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

by James L. Nelson

  “No!” Harald shouted back. “We’ll tow you offshore!”

  Thorgrim shook his head, the motion exaggerated so Harald could not miss it. “We’re stove in! We’ll sink if we come off Brunhard’s ship!”

  The distance between the vessels was opening up. Gudrid had looped the line over Blood Hawk’s cleat and was slowly paying it out, but taking up the tension as well. He knew better than to let the strain come on the line suddenly and risk its parting.

  “Don’t cast off the line!” Harald shouted. He did not know what to do, but he only knew that he could not stand letting Sea Hammer drift free, not after all this. Then he had a thought.

  “We’ll ease you through the surf!” he shouted. “You’ll go sideways if we don’t! We’ll pull you straight!” Already the distance between the ships was so great that Harald was not sure his father had heard, but he knew full well the dilemma with which Thorgrim was wrestling. He did not want to put Harald and Blood Hawk in danger. But he also did not want to toss away a chance to save the lives of the men aboard Sea Hammer. Not a choice that any man would want to make, so Harald decided he would make it for him.

  “Pull!” Hall shouted again and again the men leaned back against the oars, heaving the blades through the sea, pushing the ship away from the shore and right into the wind and waves. Rowing against that would have been hard even without the two ships hanging on the tow line. With them there, Harald was not sure it was even possible.

  “Pull!”

  He looked astern. Gudrid had finally taken a few turns around the cleat, hitching the tow rope in place. The line was rising up out of the water as the strain came on, and Sea Hammer at the other end was turning toward them, turning stern into the waves rather than broadside to. If she had any hope of making it through the surf she would have to remain turned that way. If she was sideways to the seas she would roll and be torn apart.

  Thorgrim yelled something across the distance, but Harald could not make out the words. He looked astern again, expecting to see his father bring an ax down on the tow rope and cut Blood Hawk free. But neither he nor Godi had moved, and Harald guessed he was choosing to let Harald try to save his men.

  “Pull!” Harald looked down over the side, and back past the stern to see if there was any wake, if Blood Hawk was making any progress at all. He thought perhaps she was making headway, but he could not tell for certain, and if she was, it was not much.

  It was not for want of trying. Harald could see the men’s faces were already turning red with the effort. Gudrid had taken up an oar now, which meant every man aboard but him and Starri was rowing.

  “Look here, Broadarm, look here!” Starri shouted from his perch on the sheer strake just behind Harald. Harald glanced up, saw Starri pointing over the starboard side, and he followed Starri’s arm.

  The merchant ship, the second one, the drifting one, was one hundred feet away off the starboard side. It had come clear of Sea Hammer and Brunhard’s ship and was spinning off on its own. What the men on that ship were doing, Harald could not tell. He could only see a few men moving, and they looked to be hurt or stunned. Whatever they were doing, it did not involve sailing the ship.

  But it did not matter to him, because that ship posed no threat to Blood Hawk. Until now.

  The ship’s sail was still set, and it had been alternately flogging and coming aback. But now, as the waves spun the ship around, her stern came up into the wind and the sail filled with a snap. The ship heeled a bit as it surged forward, moving with building momentum, driving right for Blood Hawk’s side.

  “Pull! Pull! It’ll run us down!” Harald shouted. One more wave, or two, and the ship would be right on top of them, and then they, too, would be dragged onto the beach.

  “Cut Sea Hammer away!” someone shouted from forward. “Cut it away!”

  “Shut your mouth and pull!” Harald shouted back. He would not let his father go. He would hold on and guide the longship through the surf, and even if the ship was broken up, the men, and his father, would live. Or they would have a better chance at living, anyway.

  “Pull!” The word had not left his mouth when he felt Blood Hawk leap forward with a jerk, the oars driving her fast through the water. He turned and looked behind. The tow rope to Sea Hammer was gone, and Harald knew with certainty that his father had cut it, condemning himself and his men to the surf so that Harald and Blood Hawk could escape.

  But he was too late. Even as Blood Hawk surged ahead, the big seas lifted the merchantman and flung it with willful malevolence at her starboard side. It rolled toward them, rolled over the oars, snapping most of them off at the oarports. And then with the cruel fickleness of the gods, the ship spun away from Blood Hawk, never even touching the longship itself, but leaving it crippled and helpless and right on the edge of the breaking seas.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  A ninth I know: when need befalls me

  to save my vessel afloat,

  I hush the wind on the stormy wave,

  and soothe all the sea to rest.

  The Song of Spells

  Thorgrim Night Wolf wanted to weep with pride for his son. He wanted to sing a skald’s song to the world about the boy’s boldness, his seamanship, the way he commanded Blood Hawk and drove her with a reckless courage right up to the edge of the surf. He was stunned by the beauty of how they had taken in the sail, run out the oars, threw a line to Sea Hammer, all as if it was some well-practiced dance performed in the safety of some great hall.

  And at the same time he wanted to cuff the boy on the back of the head and give him a good dressing down for being so heedless of his own safety and the safety of the men and ship under his command. He, Thorgrim, was a hypocrite and he knew it. It would not have occurred to him to fault another man for risking his life that way, but the thought that Harald might die to save his father was unbearable.

  “He may be too close to shore already,” Godi said, standing at Thorgrim’s side. “If he tries to get us safe through the surf he may get pulled in himself.”

  Great hulk of a man that he was, a brutal killer in battle— Thorgrim had seen him decapitate men with his battle ax as if he were swatting an insect—Godi could be surprisingly soft-spoken and diplomatic. He was using those traits now, pointing out in the mildest of terms that Harald and his men were likely to find themselves meeting the same watery death as the men of Sea Hammer.

  “He can’t get us through the surf the way he thinks he can,” Thorgrim said. “The rope isn’t long enough. Two ropes wouldn’t be. He’d be swept in himself.”

  He bent over, picked up an ax that had been dropped on the deck near where he stood. “I’ll let him pull Sea Hammer around so we’re stern-to the seas and then I’ll cut him loose. They should still be far enough offshore that they can row clear, if the men break their backs and pull like sons of bitches.”

  The rope lifted from the waves as Blood Hawk’s oars dug in and the longship began to claw its way to windward. The yard was down and the sail, or what Thorgrim had realized was actually two sails, those from Dragon and Fox, was hauled up to it, the few loose folds snapping in the on-shore wind.

  “Now we’ll see,” Thorgrim said. He had his doubts that Harald would even be able to turn the longship and the waterlogged merchantman she rested on. He was not sure Sea Hammer would remain floating long enough for him to try.

  They heard a groan forward, a deep, agonizing sound and the deck vibrated under their feet as the rope began to exert pressure on Sea Hammer’s stern. The vessel shifted enough to make them stumble and they turned and looked forward.

  Sea Hammer was turning, pulled by Harald’s tow line, her bow pivoting where it rested on the stern of Brunhard’s ship. The second merchant ship had drifted clear and now she was to windward of the sinking vessels, closer to Blood Hawk than she was to Sea Hammer.

  Then everything changed again. The stern of the second merchantman was caught by the seas and spun around and her sail filled and bellied out. Every man
aboard her seemed to be dead or wounded; no one was making any effort to control the ship. But with the sail full she surged forward as if manned by a spirit crew, not away from Blood Hawk, as Thorgrim had hoped she would, but toward his son’s ship.

  “Oh, Hel take that bastard!” Thorgrim shouted. He took two quick steps aft and brought the ax down on the tow rope. The strands parted with a cracking noise and the rope snapped back over the water and Sea Hammer began to turn sideways again.

  But Thorgrim’s eyes were not on his own ship, they were on Harald’s, and before he could say another word the drifting vessel rolled over Blood Hawk’s starboard oars. Thorgrim could see the ash looms shatter; he could see Blood Hawk start to turn broadside to the seas.

  “Harald…you should not have come for me,” Thorgrim said.

  They were still more than one hundred yards from the beach, the waves cresting and starting to break over the rails of Sea Hammer and Brunhard’s ship, when they finally struck bottom.

  Thorgrim and Godi were making their way forward, stumbling over the madly swinging deck, when a roller, larger than the rest, lifted the two ships up high as it raced for the beach. And then it dropped them, dropped them fast, and Brunhard’s ship struck the sand with a heavy thudding noise and the rending of wood and the shouts of the men clinging to the sides of the ship.

  Thorgrim and Godi were flung to the deck and they felt Sea Hammer roll and twist under them. Their eyes met and Thorgrim wondered if he looked as wide-eyed with shock as Godi did. The next wave lifted them, flung them farther in toward the beach, and once again Brunhard’s ship slammed down on the sandy bottom and Sea Hammer drove farther onto the half-sunk hull.

  “She’ll break up fast now,” Godi said and they stood.

  “We both will. Once Brunhard sinks, we sink too, and what’s left gets tossed onto the beach.”

  They raced forward to where the rest of the men stood crowded around the bow, holding on to whatever they could grab. Beyond that, they were doing nothing, because there was nothing they could do. Nothing beyond holding fast and waiting to see what would happen, if they would make it through the surf or if the ship would break up under them.

  They struck a third time, much harder, because the water was growing shallower with every yard they were driven toward shore. Brunhard’s ship twisted under them, rolled partway on its side, and suddenly the motion of Sea Hammer was different, as if she had been freed from some encumbrance.

  “Brunhard’s breaking up!” Thorgrim shouted. He looked over Sea Hammer’s rail and as he did he saw the first of the men from Brunhard’s ship come swarming up through the hole the fallen mast had made in her side. The man had wild hair and wild eyes and terror on his face. He seemed oblivious to everything save for the need to get off the dying merchant ship and onto the dubious safety of Sea Hammer.

  He had not yet squeezed through the gap when the next man began following him through, and more came on the other side of the mast, and still others farther forward, hauling themselves up over the sheer rail.

  Thorgrim saw one of his men raising a battle ax and he shouted, “Hold! Let them come!” There was no point in trying to stop them. They would all be dead in the surf soon enough.

  For a fourth time the seas lifted the vessels and dropped them, and this time Sea Hammer struck as well, with the stern of Brunhard’s ship all but broken up under them and only the forward section still afloat. Thorgrim could hear the crush of the hull striking bottom and felt the shudder like it was his own death rattle. Sea Hammer, no longer pinned to Brunhard’s ship, was starting to turn broadside to the waves, and once she did that she would be rolling like a log and that would be the end of her and the end of them.

  Then he heard Bjorn shout, “Here, look at this!” and, to Thorgrim’s surprise, the words did not seem to suggest yet another looming disaster, but rather a reason for hope.

  Before he had thought it through, indeed before he had thought of anything at all, Harald Broadarm gave the order: “Set the sail! Now! Set it now!”

  The men obeyed. The rowers on the starboard side, who now mostly held shattered lengths of oars, tossed them aside and raced to take up the halyard and cast off the buntlines and man the sheets. The men to starboard, whose oars were still intact, ran them inboard, dropped them across the sea chests and raced to help. By the time they were hauling like madmen to raise the yard, Harald still had not figured out why he had given that order.

  They needed the ship to move, that much he understood. A ship that had no forward momentum was helpless, completely at the mercy of wind and sea. The oars gave them the most control; they could row in any direction they chose. Not so with the sail. Their course would be limited, and it was likely that they would never be able to claw their way off this lee shore. But they could try. With the sail set they could steer for the open sea.

  No, Harald thought. I can’t abandon Sea Hammer…

  And then at last he understood what had been bubbling below the surface, the plan that had formed in some part of his mind that was deeper than conscious thought. The plan that the gods had whispered to him.

  The yard was halfway up the mast now, the sail flogging as the wind blew down either side of the cloth. Harald pulled the tiller toward him and hoped the rippling sail was giving them enough headway that the steering board would bite.

  It was. Blood Hawk’s bow began to swing slowly around, downwind, turning toward the beach and the heavy surf breaking over it.

  The sail filled as Blood Hawk turned and Harald felt the ship surge forward, felt the tiny tremor through the oak bar in his hands. She was alive again, a wild creature barely under control.

  This was why Harald had given the order to set sail: he needed power, he needed drive. He could not let this ship be tumbled helpless in the seas, her men flung to their deaths in the roiling water. If she was going ashore then he would drive her ashore, like a man whipping a stallion into a run.

  From his place at the tiller he yelled forward. “We’re going to run her up on the beach!” he shouted. “Ride the waves in! And we’ll go along Sea Hammer’s side and we’ll snatch them all up!”

  He could see grins among the men forward, nodding heads. They were caught up with the spirit of the thing, the mad recklessness of it. It might be insane but it was insanity of their choosing, not madness thrust upon them. They liked it.

  “There you go, Broadarm!” Starri shouted from behind him. “That’s the bold move! That’s what pleases the gods!”

  Harald felt a bit of a smile come to his lips. This was good, that Starri approved. Sometimes Starri did not like to take risks at sea, because he feared the gods would not look favorably on a death by drowning as they would on a death in battle. But this, Starri seemed to think, was a death worthy of a warrior’s spirit.

  Harald called forward, “Ease those sheets some!” and the men at the sheets eased them away and the bottom edge of the sail lifted a bit and now Harald could see under the sail and out past the bow. A wave was racing under Blood Hawk’s keel, but Blood Hawk was moving nearly as fast as the wave, surfing along under the driving power of her odd-looking sail. Harald pushed the tiller forward, struggling to keep the ship stern to the wind, as the seas like some evil force tried with all their might to turn her sideways and roll her over.

  Sea Hammer was just ahead, maybe four ship lengths away, and Harald could see that for the first time in many days they seemed to be getting a bit of luck. Brunhard’s ship was breaking up, striking the bottom now, and it had loosened its grip on Sea Hammer’s bow. Now the longship had turned stern to the waves, perpendicular to the beach, positioned perfectly for Harald to run up alongside.

  He could see only one problem with his plan. They could bring Blood Hawk alongside Sea Hammer, but they could not stop. Blood Hawk was moving much faster than his father’s half-sunk, waterlogged ship. She would go tearing past, and the best that Thorgrim and the others could hope to do was leap aboard as she did.

  But there was no
thing for it. There was nothing more that Harald or any man could do.

  Another sea lifted them and flung them toward the beach. They wallowed down between waves then came charging up the back of the next, the bow driving out into open air then dropping again and sending spray high on either side.

  “When we come alongside Sea Hammer we’ll ease the sheets!” Harald shouted forward, making his voice as loud and deep as he could. “We’ll ease them just for an instant, then haul them in again! I need every man on the sheets!”

  They moved. They staggered across the pitching deck and formed themselves up into two lines nearly all the way aft, right where the two sheets were made off to the cleats on Blood Hawk’s side. Easing the sheets would slow Blood Hawk, just a bit. Enough, Harald hoped, to make it easier for the men of Sea Hammer to jump across.

  But they still needed the sail’s drive; they could not live long without the forward momentum. The sheets would have to be hauled in again, quickly, so the sail would catch the wind. That would be no easy task. The blowing gale was putting a tremendous amount of pressure on the sail. It would take the effort of every man to pull it in again, and even then Harald was not sure it would be enough.

  “Ready!” Harald shouted. They were one set of waves away from Sea Hammer’s side. Now Harald could see that it was not luck that had turned his father’s ship stern to the seas; they had thrown an anchor over the stern. He could see the anchor line now, running taut from the after end of the longship and disappearing into the water.

  Blood Hawk rose on a wave and Harald’s eyes and every bit of his conscious mind were on Sea Hammer’s starboard side, like an archer lining up a target. This would not be pretty and it would not be gentle. In those winds and seas there was no way to ease alongside. The best he could do was to smash Blood Hawk into the larger ship and hope for the best.

  He could see his father now, and Godi, and the rest of the men in a line along the deck and he hoped that that meant they had divined his purpose. They would have a few heartbeats worth of time, no more, to get aboard Blood Hawk and the dubious safety of the intact ship.