Hawk Quest

by Robert Lyndon

  She pummelled his shoulder. ‘You can’t!’

  She was right. ‘In that case, give yourself up,’ he said. ‘They won’t kill you.’

  ‘Leave you?’

  Wayland hauled the horse to a stop. ‘Yes. Get down. Hold up your hands and they’ll show mercy.’

  ‘Never!’ She whacked him around the head. ‘If you die, we both die.’

  No more time to argue. The nomads were so close that Wayland could hear their hoofbeats. He breasted a rise and the river sprang into view, a cordon of horsemen directly in front of them.

  ‘More of them!’ Syth shouted.

  ‘No, it’s Vallon!’

  Seven riders cantered towards them in line abreast. Wayland screamed and lashed his foundering horse, his frantic efforts communicating to the approaching riders. They broke into a gallop and were as close to the fugitives as the nomads were when they poured over the ridge. Vallon drew his sword and his force bunched in a charge. Nine against five, one of them a stripling who’d seen two of his companions laid low by the foreign archer. The nomads scattered to a safe distance and the rescue party rode up.

  Vallon halted, shaking his head. ‘You two cut it fine. Losing the falcons is bad enough, but if we’d lost you …’

  ‘We caught the haggard,’ Syth cried.

  Wayland patted the wicker cage. ‘It’s true.’

  Vallon stared. ‘Tell us your story back at camp.’ His raking glance took in the nomads. ‘Do they pose any danger?’

  ‘They’re good archers,’ Wayland said, ‘but they’re not soldiers. They don’t carry swords. I think they’re shepherds.’

  Vallon nodded. ‘Draw back in close order,’ he called. ‘Don’t engage unless they attack.’

  The nomads shadowed them all the way to the camp. The sun had set and the sky was acid blue marbled with smoky cloud bands. Vallon rode through the terrified Russian conscripts and cocked a finger. ‘Drogo.’

  The Norman affected nonchalance, approaching at a saunter, Fulk beside him with his hand on his sword.

  Vallon looked down. ‘Wayland says you released the falcons.’

  ‘He’s a liar. Do you value the word of a peasant above mine?’

  ‘In Wayland’s case, yes. You swore not to put our venture in jeopardy.’

  ‘I haven’t. Give me proof to the contrary.’

  ‘Only you have a motive for releasing the falcons. Without them we won’t be able to redeem your brother.’ He jerked his head. ‘Wayland, repeat your charge. Drogo, the judgement won’t be mine. I’ll let a jury decide.’

  Drogo spat. ‘Kept men.’

  Vallon leaned down. ‘And what are you?’

  Drogo’s mouth twisted in a snarl. ‘If you’re so sure of Wayland’s accusation, test it in a trial by combat.’

  ‘You released the falcons at night like a thief. I won’t dignify such treachery with a trial of arms.’

  ‘Because you know I’d defeat you.’

  Vallon switched his gaze to Wayland. ‘Repeat your charge.’

  Drogo walked up to Wayland. ‘Be careful before hurling baseless accusations. Consider your own interests before hurting mine.’

  Vallon waved a hand. ‘Wayland, speak up.’

  Everyone had gathered to watch the trial. Wayland looked about with a hunted air. ‘I can’t be certain it was Drogo.’

  Vallon wheeled in astonishment. ‘You had no doubts when you discovered the loss.’

  ‘My emotions were at a high pitch. I lashed out without any solid proof.’

  Vallon dismounted. ‘What are you saying? That the loss was due to your own negligence.’

  ‘I was tired when I put the falcons to bed.’

  Vallon’s eyes narrowed to slivers. ‘Wayland, I’ve seen you sick and exhausted, but no matter how feeble your state, I’ve never known you to neglect the falcons.’

  ‘Perhaps Syth forgot to latch the cages.’

  Her eyes bolted wide. ‘Wayland!’

  Vallon stepped up to him. ‘So now you lay the blame on your faithful helpmate.’ He jabbed Wayland in the chest hard enough to rock him on his heels. ‘You should be ashamed.’ He stepped back, jaw thrust out. ‘Drogo, if another falcon goes missing or dies in suspicious circumstances, I won’t wait for anyone else to lay the blame. I’ll hold you responsible and here’s my sentence in advance. I’ll deal with you as you treated the falcons, casting off you and Fulk to prey at fortune in the wilderness.’

  With a savage glance at Wayland, he strode away.

  Syth clutched Wayland’s elbow. ‘How could you? You know it wasn’t me.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘But why?’ She pounded his chest. ‘Why?’

  Wayland moaned. ‘I had to withdraw my charge. Drogo knows something that could put my own position in peril.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I can’t tell you.’

  ‘But you promised to tell me everything.’

  ‘And I did. All but one thing.’ He started forward. ‘Syth, come back. Please hear me.’

  She’d gone and night had fallen. The white haggard’s bells jingled in her cage and out on the steppe the nomads keened for their lost son.

  XLII

  On they went, the river flowing so wide and slow that it seemed as if they were motionless and it was the land that was moving. Two days after the skirmish, Kolzak pointed out a flock of vultures wheeling above a bluff on the eastern shore. Igor turned and relayed the warning.

  ‘A Russian family farms up there,’ Hero told Vallon. ‘The pilots think something’s happened to them.’

  ‘Tell them to land.’

  The pilots pulled in and the Rus soldiers disembarked with great trepidation and set off up a dirt track, stumbling along in bast sandals tied with coarse hemp cords. A raw breeze carried the smell of ashes and the taint of carrion. The house had been burned down to its mud walls. As they approached, a steppe fox careered off and three vultures trotted away from a half-eaten cow before getting airborne.

  A family of five had lived here, said the pilots. Wayland found what remained of the man in a plot of buckwheat stubble. There was no trace of his wife and their three children.

  ‘The Cumans haven’t been gone long,’ he said. ‘Four days at most.’

  Vallon looked at the steppe undulating in shallow folds towards the horizon. No other dwellings in sight. Not even a tree to give a sense of scale. The grasses tossed in the wind.

  ‘Why did they settle in such a dangerous place?’

  ‘The soil is rich black loam. The Cumans haven’t been this far north for some years. They took a chance and lost.’

  The emptiness gave the Russians the jitters. They fairly ran back to the ships, leaving the smallholder unburied. Vallon and Wayland remained a little longer, listening to the wind in the grass, watching cloud shadows sail across the steppe. They imagined the farmer looking up from some everyday task to see the mounted warriors mustering on the skyline.

  Vallon hunched his shoulders. ‘Let’s go.’

  The Dnieper flowed on with unbroken calm, then the left bank began to rise and the current quickened as the river narrowed between cliffs. Since leaving Kiev they had been heading south-east. Now the river swung due south and the voyagers saw that it disappeared through a cleft in a plateau about five miles downstream.

  ‘Porohi,’ Igor shouted, pointing at the gap. ‘Rapids.’

  The sun hadn’t reached full height when the pilots cut short the day’s journey at a grassy island below a tributary. No point going further today, Kolzak said. They were only a few miles above the first rapid. With the days now much shorter than the nights, it would take two days to get past all nine of them. If they started at first light tomorrow, they should be through the first five by sundown.

  Vallon’s company unloaded their horses and hobbled them before turning them out to graze. Wayland and Syth went off to hunt game for the falcons. Vallon and Hero strolled to the tail of the island and watched the clay-coloured current coili
ng towards the gap in the granite walls. The sky was a glazed blue dish brushed with fair-weather cloud.

  Hero glanced at Vallon. ‘Drogo will make another sabotage attempt. The closer we get to our goal, the more desperate he’ll become.’

  Vallon nodded. ‘I’ll set him and Fulk adrift once we’ve run the rapids and are clear of the Cumans.’

  ‘They won’t survive long in the steppe.’

  ‘I’m not so pitiless that I’d condemn them to death. We’ll give them the spare boat and enough food for the journey to the Black Sea. If they reach it … ’ He broke off. ‘Here come Wayland and Syth.’

  They appeared from the other side of the island and jogged down to join them. Vallon smiled. ‘No luck?’

  ‘Horsemen on the west bank,’ said Wayland. He took Vallon by the elbow and steered him round. ‘They’ve dropped from sight, but they’ll be watching. Better not let them know we’ve seen them.’

  ‘Are they shepherds?’

  ‘No, they carry shields and sidearms as well as bows. I counted four, but there may be more. We have to get off the island. The channel on the other side is shallow enough to ford.’

  Vallon looked towards the camp. ‘This requires delicate thinking. The Russians might turn back if they find out there are Cumans in their path.’

  On the way to the camp they agreed a plan of action. They found Richard alone by their fire and told him about the horsemen. No one else. Hero went to the Russians’ camp and invited the pilots to come over and discuss the journey through the gorge. Vallon greeted them cheerfully and Richard handed them cups of mead.

  ‘So,’ Hero said. ‘Tell us more about the rapids.’

  Igor answered, chanting his response like a litany. ‘The first one is called Kaidac. It has four ledges.’ He mimed rowing. ‘Keep to the left. Next is the Severe One, called Sleepless by the Varangians. Very soon we are at the dangerous Wave-Waterfall, which has three ledges and many perilous rocks downstream. Then we come to the Echoer. As you pass it your heart quails at the terrible clamour of the Insatiable. Here the river pours down twelve ledges with the speed of a runaway horse. No time to think, no time to aim. Pray to God and put your life in his hands. A thousand souls and all their treasure lie at the bottom of the deep pools below. If you come through the Insatiable and the dangerous rocks downstream, your course turns west past a large island. For many versts the river flows gently. Don’t relax. Don’t cease your prayers. Ahead of you is the Place of Waves with billows that hold many hidden dangers.’ Igor rocked from side to side, his eyes shut. ‘Hardly have you given thanks to God for your deliverance than you are in the Awakener. Below that the river turns south again and descends the Lishni. It offers only slight dangers. Now only the Serpent awaits, winding and twisting through six ledges before spilling into the Wolf’s Throat.’

  Igor opened his eyes and quaffed his mead. Hero made a face at Vallon. ‘He says we’re in for a tempestuous ride.’

  ‘Ask him where the Cumans set their ambushes.’

  ‘Below the Serpent, at the Wolf’s Throat,’ Igor answered. ‘There the river narrows to less than an arrow-flight and the horse-archers can shoot down into the boats. If you survive their barbs, you still have to face their main force at the ford between the end of the gorge and St Gregory’s Island.’

  Hero sipped his mead. ‘Have you ever run the rapids at night?’

  Igor snorted. ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Is it possible?’

  ‘Only a madman would attempt such a thing.’

  Hero smiled. ‘Fyodor told us you could run the rapids in your sleep.’

  Igor looked away. ‘Yes, in the summer I could find the way with my eyes closed. But with the water so low everything will have changed. Some of the channels will be dry and others will be no wider than your boats. You can’t thread a needle in the dark.’ He drained his cup. ‘Why do you ask?’

  Hero poured them more mead. ‘Because the Cumans know we’re here.’

  The pilots froze with their cups halfway to their mouths.

  Hero pulled himself closer. ‘Wayland spotted them on the west bank. By now some of them will be riding south to prepare an ambush. If we wait until tomorrow, there’ll be an army waiting at the ford. We have to start as soon as possible and run all nine rapids tonight. We’ve still got some daylight and there’ll be a moon to light the way after sunset.’ He saw Kolzak glance at the Russians. ‘Don’t tell them until we’re below the second rapid. Say that we’re moving downriver to be sure of making an early start.’

  Igor said something to Kolzak and they began to argue in Russian, working themselves into such a frenzy that the soldiers turned to watch. Igor made to jump up, but Kolzak pulled him back down. He clenched his arms around his chest, his face a furious wrinkled sack. ‘Igor refuses to go,’ Kolzak said. ‘He’d rather suffer Fyodor’s punishment than face certain death.’

  Hero craned forward. ‘Now listen. We haven’t told the Vikings about the Cumans. When we do, do you imagine they’ll let you scuttle back to Kiev leaving them to face the horse-nomads alone? And there’s the silver we paid for your services. Vallon isn’t the kind of man to overlook a broken contract.’

  Igor sobbed into his hands. Kolzak spoke gently to him and helped him up. His arms flopped in resignation. ‘God curse Fyodor Antonovich. A plague of ulcers on his soul.’

  A palm’s span separated the sun from the horizon when the convoy approached the gate in the plateau. The two galleys led the way, followed by Vallon’s company towing the spare boat, Drogo and the Icelanders bringing up the rear. They entered the mouth of the gorge and the sun disappeared below the western wall. The cliffs on both sides rose three hundred feet, their walls fissured by gullies overgrown with trees. The river swung left and the voyagers heard the mutter of fast water. Wulfstan stood in the bow of the company’s boat. ‘Keep to the same line as the galleys. Right a bit. Don’t look. That’s my job. Here we go.’

  Hero’s stomach went light as the boat bucked. It bobbled down a ropy slither of broken water and glided out into slack.

  Richard grinned. ‘That wasn’t too bad.’

  ‘That was the easy one,’ said Hero. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the gorge cutting south for miles. The sunlight had retreated up to the crests on the left bank, throwing the cliffs on the right into deep shadow.

  Three miles on they reached the rapid called Sleepless. The water above it seemed to skin over and grow more solid, like a flexed muscle. The noise swelled. Wulfstan stood holding on to one of the mast’s straining lines.

  ‘Face the front for this one. Use your oars as paddles.’

  They watched the galleys slide down the slant of water and pitch in a back-curling wave at the bottom. The boat followed, slapping into the current and scooting down before hitting the standing wave with a drenching splash. Then they were in the clear and only half a mile from the next rapid. Something was wrong, though. The pilots were waving them toward the middle of a ledge that ran almost right across the gorge, squeezing quarter of a mile of river into a brawling chute against the rocky right bank.

  The voyagers came alongside the Russian galleys. Kolzak shouted, pointing at a fan of water slopping over the ledge behind his ship.

  Hero strained to make out what he was saying. ‘This is the line we’re supposed to take, but the channel’s disappeared. The river’s five feet lower than it is in summer.’

  ‘What are they going to do?’

  ‘Drag the ships over. Lever them onto the ledge with poles, then some of us go into the water on the downstream side and pull on ropes, while the rest push from behind.’

  Vallon jumped onto the ledge. To clear it they would have to haul the ships a hundred yards down a natural weir left high and dry by the falling river. The late-afternoon sun had already sunk behind the rim of the gorge. ‘It would take all night just to get the galleys clear.’

  ‘There’s only one thing to do,’ Drogo said. ‘Our boats are light enough to carry down before
dark. Take the pilots with us and leave everyone else.’

  ‘Abandon the slaves?’ said Richard.

  ‘They’re nothing to us.’

  ‘Nor are you.’

  ‘Vallon, you know it’s our only chance.’

  Before Vallon could reach a decision, he heard his name called and saw Wayland beckoning to him from the edge of the waterfall. It spilled down like a giant millrace before plunging into a pool and dashing against a crag jutting into the river forty yards further on. Swells crashed upon the wall, climbing and spreading and then falling away before humping up for fresh attacks. Fangs of rock and black-eyed eddies showed in the waves. The thought of being sucked down into one of those dark vortices brought Vallon out in a cold sweat.

  He pulled Wayland closer. ‘It would be suicide.’

  ‘Wulfstan’s got an idea.’

  When Vallon heard it, he stared at the torrent and then he stared at Wulfstan. The Viking grinned. ‘Makes your arse pucker, doesn’t it?’

  ‘A pound of silver if it works.’

  *

  After unloading the horses and falcons, the two boat crews rowed away from the ledge with the spare boat in tow, aiming for the shore above the head of the cataract. Wayland and Syth followed in the skiff. When the crews reached shore, they drifted down until they felt the current begin to tug and then they jumped out and made fast to the bank. They struggled to keep their footing on the slippery rocks.

  They tied walrus hide cables to the spare boat’s stern and stem. The men holding the stern rope wrapped their hands in cloths and sought secure stances among the boulders. Wulfstan gathered the bow cable and scrambled back to where Wayland and Syth waited in the skiff. Syth took the end of the rope and Wayland paddled away from shore. The slack cable payed out behind them in a dragging curve that threatened to pull them towards the chute. Wayland fought his way into calm water and made it back to the ledge. The pilots collected the rope and formed up the soldiers and slaves along the ledge at right angles to the rapid.

  The sky had separated into lemon and burgundy stripes. Wayland raised a hand at the figures on the shore. The boat began to move, water creaming against its stern as the shore party braked its descent. It slid into the pool. A wave broke over its stern.