Each night, we practiced the plan I had in mind. It was a sound plan, but it had one shortfall: us. It was one thing to stab a man in the back, but another to have an experienced warrior charge you. Heres's men were not nearly as battle-hardened as my father had been, but they seemed tough enough. I hoped my friends would be just as stout when the time came. I hoped I would be, too.
On the sixth day after Reas's death, the sling boy, Alrek, came running into the hall from the headlands. “Heres's ship comes!”
We had been sitting at the long table in the hall and now scrambled to our feet. “It is time,” I said as calmly as I could. “Remember your positions and your tasks, and we will look back on this day with a smile. Go now!”
It was time to take our vengeance.
Chapter 25
Heres's ship came into view just as we found our positions. The wind was slight, so the ship came forward under oar, dripping sea from its blades. Like venom from a serpent's fangs, I thought and shuddered.
For the hundredth time, I questioned our displacement and our plan. I felt the tug of doubt in my mind and glanced over at the places where I knew my friends were hiding. Sigdag was with me in the shrubs, twenty paces straight back from the beach. She had a bow, arrows, and a knife. I had a spear and my seax. Twenty paces to my right, in the stand of birch trees, hid Turid with her bow and seax. Twenty paces to my left was Egil with a spear and a seax. Alrek and his sling hid farther off to my left in the seagrass. The two other children hid farther back, behind the main hall. If things went badly for us, they at least could escape.
The ship came on, cutting through the bay's waters that glistened in the evening sun. Only the gulls protested the intrusion. Heres's rotund form stood on the aft deck, his mallet-sized hand on the ship's steer board. His four henchmen rowed steadily at the oars, their backs to us. Herkus and Raban sat at the mast. I could just see their heads above the wales.
I willed the ship closer, hoping Heres would think nothing of the silent strand that greeted him. And just as I thought that, his arm went up and he called for his men to stop. I cursed under my breath, and Sigdag cast me a frightened look.
The ship glided forward a bit, then turned slightly in the current, giving me a better look at Heres. His eyes were scanning the beach, and I knew he was wondering why no one had come to greet him. He turned and fumbled at something beside him, then raised a horn to his lips. The stentorian blast echoed across the still waters. Of course, no one came.
The ship stopped some thirty paces from the shore. So close I could see the wrinkles of consternation on Heres's pudgy face. My heartbeat hammered in my chest and at my temples, and I began to sweat. I knew my friends would be getting jumpy, but we could not yet attack. The men needed to be ashore or our chance at capturing Heres's vessel was lost.
Heres called to his men. They dropped their oars and fumbled with their sea chests. In the aft deck, Heres wiggled into his byrnie and fastened his helm on his round head. Though the others had no chain mail, they had their weapons and their shields and they put them close to hand. At the mast, Herkus and Raban looked at each other, then craned their necks to see what the commotion was about. I prayed they understood but feared that, in their confusion, they would just get in the way. My heartbeat quickened.
Heres grabbed the steer board and waved his men forward. They rowed hard until the ship's prow bit into the sand, then they grabbed their shields and weapons and leaped onto the shore, forming a rough shield wall on the beach. Heres pulled his sword, pointed it at Herkus and Raban, and ushered them onto the strand. There, he positioned them before the shield wall, intending to use them as human shields for any attack that might come.
I looked at Sigdag, who was crouched beside me. She questioned me with her eyes, and I held up my hand to tell her to wait. She nodded. As she settled, an arrow flew from the trees to my right. The missile pierced Heres's thigh, for he had exposed himself as he positioned his thralls before the shield wall. He cried out for his men to attack.
“There!” he cried. “In the trees!”
They moved to their left, toward Turid, forcing Herkus and Raban to run before them. But as they turned, they exposed their right and rear to us, and I saw our advantage. I rose and cast my spear with all my strength. It arced over the beach and glanced off the helmet of the warrior on the right flank, causing him to stumble. The others followed my lead and attacked. Sigdag's first arrow flew high. Egil's spear skittered onto the beach behind the warriors. A stone hit the back of another man, and he cursed and spun. Truth be told, it was a pathetic first round, but it was enough to confuse the men and give us the advantage.
I grabbed the bow from Sigdag's hands and tossed her my seax. The man who I had dropped with my spear was rising, and I put an arrow into his side. He dropped again with a cry of pain. Herkus and Raban scurried away from the shield wall but not fast enough. Heres's sword carved into the back of Herkus and dropped him, but as he did that, he exposed himself yet again and another arrow from Turid pierced his shoulder. He fell back into the protective circle of his men.
“To the hall!” I heard him scream.
His men formed a circle of shields around their leader and rushed for the main hall, which meant they ran straight for me and Sigdag and for our traps. I stood then so that the men could see me and know who it was that was killing them. And I stood so that their eyes would be on me and not on the ground.
When they saw me, they yelled their fury and charged. One of them stepped into our trap and screamed as the stakes pierced his foot. The others turned to help their comrade, and as they did, I sent an arrow into the back of one of the men. Turid narrowly missed with another missile, but Alrek sent a stone into the head of the man whose foot was trapped. The man ceased his screaming and collapsed.
That left three to stagger toward me and Sigdag behind their shields, but I could tell they were defeated. We sprinted to the left, away from their rush and toward Egil. They tried to follow, but an arrow from Turid cured them of that idea.
“To the hall!” Heres ordered and I almost laughed. It was as I had hoped and, yes, expected. Heres was man enough to hurt unarmed thralls, but when faced with opposition, he and his men did not have the stomach for a fight. I watched them scurry like rodents for safety, knowing that they would only find death behind those walls.
As the door shut behind them, I hooted to alert the two children hiding behind the hall. They scurried forth and barred the door with a heavy iron bar I had created just for this occasion. Egil and I ran then for the fire in the yard and pulled two iron rods from the flames. To either end of the hall we went, placing our red-tipped rods into the thatch until it smoldered. Sigdag and Turid joined us, casting burning branches and small logs onto the hall's damp thatch. They then returned to the yard and pointed their arrows at the hall's main door.
It took more time than expected for the thatch to smoke, for it had been a wet summer and the top thatch was moist. Soon, however, flames appeared, and when they did, the men inside began to panic. I heard them hacking at the door with their blades and shouting at each other. In short order, they managed to open a ragged hole the size of a fist, but it would not help them. I took the bow from Sigdag and when the hole grew, I loosed an arrow into that gap. A man shouted and fell and I hoped it was not Heres, because I had plans for him.
The hacking stopped, and the pathetic pleas of Heres began. Flames danced now on the thatch as smoke billowed thickly from the hole in the hall's door. A man coughed violently. The thralls watched me.
“Turid. Stand beside me,” I ordered. “Ready your bow. Egil. Open the door.”
“Let them burn,” he growled.
“Open it!” I shouted.
He moved to the door and kicked the bar free, then backed away with his seax at the ready. The door flew open, and out tumbled Heres and his one remaining guard in a cloud of gray smoke and searing embers. Heres was on his hands and knees, vomiting on the ground. Egil kicked his sword from hi
s hands. The other man staggered toward me, a sword in his hand. Turid and I sent our arrows into his chest. He was dead before he hit the ground.
“Get up!” I yelled at Heres.
He continued to cough and spit.
“Get up!”
The thrall master climbed to his feet and wobbled before us. Blood pooled on the thigh of his trousers and dripped through the chain links in the byrnie where Turid had hit him with her arrows. He coughed violently again, then lifted his face to gaze at me. “I should have killed you the day I bought you, thrall.”
“Aye,” I agreed. “You should have, but you did not. And now it is you who will die.”
“Where are my wife and son?” he asked between more stifled coughs.
“Dead,” I said simply.
Raban joined us, and I directed him and Egil to bind Heres's hands. The slave master had lost much blood and was too weak to resist. I then tied a hemp rope around his thick neck and pulled him to a birch tree that looked strong enough to hold his weight. He gawked at the tree, then back at me. “I beg of you, kill me quickly. Show mercy.”
I smiled wickedly at him. “You have driven mercy from me, Heres. I have none to give you. Nor do the others.” I tossed the loose end of the rope over a thick branch and yanked until it was taut. “Egil, grab the switches.”
He ran to recover the twigs the guards used to whip us. I had placed them in the pit-house for safekeeping. When he returned, I addressed the other thralls. “Take the switches and repay Heres for the pain he has caused you.”
“No!” The thrall owner cried. “Please. Do not!”
But it was too late. Egil tossed a twig to Raban and walked forward.
“No!” Heres cried again.
The first blow cut Heres's cheek. The next ripped his arm. Raban smacked his head and his wounded thigh. Turid attacked his face and neck. On and on it went until every thrall had slaked their thirst for vengeance and Heres had been reduced to a whimpering patchwork of bloody lines. I nodded then to Egil and Raban, who joined me at the rope. Together we pulled until Heres's kicking feet left the ground. His bound hands clawed hopelessly at the hemp that crushed his windpipe and turned his blood-streaked face blue. His body jerked like a fish on a line. And then he hung still.
I would not offer him the dignity of laying his corpse on the soft ground. I tied the rope to the trunk of a nearby tree so that his lifeless body hung there for the world to see. I hoped he would hang there for eternity, though I knew the birds and rodents would pick his bones clean soon enough.
I walked back to the group and surveyed their stony faces. Like me, they were free now, and like me, their faces displayed none of the joy I would have expected. Behind them, the hall was an inferno of flame and ash and smoke. Down near the beach, I could hear the moans of those not yet dead.
“How is Herkus?” I asked Raban.
Raban shook his head. “He is dead. Poor man.”
My stomach twisted at the news. In truth, I had thought more of us would perish that day, but even still, it was hard news to hear. “I am sorry,” I offered.
I walked to the beach and retrieved my spear. Then, one by one, I stabbed the bodies of the guards to make sure they were dead before taking from them their weapons, their shields, and their wealth. The booty I stacked beside the fire in the yard as the others silently looked on. They did not move to help me, and I did not want them to. This was my burden to bear, or so I felt, for I had started this and I would end it. The booty collected, I returned to the ship to inspect it. In it was silver, trade goods, food, ale, ropes, and a few tools. I called to the others to help me store it all in the pit-house.
We buried Herkus in a shallow grave next to Pipin and placed stones around his grave to form the shape of a ship. It was a pleasant spot and one we knew he would have liked. Most of the thralls cried as we whispered our prayers over his grave and said our final farewells, but I felt no such sadness. I felt only a vast emptiness that was as wide as the sea. I was still angry and not yet ready to let it go. I also felt responsible for the lives of the others, and it pressed on me like a stone.
“Tomorrow morning, we will leave,” I said to them when we had finished at the graves and entered the pit-house.
“Where will we go? What will we do?” asked Raban, who then belched.
“We head to Holmgard, in the land of the Rus.”
My response was met with a cackle from Raban. Sigdag frowned and shrugged her shoulders as if to say “why?” Raban then spoke. “You, Turid, and Egil are from the Northern realms. I am from Prussia, as are Sigdag and the children here,” he said, using his language's word for his homeland. “It is an even split, and we have but one boat. Did you think of that, Torgil?”
Raban had always been our jester. I had never heard threat in his words, nor had I ever heard him speak his mind. It made me frown. “We go there because it is our best chance to survive,” I explained with all of the patience I could muster from my weary body. “Olaf is there, as is his uncle, Sigurd, who enjoys the favor of the prince. Without their help, we are just escaped thralls. Nithings.”
I did not ask Egil, but he spoke anyway. “The Estland bastards killed my family, so it matters not to me where we go, so long as it is far away from here.”
“You may not have a homeland to return to, Torgil,” Raban added, “but in Prussia, our homes might still exist. We could find our kinsmen there. And shelter. Instead, you would have us sail days across an unknown sea to a place we know nothing about.”
I had not thought that far ahead, and his reasoning, while sound, frustrated me. I needed to find Olaf. He was my shelter and still my charge, and with him, I would exact my vengeance on those who had taken so much from us. Raban threatened to take that from me, and that thought enraged me. “You are free now because of me and the courage of those who sit around you. Unless you wish to fight me too, I ask that you accept what I am saying to you and come with us.”
“So now we are your thralls?” he countered with equal force. “Beholden to you?”
“No,” I spat. “You are not. You are free to walk away now and find your way home. The ship that sits in the harbor will not be taking you there. Take a weapon and some food too, if you wish. I will not stop you.”
Raban snorted and eyed the others.
“Torgil,” interjected Turid more calmly. “Would you really turn out Raban, Sigdag, and the children? We are few. Our chances of survival are better as a group. Besides, we know not if Olaf is even in Holmgard.”
“Nor do we know if Raban's kinfolk are even alive,” I barked at them. “Either direction is a risk.”
Raban cursed and lay back on his mattress. The others said no more. I gazed at the unease on their faces, and my stomach twisted. With a heavy sigh, I sat back against the wall of the pit-house and ran my dirty hand through my dirty hair.
It would be a long night.
Chapter 26
I did not sleep that night. At one point, Raban woke and looked over at me, and I purposefully moved my blade so he could see it in the light of the smoldering fire. He snorted and laid his head back down.
Long before dawn broke, I sheathed my seax and wandered out into the cold morning. As I left the pit-house, I counted the bodies and made sure they were all still asleep. Outside, the air was so thick with the smell of smoke and death that it raised the bile in my throat. I glanced at the hanging body of Heres and saw that the animals had started their feast. As much as I hated the man, I could not look at that gruesome sight for long.
I visted Heres's ship resting on the beach and worried briefly whether any of us knew how to sail it. I certainly was no sailor and only slightly remembered how ships worked. But I knew also that it was too late to worry about those things now — we would have to learn.
I climbed aboard and inspected the lines, the mast, the furled sail, and the steer board. I walked the deck and studied the nails and the wood. I went below deck to inspect the water the ship had taken on and was re
lieved to see it mostly dry. The ship itself was large enough and sturdy enough to carry us all to Holmgard, though as I pictured the journey in my mind, Raban's words crept into my thoughts. Like all of us, he and Sigdag had experienced innumerable horrors at the hands of Heres and his men. Why were they less worthy to return home than I was to reach my destination? The simple truth was that they were not. They deserved passage to their land, just as I deserved passage to Holmgard. The difference was that I had won the ship. They had not.
Beyond the aft wale, the first light of dawn was breaking, and as it did, I beseeched my father for some guidance. As if in response, a waddling of ducks took to the air — spooked, mayhap, by some sound — and headed southwest. Toward Prussia. I smiled wryly. Whether it was a divine sign or merely coincidence, I had my answer, and it was not as I had hoped. Of course.
When the others awoke, we gathered at the fire and broke our fast on boiled oats and apple bits prepared by Turid and Sigdag. Despite the awkward silence in which we ate, I, for one, savored the meal for the taste it left in my mouth and the warmth it left in my gut. But I could only eat a little, for I was not yet used to the feeling of a full stomach — it made me nauseous.
I set my bowl aside and stood before the others. They stopped and watched me with their uncertain eyes. “Last night, I spoke of sailing to Holmgard. I have reconsidered.” I did not want to tell the others of my vision, for I did not know how they would receive it. “We sail to Prussia first.” My words caused a commotion, and I held up my hand to silence them. “Those of us who are left will then try to reach Holmgard and Olaf. We leave today, if the weather holds. When you have finished breaking your fast, start loading the supplies in the ship.”
Raban came to me then and hugged me. There was a big, toothless grin on his thin face. “I thank you, Torgil, for this deed. It will not be forgotten.” Sigdag joined us and the tears in her eyes said more to me than any words she might have spoken. I glanced over at Egil and Turid, who had not risen but who smiled all the same, and I knew I had done right by them all. I just hoped we would live to enjoy the fruits of my decision.
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