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

by James L. Nelson

  And so, when Brunhard ordered his ship to turn up into the wind and let the sail flog, Conandil had a pretty good idea of what he was doing.

  He’ll need some way to escape, she thought. She had heard the lookout report the ship farther out to sea, just sitting, waiting. She had seen the look on Brunhard’s face, the surprise and the touch of fear.

  They’re waiting for you, Brunhard, you bastard, and you know it, she thought.

  As Conandil expected, the two other ships came up close to Brunhard’s and they, too, let their sails spill the wind to stop their forward momentum. Brunhard called for their masters to turn and sail for Ireland. He assured them he would keep his own ship back, try to protect them as best he could. Then they filled their sails, turned their ships, and plunged off to the westward.

  Conandil frowned and kept her eyes on Brunhard as Brunhard, in turn, shifted his gaze from the land a few miles beyond the bow to the place astern where this unknown ship was coming for them.

  Now, what are you about? Conandil thought. She was buoyed to hear that Brunhard’s plan was to run for the Irish coast. She and the others might not be any freer there than they were at that moment, but remaining in Ireland was certainly preferable to the open sea, or the Frisian slave markets. As long as they were in Ireland, they had a chance.

  But she doubted very much that Brunhard felt that way, and she certainly did not believe his noble-sounding words about hanging back and protecting the smaller ships of his fleet. She had been watching Brunhard as closely as she had been watching the working of the ship. His concerns did not extend beyond the limits of his own skin.

  Aft, the helmsman worked the tiller side to side as he fought to keep the ship running downwind. The motion had changed dramatically with the change of course. Now, rather than pounding into the sea, the ship was twisting and rocking fore and aft and slewing side to side in the building waves. The wind, which seemed to have been howling just moments before, now seemed to drop away, but Conandil understood that was just because the ship was moving with the wind, not against it.

  No one seemed to be paying her any attention, so she rose slowly to her feet to get a better look around. The long, low shoreline of Ireland, looking gray green in that muted light, was stretched out beyond the bow and not so far away. The sight of it gave Conandil another flash of hope.

  She turned and looked astern. She could see the Norsemen’s ship behind them now. It had its sail set, which apparently it had not before, which was why it had been so hard to see. The sail had on it a checkered pattern and Conandil was fairly certain it was one of the four Norsemen’s ships that had chased them days before. At least, the sail appeared similar to that other one.

  She stood motionless, pressed against the side of the ship, but her mind was rolling, pitching and yawing as much as the vessel underfoot. She looked at the Northman astern. Mostly just the sail was visible, though she had occasional glimpses of the hull on those moments when both vessels rose on a wave at the same moment. She was no judge of the speed of ships, but she knew that longships were reputed to be fast, and she did not think Brunhard would make it to the coast before the heathens in their wake ran them down.

  Conandil looked at the Norsemen’s ship. So what will you do? she wondered. Her eyes moved to Brunhard, who was also looking behind him at that moment. And what will you do?

  The answer, at least for the time being, was nothing, nothing beyond what the two ships were doing already. The Northman did not alter course, just stayed directly behind them, getting closer as the sun, just visible behind the clouds, began to drop into the west. Brunhard continued to run hard for the coast, his two ships a few hundred yards ahead of him, their sails straining in the following wind.

  “Silef!” Brunhard shouted down the deck. “Check the sheets away some! Spill some wind!”

  Conandil watched intently as the men moved to the ropes made fast near the back end of the ship. She had an idea what they were about to do, but she was not certain. She watched as they untied the ropes, taking great care to not untie them all the way, but rather leave a loop around the wooden bar to which they were tied.

  Those are very tight, with this wind, Conandil thought. Those particular ropes, the “sheets” apparently, were holding down the bottom corners of the sail. She could see the enormous pressure that wind was putting on the ropes. It was clear that if the sailors lost control of one of them then the sail would fly up in complete confusion.

  But the sailors were skilled at their work and they did not lose control. Instead they eased the lines away, just a few yards, letting some of the wind spill from the sail and slowing the ship up a bit.

  This is how he lets the other ships keep ahead, Conandil realized.

  “Good!” Brunhard shouted. “Sheet home!” Now, with considerable effort, the men at the sheets hauled away, pulling back the few yards of rope they had just let out.

  Interesting, Conandil thought. It was like much of the workings of the ship, interesting but of no obvious use to her. The sailors tied the sheets to their wooden bars again and the four vessels, Brunhard’s three and the longship in their wake, settled once again into their race for the shore, silent save for the creak of the rigging, the pounding of the seas on the hull.

  It was some time later that Conandil, still standing at the bow, thought, Brunhard will lose this race… She knew she was right. The longship, relentless in pursuit, had come up behind them, yard by yard, close enough now that Conandil could see the ship’s hull clearly, the tall, curved wood of the bow, crowned with some frightening carving, the long, low sweep of the ship bow to stern. She had seen longships with shields mounted on the sides, but this ship did not have them and Conandil guessed they had been taken off in preparation for fighting.

  Interesting, Conandil thought, and her mind began to arrange the facts in logical order. She knew three things, based on what she could observe. One was that the Northmen would most certainly overtake Brunhard’s ship. The second was that Brunhard would not try to fight them when they did. The third was that Brunhard did not intend to give himself up to the Northmen. In the best of circumstances one could expect little mercy from heathens. If these were indeed the same ones whom Brunhard had tricked earlier, it would go even worse for him.

  So he has some other way to escape, some trick planned… Conandil concluded. And it was only a few moments later, as Brunhard began to issue orders, that the plan began to reveal itself, like the sun rising above the horizon.

  “All right, you bastards, listen to me!” the Frisian shouted forward, and all the sailors’ stood and turned aft, eager to hear their fate.

  “This damned heathen, he’s right on our ass, as you can see!” Brunhard continued. His usual, jovial tone was gone now, and in its place anger that Conandil guessed was masking real fear. “He’ll come up alongside us, along our starboard side, would be my guess. Here’s what we’ll do. Once his bow is up with our stern, we’ll swing right around up into the wind, close-hauled. We’ll sail off to weather and he’ll sail right past us, and if we have any luck at all he won’t follow us, but instead go after those poor bastards ahead of us, Two Bothers and Galilee.”

  Conandil could see heads nodding among the crew. She was not entirely sure what it was that Brunhard was planning. It seemed he had some plan to get the heathens to attack the other ships and leave him alone, which sounded like the sort of thing he would come up with. Whatever it was, the other sailors seemed to approve.

  “We’ll have to move quick and sharp,” Brunhard continued. “Let us have hands to the sheets, tacks and braces. Run the beitass out over the larboard side, but be ready to shift it in an instant! Go!”

  And the men went. They moved fast, taking position at the ends of various ropes, grabbing up the heavy pole that lay on the ship’s deck and thrusting it out over the larboard side. The longship was not more than one hundred feet astern of them now, reminding them of the urgency of their situation.

  Conandil could feel t
he tension on board, the sense of waiting to spring, all things hanging in balance. Brunhard’s eyes were shifting to the ship coming up hard astern, and to the men standing ready and to the two slave ships beyond the bow.

  He’ll sail right past us…that’s what Brunhard said. The plan seemed to be growing clearer to Conandil, like a fog lifting off a hilltop. From what she could understand of the sailors’ talk, Brunhard would wait until the last instant and then turn his ship quick, try to sail off, hope the Northmen would go after the other two.

  Will it work? She had no idea. Do I want it to work? That was a bigger question. Would she and the other Irish captives be better off with the Northmen or with Brunhard?

  There was no way to know. But she did know that if their fate was in Brunhard’s hands, then their lives would be hell, no better, until they died some miserable death. Her husband was gone, likely dead. One way or another, her life as she had known it was over, her one real taste of happiness and security ripped away. But if she was going to hell, she was taking Brunhard with her.

  Five feet from where she stood was the barrel of dried fish from which she had been feeding the rowers, and on top of that was a knife. It was a simple thing, a wooden handle, a heavy iron blade ten inches long and wickedly sharp. She had used it to cut up the fish nearly every day since they had been underway.

  “Get ready!” Brunhard bellowed. Conandil looked from the knife to the stern of the ship. The Northman was almost on them now. She could see men standing at the Northman’s bow, leaning around the stem on which was mounted the cruel-looking figurehead: big men, bearded men, men holding swords and axes and ropes with grappling hooks. Not more than twenty feet separated the bow of the longship and the stern of the slaver.

  “Ready!” Brunhard shouted again, and Conandil thought, Yes, I am.

  She crossed the five feet of deck on two long bounds and snatched up the knife. She turned and looked aft. No one noticed, so intent were they on the jobs they had to do. She raced aft and that at last drew some attention. She saw men look up in surprise, heard Brunhard shout, “What in hell?”

  Silef was there, blocking her way, arms spread wide like he was trying to herd a flock of ducks, but Conandil did not slow. She led with the knife as she raced aft, a knife Silef apparently had not seen since he made no move to avoid it as she drove it into his gut. His eyes went wide and he hunched forward and made a strangling noise, but Conandil did not wait to see him fall. She jerked the knife free as she ran, felt the blood warm on her hand. She screamed. Not a scream of fear or pain or anger, but a war cry. A war cry of her people.

  It was a terrifying sound. She could see the men standing by the starboard sheet go wide-eyed, take a step back, confused and shocked. She took two steps past the rowers’ benches toward the men standing there. The first in line, a sailor of many years from his look, recovered even as Conandil came at him. He reached out with a hand to seize her wrist, but like Silef he too underestimated Conandil’s skill and speed and resolve.

  The knife came down on the outstretched hand, a powerful downward sweep of the blade and Conandil saw fingers flying free. The sailor shrieked, stumbled back, slammed into the man aft of him who stumbled as well.

  But the sailors were not Conandil’s target and she was done with them. She turned quick. Right in front of her was the sheet, straining against the wooden piece to which it was tied. It looked like an iron bar and as she slashed at it with the knife she hoped it was not as strong as that.

  It was not. Not at all. Indeed, the ease with which it parted surprised her. The first cut severed the rope halfway through and as she drew the blade back to slash again the fibers began to shred, right before her eyes. She was still cocking her arm to strike when the sheet let go with a loud bang and the sail flew off in a wild confusion.

  “Oh, you bitch!” she heard Brunhard roar. “Get that bitch!”

  But no one was listening. The sail, untethered from the sheet, beat wildly in the wind, once, twice, and then it too began to shred, tearing into long streamers that thrashed and twisted on the yard like serpents. Conandil heard someone scream, felt the ship turning underfoot as it slewed sideways in the seas. She felt it leaning, leaning to starboard and she was suddenly afraid she would topple right over the rail and be flung into the sea. She reached out her arm and the rower nearest her, her fellow Irishman, fellow slave, grabbed her hand and pulled her inboard.

  She looked aft and she sucked in her breath. The seas were rising up on either side of Brunhard’s ship as the vessel dipped down into the trough between them. And as it did, the longship, now perpendicular to Brunhard’s vessel, came surging over the top of the waves. Conandil was actually looking up at the underside of the longship’s bow, narrow and dripping, as it soared over the stern of Brunhard’s ship.

  Then the wave passed under and Brunhard’s ship rose and the longship fell. It dropped onto the afterdeck of the slaver with a crushing sound and the noise of wood splintering, men screaming, and the relentless wind and sea roaring on every quarter.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  With its chisel of snow, the headwind,

  scourge of the mast, mightily

  hones its file by the prow

  on the path that my sea-bull treads.

  Egil’s Saga

  They were nearly up with Brunhard’s ship, and Thorgrim could feel his spirits soaring. The tiller was quivering in his hand with the pressure of the following seas on the steering oar, the sail was belly-full and straining at the sheets, the waves lifting the ship and pushing her on.

  The men were ready to go. Gathered near the bow, swords and axes poised. Godi had a coil of stout line in his hand, a grappling hook hanging from the end. “I think Brunhard’s going to swing away sharp,” Thorgrim had said to him as they closed with the Frisian ship. “I think he’s going to try and run off upwind. You be ready with a grappling hook. As soon as we’re close enough, you hook into him like a fish; don’t let him get away.”

  Now Godi was ready, and it would not be long, the length of one or two more waves, before Sea Hammer’s bow was up with Brunhard’s stern. Wild seas, two ships barely under control, a fight and plunder and vengeance in the offing, it did not get any better than this.

  Failend was at his side now, bow in hand, a quiver of arrows over her back. “I can drop their helmsman, easy,” she said. “Would you like me to?”

  “No, no!” Thorgrim said, speaking loud over the wind. “We don’t want Brunhard to lose control of the ship now, not right under our bow like that! Once we’ve grappled you can start taking them down, but not before Brunhard’s ship is under control.”

  Failend nodded.

  “And listen here,” Thorgrim said. “Look for the one giving orders, that will be Brunhard.”

  “And I should shoot him first?”

  “No, don’t shoot him at all. He’s for me. Any plunder we get, you all can have. But Brunhard’s mine.”

  Failend nodded. “Don’t shoot Brunhard. Very well,” she said and hurried off forward.

  Sea Hammer’s bow went down, her stern lifted high and Thorgrim was looking down the length of the deck, down at Brunhard’s fat merchantman less than a ship-length beyond the bow and low down between the seas. Their oars were stowed, of course, but still there were rowers’ benches filled with men, which was odd, but Thorgrim did not have time to think on that now. The wind had piped up even since this chase had begun, the skies overhead growing darker, more brooding, but Thorgrim’s heart was singing the song of the sailor, the song of the warrior.

  On the rise of the next wave, and he’s ours, Thorgrim thought.

  Then something changed. It changed so fast Thorgrim did not even know at first what it was. The outline of Brunhard’s ship was suddenly different, and Thorgrim thought the Frisian was starting his turn and he was about to call out to Godi when he realized that was not it.

  It was the sail. The larboard sheet had let go, the sail was blowing free, flogging and whipping in the stron
g east wind.

  “Brunhard! What…” Thorgrim shouted, but he could not even finish that brief exclamation. Brunhard’s ship dropped into the trough between the waves and it slewed around to larboard, driven sideways by the following sea. In an instant Thorgrim went from looking down the starboard side of Brunhard’s ship to looking at her broadside as she turned ninety degrees and right under Sea Hammer’s bow.

  “Oh, by the gods!” Thorgrim shouted. His hand tightened on the tiller, ready to pull it toward him to try and turn Sea Hammer out of the way, but there was no time for that. He held the steering board straight and had a sudden thought that his ship might pass right over Brunhard’s, just bump over it like bumping over a rock just below the surface.

  Maybe… Thorgrim thought. And then the wave lifted Brunhard’s ship up, right under Sea Hammer’s bow, just as Sea Hammer’s bow was coming down off the same wave. Sea Hammer surged over the crest and dropped on Brunhard’s ship like a sledgehammer.

  Thorgrim felt the impact in his hands and legs. He was tossed forward, twisting around the tiller, flung to the deck as if Odin himself had flicked him away. As he went down he heard the sound of rending, crushing wood, the shouts of men in shocked terror, the screams of men standing on Brunhard’s afterdeck crushed like bugs.

  Thorgrim hit the deck and tumbled off the edge of the afterdeck and fell another foot to the main deck below. The sounds of shouting and the crush of wood on wood were even louder by the time he came to a stop. Sea Hammer was moving differently now, no longer driving ahead with purpose but wallowing, twisting. The sounds of the keel working against Brunhard’s ship sounded like the moans of a dying beast.

  Hands on the deck, Thorgrim pushed himself up and regained his feet. He ran forward, pushing his way past the men who were themselves just standing again, or untangling themselves from the sea chests.