Only, like the vast mountain of a man that Raol had taken down that first night—these men were tall. Much taller than Raol had ever seen a man.
The urge for Raol was to break cover, to announce himself. To hail these men and recite to them his pedigree.
But the fire stick that had ruined his son—his son still skirting the rim of death and racked with fevers lying almost within touching distance—kept Raol’s head low.
“Raol. If these men…” Ótta didn’t need to finish his sentence.
Raol nodded.
If these men infringed on their boat, attacked or damaged it in any way, they would be instantly dead.
“We can’t let them leave, regardless,” Raol ruled. “They have come using magic. They look like us, but they are not ours. They are not skræling… they don’t appear to be skræling, but they must be the skræling trying to trick us. Trying to win our confidence as before. They cannot leave here.”
“When you are ready,” Ótta agreed, and the small patch of forest was alive with men’s eyes. With the fear of having been found.
The third man was ashore now and walking over.
The second man ashore had already clambered up onto the longboat and was exclaiming loudly, picking up and testing for weight the various things he found there; an oar, a spear used for hunting seal with leather retrieve-rope attached to it, an axe.
The first man was still examining the longboat’s lines.
The man aboard held up that axe with its remarkably small scalloped head and showed it to the other men, saying something about it—and then all eyes searched about them quickly.
Whatever he had said struck fear into the other two.
He laid the axe gingerly aside on the deck and jumped back to the beach, all three men never taking their eyes off of the grove, the gully and the cliffs above.
It was obvious from his demeanor that he’d recognized it for what it was.
“Stop them?” Freyrík asked in hushed tones close beside Ótta his father.
“We must. But let them draw closer. We need to take them together.”
And then one of the three men saw something close to Raol.
He pointed and yelled, shock in his voice.
All three broke into a run toward their boat.
“Stop them!” Raol shouted the order, and his men poured out of their hide and down the shale beach in a running line.
The first of the strangers went over the side of his boat, slipping and crashing headlong into a bulkhead. It left him unmoving.
The second and third man slammed into the boat’s side, driving it backward, free of the shore. One of the two went over the side and began furiously working at the upright panel.
Immediately, the zeeeeeeeeeeing sound began and the contraptions at the stern bowed themselves in unison back into the water, one coughing and barking into life with its urine stream resumed.
The anchor rope ran to the end of its scope and tugged the tuk—tuk boat to a halt.
An axe cartwheeled through the sky and thudded into the man’s chest at the panel. He fell sideways howling in pain.
Half Raol’s men split off in foot pursuit of the third man who, seeing his companion cut down, had turned and run along the beach.
The other half of the pursuers set upon the impaled man in the boat, their blows raining down. Blood splattered onto the deck and he went over the side, lifeless, into the water.
Another thrown axe went past the running man, then another hit him with the shaft and he stumbled.
Before he could gain his feet, they were onto him like a pack of wolves, stabbing and chopping.
Raol’s shout to halt it, trying as he was to control both cohorts of his men, came a moment too late.
Ótta was at the man now. He used his foot to turn him over, but the swift butchery had been too thorough and precise. The man moved to the shove like the carcass he was.
All attention was now directed at the first man into the boat, who was groaning lightly and looking about in bewilderment.
He’d taken the full force of his charge with the top of his head, and it had knocked him senseless.
Rough hands had him now.
They heaved him up by the gathered clothing on his chest and threw him bodily onto the damp hard sand.
That tuk—tuk—tuking urinating contraption at the transom of the boat kept on its mindless vigil.
The Norsemen looked to Raol for instruction.
“Bring the boat ashore,” he instructed. “Tie this man. Check for knives.”
They frisked him roughly and dragged him to the longboat. Twine was produced and he was hogtied, his hands to his feet.
“Where do you come from?” Raol began the interrogation.
Only terror and babbling were returned.
Raol struck him a mighty blow with his open hand.
“Why did you come here? Who sent you?”
The man began to cry.
Slap.
“Bring me water… a bucket.”
The longboat’s leather bailer arrived, slopping frigid seawater.
“He’s groggy. Wake him up.”
It was thrown over the man.
“Who are you?”
SLAP!
“Who sent you?”
SLAP!
“Who knows you’re here?”
SLAP!
“More water!”
And so it continued with different and brutal persuasions, fruitlessly, until the man’s face was unrecognizable and he was no longer conscious.
He was dragged up into the thicket, gagged and tied to a tree.
By the time this was over, the body of the man with the axe in his back that had gone over the side was nowhere to be found. It had sunk and disappeared.
The dead man on the sand was dragged down and, on Raol’s instruction, thrown into the boat.
“What do you want with him?” Ótta asked of his brother.
“We can’t leave him here,” Raol’s eyes were up on the surrounding cliffs, as if he expected skræling to be staring back. “We tow this out and discard it.” He was testing the bladder-like gunwale with his hand, frowning at what the strange, stretchable material might be. “Do it when it’s dark. Burn the body with it.”
“And the other man?”
“We can’t risk keeping him here with us.”
Ótta knew what this meant, and he was indifferent to the sentence.
The Norsemen had gone to work on that urinating contraption affixed to the transom. They’d approached it cautiously, keenly aware of the caustic and noxious odors it was emitting.
Blows with various weapons to the shiny black enclosure of the grumbling contraption had no effect on the relentless tuk—tuk—tuk—tuk life of the thing, disinterested in the drama between the men as it was.
Several more increasingly heavy blows opened up the black shell and within was a block of gleaming metal and a tangle of colorful chords running hither and thither.
The exposed heart of that tuk—tuk sound was now more evident. Without its shell, the thing was louder and smoking lightly.
A handful of water thrown into it produced an impressive hiss and cloud of steam, but the beast within its metallic cage kept up its relentless tuk—tuk—tuk—tuk, still ignoring the turmoil between the men and all efforts to get its attention.
It seemed to be no immediate threat, so Ótta turned his attention back to his brother while the men gingerly ventured various experiments to understand what they were dealing with.
“And the other man?”
“I’m confused,” Raol admitted. “I don’t think he understands us. I don’t think he’s hiding anything. I’m not sure… He is a man, I think… human. I think so. He is not of the other world, and I don’t think he is skræling in disguise. I don’t know if they can follow him here. But take this vessel far from our hide before you abandon it.”
Just then, there was a crackling and a strange voice began to speak from the vicinity of
the upright panel. As the voice stopped, another voice responded, then the first laughed.
The men attacking the tuk—tuk leapt away from the boat and Raol backed further away with Ótta in lockstep.
“Somebody still hiding!” the shout went up.
One of the bravest of the men, Pátrekr, took the task upon himself and raced at the boat, axe held high and emitting a bloodcurdling battle cry.
In that berserk rage, his axe fell onto the turgid bladder gunwale as close to the crackling voice as Pátrekr dared.
An explosion of air and blown water vapor knocked Pátrekr, stunned, onto his rump three strides back. His axe somersaulted through the air over his head for ten paces.
The men scattered and the boat sighed, listing and sagging over with the bladder pontoon down on its, now flaccid, port side.
The gaping hole cleaved by the axe and explosion allowed the sea to wash into the hull, and shockingly the boat did not sink as a boat should.
The crackling voices from the console kept up their cadence without any heed or notice to the commotion.
Slowly, the men crept back and Pátrekr regained his feet, senses and nerve.
The voices abruptly stopped.
A new odor was on the air and a most unusual slick with a rainbow hue began to spread on the surface of the water where the stricken boat had given way and partially sunk.
Very slowly, the men moved back toward the wrecked hull until they were once more in touching distance.
As the men stood puzzling at this, Raol saw that the slick grew more substantial closest to a black bladder that was tethered to the tuk—tuking contraption on the transom.
His axe held high, ready to strike, he poked at that bladder with the back of the haft. The thing wobbled like a great black giant jellyfish.
There was silence between the men, wide eyes and bewilderment all around.
Raol raised his axe and cleaved the tether and immediately both ends of the severed tentacle began to rapidly bleed copious amounts of the rainbow fluid into the water. The slick spread quickly and felt slippery to the touch. It had the distinct smell of a tar pit.
The tuk—tuk at last noticed these efforts and began to splutter; choking, it coughed twice and died.
Then there was silence.
A silence broken moments later by the crackle of the resumed talking voices. Standing as close as the men had now ventured and grouped, it was clear that these talking people were hiding in the impossibly small black box affixed to the panel.
It could only be magic.
Pátrekr, who had come forward once more, followed the example of his leader and buried his recovered axe into the small black box full of voices.
He killed them all with that single blow.
Chapter 15
Cottage, Kingman’s Cove Road,
Fermeuse, Newfoundland
Latitude: 46°57'52.00"N
Longitude: 52°48'21"W
Tegan had almost missed the news report. Were it not that her dad was out there somewhere on the Grand Banks aboard a charter boat, heightening her sensitivity to nautical disasters, the story would have been lost to her in the clutter of bedlam that had become every news summary.
“The only survivor of the boating accident found seven miles northeast of Biscayan Cove off Newfoundland’s rugged peninsula remains in a coma, in critical condition in the ICU, suffering severe burns over sixty percent of his body. It is understood that the three local anglers knew the coast extremely well and would typically be back at the slipway by noon. When they had not returned just before dusk and could not be raised on VHF, the Coast Guard was summoned and an aerial grid search was implemented at their last known location ten nautical miles to the west of St. Johns.”
“Mom!” Tegan yelled, irritated that the TV offered no ‘pause’ or rewind function.
The panic in Tegan’s voice brought Gaby at a run.
“What’s it?” Gaby gasped, looking Tegan over for any obvious injury.
“A boat accident!” Tegan pointed to the TV.
“Oh b’Jesus girl, y’a gave me the fright of me life,” she looked and sounded peeved. “You have t’a stop being so dramatic, Teegs. I saw this earlier. Accidents happen.”
“Where’s Dad?”
“Not on an inflatable,” the last syllable of the last word rising in that quaint Irish manner of understatement. “These lads had’a fire aboard or somet’in. It happens.”
Gaby shrugged with the pragmatism of a shore wife with many a decade of genuine worry under her belt.
The Station Commander being interviewed had been the first on scene. He was explaining how the explosion that had brought in the first reports, had ripped the boat to pieces.
The camera was showing the carnage of blood and ripped hull. The black Mercury engine casing was smashed open and the fuel line severed.
“It seems the lads might have had some kind of accident aboard, eh,” he speculated in his gentle Canadian lilt. “The fuel line seems t’ have been clean cut, possibly leading to the fire. We’re gathering what evidence we can, what evidence was not destroyed by the fire.”
“And the surviving man?” The interviewer pressed for any feedback.
“I’m afraid we’re not in a position to discuss more than has been released until all the next of kin of the three men have been notified.”
“We understand that a third man could not be accounted for?”
“As I said, we cannot go into any detail until all next of kin have been notified,” the spokesman hedged.
“And reports that the deceased man has suffered severe lacerations and other wounds consistent with a dispute?”
“The men were all related and lifelong friends, eh, with no history of violence. We must wait for autopsy results.”
“And the man in intensive care? Can you tell our viewers how he is progressing?”
“I’m sorry, that is a question for the doctors.”
The camera cut back to studio.
“In other news…”
“Where is Dad?”
“He’s safe luv,” Gaby assured.
“I know that Mom, I’m sure I’d know if he wasn’t. I just want to know how he’s doing?”
“Like a kid in a candy store, blabbering on ‘bout the biggest fish of his life comin’ o’er side. I don’t t’ink we’ll be seeing him for days yet.”
“It is very strange Mom, that the fishing suddenly explodes like this. What’s it been, decades since the Grand Banks collapsed? I was speaking to some of the locals and they said that until The Incident, it was a desert out there. And suddenly it’s a bounty?”
“The ocean’s like that dear,” Gaby assured. “Life blooms.”
“And the Lord works in strange ways, sure Mom.”
“And the Lord does,” Gaby nodded in earnest agreement.
“It doesn’t work like that. It really doesn't.”
“Well then… it’s all a wee bit beyond me,” Gaby threw her hands up in mock despair. “All I know is that your old father’s havin’ the time of his life, and that’s all I care about.”
“Well, I find it strange. And I find this boat thing strange too.”
“Now don’t y’a go chasin’ moon beams. Why not you an’ I take the time with Dad away to do a bit’a bonding? Tell me ‘bout y’re new man.”
“Please, mum,” the mention of Pete twisted a knife in Tegan’s gut.
It had been four days since she’d woken alone in the hotel bed, and her messages to him from the secure phone had gone unanswered.
Against her best judgment, she was sorely tempted to try to reach him on the open line, but each time she reached the time to do so, she’d push the deadline out by another twelve hours.
She was sure she could not resist much longer.
“He still hasn’t returned y’re call?”
“It’s okay Mum. He’s a busy guy.”
“Aye daughter of mine, but y’a don’t really mean that.”
Mum
’s gentle lilt felt like warm velvet caressing her mind.
“It is what it is,” Tegan heard herself say, and the sound of it twisted within her belly again.
“It’s almost lunchtime,” Gaby pointed out. “Let’s take a stroll t’ town. I saw’a place off Lumley Cove Road that looks too gorgeous.”
They strolled, arm in arm, the mile into town, chatting easily on a smorgasbord of topics; of love, and career, retirement and the chowder both had a yen for this surprisingly warm, late summer’s day.
About them was an embracing vista of green in its every hue, the brown of fall not yet upon them.
They greeted gentle folk going about their daily business of mowing lawns, or tinkering with boats up on trailers.
Everywhere were trailers, all loaded with boats. Down toward the small boat harbor was a row of vehicles, each with a naked boat trailer devoid of its load. The locals were taking full advantage of the boon in fishing.
The houses were of simple, white, clapboard construction and populated by smiling folks, most in their middle or late years.
Mother and daughter stopped at intervals to exchange pleasantries as they ambled into town.
“I can see what y’re doing,” Gaby assured Tegan.
“Doing?”
“Quizzing these good people. Can’t you switch off a second, luv?”
“It’s why I’m here Mum. I’m with you, but I’m working. I have an instinct for this. I can feel there are things connected here that nobody else seems to be getting.”
“Ahhh, well… always the journalist, I suppose,” Gaby smiled. “It’s harmless.”
“Daxton, the old man, the scientist I met with in New York,” Tegan reminded her mom, “...there was something about the axe, the one they found at the Gussets Cove attack. When I pressed him about what he knew, it seemed to really upset him. That’s when he upped and left. Well…”
She hesitated, wondering whether to burden her mother with the details she had received from an anonymous email address, knowing her mother would make light of it, suggesting nothing untoward.
“Spit it out luv,” Gaby encouraged.
“You won’t believe it anyway.”
“Try me.”
“The axe haft has been dated by dendrochronology.”
“As if I’d know what that means,” Gaby smiled warmly.
Ragnarok Page 11