The Lord of Vik-lo: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 3)

by James L. Nelson

  There were three longships tied up in the river just beyond where Far Voyager was hauled out, and now that Sea Rider had served her final purpose, these were all the ships at Vík-ló. On those occasions when the Danes went down to the ships for one reason or another they greeted the Norwegians in a friendly enough way. Aghen stopped by often to watch the progress and to discuss the work with Thorgrim. He did so, Thorgrim suspected, on Grimarr’s orders, though he could tell that the old shipwright enjoyed the visits and the talk of ships and tools and wood. Bersi Jorundarson also came by nearly every day, and Thorgrim did not mind his company either, though in Bersi’s case Thorgrim had no doubt the man had been sent to spy.

  In the evenings when the work was done and the ale, beer and mead flowed and Ornolf assumed his role of jarl of the feast, Thorgrim sat at the makeshift table they had erected in the makeshift hall and found he was content, even optimistic, a feeling he had not enjoyed in some time. The gods had tested them and they had proved themselves. Far Voyager would soon be more fit for sea than she had been even on leaving Dubh-linn. The black mood that so often came over Thorgrim as the sun set, the uncontrolled rage that would drive him from the company of other men, that had earned him the nickname of “Night Wolf” did not come over him now. He wondered if age was leaving that in his wake, as it did so many other things.

  Thorgrim did not sleep ashore in a tent. He slept aboard Far Voyager, despite the ship’s being tilted at its odd angle. He had piled furs up on the low side in the turn of the bilge aft. Above that he had stretched a cloth, the lee cloth they had lashed over the stove planks, to keep the damp and the rain off.

  He bedded down aboard his ship as a precaution. There needed to be someone aboard to keep a weather eye out and call the alarm if the Danes tried some mischief. This is what he told his men so they would not think he shunned their company. And it was true, but it was only part of the reason he slept aboard, and not the greatest part.

  In truth, there was no place he loved to be more than aboard his ship. He was meant to be there, a part of the ship itself. He fit in his place in the same way the heel of the mast fit into the step or the dragon’s head slotted into the mortise in the stem. Now that he had a ship again, a ship that had proved itself in a brutal storm and a deadly test from the gods, Thorgrim did not like to be away from it.

  And so on the day when he had scarfed the last plank in place and his ship would soon be swimming again, when he had had his fill of feasting, it was to Far Voyager that he retired. He climbed aboard, took off his sword belt and laid his weapon near, then crawled onto his bed of furs. He had piled the furs deep, deep enough that he would lie on an even keel even if the ship did not, and the result was a bed that was more comfortable than any he had known. The day’s work had been both taxing and satisfying. His muscles were sore, his endurance still not what it had been before the terrible wound he had suffered at Tara. The sound of Ornolf’s roaring voice was muted by the distance and the furs, and it was familiar and almost relaxing, like the soft roll of surf on a beach. Soon he was asleep, a deep and profound sleep, a feeling akin to sinking in warm water.

  And then someone was shaking him to consciousness, a process that took some time, nearly a minute. Thorgrim moved through a series of dreams – storms at sea, the earth trembling beneath him, trying to hold Harald’s arm as the boy tried to pull away – all of which incorporated the ceaseless shaking into their vivid imagery.

  He opened his eyes and reached for Iron-tooth. His hand fell on the leather grip and the shape above him resolved into the face of Starri Deathless, a foot away, still shaking Thorgrim’s shoulder.

  “I’m awake,” Thorgrim said in a hoarse whisper and Starri stopped shaking him.

  “Night Wolf. Come,” Starri said.

  “What is it?” Thorgrim asked.

  “I don’t know,” Starri said. “Something. I feel it. I know it. The gods have told me that something bad is about to happen, but they have not told me what it is.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Fiercely we swapped

  blades that shiver through shields.

  From the tree of my arm

  I tossed the plated fire of death.

  Egil’s Saga

  Thorgrim climbed out from under the bear skin he was using for a blanket. The night was cool and it felt cooler still after the warmth of his cocoon. He grabbed up Iron-tooth and thought about grabbing his cloak as well but Starri was already on the move so Thorgrim followed. They leapt over the low side of the ship onto the soft ground below. Thorgrim buckled his sword belt around his waist as he followed after Starri, and the two moved silently through the dark.

  A few feet from the river’s edge Starri stopped and Thorgrim came up beside him and they stared out over the black water. “What is it, do you think?” Thorgrim asked, his voice barely audible.

  “I don’t know,” Starri said. “There is some evil out there, but I do not know what it is.”

  Thorgrim nodded. He did not dismiss Starri as a madman the way some would have done. Berserkers, he knew, were not like other men. The gods talked to them in a language only they could hear. Just as Harald could translate the strange words of the Irish girl, so Starri could translate the warnings of the gods.

  Then from out in the dark there came a sound. It was soft and innocuous, like a gentle thumping of wood on wood, but it came from over the water, off to the east, the direction of the sea, where there should not have been wood thumping wood. Thorgrim and Starri stiffened and their heads turned toward the sound. They saw a dull flash, not a light so much as a place where the darkness was not so dark. They heard the sound of water; the river moving in its banks, and something beyond that as well, some liquid sound that did not fit with the rest of the night.

  “Boat…” Thorgrim said, breathing the word, and Starri nodded. The dull light they had seen was water curling around the bow of a boat, how far off they could not tell. The two men stood motionless, tense and alert. Here was something not right at all. In the fortnight they had been in Vík-ló they had never seen or heard boats moving in the dark.

  “Go tell the others,” Thorgrim said, “tell them to get under arms and join me here. Tell Harald to bring my shield.”

  Starri hesitated, just a heartbeat, unwilling to leave a place where there might be fighting, but Thorgrim said, “We have some minutes before they land, and we do not know where they are going.” Starri nodded, turned, and was gone into the dark.

  Thorgrim continued to stare over the water, off to his right, as he stepped slowly along the bank, moving upstream toward where the other four longships were made fast to the shore. The tide was at its midrange which meant their keels would be sunk inches in the mud. Whatever was about to happen, Thorgrim hoped it would not require the use of ships, since those would not be moving for another twelve hours at least.

  He stopped and stood completely still and let his breathing settle. His eyes swept the black distance and he tried to focus his hearing, but after a minute of that he had to admit that he could not hear a thing, and he could see even less from that quarter. Behind him and some distance back he heard a rustle of noise, the sound of building urgency, and he knew Starri had reached West Agder and was spreading the alarm. If there were men out in the dark, and if they meant to strike, they would have to do so quickly before they were overrun.

  And then they did. Thorgrim saw a light flare up and for a second he was not sure what he was seeing, then he realized it was a torch that had been set ablaze, perhaps from an ember held low in a boat. The fire sputtered and the cloth end of the torch flared and cast a halo of light around. Thorgrim could see the boat now, one of those that the Irish used, a curach, they called it. There were six men pulling oars, and more crowded on the thwarts and the man with the torch in the bow.

  Thorgrim moved along the shoreline, closer, but the curach was still a couple hundred feet off and he was not certain where it was headed, where these men would come ashore.

  Wha
t by the gods do you think you’re about? Thorgrim wondered. An attack by a dozen men? He and Starri and Harald alone could have killed them all.

  Then he saw another flash, another light undulating and growing, and then another and another and he realized it was not one boat at all. There were four at least that he could see. Five. Six. And those were the boats with torches in the bows; how many more were hidden in the dark he could not say.

  He heard footsteps behind him, the dull patter of many feet hurrying along, then Starri was on one side of him, Harald on the other. Harald was holding his own shield and Thorgrim’s as well, along with Thorgrim’s helmet. Those he handed to Thorgrim. Then Ornolf was there, pushing past everyone until he was by Thorgrim’s side.

  “Who by Odin’s fat ass is this?” Ornolf roared. “Why have they woken me from sleep? By the gods if they had interrupted me rutting some thrall I would have ripped all their lungs out! Where are they going?”

  Just as Ornolf asked the question, Thorgrim knew the answer. “The ships. They have come to burn the ships,” he said. The lead boat had turned to larboard and was making for the shore two hundred feet upstream. “Follow me!” He pushed past Ornolf and began racing along the river’s edge, toward where the ship lay just off the grassy bank. They were not their ships, of course, but it did not matter. The Irish were coming to burn Norse longships, and that could not be allowed.

  The curachs moved apart like embers drifting in different directions, splitting off so they could fall on the four ships at once. Thorgrim stopped on the river bank at the spot closest to the bow of the first ship, Grimarr’s Eagle’s Wing. Further out in the river the first of the curachs was reaching Eagle’s Wing’s stern, the Irish boatmen clambering over the side. The torch threw a guttering light down the length of the deck, illuminating the leering, screaming eagle’s head at the peak of the arching stem.

  “You men!” Thorgrim pointed to a cluster of men to his left, “go to the two farthest ships! Keep these bastards from setting them on fire, drive them off! You,” he pointed toward another group, “the middle ship. The rest with me!”

  There were less than sixty men on Far Voyager’s crew, and that meant less than fifteen men for each ship to fight off how many Irish warriors Thorgrim did not know. But if the Danes were not up in arms yet they would be soon, and then the Irish would surely be overrun. They could not muster men enough to outnumber his men and Grimarr’s and Bersi’s and the rest, Thorgrim felt certain of that. And even if the Irish did outnumber the Northmen they would not outfight them.

  Far Voyager…Thorgrim thought as he splashed out into the river, the water coming over his shoes, and soaking his leggings up to his knees. He had to keep a weather eye on his own ship. He had seen none of the Irish making for her, but if there was any threat to Far Voyager he would abandon the Danes’ ships in a heartbeat and order his men to do the same. Grimarr’s ships were a distant second in his priorities.

  Thorgrim tossed his shield over Eagle Wing’s rail, grabbed on with both hands and pulled himself up and over. He landed on the deck and spun around, facing aft, pulling Iron-tooth as he did, ready for a rush that might be coming at him, but there was none. The Irish were aft and were still climbing aboard themselves and had not even seen him. Their night vision, Thorgrim realized, would be ruined by the torches they carried.

  Another of Thorgrim’s men leapt the rail, then another and another. Thorgrim snatched up his shield and it was then that the Irish saw them. He heard the burst of shouting in their odd language and in the light of the torches saw the men turn toward the bow, arms and weapons pointing. They held shields and axes and swords. Thorgrim was impressed.

  Whoever had planned this had thought it through. Despite the ships’ being made of wood, it would be no easy thing to burn them, to get them so completely engulfed that they could not be saved from the flames. Fools or cowards would have simply thrown the torches on board and fled, which would have accomplished nothing. Even if there had been no one aboard to extinguish the flames, the torches would have most likely burned themselves out before they set the heavy timbers ablaze.

  But these men came in numbers, and they came armed, and that told Thorgrim they intended to stay aboard and fight and not leave until they were certain the ships would be reduced to charred and crumbling wreckage. But they had probably counted on having some time to do their work before they were discovered.

  Thorgrim pushed through his men, who were all on board now, and moved quickly aft. There were twenty of the Irish warriors at least, more, Thorgrim guessed, which meant there had been more curachs than just those with torches. As Thorgrim advanced, the Irish formed a shieldwall of sorts athwartships and stood ready. They were on the offensive, and would let the Northmen come to them. They had only to hold off Thorgrim and his men long enough to get the ship burning, really burning, and then they could be gone.

  The Far Voyagers were past the base of the mast when one of the Irish torchbearers did what Thorgrim knew he would, what Thorgrim himself would have done: he reached up with his dancing flame and touched it to the sail, bound to the long yard swung fore and aft.

  At first the sail played coy with the fire, as if deciding whether or not it should ignite. Then it made up its mind, all but exploding into flames, the fire racing along the oiled wool cloth, making a brilliant slash of light just a few feet above their heads. Thorgrim’s men, by reflex, leapt from under the flames as they charged aft.

  Thorgrim was screaming when he hit the Irish shieldwall, Iron-tooth raised above his head. The deck was well illuminated now, and he could see the various expressions on the Irishmen’s faces; fear, determination, rage to match his own. He slashed down with his blade and it was met by an upraised shield. He pulled back, tried to work the blade below the shield, but it was met by another. From the corner of his eye he saw a sword coming down at him and he held his own shield up to take the blow.

  Swatches of burning sail were drifting down on them, a fiery snow storm. Thorgrim saw one land on an Irishman’s bare hand, saw the man jerk his hand back. Thorgrim lunged and felt the tip of Iron-tooth find something solid, but what he could not tell. The light that fell on the scene redoubled as the fire caught more of the sail and the yard as well, crackling and snapping overhead. Thorgrim wanted to turn and see how far the flames had spread, but he and his men were hard against the obstinate shield wall, hacking, parrying, warding off blows. Turning his back on that, even for a second, would be death.

  Behind the shieldwall, aft of the tiller, more of the Irishmen were stacking combustibles, bundles of straw, by the looks of it. More planning and forethought. If they fired the straw, if it was given time to catch, that might be enough to burn the entire aft end of the ship away. Thorgrim shouted again and renewed his hacking at the shield wall. But the Irish were holding fast, not attacking, just standing their ground with shields up and swords to parry blows. Thorgrim’s men crowded against them but in the confines of the ship they could make no progress.

  To his right, Godi was hacking at the wall with his great ax. It rose and fell and shields shattered under its blows. Blades darted out and Godi jumped back, swinging his ax in an arc, knocking the blades aside. But still the Irishmen held firm.

  Thorgrim heard a snapping sound behind him, and a roar as if the fire was being stoked. The light that fell of the shieldwall doubled again and he knew the yard had burned through and fallen to the deck; now it stood a chance of igniting the rest of the ship. But they could not fight the fire and fight the Irish at the same time.

  Then from where the yard had collapsed Thorgrim heard Agnarr shouting, “Stand aside! Stand aside!” Thorgrim took a slash at the man opposite him in the shield wall, and in the instant the man held his shield up to ward off the blow, Thorgrim leapt aside. Clear of the enemy’s blades, he looked back over his shoulder, toward the bow of the ship.

  The yard had burned through at the slings and collapsed, though the ends were still supported by the gallows on which they r
ested, so the spar made a great flaming angle with its vertex on the ship’s deck. Flames was now creeping up the mast; Thorgrim had a vision of a forest fire he had witness once in East Agder. The shrouds and the forestay, also alight, made bright lines in the dark.

  The burning yard had also ignited the oars that were stacked on the crutches beside it, and now Agnarr and some of the men with him had snatched up those that were not fully engulfed and were holding them aloft like the torches of giants.

  “Stand clear!” Agnarr yelled again and Thorgrim saw what he had in mind. He leapt aside, pushing one man out of the way and pulling another by the sleeve of his tunic. Agnarr and the others charged aft, swinging the oars down like they were splitting wood. The flaming shafts knifed into the shieldwall with the momentum of twenty pounds of pine swinging through a fifteen foot arc. The Irish held their shields aloft but it was futile. The men on whom the blows fell were driven to the deck. Some of the oars shattered, scattering burning lengths of wood fore and aft. Those that did not were raised and hammered down again.

  The shieldwall, which a minute before had been a solid defense stretching larboard to starboard, was now broken and gaping, like the wall of a fortress that had been breached. Thorgrim and those with him charged forward, shouting again. The flaming mast and rigging illuminated the struggling, confused Irishmen, some falling back, shields held up, some struggling to their feet. Iron-tooth rose and fell again, hacking down the men as they tried to regain their defensive positions. To his right, Thorgrim saw Godi clearing a way with his ax like a farmer scything wheat.

  The Irish were done and they knew it. Thorgrim ducked to avoid being hit in the head by an Irish shield, flung at him as its owner tumbled over the side of the ship and presumably into a curach alongside. The rest who could still move did the same, throwing weapons aside as then swung themselves over the gunnel, the Norsemen, their bloodlust up, charging after them. Iron-tooth came down in thin air where a second before the last of the Irish raiders had been swinging himself over the side. The edge, honed to a razor sharpness by Starri Deathless, dug deep into the oak sheer strake and Thorgrim had to twist it free.