02 The Invaders

by John Flanagan

  “We’re back,” he said cheerfully. “And we’ve got two half-frozen mackerel we hauled out of the sea on the way home.”

  The two blanket-wrapped figures were brought to the bow and willing hands made ready to help them down. Ingvar shoved through the press, his arms outstretched, to take Hal as Ulf and Wulf lowered him over the side. The skirl’s eyes were open, although his lips were still tinged blue with the cold. Ingvar, tears threatening to mist his eyes, marched up the beach, holding Hal like a baby, to where the Skandians had built two huge fires close together.

  He laid Hal down on a bedroll between the fires, where the heat from both could warm him. Thorn followed, carrying Jesper’s semiconscious form, and placed him next to Hal. Lydia bustled around the two recovering boys. While they had been waiting for the Heron to reach shore, she had placed four large stones in the fires. She retrieved these now and wrapped them in blankets, placing them inside the bedrolls. Hal sighed as he felt the beautiful heat close to his body.

  “Oh, that’s so good,” he said. Jesper groaned happily in agreement.

  Lydia smiled at the two of them. Ingvar was hovering nearby and she knew that he’d tend to any of their needs. She left them dozing and walked back down the beach to where Stig was recounting the events of the previous night to Thorn, Svengal and the others.

  “. . . I thought we were sunk when the wind dropped. But fortunately, Barat let us have six of his men so we could row back. We were a little late, but we managed to find them in time.” He glanced at Edvin. “Those floats of yours were a touch of genius, Edvin. By the time we found them, Hal was too exhausted to light the signal fire he’d planned.”

  Edvin smiled and flushed as the others looked at him approvingly. Lydia nodded greetings to the six townsmen who had returned with the Heron. She knew four of them by name and the other two by sight.

  She stepped forward now and said to Stig, “I’m surprised Barat let you take six of his men. That doesn’t sound like him. He has some very strange ideas when it comes to cooperation between allies.”

  Stig spread his hands in an innocent gesture. “No. He was fine with it. He didn’t say a word.” He paused, then he couldn’t stop a knowing grin from spreading across his face.

  “Actually, now I think of it, he did say a word. He said ‘Unngh!’”

  “‘Unngh’?” Thorn repeated, a puzzled look on his face. “When did he say that?”

  “It was just before he hit the sand,” Stig told him.

  Lydia cocked her head curiously. “When did he hit the sand?”

  Stig tried to look regretful and failed miserably.

  “That would have been right after I hit him.”

  There was a long silence, then the meaning of what he had said began to sink in. Slowly, the listeners began to laugh. Interestingly, the six Limmatans joined in. Thorn stepped forward and laid his left hand on Stig’s shoulder.

  “You know, Stig,” he said, “you have hidden depths, boy. Hidden depths.”

  chapter thirty - one

  Hal and Jesper slept for sixteen hours straight. From time to time, Lydia and Ingvar roused them to a sense of semiconsciousness to feed them hot soup. The two boys responded, without ever fully waking.

  It was in the early hours of the next morning when Hal finally woke. The sky was still dark but the position of the stars told him that it must be around four o’clock. He felt deliciously warm. The two fires had burned down through the night, although Ingvar had stoked them. Now they were two massive beds of red coals, radiating a wonderful heat from either side that dispelled all memory of the near-freezing water that had so nearly claimed him.

  He stretched luxuriously, groaning quietly in pleasure. Ingvar, who had been dozing nearby, wrapped in a blanket and propped against a log, was instantly alert.

  “Are you all right?” he said, tossing aside his blanket and moving to kneel beside Hal.

  “I’m fine.” Hal smiled. “I’m warm, and I can’t think of a better way to be.”

  Then he yawned, turned over and promptly went back to sleep for another four hours.

  He and Jesper were both fit and healthy, and those factors, combined with the natural resilience of the young, left them with no ill effects the following morning. Thorn watched as Hal and Ingvar worked together, installing the Mangler in the bow of the Heron once more, and shook his head.

  “What it is to be young,” he said to Svengal. “If I’d done what he did, I wouldn’t have a joint in my body that wasn’t creaking and aching fit to kill me.” Absentmindedly, he rubbed a hand into the small of his back, which was feeling a sympathy ache for Hal’s ordeal in the cold water.

  Svengal looked at him with raised eyebrows. “That’s what comes of being young,” he said. “And of course, he leads a clean and blameless life, which is more than I can say for you.”

  Thorn grunted. “You’ve never met anyone as blameless and clean living as I am these days,” he said. Then he added, a little wistfully, “Although it’s not necessarily by choice.”

  While Hal and Ingvar worked on the Mangler, the rest of the Heron crew had formed a chain and were passing the heavy ballast stones, removed for the ferrying trips, up into the ship once more, where Stig and Ulf were busy distributing them in the bottom of the hull. The floorboards had been raised and were stacked along the rowing benches. As Svengal watched, a thought struck him.

  “I’d better get my men busy unloading our ballast,” he said. Wolfwind would be passing through the shallows of the marshes, and needed to draw as little water as possible. Already, her crew had tilted her onto her beam to unstep the heavy mast. It was stacked neatly, with the yardarm and massive sail, above the high watermark on the beach. By the time they were finished, the ship would float in little more than twenty centimeters of water.

  An elderly Limmatan who had escaped from the town had been detailed to act as the Skandians’ guide through the swamps. He was considered too old to fight and had been delighted to be assigned to a role in the attack.

  “I’ve been fishing and wildfowling in these swamps for forty years,” he had told Svengal. “Know them like the back of my hand.”

  Then he had glanced down at a scar on the back of his hand and feigned shock.

  “Good grief! What’s that on the back of my hand?” he yelped, then bellowed in laughter as he saw Svengal’s startled reaction. “Never mind, sonny, I’ll get you there for the big event.” He patted the sea wolf’s massive shoulder. Svengal endured the joke and the patronizing gesture with surprising good grace.

  A little before noon, the two parties assembled by the ships at the water’s edge. Svengal, Thorn, Hal and Stig stood in a tight group. The Skandians would take the longest time to get into position, as they had to thread their way through the swamps.

  The four friends shook hands all round, then Hal and Stig moved away to board the Heron. Lydia and the rest of the crew were already on board. Edvin and Stefan were standing by in the bow with an oar each, ready to push the ship off from shore.

  Svengal and Thorn stayed behind for a few words in private—they’d been friends and shipmates for many years. Wolfwind’s skirl couldn’t resist a grin as he shook Thorn’s left hand. He’d noted that his friend was carrying the fearsome war club device that Hal had made him in a sling around his shoulder. For the moment, he continued to wear his adjustable hook on the end of his right arm. He’d change the two over when the Herons attacked the beach gate.

  “I’ll see you in Limmat,” Svengal said to his former shipmate. “Try not to hit yourself on the head with that thing.” He gestured to the club.

  Thorn snorted in derision. “Try not to drop your ax on your toes,” he said. “You’re clumsy enough as it is.”

  The two friends smiled at each other.

  “Wish you were coming with us, Thorn. Be like old times,” Svengal said.

  Thorn smiled. “I’m part of a different crew nowadays. I’ve got to keep an eye on them. Besides, you know I’d never take order
s from you.”

  “But you’ll take them from a sixteen-year-old boy?” Svengal asked.

  Thorn nodded. “He’s intelligent.”

  Svengal shrugged. “I suppose I walked into that one. Take care, Thorn,” he said, serious all of a sudden, and he patted his friend’s shoulder.

  “You too. Don’t take any risks.”

  Svengal’s eyes widened. “Me? I never take risks. Risks are for them that fight me,” he added, with a savage grin. Like a typical Skandian, he was relishing the coming battle.

  “Thorn! Let’s get going!” Hal called.

  Thorn turned away from Svengal, waving a hand in acknowledgment.

  “Better obey orders,” he said.

  Svengal grunted disdainfully. “That’ll be a first. See you in Limmat.”

  Thorn ran down the beach and leapt up to seize the rail of the ship. Ulf and Wulf grabbed his arms and helped him over the side. As Edvin and Stefan poled the ship out from the shore, Hal rowed her stern around so that he was only a few meters from Svengal.

  “I’ll cruise up and down outside the harbor to get their attention,” he called. “Once you’re in position, flash me a signal and I’ll start shooting.”

  “Once they see you, they’ll concentrate most of their men in the towers,” Svengal called.

  Hal nodded. “I’m depending on it. It’ll mean more targets for me to shoot at.”

  It’ll also mean more people to shoot back, Svengal thought. But he kept it to himself. Hal knew the risk he was facing.

  “Starboard sail,” Hal ordered, and Stefan and Edvin heaved on the lines that sent the yardarm and sail up the mast. As the wind filled it and the twins trimmed the sail in, Heron swung in a smooth curve, accelerating away from the beach. Svengal watched the graceful little ship, admiring her speed and agility.

  “Pretty to watch,” he said. Then he turned to his own ship, grimacing as he looked at her mast-less, sail-less lines. Minus her mast, yardarm and sail, and floating high in the water, she looked more like an oversize skiff than a wolfship, he thought. But he had to admit that using her this way was practical. If the Skandians were to wade through the waist-deep water and mud of the marshes, they’d reach the western tower with their clothes saturated and heavy—and they would be half exhausted as a result.

  “Let’s get under way,” he roared. Skandian sailing commands were issued at full volume as a matter of course. He strode down the beach. Two of his crew reached down to help him over the bow rail and he strode aft to the tiller.

  “Where’s that smart-mouthed Limmatan who’s planning to guide us?” he said.

  The gray-haired townsman bobbed up beside the steering platform. He’d been resting on one of the rowing benches.

  “Right here, sonny. Finally ready to get moving, are you?”

  “Oars!” Svengal ordered. They were only using half the oars available. Once they got into the swamp itself, they’d use four of them to pole the ship along. He glanced at one of the crew who wasn’t currently engaged in rowing.

  “Lars! You get up here and stop me if I try to throw this Limmatan loudmouth overboard.”

  Lars nodded, grinning. The old guide merely sniggered.

  On the far side of the town, Barat and his men crouched, concealed in the trees, barely fifty meters from the palisade.

  Late the previous night, they had moved silently up the beach from their place of concealment. They had stayed inside the tree line at the foot of the escarpment behind the town, hidden from the sight of any sentry on the walls.

  They could have spent the last two days here, Barat thought. Then he realized he was wrong. It was safe enough to spend a few late-night hours in sight of the wall. If they’d been here for the past two days, the chances were high that an incautious movement, the flash of light on one of their weapons or helmets, or an accidental noise would have led to their discovery.

  Hal was right to insist that they move only at the last minute, he thought. His forehead creased in a frown as he thought of the Skandians. The fact that he admitted that Hal was right didn’t make him any fonder of them. His teeth still ached from where Stig had hit him. There was an ugly, discolored bruise on his jaw.

  He’ll pay for that, he thought.

  He settled down behind a lichen-covered fallen tree trunk and searched the bay for the first sign of the Heron. He frowned as he wondered what would happen if Stig had failed to pick up Hal. Then he shrugged fatalistically. The ship and its oversize crossbow were nothing more than an exotic sideshow, he thought. If they didn’t materialize, he and his men would fight their way into the town without them.

  On the other hand, if the Heron did appear, and her crew carried out their part of the plan, they would at least be a useful distraction. But he was under no illusions that the hard, dangerous work would be up to the men of Limmat. For perhaps the twentieth time, he scowled as he thought of the six men Stig had taken from his little force.

  He’ll pay for that too, when this is all over, he thought. Then he drew a deep breath. But first, let’s get it over.

  Hal was at the tiller, feet set wide apart to balance against the surging of the deck as Heron swept up and over successive waves. She was taking the waves on her starboard bow, so that the ship was performing a regular corkscrewing action. Up, roll right, down, roll left, then repeat the sequence.

  “Wolfwind’s heading into the marshes,” Thorn reported, from his position amidships, by the fin. Hal glanced over his shoulder. The long, lean wolfship was traveling fast under oars. That probably had something to do with the fact that she’d been lightened until she drew only a few centimeters of water. Less drag, more speed, he thought.

  She had rounded the promontory that marked the end of the beach where they had made their camp. But whereas Heron was heading out to sea, Wolfwind was swinging to port, into the small creek that led into the marshes.

  “Rather them than me,” Hal said. Out here, the breeze was fresh and the air was clean and invigorating. In the swamps, he knew from previous experience, the air would be humid and still, and filled with clouds of annoying insects.

  He angled the Heron farther to starboard, aiming to keep her out of sight of the town a little longer. He nodded approvingly as Ulf and Wulf, without any need for orders, adjusted the trim of the sail to match the new course.

  “Hard to see Wolfwind without her mast, isn’t it?” Hal remarked.

  Stig, standing ready beside him, glanced at the wolfship as she angled into the creek. Her gray hull blended naturally with the gray-green of the swamp grasses and reeds. He grunted agreement.

  “How long do you think she’ll take?” Hal asked.

  “Wallis thought just over an hour,” Stig replied. Wallis was the elderly Limmatan who was guiding Svengal.

  Hal nodded, thinking. “And we’ll take about twenty minutes to reach the harbor mouth,” he said. “We’ll stay out of sight for another ten minutes, then we’ll let them see us.”

  “That should set the cat among the pigeons,” Stig said, grinning.

  “Or the crossbow among the pirates,” Hal said quietly.

  chapter thirty - two

  Hal tipped the thirty-minute sand glass that he used for navigation and watched as the grains began to cascade through the narrow aperture from top to bottom. He could have estimated the twenty minutes, but using the instrument appealed to his sense of accuracy. He smiled as he recalled his conversation with Jesper.

  How will we know when ten minutes are up?

  We’ll know because that’ll be when I light the signal fire.

  He realized now that their minds must have been starting to wander when they had that conversation, as a result of the biting cold and the weariness that was overtaking them. Maybe that’s why he wanted to be precise this morning, to prove that he was back in control of his faculties.

  He realized that Stig was jogging his elbow and pointing to the graduation marks on the sand glass. Twenty minutes had passed while he’d been woolgathering
. So much for his love of precision, he thought.

  “We’re coming about!” he called. “Time to start the party!”

  They tacked smoothly, and once they were running toward the beach, he gestured for Stig to take the helm. He nodded approvingly as he saw that his friend had slung his large round shield on his left arm, so that it covered him. When they turned away from the beach, Stig would slip the shield around to cover his back. Hal checked the other shields, which were placed along the bulwarks. They were mounted higher than usual, so they provided extra cover for the crew. He caught Thorn’s eye and jerked his head forward. The old sea wolf was standing in the waist of the ship, swaying easily with the ship’s movement. Lydia sat close by, checking the darts in her quiver.

  “Let’s get ready,” he said. Thorn stooped and retrieved two small, round metal shields, shaped rather like outsize bowls. He clamped his hook onto the handle of one, then slipped his left hand into the grip of the second. Lydia rose and the three of them made their way to the bow. The two Skandians moved easily, matching their stride to the ship’s regular heave and pitch. Lydia was less sure-footed. From time to time, she grasped at a stay or the mast itself to steady herself.

  Ingvar was standing ready by the Mangler. He’d spent the past two days making projectiles for the weapon and they were ranged now in two racks, one on either side of the bow. Hal glanced at them. There were a dozen bolts in each rack.

  “Did you make the fire bolts as well?” Hal asked.

  Ingvar indicated a tub set by the mast. There were half a dozen fire bolts resting in it—specially prepared projectiles with their points wrapped in oil-soaked cloth, then daubed liberally with pitch. Hal planned to use one of them to set fire to the oil-soaked beach gate when the time came. They were resting head down in the tub, which contained several centimeters of oil in the bottom to stop the soaked cloth from drying out.

  The Heron rose on a wave and he could see the eastern tower, showing briefly above the horizon.

  Hal glanced round at Edvin, who was standing ready to relay his helm orders to Stig.