“Ready!” Bécc shouted. And then to his utter shock a creature appeared out of the dark, a great arching sea beast, resolving from the black night like it was emerging from the salt water. The orange light of the fires played over its features, its horrible leering snout and arched neck and wicked teeth.
Bécc gasped and stopped and realized in that moment that it was no creature from the sea. It was a ship, a Northman’s ship, its carved figurehead leading the way as it raced toward the beach. And then the bow and the rows of oars were visible too as the ship struck the sand and drove ten feet up the beach before it came to a shuddering stop. Behind it, a second ship came looming out of the night.
There was more shouting now, shouting coming from beyond the hideous figurehead, the crew of the longship cheering as they flung themselves over the ship’s side to land knee deep in the water.
“Oh, damn these heathen swine!” Bécc roared in fury and frustration. “Where by God did they come from?”
And then in the light of the flames at his back he saw Thorgrim Night Wolf vaulting over the ship’s side.
Chapter Eleven
Let a man never stir on his road a step
without his weapons of war;
for unsure is the knowing when need shall arise
of a spear on the way without.
Wisdom for Wanderers and
Counsel to Guests
From the longphort at Loch Garman, the five bonfires on the distant beach appeared as sharp points of light on the dark night, like a tiny earthbound constellation of brilliant stars. They had burned there every night for the five nights that Ketil Hrolfsson and his men had been on the beach. What that sorry gang was doing, what they intended, the gods alone knew.
Thorgrim stood at a distance from the single fire that was burning at his own camp and looked out over the nearly two miles of water toward Ketil’s. The air was still, and every once in a while he could catch snatches of singing, or men shouting for some reason or another. This, too, had been a nightly occurrence.
Like any Northmen, in particular those who went a’viking, Thorgrim’s men enjoyed a good drunken revel, and did so more often than Thorgrim might have liked. But they had their work as well: ships to repair, sails to make, defenses to fortify, weapons to be cared for. Thorgrim drove them hard, he did not give them the opportunity to sit and ponder any grievances they might harbor. By day’s end they were tired. Their revels ended when they collapsed in sleep, which was generally not long, with the anticipation of doing it all again the following day.
Not so Ketil’s men, apparently. Every night they lit the fires and the sounds of their carousing drifted over the water.
“What are you staring at so longingly, Night Wolf?” Starri asked, materializing like a ghost out of the dark.
“Ketil. Ketil and his men. I’m wondering when they will run dry of ale and mead.”
“They must have had a lot with them,” Starri said. “Ale and not much else. They hardly seemed to have one whole suit of clothing between them. But they’ve been drinking nonstop, it seems.”
“I doubt they had ale with them,” Thorgrim said. “Probably got it from the monastery. They were too dim-witted to know that the monastery was there, but I guess they looted it well once they found out. The Christ priests would have taken any silver or gold or those books they so love, but they probably left the ale.”
“Ale from the monastery?” Starri said. “You mean our ale?”
They had been purchasing food and ale from Beggerin since they had first made peace with the Christ priests. It was simpler than plundering the place and inviting retaliation, and Thorgrim wanted to concentrate on getting the ships ready for sea and nothing else. But they had come to think of the monastery’s food and drink as their own.
“Yes, our ale,” Thorgrim said. “And if they keep on like this, we’ll have to go over and take it from them.”
“But they outnumber us, Night Wolf,” Starri said. “Sure you’re afraid to fight an enemy that outnumbers us?” It was Starri’s crude attempt to goad Thorgrim into a fight that he, Starri, desperately wanted.
“Well, we may have to put them to the test anyway,” Thorgrim said. “But not tonight. Tonight I’m too tired.”
“You’re getting old, Night Wolf. What happens when you’re too weak to please that little Irish minx who shares your bed?”
“Knowing her, she’ll probably kill me in my sleep,” Thorgrim said. “But if it comes to that, I’ll want her to.” He left Starri there and wandered off toward Sea Hammer, pulled up on the sand. The repairs to her hull and rigging were nearly done, and Thorgrim had taken to sleeping aboard her, back on the platform in the stern where he felt most at home.
Failend was already there, curled up under the fur they used as a blanket, her small frame making a barely discernable lump in the bedding. Thorgrim reached down to unbuckle his sword belt and remembered he was not wearing his sword because he had spent most of the day lying in the damp sand, pounding caulking into the gaps between Sea Hammer ’s strakes.
He shucked his tunic and slipped under the fur blanket and instinctively reached for Failend and pulled her close. She made a soft murmuring sound and shuffled against him and he considered waking her for a tryst before sleep.
Too tired … he thought as he felt his weary body sink into the soft furs that made up his bed. He wondered if Failend would indeed kill him in his sleep that night, and he wondered if he would mind so much.
If she puts a weapon in my hand, maybe it would not be so bad…
It was the last conscious thought that he had before sleep swept over him, a deep, dreamless sleep. And then he was awake again. How long he had slept he did not know. It was still dark, the deepest part of night. He did not know what had woken him up, but something had pulled him from slumber and left him fully awake.
He began to sit up and as he did he heard the sound of someone scrambling over Sea Hammer ’s side. He reached over and laid his hand on the hilt of his sword, and then in the dim starlight he saw the familiar bulk of Harald, coming aft. He was moving quickly, but quietly, trying no doubt to avoid startling his father awake and risk a blade in the gut.
“Harald? What’s going on?” Thorgrim called. He saw Harald move faster, looming up beside them. Failend sat up and made some little noise that might have been a word but it was hard to tell.
“I don’t know, Father. Starri heard something. And I think I hear it as well.”
“Heard something?” Thorgrim asked. “Where? Beyond the wall?” Harald was not always good about giving all the information needed.
“From across the water,” he said. “From Ketil’s camp.”
Thorgrim frowned and stood. The night air was cool on the bare skin of his back and chest. He turned toward the distant beach, looking around Sea Hammer ’s tall sternpost to get a clear view. The five bonfires were there, as they had been every night since the newcomers’ arrival. He cocked his head and he heard something, some sharp sound, quick, and then it was gone.
“What do you and Starri think you hear?” Thorgrim asked.
“Well…” Harald began and his voice trailed off. The boy did not like to be wrong, and he was often hesitant to speak when there was a chance he might be. But he also knew that patience was not one of Thorgrim’s virtues. “It sounds like it might be fighting,” he said.
Fighting? Thorgrim thought. Fighting who? There were only two possibilities. Either Ketil’s men had broken into factions and they were going at one another, or the Irish had launched an attack.
Thorgrim picked up his tunic and slipped it on. He picked up his sword and buckled it around his waist as he walked amidships, the easier to hop down onto the beach. He heard Failend climbing out of bed behind him. He stepped up onto the sheer strake and hopped down onto the sand and Harald hit the ground beside him. In the dying light of their own bonfire Thorgrim could see a knot of men standing by the water’s edge and looking out toward the north.
H
e strode over quickly, and the men stepped aside as they saw him coming. He stopped a few feet from where the bay lapped up over the sand and looked north as well. The lights flickered now and again, which might mean men passing in front of them, blocking them from view, just for an instant. If so, it meant there were a lot of men moving around.
There was noise as well; Thorgrim could hear it now. Shouting, to be certain. Sharp pinging noises that could be the sound of steel on steel as heard from that distance. It was far off—nearly two miles—but Thorgrim knew that sound carried far over still water like that.
“There, you hear that, Night Wolf? You hear that?” Starri was at his side, pointing and talking excitedly.
No, I don’t hear it, because you’re talking in my ear , Thorgrim thought, but in response he only nodded.
“It’s fighting. A battle going on there. I can hear it. I could hear it if there was a fight one hundred miles away.”
“Has anyone asked the sentries on the walls here if anything’s amiss?” Thorgrim asked and heard a shuffling of feet, a low murmur. Then he heard someone, Gudrid, he thought, say, “I’ll see…” followed by the sound of running feet.
“When did this start?” Thorgrim asked next.
“Not so long ago,” Starri said. “I was asleep, but always with an ear open, you know? That’s how I sleep. And I heard someone call out. A single voice, but I heard it clear as a lark in a meadow. And then quiet again. So I came down by the water here, and soon I heard more, like a fight. That’s when these others awoke. It was so loud even these drunken fools were roused. It was only you, Night Wolf, who slept through it.”
“Hmm…” Thorgrim said. He could hear the sound of the fight more clearly now, clear enough that he was all but certain it was a fight. It sounded like one, and in truth Starri was rarely wrong about such things.
He heard feet running on the sand and then Gudrid was at his side, breathing hard. “The sentries…” he gasped out, “the sentries say they’ve seen nothing unusual, heard nothing at all.”
“Good. Thank you, Gudrid,” Thorgrim said, his eyes never leaving the five distant flickering points of light.
So…if it’s the Irish, then they’re attacking Ketil alone, and not us at the same time , Thorgrim thought. That did not surprise him. He would not have thought the Irish would have skill or men enough to launch two attacks at the same time.
He looked to his left. Two of their four ships, Fox and Dragon , were in the water. Both were nearly ready for sea, lacking only sails, but there was no wind that night in any event.
And in that instant, Thorgrim made a decision.
“We’ll take Dragon and Fox ,” he said. He pictured the deck of the ships, the room that the rowers would need to work the oars. It would be tight, with the crews of all four ships crammed onto two, but there would be space enough. He did not have many men under his command. “Every man here, save for those on sentry on the walls. Gather your weapons, get aboard. Now.”
There was only the slightest pause as the men on the beach absorbed this unexpected order. Starri was first to break the spell as he made a subdued whooping sound and raced off for his battle axes, which were never far away.
Starri’s reaction prompted the others to move as well, and the crowd burst like a school of fish startled by a rock thrown in the water. They ran back to wherever they had made their beds, grabbed up swords, axes, spears, shields, helmets and mail, and with barely a break in their stride they returned, splashing out into the knee-deep water and leaping over the low sides of Dragon and Fox .
Thorgrim did not return to Sea Hammer . He already had Iron-tooth hanging from his belt and he knew Harald or Failend would bring his shield and mail and helmet. Instead he stepped into the cold water and made his way to Dragon ’s side, put his hands on the sheer strake and hoisted himself aboard. He walked after, the few men already aboard moving out of his way, and climbed up onto the small deck at the stern. He looked north again, toward Ketil’s camp.
They’re fighting, for certain , he thought. He could hear it more clearly now, perhaps because the fight itself had grown in intensity. He wondered if they would get there before it was over, and what they would find when they did.
By the time he turned around once more, the rest of the men were swarming along either side of the ship and tumbling over the rails, and others were boarding Fox . Some were pulling the long sweeps down from the gallows and running them through the oar ports. Others were finding places amidships where they could stand and not get in the rowers’ way. Some were pulling mail over their heads or strapping sword belts around their waists.
Harald and Failend came after. Harald held Thorgrim’s shield and helmet, and Failend had his mail draped over her arm. Both were wearing their own mail shirts. Oak-cleaver hung at Harald’s side, the fine Frankish blade that had been carried by his grandfather, Ornolf the Restless. Failend had her seax hanging from her belt, her bow and a quiver of arrows over the shoulder.
Thorgrim took his mail shirt from Failend and pulled it over his head. He looked forward along the length of the deck. Godi was up at the bow. He was looking aft, waiting for orders.
“That’s it, Godi!” Thorgrim shouted down the length of the ship. “That’s all the men she’ll bear. Cast us off!”
Godi turned and cast off the heavy line that ran from Dragon’s bow to an anchor set far up the beach. Dragon ’s bow began to turn, as if the ship itself were eager to get into the fight across the water. He looked to his right and could see Fox ’s bow line cast off as well.
“Oars!” Thorgrim called. Twenty oars ran out twenty oar ports. “Starboard, pull!” All along the starboard side the men leaned into the oars and Dragon ’s bow began to swing, the dim shape of the longphort and the earthworks surrounding it sweeping by. Thorgrim grabbed up the tiller. The bow was still coming around, the ship swinging one hundred and eighty degrees.
Thorgrim looked back at Fox . Her oars were run halfway out and the rowers were holding them horizontal and motionless. Thorgrim assumed that Hardbein had taken command of Fox , and had sense enough to wait for Dragon to get clear before he ordered his men to row.
“Larboard, pull! Pull together!”
On the larboard side the oars came down and swept aft and Dragon began to gather way, the wide, shallow hull slicing though the still waters of the bay. Thorgrim said no more. He had no need to. The men were falling into the familiar rhythm of the stroke, each oar double-manned thanks to the abundance of warriors they had aboard.
The ship’s speed built with each powerful stroke, moving faster than Thorgrim was accustomed to. The conditions were perfect: no wind, calm water, two men on each oar. Astern of them Fox was also underway, moving fast.
We might make it , Thorgrim mused. We may get there before the fighting is done.
Louis de Roumois stepped up onto the small deck aft. It was hardly appropriate that he should do so, former prisoner, Frank, the one man with perhaps the lowest status of all in Thorgrim’s band. But he probably did not understand that he should not be there, just as he did not understand much about the working of ships.
He stood silent for a moment, looking past Dragon ’s bow. Then he turned to Thorgrim, and spoke. He was far from fluent in the Norse tongue, but he had spent many months in their company and he was learning quickly.
“You help them?” Louis said, nodding toward the place where Ketil’s men were fighting someone: themselves, the Irish, there was no way to know. “Why? Ketil is no friend.”
Thorgrim was silent for a moment. It was a good question, and he did not answer right off because he was not certain of the answer. Like so many of his decisions he had made it in an instant, with no clear thought behind it. Just instinct. It was usually after the decision was made that he figured out why he had done it. Usually—not always, but usually—it turned out to be the right decision. He figured that was why men still looked to him to lead them.
Now, faced with Louis’s question, he pondered
why he had made the decision he had.
“Ketil’s men are fighting someone,” Thorgrim said. “Maybe themselves. If they kill one another, we can pick up what’s left. But I think it’s the Irish who are attacking them. Bécc, maybe, from the monastery. And that we can’t have.”
“Why not?”
“Because if they beat Ketil, they’ll probably attack us too, sometime soon. They put up with us, they trade for our silver, but they would rather kill us all. So I want to make certain they know that killing Northmen will not be so easy to do.”
Louis made a grunting sound which might have been an acknowledgement of Thorgrim’s reasoning. Or not. Thorgrim did not care.
He looked off to the east. There were sandbars lurking beneath the surface, he knew, and if they hit them at the speed they were making they might hang there for some time before getting free. The tide was starting to ebb, and that would make it worse. But he had been over that stretch of water many times in the past month, both in one of the longships and in the skin boat they had acquired from the Irish, and he knew it well and felt pretty certain they would remain clear of the hazards.
He nudged the tiller over a bit and let the ship’s bow turn west a few degrees before straightening it out again. He looked astern and saw Fox doing the same. The five fires on the beach were growing more distinct, as was the flicker of men passing in front of them. He could hear the shouting more clearly as well, and the clash of weapons. Whoever was fighting, they were going at it hammer and tongs.
Thorgrim considered telling the men to pull harder, but that was pointless. They were pulling as hard as they could. Amidships the men not pulling were straining to see past the bow, to see what was going on on the north side of the bay.
“Night Wolf!” Starri called from somewhere forward in the dark. “It’s quiet now!”
A Vengeful Wind: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 8) Page 11