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

by James L. Nelson

  Time’s up for that, you bastard, Conandil thought. She took another step. Brunhard’s back was hunched and his eyes were down. Conandil turned the knife so the flat of the blade was horizontal. One thrust, right between the ribs, right into his foul heart.

  She hoped he would stand at that moment, turn and look into her eyes, so that he would know who had killed him. She hoped that her face would be the last thing he saw on earth, the instant before he found himself kneeling in judgment before the throne of his maker.

  Three more steps, then two. She drew the knife back and the ship took another drunken lurch. Conandil stumbled sideways, getting her right foot under her, catching herself the instant before she fell to the deck, but the movement was too great to be missed. Brunhard gasped and leapt to his feet, turning as he did. His eyes were wide, his mouth open, a dark hole in the midst of his thick and streaming beard.

  Brunhard looked at Conandil, looked around to see if there were others, then looked back at Conandil. And he smiled.

  “Ah, dearie, if you’ve come to get humped by Brunhard, it’s not a good time!” he exclaimed. “Meet me on the beach, would you?”

  Conandil felt the rage well up in her, doubling and tripling. She took a step forward, moving with caution, the knife held low and in front. Brunhard stepped back and he was still smiling, still looking on this whole thing like some grand joke, the way someone might tease a kitten that thought it was engaged in a genuine hunt.

  There were many things Conandil wished to say to Brunhard, but she could not speak the Frisian language as well as she could understand it, so she held her tongue and took another cautious step. The knife will say everything that needs saying, she thought.

  “Come along now, you little Irish whore,” Brunhard continued, still smiling, his eyes still holding Conandil’s. “Put the knife down like a good girl.”

  Conandil made a growling sound and took two steps forward, leading with the knife. Brunhard dropped to a knee and with his left hand he swept Conandil’s knife arm aside and with his right he snatched up a spear that was lying on the deck. He never took his eyes from Conandil as he grabbed the weapon, and Conandil realized he had known all along that the spear was there.

  Brunhard stood quick, thrusting the spear as he did, but Conandil leapt back, two, three, four paces, clear of the black iron point. Brunhard pulled the spear back and advanced on her, and she stepped back again. Spear against knife, the Frisian was still smiling as he took little jabs at Conandil, driving her back. “Do as I say, my dear,” he said. “My men will be disappointed if I gut you like a fish.”

  Conandil felt the ship under her lifting on a wave, felt that sickening twist in her stomach as the vessel swooped up from below. She stopped retreating, held the knife ready, waiting for Brunhard to make his move. But she could see no way of getting past the point of his spear, and it occurred to her for the first time that it might be her, and not Brunhard, who died on that deck.

  She didn’t mind death. But the thought of Brunhard killing her, and living to speak of it, was intolerable.

  The wave passed under and the ship began to plunge downward again and Brunhard made his move. He took a lunging step forward and thrust with the spear and there was nothing that Conandil could do in that instant but watch the deadly tip come flying in at her.

  Then Brunhard’s ship struck the bottom. It hit with tremendous force, a great crushing noise, the scrape of keel on sand, the sound of the Northmen’s ship grinding into the stern. And Brunhard stumbled.

  Conandil, eyes fixed on the spear tip, saw it swing wildly to the side as Brunhard struggled to keep his feet. She heard him grunt, a curse form on his lips. But she was moving by then, moving like a stoat: small, quick, deadly. Her left hand knocked Brunhard’s spear aside and she advanced on him even before he had recovered his footing. Brunhard stood, tried to draw the spear back, and then realized Conandil was already too close for that weapon. He dropped it and was swinging a fist at Conandil’s head when her knife came sailing in, the blade still horizontal, right past his half-raised hand, right into his chest at just about the spot that his heart, if he had such a thing, would be found.

  Brunhard seemed to freeze in place, save for his eyes and mouth that flew open wide. He was looking right into Conandil’s eyes, but she was not certain he saw her, or anything at all. He made a little choking sound and blood erupted from his mouth and ran like a spring down his wet beard and over his tunic.

  She pulled the knife free, ready to stab again if she had to, but she did not. Brunhard sunk to his knees, eyes and mouth still open, though Conandil could not tell if he was still alive. She put a foot on his shoulder and pushed. Brunhard flopped over sideways and twitched a bit, but did no more than that.

  Conandil looked at his motionless body, the blood pouring from the rent in his chest and mixing and swirling with the seawater that ran over the deck. She thought she would feel more pleased than she did.

  The ship struck bottom again and Conandil could see the deck buckling side to side, as if the ship had broken its back. She could see it was being torn apart. She looked out toward the shore. Ireland. A hundred yards away, no more, but the surf was massive and deadly and she knew she would drown as soon as the ship under her fell apart.

  She had been ready for death, ready to go to her maker, once she had sent Brunhard on ahead of her. But now she was not so sure.

  The sight of Ireland, her land, the hills dull green in the muted light of the late day overcast, worked on her mind. For all her troubles, she was not sure there was any place she wanted to be more than her Ireland. It was so close. But she could not reach it.

  And then she looked down and saw Brunhard’s raft.

  Epilogue

  Hard is it on earth, with mighty whoredom;

  Axe- time, sword-time, shields are sundered,

  Wind-time, wolf-time, ere the world falls;

  Nor ever shall men each other spare.

  The Poetic Edda

  Thorgrim embraced Harald. He wrapped his arms around the boy and hugged him tight and kept hugging until he had to consciously tell himself to let go. The words he wanted to say were an inchoate jumble in his head and he could not form them into anything like what he wanted to express, so he just hugged his son and hoped that would answer.

  Starri Deathless, Godi, Failend, Vestar, Armod, Olaf Thordarson, they all hugged and slapped one another and marveled at the fact that they were still alive and the ship under their feet was mostly intact. There was some commotion forward, shouting, a struggle among the others who had jumped aboard Blood Hawk, but they paid no attention. They did not care. There were tales to tell, stories to hear, good news and bad to recount. They were together again, this small handful of Northmen, the survivors, and they wished to take pleasure in that simple fact.

  Then, when the first great tide of words began to ebb, they hopped down off Blood Hawk’s low side to the sandy beach on which she rested. They walked around the bow of the ship so they might get an unobscured view of the three vessels still out there: Sea Hammer resting on the remains of Brunhard’s ship, and the smaller merchantman still bashing and jolting its way toward the beach.

  The Irishmen had gone up the beach, near to where the sand yielded to crumbling cliff walls. They had dragged the Frisian sailors, screaming and thrashing, with them. Thorgrim could hear shouting in two languages, neither of which he understood. And then came a long, sharp scream, a cry that bespoke considerable pain and terror. The Irish were beginning the work of revenge.

  “Brunhard’s men didn’t treat the Irish thralls very well,” Harald said. “I’m thinking they’re paying the price for that now.”

  “Was Brunhard among them?” Thorgrim asked. “Do they have him there? Brunhard’s the one I want.”

  “No,” Harald said. “I asked among the Irishmen. Just after we came ashore. They said Brunhard was not aboard Blood Hawk. And I could see no one who looked like a ship’s master among the Frisians.”

&
nbsp; “Hmm,” Thorgrim said. He wondered if Brunhard had drowned. That would be too bad. As for the other Frisian sailors, he did not care in the least what became of them. He knew they would not be anyone’s problem for very much longer.

  The Northmen walked to the water’s edge, right at the point where the crashing waves could reach no higher, and looked out to sea. Sea Hammer had swung broadside to the waves and was down by the bow. Thorgrim could picture the water pouring in through the stove—in planks there, his pathetic attempts to caulk the seams with strips of cloth all washed away by now.

  The seas lifted the longship and flung her toward the beach and then she came to rest again. She would make it ashore, he could see that. The question was whether she would be in one piece or a thousand, if there would be enough of her left to repair or if she would be good only as a source for scrap wood to make Blood Hawk seaworthy again.

  There was almost nothing left of Brunhard’s ship. They could see that her keel had broken and what was left of her hull was quickly coming apart. A big sea crashed over her side, swept her decks, and the men on the beach could see something floating free, though what it was was not entirely clear. It was flat and frail looking, some sort of odd lash-up. The wave lifted it and tossed it forward and they could see there was something on it, but whether it was a person or a bundle of some sort they could not tell.

  “Starri, can you see what that is?” Thorgrim asked.

  Starri took a step forward, squinted at the distant object. “No part of a ship that I can tell,” he said at last. He watched for a bit more, as wave after wave flung the thing closer.

  “I think it’s a raft,” Starri announced at last. “Some kind of raft lashed together, and someone riding on it.”

  That pronouncement brought a murmur of interest to the crowd. “Maybe it’s Brunhard,” Harald said. “Maybe he thought to make up a raft to get ashore.”

  Another murmur. “You might be right,” Thorgrim said. “He’s a clever one. But if this is him he’ll find he’s too clever for his own good health. He’d have been better off staying with the ship.”

  They watched with mounting curiosity as the raft drifted in toward shore. As it came closer they could see that there was a sea anchor trailing behind which served to slow the raft down and keep it from tumbling in the waves.

  “That was well done,” Godi said. “Whoever’s on that raft would have been dead by now if they hadn’t thought to put that sea anchor out.”

  The raft was halfway to shore when the rest of Brunhard’s ship began to come apart in a serious way. The forward end tore clean off right at the beam and began tumbling and breaking up in the waves. The smaller of Brunhard’s ships, which had been drifting farther off, was driven into what was left of the larger one and the lot of it was pushed farther and farther toward shore.

  The raft was not so far off now, and half a dozen men ran out into the surf and up to their waists where they could grab hold of it and the person riding it in. Thorgrim was certain by now that it was Brunhard. No one else had shown such creativity when it came to saving their own hide.

  But it was not Brunhard. He could see that even as the men reached the raft and steadied it and helped the passenger off. As far as he could tell it was not a man at all. It was a woman, and a slight one at that, smaller even than Failend, he thought. One of his men scooped her up in his arms and carried her through the water toward the safety of the beach. And then he remembered. Grimarr’s thrall.

  Thorgrim heard a voice cry out behind him. It spoke one word. “Conandil!” And then the man was running, one of the Irishmen, running down toward the surf and the man carrying the woman in through the waves.

  “Who’s that?” Thorgrim asked Harald, nodding in the direction of the raft. He did not specify whom he meant. He meant all of them.

  “The woman is named Conandil,” Harald said. “Same name as the one who was Grimarr’s thrall, but I don’t know if it’s the same woman.”

  “It is,” Thorgrim said. “I saw her face.”

  Harald nodded. “The man is her husband, Broccáin. He came to fight with us, hoping to get his wife back.”

  Thorgrim nodded. Such a strange intertwining of people and things and events.

  Knee high in the surf, Broccáin took Conandil from the man who was carrying her and brought her the rest of the way to the beach, hugging her close as he bore her in his arms. Thorgrim recognized this as the sort of thing that he would find pleasing if he were given to being pleased by this sort of thing. Instead he made a grunting sound and turned toward Harald.

  “There’s work to do,” he said. “The sun will be down soon, and we don’t know who saw us come ashore. Any of these petty kings with some band of cripples they call men-at-arms might think we’re as vulnerable as lambs right now. We’ll need to get men posted.”

  He ran his eyes over the men who stood on the beach with them, half the number of men who had sailed from Vík-ló; the crew who had been sent off in Blood Hawk or his own men from Sea Hammer. The men from Fox and Dragon were dead, according to Harald. Some of the living he did not recognize but guessed from their appearance that they were Irish slaves. Or maybe slaves no longer. Thorgrim was not sure. He hadn’t yet decided.

  “Get some of your men…” he continued, when his eyes stopped on one of the Irishmen, standing a ways back and looking as if he did not care to be seen. Something about his face caught Thorgrim’s eye. Something about the way he stood, the frame of his body.

  I know you, too…he thought.

  “Yes, Father?” Harald said. “Get some on my men…?”

  Thorgrim did not answer. He stared into the man’s face and then the man lifted his head and stared back, unabashed, defiant.

  Louis…

  It was Louis the Frank, their prisoner from Glendalough. The one who had betrayed them, ruined their perfectly laid trap, run off with the Irish men-at-arms who were hunting them.

  “Son…of…a…bitch!” Thorgrim said, his voice growing in volume with each word. He drove forward, pushed the men in his way aside, his arms reaching to grab the Frankish bastard by the throat. As he moved he registered the fact that Louis was not backing away, was not flinching or cowering, but rather standing fast, standing ready to fight.

  Then Thorgrim felt hands on his shoulders, hands on his arms and he was brought up short. He twisted to get free, but it was Harald and Godi who had got hold of him, and few mortal men were likely to break their grip.

  “Let me go!” Thorgrim demanded. “It’s that whore’s son Frank!” But they held fast and the first rush of fury subsided and he shook them off and they let him.

  Thorgrim turned to Harald. “He was on Blood Hawk. Did you know he was on your ship?”

  Harald’s pink cheeks flushed further and he opened his mouth. Harald was not the sort who was quick with a reply in such circumstances, nor was he a very adept liar, and so he stammered a bit and then said, “I had him in chains at first, Father, but he was a help to us. He knew Brunhard, better than any of them, and he helped us in finding him.”

  “Good,” Thorgrim said. “Maybe his God will look with favor on him for that. But I won’t.” He turned back to Louis, who was still standing his ground, still looking as defiant as a man in his battered state could look. Thorgrim pulled his sword, Iron-tooth, from its scabbard and pointed the tip at Louis. “Someone give him a sword and we will finish this.”

  Someone among the Northmen handed Louis a sword and Louis took it up with the ease and confidence of deep familiarity. He took a step back, making room to fight, brought his left foot back a bit, his right forward, held the sword low and in front of him. Right and left the men stepped away, clearing a place on the beach.

  Thorgrim took a step forward, brought Iron-tooth up so the tip was pointing at Louis’s neck, five paces away. “I didn’t get to kill Brunhard,” he said, “but at least I can kill you. And in truth, that will be a sweeter thing.” He knew that Louis could not understand his words, but that did
n’t matter. He would certainly understand his meaning.

  And Louis did. He moved like a sudden gust of wind, fast and silent, his sword darting forward at the end of a long lunge. The tip might well have driven five inches into Thorgrim’s chest if Thorgrim had not been tensed and ready. But he was, and he stepped back and knocked Louis’s incoming blade aside and countered with a thrust of his own.

  Louis had leapt back the very instant he saw that his lunge would miss, and though he was not in the best place to counter Thorgrim’s stroke, it was good enough. With a flick of his wrist he knocked Thorgrim’s blade out of line, then drew his own back over his shoulder. He swept it down again in a powerful backhand blow, but Iron-tooth was there to stop it. The blades struck, the sound of steel on steel ringing out over the beach, silent now save for the pounding surf.

  Both men held their swords in that manner, crossed, pushing one against the other, then both stepped back again. And then, darting like a mouse, Failend was between them, her hands up, turning left and right to shift her gaze from one to the other.

  “Enough!” she said, and her voice carried surprising power coming from so small a woman. “You have crossed swords now, but now you are done.” She spoke in the Norse tongue, and then again in Irish.

  Thorgrim took another step back and he frowned with confusion. “Failend, what is this about?” he asked.

  “I will not stand by and see one of you kill the other. Or, more likely, you kill one another. It’s stupid and pointless and I won’t have it.”

  Thorgrim pointed his sword at Louis. “I know you’ve not forgotten how he betrayed us. Ruined the trap we had set for the men hunting us down.”

  And Thorgrim had not forgotten that Louis had been Failend’s lover. He was not jealous. He was too old for that sort of nonsense. But he did think it was coloring her view of things.

  “Betrayed us?” Failend said. “He was your prisoner. I was your prisoner. What loyalty did he have to you? How would you have acted if you were prisoner to another?”