Raider's Wake: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 6)

by James L. Nelson

  Starri ate quick and then climbed up onto the stem, now the highest perch aboard Fox. He remained motionless, facing the land, his eyes like a bird of prey scanning the distance for any sign of motion.

  Thorodd, standing at Thorgrim’s side on the afterdeck, nodded forward. “Starri makes a fine figurehead,” he said. “I think I’ll keep him in place of that bit of carved oak.”

  Thorgrim smiled despite himself, despite how humorless he felt at that moment. “He’s far more frightening than anything else you could put there,” he agreed.

  The sky grew lighter still, pale blue in the east, dark blue in the west. And then the sun broke the horizon and lit up Fox like a blazing fire sprung to life, casting long shadows down the deck. It touched the highest peaks on the land to the west, lighting them up, creeping down the high ground to the coast and then to the sea. Thorgrim sat a little straighter, half expecting Starri to call out that he had seen the ships right ahead and underway. But he did not.

  Rather, Starri was silent and remained silent for a maddeningly long time. The men finished their meal. Some dozed leaning on the ship’s sheer strake. Others stared off north or south. There was no looking to the east, into the brilliant morning sun.

  Thorgrim Night Wolf had many strengths, but waiting patiently was not one of them, which was unfortunate because both seafaring and raiding often required just that. But try as he might, and he did try, he could not avoid growing irritable as the sun climbed higher in the sky and Starri stared silently forward. And so when Starri at last sung out, “There they are, Night Wolf! They’re coming out at last!” he felt palpable relief.

  The men on the sea chest sat upright, smiled, looked past the bow. Good cheer swept over the ship just as the first brilliant rays of sunlight had done that morning.

  Thorgrim, who had been leaning against the side of the ship, straightened and headed forward, Thorodd at his side. He stepped up to the foredeck and stood to the starboard side of the stem. Starri was standing with one foot on the starboard sheer strake, one on the larboard, hugging the stem like it was his lover and staring out toward the shore.

  “Where are they, Starri?” Thorgrim asked.

  “You see that high peak, just a little off the starboard bow? The odd-shaped one? Look just in front of that and you can see them, like little ducklings paddling out to sea.”

  Thorgrim looked. He squinted, he looked sideways, he looked with one eye and then the other. “If you say so, Starri, then I’ll believe you,” he said at last. “Are they under sail?”

  “No, they’re rowing away from the land,” Starri said. That made Thorgrim feel better. It was reasonable, and not a sign that his eyes were failing with old age, that he could not see ships with their sails furled. Thorodd could not see them either.

  “They’re likely anxious to get off this lee shore,” Thorodd said and Thorgrim nodded his agreement.

  “They’ll row away from land until they have sea room enough and then set sail,” Thorgrim said.

  “Should I set the sail now?” Thorodd asked. “Signal the others to get underway?”

  “Not yet,” Thorgrim said. “We’re invisible to them now, with the sun behind us. We’ll let them get as close as we can before we leap on them. But you may as well get the mast stepped again.”

  Thorodd turned to oversee that operation and Starri continued to watch the ships approach and Thorgrim continued to stare in that direction in hope of seeing something. And finally he did. Just the smallest of specks, moving across the water, but distinct from the land behind them. Moving fast.

  “Why do they have so many men for the oars?” Thorgrim wondered out loud. Every merchantman he had known carried a small crew, five or six men. But these ships seemed to have oars manned like a longship.

  “I can’t imagine,” Starri said. “They’re not warriors, we know that. They ran like rabbits from us. But they each have full banks of oars. Madness.”

  “Or maybe not,” Thorgrim said. “It means they’re faster than other merchant ships when the wind fails. And they seem faster when the wind is up as well.”

  Soon the merchant ships were more visible still, and even Thorgrim did not doubt his eyes. One by one they hoisted sail, the cloth lit up golden by the sun which was still low to the horizon. They set a course roughly south, but still tending away from the coast. They had not yet seen the fox lying in wait. They would not have set that course if they had.

  “Very good, Thorodd!” Thorgrim called aft. “We have them now! Set the sail!”

  There were smiles down the deck as the men tailed into the halyard. The big yard rose up to the top of the mast and the corners of the sail were pulled aft. The wind was almost astern of them now, which was good for Fox or any longship. Soon they would swoop down on Brunhard and his little fleet and help themselves to whatever they might find.

  Thorgrim looked astern, held his hand up to his forehead to shade his eyes from the sun. The other ships were off to the east, but not so far that he could not see them. They had seen Fox’s sail go up, the signal for them to do the same. He could make out Sea Hammer’s red and white sail and he smiled. He knew Harald would have had his eyes fixed on Fox, waiting for the very second Fox’s sail appeared, determined to be the first of the fleet to respond to the signal. And he was.

  Underfoot Thorgrim felt the ship heel to the pressure of the sail, felt the life come back into her timbers as she stopped her wallowing in the sea and gathered her determined and powerful momentum. He stepped aside as three of Thorodd’s men hurried forward bearing the figurehead, which they proceeded to return to its place on the stem. Waiting and watching were over.

  As smallest ship in the fleet, Fox was also the slowest and soon the others began to come up with her, Sea Hammer in the lead. Thorgrim knew that Harald would be constantly adjusting course and the set of the sail, probably driving the men to madness as he tried to squeeze every bit of speed out of the already fast ship.

  But Harald did know how to drive her, and soon she was ranging up along Fox’s side. Thorodd took charge of Fox’s tiller and the two ships inched closer to one another. Harald sent one of Sea Hammer’s more nimble men up aloft to tie a rope to the leeward end of the yard which was swung over to Fox. Thorgrim grabbed hold of the rope, climbed up onto Fox’s sheer strake and swung across the gap between the two ships. He landed back aboard his own vessel with all the grace he could muster and tried not to show his relief that he had not plunged into the sea.

  They swung the rope back and Starri took it up. He swung across the gap, but rather than landing on the deck, he swung into the shrouds and grabbed hold of the heavy, tarred line and raced up to the top of Sea Hammer’s mast where he could get the best possible view of their quarry. He wrapped his legs around the masthead, looked west and whooped with delight.

  “Oh, Night Wolf!” he shouted. “Now they’ve seen us, and now they’re running, but it’s too late for them!”

  Chapter Seventeen

  A fifth I know: when I see, by foes shot,

  speeding a shaft through the host,

  flies it never so strongly I still can stay it,

  if I get but a glimpse of its flight.

  The Song of Spells

  Brunhard seemed angrier, and more unnerved, than Louis had seen him anytime during their brief acquaintance. He snatched up an earthenware cup that he had set on the deck and flung it against the side of the ship, smashing it into bits, spraying Louis and the helmsman with shards. He swore a terrible stream of oaths, cursing the lookout and the Northmen and the Irish and God.

  Up above, the lookout remained in position at the masthead, apparently not eager to return to deck, and Louis could well imagine why. No one else on board made a sound.

  The Northmen must have done something clever, Louis thought. He stood and looked inconspicuously out to sea but he could see nothing of the raiders the man aloft had spotted.

  He understood in a general way what Brunhard had done the day before to escape the
pursuers. He knew that Brunhard considered it the most clever thing devised by man, and himself the cleverest of men for having pulled it off. But now, apparently, the Northmen had done something clever in their own right, and Brunhard was not taking it well.

  Well, those heathen bastards can be clever, that’s for certain, Louis thought. He had seen Thorgrim Night Wolf pull off more than a few clever tricks. He had even been Thorgrim’s victim on more than one occasion. So he knew the heathens were not to be underestimated.

  And then another thought occurred to him and his stomach tightened. He tried to dismiss it. It was, of course, ridiculous. The coast of Ireland was swarming with these Northmen. The odds against the man hunting them being Thorgrim Night Wolf were too much to calculate.

  Ridiculous! Louis thought. But he could not shake it.

  And then yet another thought came: it did not really matter. If the Northmen now in pursuit caught them and overwhelmed them, then Louis was going to die fighting, and it didn’t really matter if it was Thorgrim who killed him or some other blood-hungry savage.

  That thought did not bring him much comfort. Nor was it much comfort to realize that if the Northmen didn’t kill him, then Brunhard certainly would.

  “Ah, damn them!” Brunhard shouted. “Damn them all to hell!” He crossed to the leeward side and spit a great globule of spit into the sea. He stepped back to the middle of the afterdeck, arched his back, slapped his hands against his broad stomach. He looked down at Louis and grinned his great grin.

  “There! I feel better now! Now I’m ready to bugger these Northmen the way you Franks bugger your goats!”

  Louis shook his head. A moment before, Brunhard had been shouting his anguish and despair into the morning sky, and now he was grinning like there was some great feast laid out before him. Louis was starting to wonder if the man was a complete lunatic.

  Brunhard stepped over to the windward side, looked out to sea. He stared for some time, not moving, not speaking. Then he looked over at the shore to the west, then up at the sail, bellied out taut in the stiff breeze.

  “Helmsman! Fall off now, fall off!”

  The helmsman pulled the tiller toward him, just a bit, and Louis could see Wind Dancer’s bow swing to the right, turning toward the land.

  “Silef!” Brunhard called forward. Silef was one of Brunhard’s Frisian crew, the one he trusted most, as far as Louis could tell. When it came to driving the Irish slaves, Áed was Brunhard’s man. But for anything that had to do with seamanship, it was Silef.

  Now Silef, who was nearby and apparently expecting Brunhard’s summons, called, “Yes, Master Brunhard?”

  “Get some of these lazy whore’s sons to the sheets and braces! We’ll have the wind on our larboard quarter soon enough!”

  Silef turned and began to shout orders that Louis would not have understood even if he spoke better Frisian than he did. A great bustle ensued, during which this rope was pulled and that rope was slacked and the yard overhead moved a bit and then everything was pronounced correct and set back as it was. On the thwarts the Irish slaves looked warily around, unsure of what was happening, risking a beating with their curiosity.

  And now Wind Dancer’s bow was pointed back toward the land. Not directly, they were approaching the shore at an oblique angle, but they were, without question, approaching the shore.

  “Now, see here, Brunhard,” Louis said. “This very morning you lectured me about the importance of keeping away from the land, and now you are clearly sailing right for it again. I wonder at what you are thinking. Did the heathens trick you in some way?”

  Brunhard turned quick and Louis saw the anger on his face and just as fast he saw it brushed away as the Frisian fixed his grin like a mask. “Heathens!” he said, spitting the word. “They waited for us offshore, hid behind the rising sun. It’s as clever as heathens get. But now I’ll do for those bastards.”

  Louis nodded. But Brunhard had not answered his question, and he wanted an answer. Louis de Roumois was naturally curious, but there was more to it than that. He knew that his fight with Brunhard and the others was not over, that the incident with Conandil and the stash of silver he had in his bag had not been forgotten. And this ship was a foreign country to him, ground not of his choosing. The more he knew about it, the better he could fight.

  “But you haven’t told me, Brunhard, why are we going back toward the land?”

  “Ah, you ignorant Frankish cur, you try my patience!” Brunhard shouted. “Yes, the shore is a great danger, particularly with the wind as it is. But if it is a danger to us, it is a danger to the heathen as well. And the heathen is not as great a seaman as I am, and he is not as clever as I am. So I will get him to a place of danger and then I will play a trick on him and we’ll see the end of his miserable existence. Now do you understand?”

  “Yes, I think so,” Louis said. “But what is the trick you will play on him?”

  “It’s a very clever trick,” Brunhard said. “It’s a trick blessed by God, who has given me just the right conditions to play it. Because God loves Brunhard as much as everyone else does. And you, Louis the Frank, will have to wait to see what great, clever trick I pull from my bag!”

  Once again Sea Hammer stretched out a lead over the other ships in Thorgrim’s fleet, five ship-lengths ahead of Blood Hawk, which was also fast and well-handled, and much more than that over the smaller ships. Brunhard’s merchantmen, still a mile and a half ahead of them, were running with their tails between their legs. They were fast. For merchant ships. But Thorgrim could see their lead visibly dropping away.

  He stood on Sea Hammer’s sheer strake, on the weather side, one hand on the aftermost shroud. The tar on the rope was sticky against his palm, the line bar-taut and quivering with the pounding of the ship in the sea. With every third or fourth plunge of the bow, Sea Hammer would send spray aft, as if she was splashing him in a playful way. He breathed deep. He loved this, every bit of it.

  But that feeling, he knew, was based in part on his certainty that they would catch this son of a bitch Brunhard. He would not slip through their fingers again. That would be too infuriating by half.

  “He’s running like a rabbit for the shore,” Harald said, standing nearby. With the hum of the rigging and the pounding of the ship in the waves and the rush of the easterly wind Thorgrim had not heard his son step up to his side.

  “Nowhere else for him to go,” Thorgrim said. “If he tries to run in any other direction he only shortens the distance between us.”

  Harald was silent for a moment, and then asked, “Do you think he’ll try what he did yesterday? Tuck in through some treacherous place where only he knows the safe passage?”

  “No,” Thorgrim said. “That was a good trick, but it only works if all things are just right, and this dog Brunhard had luck with him.”

  “How’s that?” Harald asked.

  “Recall, it was just sunset when he closed with the land,” Thorgrim said. “And he had the headland to block our view of the passage he took. Plus, the wind had died away, so he had little chance of being driven ashore.”

  “I see,” Harald said.

  “I’m not saying the bastard isn’t clever. He had the perfect conditions, sure, but he also knew how to make use of them. But now I think luck will be with us.”

  They were quiet for a moment, and Thorgrim could feel a creeping discomfort. He wondered if he was tempting the gods by suggesting he and his men would be lucky today. So he decided to explain further, aware that he was making his case to Thor and Njord as much as he was to Harald.

  “Even if Brunhard knows another passage in through some rocks, he would not try it in this wind,” Thorgrim said. “Not with such a dangerous lee shore. Besides, that only works if it’s getting dark and we can’t see the passage he takes, so we can’t follow him in. We’ll be up with him well before dark.”

  “Of course,” Harald said. “I wonder how close he’ll dare get to this lee shore.” Instinctively the young man tur
ned his head into the wind, felt the breeze on his face. He swiped a long strand of yellow hair from his mouth and turned back to look in the direction that Thorgrim was looking, toward Brunhard’s ships.

  “We’ll see,” Thorgrim said. “It may be his plan to try and get so close to shore that we dare not follow. If so, it’s not much of a plan. Our ships are more weatherly than his, and there is no Frisian merchantman can match us for seamanship.”

  Thorgrim remained where he was for a little time longer, then climbed down from the rail and headed aft. The men of Sea Hammer were gathered up on the weather side, some sleeping, some sharpening weapons, all silently grateful for the wind that drove the ship faster and easier than the oars would have done.

  Starri was sitting on the edge of the afterdeck, sharpening the long knife he wore on his belt. The two battle axes he always carried into a fight were waiting their turn.

  “Once more I say, don’t get your hopes up, Starri,” Thorgrim said. “They’re just merchantmen, you know. I don’t think they’ll put up a fight, once we catch them.”

  “Maybe not,” Starri said. “They used trickery last time, but I don’t know that it will work again. But I’ve been thinking about this, Night Wolf.”

  That’s never good, Thorgrim thought, but he said, “About what?”

  “Well, you were the one who asked why they had so many men at the oars. So that makes me wonder if maybe they are only merchantmen for part of the time. Maybe this Brunhard has his mind set on some raiding as well, or gathering cargo by taking it from other merchant ships. Maybe he has warriors on board. Maybe this time they fight.”

  “Hmm,” Thorgrim said. “Maybe.”

  That was in fact an uncharacteristically reasonable thought. And it gave Thorgrim some hope. Because he wanted to drive his sword, Iron-tooth, through Brunhard’s chest, but he was not the sort who would butcher a man who was posing no threat. If Brunhard did him the courtesy of offering battle, however, then he would happily cut the man down.