But that ship was not the problem.
The other ship, not Brunhard’s, but the second largest, was no more than one hundred feet downwind and drifting out of control. She was sideways to the seas, her sail flogging and useless. Thorgrim had a glimpse of men struggling on the deck, the familiar look of a great and disorganized brawl.
“Looks like the slaves there are putting up a fight,” Godi offered.
Godi was right. The slaves had somehow got their hands on the crew and they were taking their revenge. The sailors, fighting for their lives, had given up trying to sail the ship and now it had turned broadside to the rollers, right in the path of Sea Hammer and Brunhard’s ship.
No one had seen it until that moment. A crisis turned all eyes inboard. No one would think to look out to sea with Sea Hammer ready to sink under them.
“Get the oars down off the gallows, pass them around.” Thorgrim gave the orders sharp, loud and fast. “Two men to an oar. If Brunhard sinks when he hits then we’ll likely sink as well. But we may be able to float holding the oars, float back to shore, and hope to live through the surf.”
He looked beyond the second merchantman to the Irish coastline to the west and he was stunned to see how fast they had drifted down on it. When they had first begun their chase of Brunhard’s fleet the land had been no more than a thin dark line on the horizon. Now it was a mile and a half under their lee, no more.
The high ground and the stands of trees were visible from Sea Hammer’s deck, and Thorgrim was sure he could see the white plumes of the surf as it smashed onto the long stretch of beach. As long as the ships floated they would live, but once they were in the grip of that surf they would be tumbled and pounded and smashed like Thor’s hammer Mjölnir was coming down on them. If they made it that far, then they would likely be killed in the last hundred yards between them and safety.
The men around Thorgrim moved like birds lifting off from a field, running aft and shouting to the others to help get the oars down. Thorgrim watched the merchant ship in their lee and tried to think what more they could do. Cut the mast free, drift on that? Maybe take this third ship, if it was less damaged than Brunhard’s or Sea Hammer?
Possibly…
The ships dipped low between rollers and then up again, and there was the merchantman, now fifty feet downwind, no more. The men on her deck had finally seen this new danger, the two ships locked together and coming down on them fast. Thorgrim could see panic along the deck, men running to get out of the way, as if there were any place they could run that was safer than any other.
“Stand ready!” Thorgrim shouted. He gripped the edge of the sheer strake hard. The seas lifted Sea Hammer and Brunhard’s ship and flung them forward and then they were rising together with the other vessel, the rollers driving them together. Thorgrim had a glimpse of the men on Brunhard’s ship running to the larboard side, and then they struck.
The second merchantman was nearly parallel to Brunhard’s ship when they hit. The impact was sudden and profound, as if the ships had struck rock. Once again Thorgrim was thrown forward, but this time he fetched up against Sea Hammer’s side and managed to stay on his feet.
Not so the men below him, on Brunhard’s ship, who were mostly thrown to the deck and over the rowing benches as the ships struck, the force of the impact greater than they had expected. Wood ground on wood, strakes and rigging gave way as the ships came together. Thorgrim felt the fabric of Sea Hammer quiver under his feet. He felt the vessel shift, drive forward, scrape and tear farther onto the deck of Brunhard’s ship until her bow overhung the far side of that ship and the deck of the second merchantman as well.
He heard a groan, like someone in great pain, the sharp crack of a line parting under pressure, the shouts of his men behind him. He spun around in time to see the last of the shrouds on Sea Hammer’s starboard side part under the shock of the sudden impact. Overhead the mast began to lean toward him, coming down like a tree cut most of the way through, its fall gathering momentum.
Thorgrim pushed himself off the sheer strake and took three quick strides aft, but it was clear he could not run faster than the mast and yard were falling. He stepped up on a sea chest and leapt off it, leapt aft as if diving into the sea. He came down hard on the deck, turning to hit the planks with his shoulder, rolling and letting the momentum dissipate as his body turned over, then over again.
He rolled to an upright position, coming up on one knee. He felt something hit the back of his head and he ducked and saw the larboard mainsheet come flying past. He watched in horror and amazement as the mast tilted forward, the heel tearing up the mast step and the deck around it as it came down.
The mast was pine, forty-five feet tall and more than a foot across at the base. It fell with greater and greater speed toward the deck, then dropped with full force right across the section of bow where Thorgrim had been standing, smashing the sheer strake and the three strakes under it like they were made of dried reeds.
The yard, which had been lowered when they first hit Brunhard, did less damage but it still managed to shatter the sheer strake to larboard and starboard as it came down athwartships. The sound of wood grinding on wood was louder now, doubled with the three ships locked together and spinning in the seas.
Then the mast came to rest and there was a strange quiet, as if all the men on the three ships were waiting to see what would happen next, holding their breath for fear of disturbing the careful equilibrium that had settled over the drifting wrecks. But that did not last long.
A shout from Brunhard’s ship, some harsh words in the harsh Frisian tongue. Thorgrim sprang to his feet and ran to the larboard side and looked down at the ships below him.
Someone aboard Brunhard’s ship—probably Brunhard himself—had decided to use the moment’s stunned confusion to take command of the situation. Brunhard’s sailors who had been huddled toward the bow of the ship were charging aft, spears leveled, axes held over heads. They were screaming, and Thorgrim guessed the screams were from terror and their desire to terrorize the men they were attacking.
But the Irish slaves did not seem very terrorized, and that surprised Thorgrim. It took a trained and a disciplined man to stand fast in the face of an attack such as that, the sailors charging aft, leaping over the rowing benches, brandishing weapons when the slaves had none. He would have expected a panicked flight, but instead the slaves braced for the onslaught, prepared as best they could, grabbed up buckets and shattered bits of wood, anything with which they could defend themselves.
The two hoards, the sailors and the slaves, came together like opposing tides, slamming into one another. Thorgrim saw one of the slaves go down in a plume of blood. But he saw another deflect the oncoming point of a spear, knock it aside, grab the shaft and pull it from the sailor’s hands, spin the weapon around and drive it into the gut of the man who had held it seconds before.
Well done… Thorgrim thought. These slaves were not ploughmen and herdsmen who had been swept up in some raid, he could see that, but he did not have time to give it any further thought. He ran forward to where the mast had fallen across Sea Hammer’s rail. The blow had reduced the strakes to kindling, right down to the deck. Even if the planks that Thorgrim had caulked with cloth managed to hold, Sea Hammer would ship so much water through this gap in her sides that she would still most likely sink.
The three ships, locked together like some massive raft, were spinning as they drifted, turning in the millrace of the mounting seas. Thorgrim half turned until he could see the shoreline, a mile off, no more, the breakers on the beach clearly visible. The wind, blowing hard and building, had kicked up a big surf, the seas breaking a hundred yards or more from the shingle. That was where they would die, in the surf, if the ships did not sink under them in the next few minutes.
Godi was beside him, and Vestar. “This is bad,” Godi said.
Thorgrim took his eyes from the shore and looked down into the hold where he had been working just moments before.
The gray light of the late afternoon was illuminating the space. Thorgrim could see the planks opening and closing as the ships ground together, the bits of cloth he had pounded in there spitting out. The impact with the second ship had driven Sea Hammer further onto Brunhard’s ship and done more damage to the hull.
“It’s bad,” Thorgrim agreed. Sea Hammer was done for, and that meant they needed another way off, another way to shore. He looked back at Brunhard’s ship. The fighting had spread over most of the forward end. It was not like shield wall on shield wall, or two armies taking the field. It was more like a brawl in a mead hall, a wild melee of dozens of men flailing at one another.
And Brunhard’s ship, Thorgrim could see, was in even worse condition than the men were. Water surged back and forth over the decks as it rolled and groaned under Sea Hammer’s weight. The sides were smashed in and the deck under the longship’s bow likely buckled. Once again Thorgrim was amazed that the ship was still floating at all, and he could not imagine it would for long.
But the second merchant ship, the one that had slammed hard against Brunhard’s side and was still pinned there, was another matter. The upper strakes were caved in where she hit, and one of the shrouds was swinging free, but the vessel did not seem to have suffered much beyond that. It was still seaworthy, it seemed, or seaworthy enough to get Thorgrim and his men to safety.
“That ship, the one we hit,” Thorgrim said, pointing. “We’re going to take that and sail clear. Sea Hammer and Brunhard’s ship are going up on the beach. There’s nothing we can do to stop that. We’ll see if there’s anything left of them after they do.”
Godi nodded. Thorgrim turned to his men, gathered aft. They seemed frozen in place, like rabbits unsure if they should remain still or bolt. They did not know what would happen next. And neither did Thorgrim. But Thorgrim, at least, had the presence of mind to try and make happen what he wanted to happen.
“Come on, you men!” he shouted. “We’re going to take that second ship, the one that still swims! See you have your weapons in hand!”
He could see relief wash over them. There was nothing that frightened men needed more than direction and a job at hand, the chance to actively attempt to save themselves rather than simply wait for death to come. And not death in battle, which they would welcome. Death by drowning—cold, dark, prolonged and pathetic—the death they dreaded most.
With a nod toward Godi he took the two steps to where Sea Hammer’s mast lay across her shattered side. He stepped through the gap the spar had left in its wake and looked down on the deck below. It was a five-foot drop to Brunhard’s ship, and a clear place amidships between the rower’s benches. Thorgrim pushed off and jumped.
He hit the deck with his soft leather shoes and dropped to his knees as he did. The ships rolled and a flood of water came from the gap that Sea Hammer had opened up and drenched Thorgrim to mid-thigh. He stood quickly and darted forward, making room for the next of his men.
The slaves and the sailors were still at it, still fighting, struggling for possession of the few weapons aboard. There were dead men and wounded men strewn over the rowing benches and jammed in the corners of the ship, and water rushing side to side with each heavy, sick lurch of the vessel.
The one in the green tunic, the stout man with the big beard, the one Thorgrim had guessed was Brunhard, was all the way forward, an ax in hand, conspicuously keeping clear of the fight.
Brunhard… Here was the man who had burned Sea Hammer’s sail, nearly wrecked the ship once. Succeeded the second time. Had eluded Thorgrim and humiliated him and now would likely be the death of him and his men.
I’ll kill you, you whore’s son, Thorgrim thought and he was suddenly overwhelmed by the urge to race forward and drive his sword through the man. It was pointless, an indulgence, but he would be dead soon anyway. Why not allow himself that?
“Thorgrim!” It was Godi at his side. “The ship is drifting away, we should go!”
Thorgrim pulled his eyes from Brunhard. The three ships were still turning as the wind and seas drove them toward the Irish coast. Sea Hammer and Brunhard’s ship were locked in a death grip, but the third ship was just jammed against Brunhard’s side, and nothing was holding it but the pressure of the seas. And now, as the ships swung around, the gap between Brunhard’s ship and the other merchantman was opening up.
“Come, you men!” Thorgrim shouted, and headed across the shattered deck of Brunhard’s ship, pushing the struggling men out of the way.
One of Brunhard’s sailors, his face streaked in blood, mouth and eyes open wide came charging out of the press, a spear lowered and leveled at Thorgrim’s gut. Thorgrim’s sword was still in its scabbard; he had not intended to remain long enough on Brunhard’s ship to need it, but now he did and it was too late to draw it.
He was still running along the deck when he saw a shattered section of wood lying at his feet. He snatched it up, never breaking stride, and realized it was part of Sea Hammer’s sheer strake. He swung it down at the iron spear point, catching the shaft of the weapon a foot back from the tip and knocking it clear, spinning the surprised man holding it half around.
Thorgrim, still moving, brought the broken strake backhand over his shoulder and swung it forward, catching the man on the side of the head and tossing him aside. Another step. He could see the gap between the ships was wider now, the second ship drifting away. Three feet between the ships, space enough that Thorgrim was not entirely sure he could clear it.
Then suddenly he was falling, the deck under his feet dropping away as Brunhard’s ship rolled to one side, listing despite the weight of Sea Hammer pressing down on it. The motion of the sea and the great volumes of water that rolled around below were driving the merchantman down at last. Thorgrim staggered and a surge of water rushed in over the fractured stern, a breaking wave surging down the length of the deck.
Thorgrim was already struggling to regain his feet when the force of the water bowled him over, dropped him to the deck again and the cold seas flooded over him, pushing him like eager hands. He had an image of the men behind him falling as well, massive Godi coming down on top of one of the rowing benches, Bjorn and Ulf tumbling to either side of him.
He spit out a mouthful of water, stood as the boarding sea drained away. Once again the deck was a tangle of men, some dead, some wounded, some knocked down by the seas, some still fighting. And the second merchant ship, the ship on which Thorgrim planned to carry his men to safety, had drifted clear away. Twenty feet of water separated it from the side of Brunhard’s ship.
“Oh, you whore’s son!” Thorgrim shouted. He looked around for a rope, a grappling hook, anything to snag the ship and pull it back. But there was nothing. Just chaos and struggle on Brunhard’s deck.
The ship gave another sluggish roll under their feet and groaned, a dull and weary groan, and Thorgrim knew its time was nearly up. Sea Hammer would not swim long once Brunhard’s ship sank away, but it was still better than the dying merchantman. Better to go down on the ship he loved than this despised Frisian washtub.
“Back to Sea Hammer!” he shouted. “There’s nothing here, we’re done!” Twenty-five feet now between the second merchant ship and Brunhard’s, and the space was opening wider, any hope of boarding that ship entirely gone.
Thorgrim could hear his men climbing back aboard Sea Hammer but he did not take his eyes from the deck of Brunhard’s ship. The fighting was all but over. Brunhard’s sailors had retreated back to the ship’s bow, spears held level to fend off any further attack. The slaves were clustered amidships, also holding what weapons they had managed to snatch up. Both groups of men were considerably diminished. The dead and wounded lay on every quarter, and the water rushing over the deck planks was tinted red.
Then he saw the girl, the one he had noticed earlier, the one who had set the slaves free. She was looking directly at him. Their eyes met once again and suddenly Thorgrim knew who she was.
The thrall! he thought. Grimarr’s thra
ll! He could not recall her name, but Harald would remember. He had saved her from Grimarr and she had escaped from them on the beach. He remembered now.
Thorgrim took a step back, a quick look over his shoulder. Godi was pulling himself up onto Sea Hammer and that meant he, Thorgrim, was the last. He turned, reached up, grabbed hold of the splintered strakes where the mast had done its damage. With a grunt he hoisted himself up and through the rent in the ship’s side. Hands grabbed his tunic and, to his silent irritation, pulled him the rest of the way.
I’m not a doddering old cripple yet, he thought, but he kept the complaint to himself. He stood. The men of Sea Hammer were clustered near the bow, some looking at Brunhard’s ship twisting and sinking below them, some looking at the second merchant ship drifting beyond reach, some at the breakers pounding on the beach now less than half a mile under their lee.
This will be a close thing, Thorgrim thought. They had little time before they were in the surf, and many things could change by then. They were broadside to the waves now, which was not good at all. It meant Sea Hammer would be rolled as her keel hit the sand and all her men would be dumped into the sea. But she might turn again, swing bow-to. Brunhard’s ship might hold them up. Or it might sink under them. Sea Hammer might end up on the bottom before she ever reached the shore.
He thought about the oars again, about trying to float in on them and dismissed the idea. He could see the surf better now and he realized how big it was. It would kill them all. Better to try to ride the sinking ship in.
“We should get an anchor out over the stern,” he said, turning to Godi, and then his eyes moved to the stern and to the open ocean behind and, despite himself, he gasped in surprise.
There was a sail there, and not far off. Not like any sail he had ever seen. One half of it was striped red and white, the other a weathered gray. It was set and drawing, bellying out in the gale-force wind, seemingly on the verge of blowing apart. The ship below it was driving through the seas, plunging into the waves, bucking up like a horse wild with fear, twisting and rolling as it made its heedless and reckless way toward the drifting vessels.
Raider's Wake: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 6) Page 33
