Lightning Scarred

by Carolyn Ivy Stein

  Hersir walked toward me, accompanied by a group of men with spears.

  “Sir, the enemy is closing to board.” Otto pointed starboard where one of the enemy’s longships paired with a roundship was filled with men waving swords and spears. The wind shifted again, driving the ships toward us at speed.

  I nodded to Otto and shouted, “Shieldmen to the helm. Protect Buri.”

  Buri, our helmsman, growled at the sky, his wrinkled face anxious. “Someone here has angered Njord and now the god stirs up the sea and wind against us.” He gripped the steering oar more tightly. At my order two shield bearers joined him on either side, their axes and round wooden shields at the ready to protect him as he steered the boat.

  “Wind and water are always unpredictable,” I said, projecting more confidence than I felt. “Be prepared to change our heading on my orders.”

  Hersir caught up with me and continued the conversation. “Buri has a point. Each time the wind shifts it is to our detriment,” Hersir said. “It’s uncanny.”

  “The wind and sea were calm when the Curonians massacred Aspedammen, leaving not even a goat alive.” I said. “They were calm when our squadron arrived.”

  Hersir shuddered; I understood. We’d arrived too late to prevent the slaughter. The scene we found haunted me, as well.

  “The wind was calm when we sailed to punish the men who stained my land with blood,” I continued. They were good odds, I’d thought: our eight ships against their ten. We’d pursued the murderous bastards into the sea, trusting skill to make up for the enemy’s slight numerical advantage. Within half an hour, another fifteen enemy roundships, driven by a fresh wind and teeming with fighters, joined the battle.

  Hersir was silent as we prepared the ship for battle. Finally, the words burst from him, as if he could no longer keep them back. “Why kill all the villagers? Why not spare the children or seize the healthy men and women as thralls? And why fight here at sea?”

  I paused before saying simply, “They’re not raiders.”

  That was the crux of it. These men weren’t raiders, which meant their actions were senseless. Raiding was just that, you went in, killed when you had to, and stayed just long enough to grab the valuables. Then you left. There was no sense in fighting unnecessarily. No reason to kill every man, woman, child, and goat in a village.

  “What are they?”

  “I don’t know.”

  As we watched, unable to interfere, the enemy cut our smallest ship from the security of the fleet like wolves picking out and circling a wounded caribou. They flung pots of burning pitch at the trapped ship. The wind picked up, fanned the flames and subsumed the screams of the ship's brave crew into the wild howls of gales. After they captured the second ship the wind fought on the side of the enemy, forcing back our ships.

  Two more of our ships succumbed, and the enemy closed on us, pulling alongside with surprising ease. Thrown grappling hooks snagged Draken Björnen’s rigging and a wooden boarding ramp clunked against the deck.

  Heavy men stinking of spilt blood and garlic thundered across the ramp, axes still stained with the blood of Aspedammen’s children, shouting garble in a southern tongue.

  With guttural shouts, my personal guard surrounded me, shields out, just as they'd practiced many times. Together we pushed forward against the men streaming from the ramp, attempting to knock them into the sea.

  My ship rolled in the rough waves and then rolled back, pointing her dragon nose upward and then down again. Over and over again as the dark gray sea roiled, men filled the deck with a spreading pool of blood. Through it, Draken Björnen rocked like a live thing trying to throw off intruders.

  I focused, and the battle slowed down. The ships surrounding us became more distinct. I could make out their rigging, the overlapped planking of their hull, the enemy’s mail, and even a small bag of yellow cloth that seemed to glow in the meagre light. My heartbeat slowed and my mind cleared.

  Draken Björnen crested another wave, better revealing the watery battlefield. Four longships remained of my squadron—the largest and most maneuverable, all with sails unfurled to catch the wind and augment their rowers.

  The enemy maneuvered to surround us, eight wind-driven roundships from one direction, its six oar-driven longships from another. The roundships were refitted merchants but two were as large as Draken Björnen. Their warships were smaller but there were so many of them along with the roundships it was like gulls mobbing a hawk. Enough gulls and the hawk must flee.

  Their strategy shouldn’t be working. Using roundships and longships in this way could only work if the wind favored the fleet every single time.

  A wave crashed down and rolled across the deck, loosening my feet. I windmilled my arms, fought to stay upright, failed, and crashed into my shieldmen. A strong arm steadied me as I stood. The sudden waves caught others, as well. Two would-be boarders crossing the wooden bridge were swept over the side. This one bit of luck filled me with fierce joy, but the wave also swept Thorbert from the ship. He’d been the first to take the fight to the enemy as they boarded. Others grabbed the ship’s rail to steady themselves.

  "Thorbert overboard," I called out. Two of my shieldmen ran to assist, hacking through one enemy soldier's leg to reach the starboard side where Thorbert had gone over.

  The lead enemy ship scraped alongside Draken Björnen. It was faster than the rest and was maneuvered with more skill. More men boarded and the din of swords against swords, swords against wood, and axes against flesh abraded my ears. One of them, a slender, bare-chested, middle-aged man wearing blood-stained breeches, clutched a sword, wielding it with no more finesse than a thrall using a club. But even clubs are effective when you bring them down hard on another man's head, which he did, shattering the skull of one of my shieldbearers, splattering blood, brain, and bone in all directions.

  I lunged, plunging my sword into the idiot’s chest. He made no attempt to parry, and the blade sank deep. He crumpled, falling from my blade to reveal a ghastly, gore-field wound and added his blood to the rest spilled that day.

  On the ship alongside us, the enemy commander raised his left hand. A brilliant yellow light shone from his fingers and the wind carried an aroma of warm bread past us. He twirled a cloth over his head, saying something I couldn’t make out.

  The winds picked up, howling like a spurned woman. Was he controlling the wind through his spells, through the cloth, or was it just coincidence? Another mystery to solve.

  I raised my voice, keeping it even and calm. "Otto, your team protects the forecastle. No one who enters that space lives. Got it?"

  Otto raised his sword and brought it down on the nearest bare-headed barbarian, cleaving it in two and laughed. "One down!" he said in answer. Otto was the right man in the right space. One of the most powerful fighters Draken Bjornen had and utterly fearless, he would organize the resistance against the filthy southern barbarians.

  "Sir, it's the Knud Hrolf! She survived! Shall I signal her?" Raud asked, his youthful face suffused with hope. A bit of brightness on the edge of the water caught my eye. Was it…? Yes, the Knud Hrolf, the smallest ship in my squadron, one I’d thought lost. It was far away but approaching rapidly. My heart surged with joy. Perhaps the tide of battle had shifted. Or perhaps Jörd had come through in the way of all good commanders, by sending reinforcements.

  I hesitated. Something didn’t seem right, as if the air smelled of rotting death rippling with sour beer. After a moment I realized why. Despite the water soaking my clothes and hair, my mouth went dry.

  They had filled Knud Hrolf with debris. Her heading would bring her across Draken Björnen’s bow. If the thrice damned wind kept favoring them, a collision was inevitable. And if they lit her on fire…

  I calculated the trajectories in my mind, changed their heading mentally and calculated again. Damn! There had to be another way.

  The enemy’s flagship, a sleek beauty of a ship with a fat, ugly gnome as the figurehead, moved to our starbo
ard side, trying to herd us into the Knud Hrolf.

  I searched the horizon until I spotted it: a perfect ring of ice just large enough for one ship to pass through at a time.

  “Hersir! That's it! That’s Jörd’s blessing. Today is the summer solstice.”

  “What?

  “It’s the solstice. Jörd provides a way out for us. Use your horn to signal the ships to form in a line astern. We’re going through that arch and into Thule.”

  Hersir swung violently at the man in front of him, his blade dancing through the discord of battle, chopping through the man’s neck. “Thanks to Jörd!” he said.

  "Row!" I shouted into the circling wind. Through the ice ring I saw the Knud Hrolf aflame, sailing into our path, or what would be our path if the ice ring were not a portal to Thule.

  "What are we doing? We must turn aside." It was Riodr.

  I gazed at Riodr, but addressed the entire crew, raising my voice slightly but remaining calm. "Men, do not fear death. The hour of our doom is set and only the gods know it. We cannot escape the gods or our fate, but we can escape these men. Rest oars, port; fast stroke: starboard. Through that ice ring."

  The ship groaned as we made the tight turn. Ahead, the Knud Hrolf sailed toward us, fire licking the sky, scenting the air with the smell of burning wood.

  "Push through. We will not burn today."

  "True enough," said, Hersir. "We will freeze."

  "Better to freeze than to burn, right old man?" I grinned, happy that Hersir had seen the same thing I saw. This would work. "Will our ships follow?" I asked Hersir, looking across the water as my fleet lined up stem to stern.

  “They’ll follow. They heard the horn and they trust you. They know you and the goddess will guide us through this.”

  The men rowed. This time the wind shifted to our benefit, speeding Draken Björnen toward the portal rapidly as if the wind were driving us into Thule or into the fiery Knud Hrolf. Could it be the god of wind didn’t know Thule was on the other side? Or perhaps Jörd’s silver paws were pulling us through.

  Knud Hrolf shifted in the wind and suddenly the small ship’s path changed slightly, but it was just enough. The enemy’s gnome flagship was still sidled up against our starboard side, trying to herd us into the Knud Hrolf.

  “Watch out!” Hersir shouted. He picked up an oar and thrust it at the enemy’s flagship.

  I turned to my shieldman. “Assist Hersir! Push that ship aside. We must enter the ice ring clean.” They hesitated. I shouted, “By Odin! Now!”

  The men at the stern unhitched their oars and pushed against the gnome ship’s hull, slowly turning it aside. Again, I saw a brief gleam of yellow light. A final shove sent it toward the hardened ice of the portal.

  “No. It can’t hit—”

  The gnome ship crashed into the ice ring just as Draken Björnen’s stern pushed into Thule. The sea beyond the ice ring was lit by perpetual twilight and the sea was jammed with ice. Colored lightning flashed around both ships. From my position I saw the ice ring transform into the mouth of an enormous ice beast, with glittering teeth and a gullet large enough to swallow a flotilla of ships.

  “Grab something, men! Stabilize yourselves,” I shouted just before the ship rocked violently from stem to stern and back again, smashing the rail into my ribs.

  Hersir sounded the order to brace for bad weather on his horn. I hoped the crews on the ships behind us heard and obeyed.

  The ice beast opened its maw further and I felt a wind suck at the ship, crew, and aspiring boarders alike, pulling us toward the giant throat. For a moment brilliant light illuminated Thule. I swallowed the scream that wanted to boil from my lips as intense pain coursed through my entire body. Wherever the lightning scars incised my skin, the pain burned through.

  The strange light didn’t come from anywhere I could see, but it showed me Thule and an underwater city perfectly. Iridescent buildings rose from the sea floor covered by a shimmering dome, looking as if they’d been carved by expert craftsmen.

  Then I realized I was the source of the light. The lightning flashing through and out of me was the reason we could see the city. For a blazing moment I was Jörd’s light and I could see every inch of Thule as if seen through her eyes.

  Then I fell into blackness.

  I woke, and the world was dark, cold, and eerily quiet. The air smelled of winter ice. Everyone on the ship had collapsed where they stood and were still unconscious. It looked like all of my crew had hung on and made it through. A few of the boarders came with us, as well.

  I didn’t know how long I’d been unconscious, but I could still feel a buzzing through my veins and the crushing headache and nausea the lightning left behind. Good. Lightning rushing through me again was a sign of Jörd’s favor.

  I stood, checked the men around me, then moved toward the bow, checking the others as I passed. Alive, but unconscious.

  I shook Buri awake. His face was greenish gray. He looked as bad as I felt. I helped him stand and led him to the steering oar, which he gripped so hard his knuckles went white. Or perhaps he was simply cold. We’d moved from summer heat to bitter cold.

  A look of puzzled wonder lit Buri’s face. “Sir, where are we? It shouldn’t be this dark.”

  “We’re in Thule. Time doesn’t work the same here. I’m guessing it’s autumn. Are you okay alone? I need you to keep us on course.”

  Buri nodded. Then shook his head. “I don’t know where we are.” He looked over the water and gasped. My gaze followed his to the sunken city, visible through the water. People moved within, but the water was too deep to make out details. The city’s beauty held me like a glamour, but I couldn’t stay to watch. We had to secure our ships before the enemy recovered.

  Buri stared, and I shook him. “Buri, I need you to steer. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir. Shouldn’t someone keep an eye on the city?” There was longing in his voice, and I felt it, too. It was a great wonder, one worthy of exploration, but later.

  “Wake up your shieldmen. One watches your back, one watches the city.”

  I walked the length of Draken Björnen, waking my men and instructing them to disarm the still unconscious enemy boarders and gather them in the bow. I posted two guards to prevent any mischief.

  “Just toss them overboard,” one man suggested.

  “We are men, not monsters. We live to a code,” I said.

  Even with the sounds of the men rising, it didn’t touch the silence. Thule’s quiet was deeper than anywhere I’ve been, a primordial silence as must have existed when Midgard was new.

  A rhythmic creak as the ship moved gently in the water sounded almost like the ship’s own breath. The oars hung free in the oarlocks, tied there with twisted birch withings more durable than any hemp rope. The sound of the oars as they moved with the light current and knocked against the ship’s sides seemed to provide a counterpoint to the creaking of the wood, the flapping of the sail, the susurrations of the water displaced by the bow. For a moment they were random sounds of the ship as they’d always existed, a symphony that spoke of home on the water. Then the sound shifted in my mind. The random noises weren’t random anymore. The ship spoke.

  No. It wasn’t speaking. It was praying.

  “Master of Lightning, Creator of ships, Ruler of men, Glorious Shipmaster Caedmon, I beseech you hear my prayer.”

  I stopped as still as a hunting crane, my heart beating rapidly. My ship, my precious Draken Björnen, could speak. Could pray. To me. I listened.

  “We are in strange waters, Honored One. We thank you this day for smoothing our boards and scraping away the parasites that consume us. We beg you for fair winds and following seas. We beseech you, deliver us from the monster reaching its tentacles toward us, each as large as us. Please hear your ship’s humble plea.”

  For a long moment all was silent while I contemplated what I’d just heard and the strangeness of ships capable of prayer. After a moment, the last of Draken Björnen’s prayer penetrated
my mind and my guts twisted. There was a monster coming.

  I yelled to the crew. “Monsters below. Prepare to fight.” I ran down the center of the ship heading to the stern while dodging spirals of rope, debris from the battle, and a few dead bodies. Hersir would still be near the forecastle.

  I found Hersir managing the sail with Otto, looking pale but moving. Reassured Hersir was okay, I turned Otto. “A sea monster comes to attack our ships. We need every man at arms. Go, now. And don’t kill the boarders. We may need them yet.”

  Even as I said it, I felt a strange sense of compression and something else. Fear? Sympathy? A vision sprang to my mind: the smallest enemy ship seen from underwater, a huge tentacle wrapped around it, now crushing its hull.

  Draken Björnen spoke to the other ships. “Courage. Shipmaster Caedmon comes to our aid. Hang on! Resist the monster.” It was followed by the dreadful sound of wood screaming as a hull cracked under the strain.

  Odin’s Eye! We had only moments before its crew tumbled into the icy sea. If ice shock didn’t kill them instantly they would drown in minutes.

  “Hersir, take one man and the ship’s boat.” I pointed. “That ship is about to go under. Save everyone you can. And bring me their commander. I want to parley.”

  “This isn’t wise, Caedmonkin,” Hersir said, using the endearment from my boyhood. “The enemy will attempt to take over our ship if we rescue them. If they die, all the better for us.”

  I closed the distance until I could smell Hersir’s foul breath and feel the pulse that beat irregularly in his throat. My jaw tensed and I lowered my voice, letting just a hint of steel remain. “I am your king, not your boy. You swore to obey my orders. Do as I say, do it now, and as your friend I will forget your momentary weakness. And bring me their captain. All our lives hinge on it.”