“Oh!” she said, a little exclamation of surprise, with just a hint of outrage. In three steps Harald was out the gate, bearing his true love off to their new life together.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The morning sleeper
has much undone.
The quick will catch the prize.
Hávamál
T
he weather had been remarkable - five days of sunshine on the Irish coast. But with the coming of dawn came the end of that good fortune.
During the dark hours, a light mist had begun that coated everything with wet. Then, soon after first light, the storm clouds rolled in low and the rain began to fall in earnest.
Magnus Magnusson, sitting his horse on the top of the rise and looking out over the ocean, felt the first rivulets of rain working their way through his cloak and between the links of his mail, making cold wet spots on his wool tunic beneath. He wiped the water from his eyes, ran his fingers through his beard, and stared at the place where the longship had disappeared into the rain and the mist.
“This was a mistake,” said Cormac Ua Ruairc, also mounted and standing beside Magnus. “We were fools to have not taken them when we had the chance. Now, who knows if we will ever see them again?”
Cormac was not talking to Magnus, but rather to the man mounted on his other side, Niall Cuarán, who was second in command of the Irish troops. Niall was what the Irish called a rí túaithe which, as Magnus understood it, meant he fancied himself king of some insignificant little shit-hole.
“It was not a mistake,” Magnus said. It was supremely irritating to him when Cormac spoke as if he was not there, which he found Cormac did quite often.
“If this rain does not lift,” Niall said to Cormac, “We’ll never know where they might come ashore.”
You would, Magnus thought, if you knew the first thing about ships, you ignorant, self-satisfied, sheep-buggering Irish fool.
“They have only their oars to move them. I saw to that,” Magnus said. “They can move no faster than a man on horse back, riding at a moderate pace. Nor can they come ashore just anywhere. There are only certain places one can beach a longship. If we follow on shore, with riders spaced a mile or so apart, and watch the beaches within a day’s ride, then, by the Hammer of Thor, we’ll find them.”
Cormac and Niall exchanged glances. Magnus was certain he saw a trace of a smirk on Niall’s face. “By the Hammer of Thor, indeed,” Cormac said, and he and Niall together made the Christian gesture, touching forehead, stomach and shoulders.
Magnus did not know what that charm was supposed to accomplish. He did know he had had a belly-full of their condescension.
Magnus wheeled his horse in front of Cormac, so he and the exiled ruiri of Gailenga were face to face. “Do not forget it, Cormac...”
“Lord Cormac,” Cormac corrected.
“Do not forget it, Cormac, that you cannot find the crown without me, and without the crown you will never be more than what you are right now, which is a minor king who does not even rule the pathetic little cow pasture he calls a kingdom. Crawl to your god if you will, and I will bargain with mine, but do not presume to mock me again, or by my gods we will cross swords.”
He dug his heels into his horse’s flanks, pounded off toward the soggy field where the servants were just starting to break camp. Even with the cold rain running down his face he could feel his skin burning with anger.
Magnus and Cormac, the leaders of the Danish and Irish alliance, already a shaky coalition, were not the only ones watching as the Red Dragon disappeared into the rain and fog. Huddled in the brush, his fur wrapped around his shoulders, Thorgrim Night Wolf watched as his ship was seemingly swallowed in the mist. An uneasy feeling - Thorgrim did not like to be separated from his ship - and the way the vessel slowly faded from view looked so much as if it was moving from this world into another that it made Thorgrim nervous.
Judging from the murmuring and shifting of the dozen men behind him, he was not the only one who felt that way.
He reached under his fur cape and fingered the two silver pieces hanging from a cord around his neck - a Hammer of Thor given to him by his father many years before, and a cross, give to him by Morrigan in the prison in Dubh-linn. Between the two he felt he was pretty well covered.
“Stop that muttering, you cowardly, superstitious old women,” Thorgrim scolded as he twisted around, still in his crouching stance. The rain was running though his hair and beard and down his face. He wiped the water away. Normally his helmet would have provided some protection, but that was long gone, taken by the Danes, and the few helmets they had plundered from the mead hall had gone to his men.
Morrigan was next to him, the cowl of her cape soaked through and plastered to her head. She had made it clear that she did not wish to stay aboard the longship without Thorgrim, particularly as Ornolf’s comments were growing more lewd and direct. Thorgrim agreed she should come ashore. Someone who knew the land and the language would be helpful.
There was a rustling in the brush and then Egil Lamb appeared through the bracken. “They left one man behind to watch the beach,” he reported. “Now they have one man less, and Egil Lamb has a shield.”
He swung the shield off his back. Round, with a protruding, pointed boss, the shield was covered in thick leather. It was unpainted.
“That’s no Danish shield,” Thorgrim said.
“No. This fellow was Irish, by the looks of him,” Egil Lamb agreed.
Thorgrim frowned. He met Morrigan’s eyes and she looked uncertain as well. If these were not Orm’s men following them, then who were they?
“Let us go,” Thorgrim said. He moved cautiously out of the brush and looked along the rolling fields in every direction. They were alone. He stood and stepped into the open, feeling very exposed, and his men followed.
They moved up the hill, walking in a loose swine array. The country was open, which would allow them to see an attack from a ways off, which was good, because they still had a dearth of weapons. Each man had a sword or a spear, at least, but there were only six shields, including Egil Lamb’s, and four helmets between the dozen of them. If they did not have surprise, they had practically nothing.
They crossed a half a mile of wet grass, skirting behind stands of brush and trees to keep out of sight. The country looked quite different to Thorgrim in the dim daylight than it had at night in his wolf dream, but still he recognized the land and knew without doubt where he was going.
“We’ll keep below the crest of this hill, work over to that stand of brush,” Thorgrim said, pointing toward the unruly thicket that stood near the high point of the hill they were climbing. Hunched over, moving fast, the fin gall worked their way along the ridge and shuffled into the brush. Thorgrim heard low curses, stifled shouts of pain as his men took twigs in the eyes and stumbled over twisted vines.
They came at last to a place where they could look out across the fields. Half a mile away, the enemy was breaking camp. The big tents came down in balloons of fabric as the center poles were removed. A dozen or so men swarmed around the camp. Two horse carts stood ready to accept their loads.
A dozen men, Thorgrim thought, and the rest are off hunting for us. If he were looking out for a longship in this weather, Thorgrim imagined, he would have riders spread out along the coast, and racing ahead to find the beaches where the longship might land. He would leave just a handful of men, servants mostly, with a minimal guard to protect against bandits and to break camp.
He imagined that that was exactly what Orm’s man had done.
It took the Danes another hour to pack the tents and poles on the wagons and stow away the casks, crates, iron pots, spits, all the accouterments of a field campaign. Thorgrim wondered how these people, moving at that glacial pace, had ever made it out of Denmark, never mind taking Dubh-linn from the Norwegians.
Still, he was grateful for the lack of enthusiasm for their job, as it made his easier. He led his men further north
along the muddy track - it could hardly be called a road - that ran across the fields, along which the baggage train would have to travel. They came to a place where the path split an oak grove before climbing up to higher ground. Thorgrim spread his men out on either side of the road, nestled deep into the undergrowth, and there they waited.
Thorgrim was just starting to think he had made a mistake, that the baggage train was heading off in some other direction, when he heard the first squeak of wooden axles and the muted thumps of horses’ hooves over the sound of rain on leaves. He glanced to his left. Skeggi Kalfsson and Svein the Short were crouched there with weapons drawn and faces intent on the path beyond. To his right, Thorgerd Brak, recovered from the wound he received escaping Dubh-linn, was ready as well, and two others that Thorgrim could not see through the brush. On the other side of the road, well hidden, waited Egil Lamb and the five men with him.
Thorgrim’s breathing became quick and shallow as he tensed for the fight. He felt his mind sharpen until nothing else existed save for the world of battle. And then the enemy was there.
A rider came first. He wore a mail shirt and cone-shaped helmet and carried a bright colored shield and there was no doubt that this fellow was a Dane. Thorgrim wished to Thor and Odin he had archers who could take these men down first, but that was not to be. Their bows and arrows had been taken in Dubh-linn, and there were none to be had in the mead hall.
And then the thought of archers and tactics and such went right out of Thorgrim’s head, like ripples in a pond that spread out and disappear. He felt the war cry in his throat and before he could even think about it he was on his feet, shouting like a madman, howling and charging out of the brush and right for the mounted Dane.
The surprise could not have been more complete, and it was clear from the look on the Dane’s face, in those last seconds before he died on Thorgrim’s sword, that he was not sure these creatures charging from the brush were men at all. Ireland was a haunted place. It was a fact well known to all Northmen.
The Dane was still slumped over in the saddle when Thorgrim pulled his sword free and whirled around to take on the next comer. Half the party with the baggage train were unarmed slaves, and they were running as hard as they could back down the road, and Thorgrim’s men let them go.
Skeggi Kalfsson and Hall Gudmundarson were locked in a fight with the man at the lead wagon, a huge man with thick beard and a great swath of hair that even in the rain refused to lie down on his head. He was lunging and parrying with his spear while the two Norsemen tried to get past the lethal point to put their swords to work. They looked like nothing so much as dogs baiting a furious bear.
Thorgrim rushed to the fight, but before he could join in, the men on the other side of the baggage train, recovered from the shock of the ambush, came leaping over the traces and around the wagons, swords and spears in hand, slinging bright painted shields and leather covered shields off their backs and onto their arms. Thorgrim stopped himself short, twisted aside as a sword was thrust at his neck, a shield battered his own sword aside.
And just as the new men plunged into the fight, just as Thorgrim’s men might have been overwhelmed, just as the guards saw themselves gaining the upper hand, Egil Lamb and his men, their timing perfect, came charging out of the brush with war cries bursting from their throats.
The men guarding the baggage train hesitated, confused by this fresh attack. And in that instant the fight was over.
The man facing Thorgrim turned to look for this second attack and Thorgrim drove his sword right through the man’s chest. The big man with the wild hair was down, felled by three swords, but not before he had driven his spear into Hall Gudmundarson’s throat.
Thorgrim stood panting, sword in hand, looking at the dead and wounded around him. Of his men, only Hall was dead and a few others wounded, but just slightly.
“Egil, hurry up the road and see that the others are not returning,” Thorgrim said.
Morrigan stepped out of the woods. If she felt any horror at what she had just seen, she did not show it. She walked over to the big man, who lay by the wagon, eyes wide, bleeding his life away, the blood mixing with the rain and running in rivulets down the muddy path.
She spoke to him, in Irish. He glared up at her. She spoke again. He spit the words at her, three words, then closed his eyes and did not move.
Thorgrim stepped up to her side. “What did you say?”
“He’s an Irishman. I asked him who is master is.”
Thorgrim looked down at the man. By the clothes, by the weapons, it was clear he was no Norseman. But the man who had led the procession was a Dane, there was no mistaking it.
“What did he say?”
Morrigan was frowning. “He said ‘Cormac Ua Ruairc’”.
“Who is that?”
“He is the brother of Donnchad Ua Ruairc, who was ruiri, the king of Gailenga. Donnchad was husband to Brigit, the daughter of my lord Máel Sechnaill. Until my lord killed him.”
Thorgrim grunted. These Irish seemed to kill one another faster then the Vikings could, but he had no time to sort out the complicated relationships that Morrigan described.
“Skeggi, get these wagons turned around,” Thorgrim said. “You men, go catch those horses that bolted. Snorri, go tell Egil Lamb we are moving now.”
With some difficulty and not a little cursing the wagons were wheeled around and the baggage train, led by its new owners, headed back from whence it had come. Thorgrim spit rainwater from his mouth and shivered in the cold. His only comfort came from the thought that his enemy, whoever he was, now deprived of his food and shelter, would be more miserable still.
Asbjorn the Fat watched the fight from the relative safety of the oak grove. Wearing only torn trousers, shivering in the cold, filthy, starving, an iron collar around his neck, Asbjorn for the first time since he had come to that low place was able to forget his misery as he watched the ambush, and the slaughter of his tormentors.
He had expected the traitor Magnus to kill him back at the monastery of Baldoyle, but their enmity ran far too deep for that. Magnus would have his fun. He would torture Asbjorn first, make him suffer crushing humiliation.
He had stripped Asbjorn all but naked, had put an iron collar around his neck, had his man Hallkel Half-wit lead the prisoner like a cow, stumbling along bare-foot behind the wagons. Asbjorn could barely comprehend how quickly his fortunes had changed.
He spent the night staked out like an animal at the edge of the camp. Morning had brought no relief, just greater misery, with the cold rain falling on his corpulent, naked body, the iron collar digging into the soft flesh of his neck, as Hallkel led him along.
The baggage train was approaching the oak grove when Asbjorn stumbled, fell in the mud, and was too miserable to get up, even with Hallkel pulling on the chain and kicking him. The wagons were a hundred yards ahead of them when they rolled into the ambush in the trees.
Hallkel Half-wit, as his name implied, was not the brightest of Magnus’s men, but he was loyal and he followed orders. And his orders had been to look after Asbjorn the Fat. So rather than abandon Asbjorn and charge into the fight, Hallkel led Asbjorn into the woods, where they hunkered down in the bracken and watched the quick, bloody, one-sided battle.
“Keep quiet,” Hallkel whispered to Asbjorn as the wagon train was turned around, the ambushers heading back toward the place they were hiding.
Asbjorn shook his head. Idiot, he thought. As if he was going to call out to men who had just slaughtered the entire guard of the wagon train. But as he sat there, completely silent, completely still, save for the involuntary shivering, clenching his teeth to keep them from chattering, Asbjorn Gudrodarson recognized an opportunity.
He did not speak as the baggage train rolled by, the raiders’ feet making sucking noises in the mud as they walked. He remained silent even as he looked into the face of the man leading them and recognized Thorgrim Night Wolf, the very man they were hunting, now hunting them. He di
d not speak until the entire train had rolled out of sight, back the way it had come.
“Do you know who that was, that attacked the wagons?” Asbjorn asked, speaking softly.
“No,” Hallkel said. He was still looking down the road, toward where the wagons had gone. Asbjorn could hear the confusion in his voice. Hallkel was not sure what had happened, or if he had done the right thing, or what he should do now.
“Those were Irish raiders,” Asbjorn said. “We Danes are no match for them.”
“Hah!” Hallkel made an indignant sound. “There are no Irish that are a match for us.”
“You think we Danes, Orm and his men, could best an Irish army?”
“Of course! We are as good fighting men as any in the world! Better.”
“Hmmm,” Asbjorn said. He waited.
“What? What are you saying?”
“Well, it doesn’t look well for you then, does it? You’ve joined with the Irish against Orm, and now you say that the Irish will lose.”
Hallkel was silent as he chewed on that. “I haven’t joined with the Irish...,” he protested, but there was more confusion than conviction in his voice.
“You follow Magnus. Is Magnus riding beside Danes, right now? No, he is riding with an Irish king, who wants only to drive us into the sea. What will happen to those who follow Magnus, when Orm defeats the Irish, as you say he will?
“Look at me,” Asbjorn continued. “I could have joined Magnus. But I would rather suffer this great humiliation now, than suffer what Orm will do to those who turn on him.”
That speech left Hallkel silent for some time. When he finally spoke again, he sounded more confused, more frightened then ever. “What can I do?” he asked.
“I will tell you what to do,” said Asbjorn.
Fin Gall Page 17