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

by James L. Nelson

  The Irishman went sprawling back and Harald jabbed with the burning torch at the man on his left who stumbled clear of the flames. He was poised to turn and swing the torch at the men to his right when he felt the prick of a spear tip on his neck, right where his neck and jawbone met. He could feel the sharp pain of the iron breaking his skin, could feel the warm trickle of blood just starting to run down his neck.

  He stopped, motionless, still holding the pose of a man in mid-swing. Cathal was directly in front of him, and it was he who had brought the spear up in time to end Harald’s escape attempt. Fedelmid recovered from his blow, stepped up again, his spear also held at Harald’s neck. The others recovered from Harald’s surprise move quick enough, and they too held their spears inches from Harald’s neck, chest and gut.

  Cathal, Harald realized, could have easily killed him. Indeed, it was probably harder to stop the spear thrust in time rather than simply drive it into Harald’s neck. He wondered if maybe Cathal didn’t want to kill him any more than he wanted to kill Cathal.

  “Corcc, there’s some rope over by that box with the tinder,” Cathal said, his eyes never leaving Harald’s. “Go fetch it.”

  The one named Corcc nodded and stepped away, not turning his back on Harald until he was well out of reach, then hurried off to find the rope. Cathal stepped forward and snatched the torch from Harald’s hand. Then the five of them, Harald and the remaining Irishmen, stood motionless, not speaking, not moving.

  Harald’s mind, however, was not still, not still at all. His eyes moved from spear tip to spear tip. The Irishmen were on every side of him. No matter who he attacked first there would always be someone behind him, and someone on his side, who could easily drive an iron point into him.

  At least they don’t have axes, Harald thought. He had a great fear of being hit with an ax, right at the base of his neck, an ax blow opening his neck and chest. He had seen that once, when he was younger, first going a’viking with his father, and since then he had always had a terrific fear of being wounded in that way.

  The absence of battle axes might have helped keep his fear at bay, but it did nothing to improve his situation. He had tried and failed to fight his way out. He had made a half-hearted attempt at talking his way out. Now there was nothing left beyond surrendering, and hoping that another chance would appear.

  Corcc returned with a length of rope. He pulled Harald’s hands behind his back while the others pressed their spear tips in a bit closer to encourage Harald to cooperate. Corcc bound Harald’s wrists and, unfortunately, made a good job of it. Getting free of the bonds would be a trick.

  “Very well, Fedelmid, now you can get his sword,” Cathal said. Fedelmid, with a nasty look at Harald, once again reached forward to unbuckle the belt. His moves were tentative, despite Harald’s being bound, but soon he had the buckle undone and the sword in hand.

  “You take care with that,” Harald said, looking Fedelmid in the eye. “Any harm comes to the weapon and I’ll kill you, I swear it.”

  “All right, that’s enough of that,” Cathal said. He stepped aside and gestured for Harald to walk, and Harald did. “Back to the cottages, you know the way,” Cathal said and Harald began to walk, Cathal in front, the others making a half circle around him, spears held level. They walked in the circle of light cast by the still guttering torch, downhill, and soon reached the two round thatched houses.

  They stepped single file into the hut in which they had been sleeping. “Not much we can do until dawn,” Cathal announced. He nodded toward Harald. “We’ll bind this one’s feet so he don’t think about running off and set a guard and get some sleep.”

  Harald was made to lie down on the pallet that had been his bed and his feet were tied and the torch extinguished and soon he heard four men around him snoring, and the fifth shifting his weight occasionally as he tried to remain awake and on guard.

  Now what shall I do? Harald wondered. When he had been Airtre’s hostage he had sensed the danger around him, had left his dagger hidden in his tent. But he had not seen this current trouble coming, and his knife had still been on his belt when his belt had been taken. He felt around with his fingers as best he could, trying to find a sharp stone or something of the kind with which he could start sawing at the cords around his wrist, but there was nothing, only straw.

  I guess there’s nothing for it but to wait for morning and see what Cathal has planned, Harald concluded. And so, with that decision made, he rolled on his side and went to sleep.

  In his dream, Harald’s hands were being held by some horrible creature and he was craning his neck to see it but could not. At the same time his father was poking at him, urging him to fight, and he wanted to explain that he had tried to fight but now he couldn’t, but he could not remember why he couldn’t, so he couldn’t explain, and that was causing him great concern.

  Then with a gasp he woke and he saw Cathal’s toe poking at his shoulder and he felt the burning of the ropes cutting into his wrists, the cool numbness of his hands and fingers in the wake of the constricting cords.

  “Planning to sleep all day?” Cathal asked. Harald’s eyes moved past his leg to the door of the hut. He could see gray early morning light around the edges of the cloth.

  He looked back up at Cathal. “I’ll lose my hands if these cords aren’t loosened,” he said, his voice coming out as a croak.

  “All right,” Cathal said. He pulled a knife from a sheath on his belt, stepped over Harald and knelt down. A moment later Harald felt the blade working on the rope and then the lashings fell free.

  Harald pulled his hands around front and rubbed his wrists. The imprint of the cordage was deep in his flesh and his hands tingled as the blood rushed back to them. He had not expected Cathal to remove the bonds entirely, and it gave him hope that maybe the man had decided Harald really was no threat, and that they could just continue on as they had been.

  “I reckon as long as your feet are bound, and we have spears in hand, then there’s no harm in letting you have the use of your hands. For now,” Cathal said.

  “You’re not letting me go?” Harald said.

  Cathal gave his grunting laugh. “Not likely. Anyway, ain’t my decision.”

  With that the Irishmen fell to their various tasks. The one named Corcc took a seat ten feet from Harald and watched him, spear in hand. Another was sent outside to watch for bandits and Fedelmid was told to get the fire going in the hearth and make up an oat porridge for breakfast.

  The others finished bundling up the dead men’s possessions in a blanket to be carried back to Ferns, after removing a few things of value they meant to keep for themselves.

  Harald looked up at Corcc. “I have to piss,” he said. Corcc frowned. He looked at Cathal.

  “So, take him outside,” Cathal said.

  “I can’t walk with my feet bound,” Harald said.

  “You can hop,” Cathal said. He stepped over and helped pull Harald to his feet. Harald stood, uncertain, finding his balance.

  “Give me one of those spears, so I can use it to keep myself up,” Harald said, nodding to the weapons leaning against the wall.

  “You must be a Northman, if you think we’re such fools as that,” Cathal said, though there was no bitterness or contempt in his voice. It was more of an observation. He stepped over to where the spears were resting and selected a walking stick, came back and handed it to Harald.

  Harald took the stick, leaned on it, hopped forward. It was humiliating, but it worked, though his need to relive himself increased dramatically with every hop. He headed for the door, Corcc behind him with the spear.

  As Harald hopped he tried to work out the possibility of fighting Corcc, walking stick against spear, but he was not able to think straight in those circumstances. He hopped his way out of the door and as far around the side of the hut as was decent, then did his business there.

  As his bladder drained, his mind cleared. He re-tied his trousers and glanced over at Corcc. He was ten fee
t away, spear held at waist height. Harald guessed he could knock the spear aside and hit Corcc on the side of the head and drop him with little trouble.

  And then what would he do? He would have to untie the rope around his legs before any of the others showed up. There was no possibility of his doing that, nor did Corrc have a knife on his belt that Harald might use. Knocking Corcc down, he could see, would be pointless, so he picked up the walking stick and began the laborious hop back.

  The cloth over the door had been pulled aside to let in some of the morning light, and by the time Corcc and Harald returned, the rest of Cathal’s men were seated at the table digging into the oat porridge. The two men took their seats on the bench and were handed wooden bowls. Harald glanced around. He saw no animosity directed his way. The others seemed to regard him with the same courtesy they had the day before, save for the fact that he was a prisoner and his feet were now bound.

  “Here’s the thing of it,” Cathal said at last, looking up at Harald. “Everything you said about yourself might be true, or it might not, or some of it might. I don’t know. After what you done yesterday, with the bandits, I’d just as soon let you go. But the abbot, Abbot Columb, at Ferns? He expects this place to be kept secret. A complete secret. Probably not more than twenty men in the world know about it.

  “Me and these others, Corcc here and the others, we served the abbot maybe a dozen years before he trusted us enough to put us to this work. I think you know why he don’t want word getting out. So it don’t really matter much what I want to do. Since you’ve been in the mine, seen the inside of the mine, we have to take you back to Ferns. Let the abbot decide what’s what.”

  Harald nodded. He did understand. And he knew that a lot could happen between here and Ferns.

  “So why’d you let me come here with you?” he asked.

  “Don’t like to leave a traveler on the road, who needs help. Like the story of the Good Samaritan, right?”

  “Right,” Harald said. He had no idea what Cathal was talking about, or what a Samaritan might be, but he figured he had better agree.

  “Anyway, you were supposed to stay here, at the huts, not go poking around the mine. You getting so curious, that’s the kind of thing makes a man suspicious.”

  Several excuses came to Harald’s mind, but he held his tongue. Anything he said would be a complete lie, and he did not think he could make it sound otherwise.

  “So,” Cathal concluded. “Once we have our breakfast done, we get the horse in the traces and we’re off to Ferns.”

  “Hauling iron ore?”

  “No,” Cathal said. “No ore to haul. Those damned bandits killed everyone before they could do any more work.”

  “Well,” Harald said, “if you’re not hauling ore, why not go in the boat? It’d be faster and a lot easier, to be sure. You said it would float if it was only people in it, no rocks.”

  Cathal stared at Harald as if trying to look into him, to see what trick was brewing there. He looked over at the others and for a moment Harald thought he was going to ask their opinion. But he didn’t.

  Harald could well imagine what Cathal was thinking. If they took the boat there would be no walking, no leading that miserable horse, just an easy, quick and effortless float downstream.

  “All right,” Cathal said. “Good idea. The boat it is.”

  Harald nodded. He wanted to smile, but he resisted.

  Not that he had any reason to smile. He had no plan, no idea of how the boat might help him. But it was a boat. It moved by water. And that was his element, not the Irishmen’s.

  Once they were on the water, he knew the advantage would be his. He didn’t know how, or in what way. But he knew that it would, and he knew he would recognize his chance when he saw it.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  In swelling rage then rose up Thor —

  Seldom he sits when he such things hears —

  And the oaths were broken, the words and bonds,

  The mighty pledges between them made.

  The Poetic Edda

  When Bécc first pointed out to Thorgrim Night Wolf the gully in which he intended the Northmen to hide, Thorgrim could see right off that it was ideal for the purpose. From the road it was hidden by the abrupt drop-off and the stand of trees that edged it on either side. If someone did not know it was there, they would never guess. Perfect.

  It was a perfect place from which to stage an ambush. Warriors could hide there completely hidden, pick their moment to spring out and attack a column of men on the road. Bécc had chosen well.

  And it was likewise the perfect place to drive men whom you hoped to slaughter. Warriors hidden in the gully might be looking out toward the road, but they would have no idea of what was coming up behind them. Thorgrim’s eyes had moved up along the country to the north of the gully. A steep hill ran up from the trees on the far side. Hundreds of men could gather behind that hill, unseen, and then come up and over and fall on the warriors trapped in the low ground.

  Another force, such as the one Bécc commanded, for instance, could then launch an attack on the south side of the gully, just as the first attack was throwing the hidden men into confusion. They would be trapped, like fish in a weir, and they would be killed just as quick and easy.

  Thorgrim had asked a few questions, enough to be fairly certain he knew what Bécc had planned. Not what Bécc said he had planned, but rather what he really had planned.

  He called for Godi. “See here,” Thorgrim said. “I think this Bécc intends to trap us in that gully and kill us all.”

  Godi raised an eyebrow but did not react beyond that.

  “These other Irishmen, Airtre’s men, the ones we’re supposed to be fighting, my guess is they’re working their way around to the north,” Thorgrim continued. “Let’s get our men together and we’ll head down into the gully as Bécc wishes, and we’ll see from there if I’m right.”

  “Very good, Thorgrim,” Godi said, then turned and began to bellow at the men to get on their feet and move out. A moment later they were off, moving in a long and undisciplined line, heading for the trees that hid the gully from view.

  Thorgrim reached it first, pushing branches and bracken aside until he found himself on the edge of the cut, a steep slope that dropped some distance down until the bottom was lost among the brush and saplings. He guessed that running water, either a stream or a flash flood, had carved this out years before. He looked ahead but could see no more than twenty feet or so until his view was blocked by the foliage.

  “Here we go,” he said to Godi, then stepped over the edge, turning sideways to the slope, and worked his way down, sometimes able to find a foothold, sometimes sliding a few feet before catching himself. Failend was just behind him and Starri had already gone ahead and was at the bottom of the gully, knocking branches aside with an ax.

  Thorgrim turned and waited until the last of his men had reached the bottom, then said, no louder than he had to to be heard, “We’re not staying here. We’ll work our way along this cut as far as we can, then see what these Irish whore’s sons are up to.”

  He heard Failend speaking and turned to look at her, but she was only relaying his words to Louis. Louis, in turn, nodded as he listened.

  Thorgrim led the way along the bottom of the gully, moving as quickly as he could, arms raised to push branches and brush aside. The earth was wet underfoot and soon he felt it soaking though his shoes. He could feel the scratches on his arms and face where he had been whipped by the foliage.

  Just as Bécc had told him, the gully ran on for some distance, but whether it ran straight or curved around he could not tell. After some time he could see it was growing shallower, the bottom of the cut rising up to where it would eventually be at the level of the ground above. He stopped there and the men behind him stopped as well, and it was suddenly quiet without the sound of ninety or so warriors crashing through the undergrowth.

  “Starri!” Thorgrim called and Starri Deathless, who was o
nly a few places back, came forward.

  They had to know what was happening above, which meant that they needed a scout, and no one was better at that sort of thing than Starri. His eyesight and hearing were preternatural, and he could move as quick and silent as the predator that he was. But he was only effective in that office when he was in his right mind, such as it was. If the berserker spirit was on him then there was no predicting what he might do.

  “Yes, Night Wolf?” Starri asked. There was an eagerness to the question, but Starri’s eyes looked like those of a man in this world, not off in the world of the gods. His arms were not doing that odd jerking thing they did as he was lapsing into his fighting madness. A long hike, moving away from the enemy, seemed to have kept his usual insanity at bay.

  “I’m fairly certain that Bécc has betrayed us,” Thorgrim said. “The Irishmen we came here to fight, I think they’re joining with Bécc and mean to attack us from behind, while we’re looking for them in the other direction. I need you to go out that way”—he pointed north—“and see if there are men-at-arms coming from that direction, who look as if they are coming in secret.”

  Starri nodded as he listened. “I can do that,” he said.

  “Don’t let them see you,” Thorgrim continued. “Once you see them, if you see them, come back immediately. Immediately, you understand? Don’t fight them, or let them know we’re here.”

  “Of course, Thorgrim, what do you think? Do you think I’m some sort of madman?” Starri said. He tucked the battle ax he was holding into his belt and scrambled up the north slope of the gully and disappeared.

  The rest of the men found dry places along the slope of the gully and reclined there, enjoying the relative warmth. They had no idea what Thorgrim had in mind, of course, no way to know how long they might be allowed to relax, but they would snatch whatever rest they could. And that was good. It was smart. There was no telling how much activity there would be that day—running or fighting or both.