the seax, who was now racing toward him, the weapon over his head. Harald flung the spear, and the strength of his throw and the speed of the running man combined so that the two met with considerable force.

  The bandit was knocked back, his feet coming out from under him like he was slipping on ice, his arms flung over his head, the spear jutting out from the center of his chest. Harald spared no more thought for him but instead turned his attention to the third man, the one with the knife and the cudgel.

  But the sight of the two men going down, and the now very favorable odds, seemed to have bolstered the courage of Cathal and the others. With a shout of anger and triumph they broke into a run, swarming toward the third bandit, who took two steps back and then turned to flee.

  He was too late, however, being already within reach of Cathal’s club. The weapon came down on the bandit’s shoulders and knocked him to the ground, and then the others were around him, cudgels rising and falling and making an ugly, dull thudding sound against the man’s head and body.

  Good, Harald thought. He didn’t have to worry about that one, and he was glad, because he did not doubt there were others. He turned and darted into the house from which the bandits had come, Oak Cleaver held ready. He looked around the dark interior, the only illumination the weak sunlight coming in through the door. He could see nothing, no movement, no one lurking in the shadows.

  There was shouting from outside, some from Cathal’s men, he thought, but new voices as well. He turned and ran back out. Two more men were coming from the second building and they had the same tattered and filthy look as the three they had already dropped. They were yelling as they ran and one held a spear and the other an ax, not a battle ax but the sort used for cutting down trees.

  Cathal and the others were still standing over the motionless body of the bandit they had felled. They were looking up at this new threat but seemed too stunned to move or react in any way. But Harald was not. With a shout he pushed himself into a run, quickly closing the forty feet that separated him from these others.

  He raised Oak Cleaver, shoulder height, ready to take out the man with the spear the same way he had done the other, when the bandit did something he did not expect: he stopped and he hurled the spear.

  Harald was still running when he realized that the weapon was sailing straight for his gut. He grunted in surprise and twisted, the most he could do in the instant he had to react. The spear flashed past him, its wicked black iron point just a streak in the air, and he was certain it was going to embed itself in his side. He clenched his teeth, braced for the pain, and he felt the tip rip into his tunic and open up a gash in his stomach as it hurled past.

  He twisted back, still running, aware of the burning pain across his abdomen, the slick, warm feel of spilling blood. It hurt, but Harald could tell it was not very deep. Nothing that would slow him down. The bandit with the spear, now disarmed, stopped short and let the one with the ax meet Harald on the open ground. Harald dug his heels in the turf, brought himself to a stop as the ax man was nearly up with him.

  The bandit’s lips were curled back revealing blackened teeth and not a lot of them. He swung the ax wide and Harald stepped back easily, one quick step, and let the rusty head swipe past his face. Then he brought Oak Cleaver down on the man’s arm, right at the elbow.

  The blade was wickedly sharp and it took the man’s arm off with hardly a pause. The arm and hand, still clutching the ax, dropped to the ground while the man to whom they belonged stood dumbly staring at them, blood pulsing from the place where the arm had been.

  By the time the disarmed bandit finally began to scream Harald was past him, charging at the last man, the one who had thrown the spear. The wide-eyed man backed away and held his hands up as if to ward off the attack or beg for mercy.

  He achieved neither goal. The laceration across Harald’s belly was moving from a burning sensation to outright pain,
and Harald knew it would get worse. Or perhaps the wound would go bad and kill him that way. He was thinking of those things rather than the man before him as he thrust Oak Cleaver forward, twisting his wrist to turn the flat of the blade horizontal so it would pass easily between the man’s ribs. Which it did.

  Harald pulled the blade free and turned around. Once again Cathal and the others had tapped their deep well of courage and were beating the one-armed bandit to death with their clubs. Harald grimaced as a wave of pain came over him, and when it had passed he made his way toward the others, reaching them just as they finished their work.

  “Harald!” Cathal said, his face wide with a smile, which changed quickly to concern. “Do you think there are more of them?”

  “No,” Harald said. “They would have come out by now if there were. Unless there’s some other place they might be?”

  “Well, yes, there could be…” Cathal said, the words coming reluctantly.

  “Where?” Harald asked.

  “Well, you see, this place is a mine. An iron mine. We do the actual mining a ways up the river. That’s what we do. We mine iron here and bring it to Ferns to be smelted and worked by the smiths there.”

  “An iron mine?”

  “Yes,” Cathal said. “A very important one. It is called the Mine of St. Aiden.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Good our cause, good our expedition,

  the strength of a hundred heroes in our body;

  Rise up! Do a feat!

  Kill the herd around the boar!

  The Annals of the Four Masters

  Brother Bécc felt the conflict long before the fighting started. He felt the conflict in his soul. He wanted to confess, but of course Abbot Columb was his confessor, and the conflict he felt was mostly because he was going against the abbot’s wishes and he knew it. Confessing that now, before things had played out, would only complicate the situation further. But not doing so only made Bécc’s torment worse.

  He was thinking these things as he watched the Northman, Thorgrim, and the woman, Failend approach. The other one was with them as well, the Frank named Louis, who never spoke. They were an odd trio, to say the least.

  Thorgrim looked like the heathen that he was. Long hair, now shot through with gray, tied loosely behind his head. His dark beard also showed hints of gray. Sometimes when he moved he seemed like a wild animal, all barely controlled power and menace. And sometimes he seemed to be in pain, as if he was forcing himself not to limp.

  Bécc smiled a bit, considering that. He understood. He carried the wounds of more fights than he could recall, and he was reminded of them often enough, feeling the dull pain or looking at the knotted scars, and he imagined that Thorgrim felt the same.

  But Bécc, of course, carried a scar more grotesque than most, a portion of his face cut away, a wound that should have killed him, and when it did not, it proved to him that the Lord had other work for him to do.

  Happily his life as a monk did not provide many opportunities to see his reflection in mirrors, but on occasion, polishing a chalice or looking down into a glass of wine, he would see his ruined face looking back at him. And he would remember that he had been spared for a reason. And he would remember what a scourge the Northmen were on his country.

  Louis was not like Thorgrim. He was half the Northman’s age at least and had the look of one far more civilized. Bécc had to imagine that he, being Frankish, was a Christian, though he seemed to have wandered far from the path the Holy Trinity had laid out for men to follow.

  His clothes were simple, his weapon nothing too fancy, but his bearing, the way he moved, the expressions that settled on his face, told Bécc quite a bit about the man. He was no poor, untrained farmer who had taken up arms. Louis was a soldier, a real soldier. And he was not beholden to some lord; he was from the class of men who lorded over others.

  The woman was the greatest mystery of the three. Irish, and her accent told Bécc she, like Louis, was not the child of some impoverished laborer, not one of the bothach who worked the soil. She, too, had to be a Christian, or had to have been one once. What she was now, he could not tell. She dressed like a man, and a heathen at that. She might be Thorgrim’s lover. That was the impression that Bécc had, though she had never done anything in his presence to demonstrate as much.

  I wish I could speak to her, Bécc thought. Let her see the wickedness of her path. Sure she can’t be so far gone that she would not see that?

  Or maybe she was. Either way, Bécc worried for her soul. He would continue to pray for her, as he had been doing since they had first met at Ferns. He would continue to ask the Lord to spare him from impure thoughts about her.

  All of that Bécc considered in the few moments it took for Thorgrim and the others to cross from the place where the heathens were making their camp to where he stood outside his tent adjusting his mail shirt and strapping his sword belt around his waist.

  “Good morning, Brother Bécc,” Failend said. Her thick hair was tied behind and she wore a belt with a seax hanging from it around her waist, but despite that martial appearance her voice was light and feminine. It reminded Bécc of a bird song. And when she spoke to him, she spoke with the deference that a Christian would give to one who dedicated his life to God.

  “Good morrow,” Bécc said. He finished buckling his belt and adjusted the way his sword hung, to him as unconscious and familiar and oft repeated a gesture as sitting or folding his arms.

  “Thorgrim has come to inquire about your battle plans,” Failend said, “and what you intend for his men today.”

  Bécc nodded. The sun was only just over the hills to the east, where Airtre’s men were presumably rousting themselves. The men under Bécc’s command, and Thorgrim’s as well, were already hard at it, getting breakfast prepared, filling water skins and leather pouches with dried meat and bread for later, in case they were some time in the field. Others were seeing to weapons, donning mail if they had it.

  “Tell Thorgrim that my scouts came back early, and the signs are that Airtre’s men will be advancing without him, as we feared. They were preparing to move, and were arming themselves for battle.”

  Failend turned and relayed those words. Thorgrim listened and displayed all the reaction of a statue in the church at Ferns.

  “Tell Thorgrim we have the advantage, because Airtre has told me what his plans were, and he believes the usurper who now leads his men will do the same,” Bécc continued. He could feel his face growing hot as he spun out the lies. Once, before he had come back to God, he could have lied as easily as scratching his cheek, but now he felt the lash of falsehood.

  He’s a heathen, he turns his back on the true God, Bécc reminded himself. It could be argued that there was no sin in lying to a heathen. He would have to discuss the matter with the abbot.

  Thorgrim spoke at last, after Failend had translated Bécc’s last words. “Thorgrim asks what you would have his men do,” Failend said.

  “Tell him to make ready to march from here. There’s a road just to the south. Airtre’s men will advance along that road. But I know a place where we can surprise them. We must reach it first, and there I’ll be able to tell you more of what I’m planning.”

  Failend translated. Thorgrim nodded. He spoke again. “Thorgrim asks what will become of his prisoner, Airtre?”

  Bécc felt himself bristle a bit. Airtre was not Thorgrim’s prisoner, even if Thorgrim had been the one to deliver him to the camp. “Tell Thorgrim he will be brought to Ferns and there the abbot will see that he answers for his crimes.”

  Bécc thought he saw the first flicker of a reaction from Thorgrim as Failend translated those words, and he did not look too pleased. He spoke in his strange language, and his words sounded clipped.

  “Thorgrim says that the prisoner is his. He says the prisoner knows something about what became of his son, Harald. He says if Harald does not show up in the next day or so, he intends to question Airtre further.”

 
; The two men looked at one another, neither offering any sort of reaction. Bécc had no love for Airtre, none whatsoever. He hoped that Abbot Columb would dole a punishment that was harsh and just. But he would never hand a Christian over to a heathen. That would never happen.

  “Tell Thorgrim that we have work to do this morning. When it is over we will discuss this problem.”

  Failend translated.

  When this is over, God willing, there will be no problem, Bécc thought.

  It was not long before they were ready to move. Bécc’s men were aligned in columns for the march, none too impressive columns given the scarcity of men he had under his command. The mounted warriors joined him at the head of his men, and behind them the Northmen assembled.

  The heathens, of course, lacked even the rough military discipline of Bécc’s men. They milled about, shields, painted with various patterns and bright colors, slung over their backs, weapons dangling from belts. They carried swords and axes and seaxes and spears, and the woman, Failend, had a bow and a quiver of arrows and Bécc wondered if she actually knew the use of the thing. The heathens talked amongst themselves, gawked at the countryside, squatted on their heels or gnawed at the food they were supposed to keep in reserve. They were a feral and unruly bunch.

  But for all that, Bécc could see they were fighting men to be respected. They showed no fear or apprehension of the coming fight that he could see, nor was there the excess of enthusiasm that often marked the neophyte who was just playing at being a warrior. These were calm men, experienced men, hard men. Men with a task at hand and the skills to carry it out.

  If such men could be made to work for God’s glory… Bécc thought. But he could not imagine that happening before the second coming of the Lord.

  He gave a shout and a wave of his hand and nudged his horse in the flanks. The animal began to walk, and Bécc heard the sound of a hundred and more men following behind. It was far from the largest army that he had ever led, but a formidable force. There would be hard fighting by the day’s end, of that he was sure. Of course, there were only a few—himself, Airtre, some of Bécc’s trusted men—who knew who would be fighting whom.