Falcon Warrior (The Swordswoman Book 3)

by Malcolm Archibald

Following in their wake, Melcorka and Bradan did the same with the much lighter Catriona, keeping close and learning this new skill by observation.

  'You won't manage that alone,' Erik said. 'I'll lend you some men.'

  'Leave them.' Frakkok said.

  'Please mother,' Erik said and gave a weak grin when Frakkok grunted and turned away. 'She doesn't mean it,' he said.

  Within a few moments, three disgruntled Norsemen slouched back to help with Catriona's progress. They used a simple method of rolling the ship along a number of felled logs, with the men lifting each log as Catriona passed over it, carrying it to the front of the ship and replacing it on the ground. They made steady if slow progress alongside the rapids. With the Norse in front desperate to show their superiority and the Norsemen with Catriona equally keen to show their strength and skill, they shoved and hauled and gasped the vessels beside the disturbed water.

  'I sent Ulf man ahead to scout,' Erik called back cheerfully. 'He'll find out how far these rapids stretch.'

  'The Skraelings called them the great roaring,' Melcorka said.

  At his best when working, Erik gave a huge grin and wiped the sweat from the forehead with the back of his hand leaving a dirty streak. 'The Skraelings were right,' he said. 'The water is nothing if not roaring.'

  Ulf did not come back. They heard his screaming first, pitched high above the noise of the waters. Then there was an abrupt silence. Frakkok raised her eyebrows at Erik.

  'Arne, Gunnar, Harald, go and see what's happened,' Erik ordered. 'The rest, keep pushing. We need this boat back afloat.'

  The first arrow hit the hull of Sea Serpent a moment later. It stuck out, quivering as the Norsemen stared at it.

  'Skraelings,' Melcorka touched the hilt of Defender.

  The war cry rose high and loud, a discordant shrieking that outmatched that of Ulf and was followed by a volley of arrows. Melcorka had a nightmare vision of multi-coloured faced and near-naked bodies among the dense forest and then the Skraelings charged out, scores strong, with stone- tipped spears and stone-headed axes.

  'They're not friendly,' Melcorka slipped Defender out of the scabbard and stepped forward. She saw the Norsemen draw swords and axes, with Frakkok passing out shields as calmly as if she was feeding livestock on her own farm.

  'Come on boys,' Frakkok said. 'They're only savages.'

  'Shield wall!' Erik shouted, and the Norse instantly came together. The shields interlocked, circular, each one decorated at the owner's whim and with the sun reflecting from the iron bosses. Spears thrust out to hamper the Skraeling attack while swords and axes were poised, waiting.

  'Make room for three more!' Arne, Gunnar, and Harald ran to join them. 'The woods are thick with Skraeling,' Gunnar said as he slid beside Erik.

  The last time Melcorka had seen a shield wall she had been on the opposing side. It was professionally interesting to watch it from a different perspective. It was also a little disturbing that she and Bradan were on the outside, alone and therefore vulnerable.

  The Skraelings came in a screaming rush. The Norse met them in a stubborn slashing wall and then Melcorka had other things to do rather than watch the Norse at play. Six Skraelings came at her, axes lifted and mouths open in high-pitched war-cries. Feeling the surging power of Defender, Melcorka weaved a figure of eight in front of her, slicing the first two attackers nearly in half and taking the arm off the third. The fourth altered his attack to Bradan, who swung wildly with his staff, missed and nearly overbalanced. The Skraeling poised above him and lifted his stone axe, screaming some war cry of triumph. Melcorka thrust Defender into his groin ripped upward and sidestepped the next man before she ducked, swept her sword sideways and cut off his leg. The remaining Skraeling took one look at his dead and dying colleagues, decided he preferred his limbs and head attached to his body and fled back to the sanctuary of the forest.

  The Norse had also repelled the Skraeling attack and stood, gasping, behind a mound of dead and dying bodies.

  'You fought well,' Erik shouted.

  Melcorka gestured to the casualties. 'So did you.'

  The arrows began again. Sigurd dropped with an arrow in his leg. He stood up, swore once, hauled the arrow out and stepped toward Sea Serpent. His shield had been shattered by a Skraeling axe and he took another from Frakkok and re-joined the wall.

  'There is no doubting that man's bravery.' Bradan said.

  Erik surveyed the forest from where the noise increased. He ignored the arrow that thrummed into the hull of Sea Serpent a hands-breadth from his face. 'Four men act as the escort; use your shields to deflect the arrows. The rest, push the ships.'

  They began again, shoving at the ships alongside the rapids, moving them inch by inch, log by log, working in a haze of sweat and effort while arrows whistled past them to thump into the hull or the logs.

  'Here's Ulf waiting for us,' Erne said.

  Ulf was not dead but he probably wished he was. Stripped naked, he had been castrated and his eyelids and fingers cut off. His tongue had been removed and he had been nailed to a tree with wooden pegs. Now he stared forward, making small mewing noises.

  'We'll take care of you, Ulf,' Erik promised. 'You'll be all right.'

  'He's better dead,' Frakkok said. 'He is no longer a warrior and no longer a man. You are his leader, Erik; give him a merciful death.'

  Erik glanced around, seeking support. Melcorka met his eyes and nodded. 'Ulf will die slowly; a quick death would be a blessing for him.' She paused as Erik hesitated. 'It is what a Viking should do for his men.'

  Closing his eyes, Erik nodded in obvious torment. Drawing his sword, he placed the point against Ulf's chest. 'May Odin welcome you to Valhalla,' he said, closed his eyes and thrust. 'Bury this Norse warrior.'

  'We have no time,' Frakkok said. 'The Skraelings may return. We push on until we can get back into the river.'

  'We make the time.' Erik's voice was harder than Melcorka had ever heard it. 'Bury our friend Ulf.'

  The Norse hesitated, torn between loyalty to Erik, fear of Frakkok and their desire to respect their colleague. Only when Frakkok turned away did they begin to hack out a hole in the root-tangled ground.

  Melcorka nodded her approval as the Norse buried their colleague and only then did the tortuous portage begin again.

  'I wonder why that tribe attacked us,' Melcorka asked as she pushed at Catriona. The ship grated forward another couple of inches.

  'We will never know,' Bradan said. 'Some peoples are naturally friendly and others are aggressive. That is the way of the world.' He glanced around. 'Although I do think that the Empire of Dhegia is having an unsettling effect on the people around here.'

  'That is certain,' Melcorka bent to Catriona again as the Norse replaced a roller in front. 'Ready … push!'

  'Ahead! Clear water!' Erik's shout was more than welcome.

  The rapids had stretched for a full three miles of muscle tearing effort, but the river stretched clear ahead. Melcorka looked at Erik; he was turning into a man. He had added maturity to that aura of cute hesitancy that still surrounded him.

  Chapter Ten

  As Melcorka had seen in the sweat-lodge, the rivers flowed from a succession of lakes, each large enough to be termed inland seas. When they reached the first they looked around with wonder, for nobody had ever seen a lake this size before.

  'It is a sea,' Gunnar said. 'We have reached the sea beyond Vinland. This sea will stretch to the end of the world.'

  'It's only a lake,' Melcorka said. 'The water is fresh.'

  It was a relief to place the ships onto such a broad stretch of water and sail westward, with the wind pushing them happily and the men relaxing.

  'Hopefully, there are no more portages,' Bradan said. 'I have had more than enough of pushing a ship that should be carrying me.'

  Melcorka recalled her vision from the sweat-lodge. 'I fear there is worse to come,' she said. 'We have more work to do before we reach Dhegia.' And then her questions would be answered
, Melcorka thought. Then she would find out if she did belong among these friendly, respectful men and women of that strange city, and who the man was who accompanied her. And, she thought, where Bradan fitted in.

  'Melcorka.' she became aware that Bradan had been talking to her for some minutes.

  'Bradan?' She leaned on the tiller and smiled across at him.

  'Have we taken the wrong route?' Bradan asked hopefully. 'I can hear a tremendous roaring ahead as if we were entering the domain of a hundred dragons.'

  'I was told there would be roaring water,' Melcorka had to raise her voice above the ever increasing noise. 'I thought it must be that first portage we did.'

  Furling the sail, Bradan moved to the bow of Catriona and peered ahead. 'There is a sort of white mist ahead,' he shouted, and that roaring sound must be more rapids.'

  'The local Skraelings warned us that there was danger on this river,' Melcorka shifted the tiller so Catriona moved closer to Sea Serpent. She shouted across to Erik. 'There is something ahead! It may be more rapids or it may be a dragon.'

  Frakkok stared at her from the stern of Sea Serpent. 'We can hear it,' she said coldly.

  'We're going ahead to check,' Melcorka said.

  Erik waved. 'Let me know if it's a dragon!' His eyes were bright blue in a face reddened by wind and weather. Once again he looked like a young boy in a man's body.

  'I'll do that,' Melcorka waved back and adjusted the tiller so the current took Catriona away from Sea Serpent and toward that curtain of white mist.

  'Back water!' Bradan shouted urgently. 'Mel: grab the oars and row back for your life: it is a waterfall; a huge waterfall!'

  It took both of them all their skill to haul Catriona back from the edge of what was undoubtedly the largest and most powerful waterfall they had ever seen.

  'Dear God in heaven,' Melcorka breathed. 'How are we going to get past that?'

  Bradan stared at the water that thundered vertically down a drop that must have been three hundred feet at least. 'I do not know,' he said. 'I do not know at all.'

  'It's a waterfall,' Melcorka reported to Sea Serpent. 'It's the largest waterfall I have ever seen.'

  'We have huge waterfalls in Norway,' Arne boasted.

  'Can you sail down them?' Bradan asked. 'I will watch while you do.' He winced as Melcorka dug her elbow into his ribs. 'Melcorka and I will moor Catriona and see if it's possible to portage around the fall.'

  'Erik and Arne will come with you,' Frakkok decided.

  Melcorka wondered if Erik and Arne wanted to leave the security of Sea Serpent to wander through the wilds of this new world with its savage Skraelings and unknown hazards.

  'It must be hard for a proud Norseman to have a woman managing his life,' Bradan said.

  Melcorka nodded. 'It is time he stepped out of Frakkok's shadow and became his own man.'

  They tied Catriona to a convenient tree at a spot where the current was weak and stepped ashore into a tangle of woodland and singing birds. The air smelled fresh and free, while the ground underfoot was a soft carpet of leaf mould.

  'This is a truly beautiful place,' Bradan pointed to the track of a deer. 'The wildlife is prolific, the ground is fertile and the trees are huge. The local people must think they live in paradise.'

  'They are Skraelings,' Arne said. 'Naked savages.' He grinned and rubbed his hand along the hilt of his sword. 'They know nothing of the world.'

  'They know how to live in it,' Bradan said.

  Arne pushed ahead, hacking at the undergrowth with his sword, swearing when he stumbled, laughing when he scared a deer that ran, startled, to lower ground. Erik followed in the path Arne had carved, occasionally glancing back to where Melcorka and Bradan stepped lightly through the forest.

  'We are being watched,' Bradan said.

  'There are three of them,' Melcorka murmured; 'two men and a woman on the left.'

  'That's how many I see,' Bradan tapped his staff on the soft ground. 'If there are three there will be more.'

  'Then let us hope that they are friendly,' Melcorka said. 'I do not wish to fight our way through every inch of this new land.'

  They moved closer to the waterfall, eventually stopping when they came to a rock that afforded them a clear view.

  'Oh dear God,' Melcorka said. 'There are three waterfalls, not just one.'

  Three waterfalls, each one larger than she had ever imagined, and each one throwing millions of gallons of water downward to the continuation of the river far below. The sight took her breath away with its beauty, while simultaneously shocking her with the difficulty of manoeuvring Catriona past this new obstacle.

  'So that's that,' Arne gaped at the trio of waterfalls, each creating a curtain of spray that rose high until dissipated by the wind. 'We can't get past that.'

  Erik said nothing. He stared at the view, fiddling with the hilt of his sword with his mouth moving as if in silent prayer.

  'This will be some portage,' Bradan leaned on his staff. 'We'll have to negotiate a steep drop as well as walking past these falls.'

  'We'll need more than logs,' Melcorka agreed.

  They stood in silence for some time as the incessant crash of the waterfalls echoed and re-echoed around them in a portrait of terrifying wild beauty.

  'Once we are past this point,' Bradan said, 'there is no return. We must go on, wherever the road or the river takes us.'

  'That is true,' Melcorka said. 'We might bring the ships down here but we could not lift them back up.'

  'This is where we decide.' Bradan leaned on his staff, staring at the majestic waterfalls. Blown on a breeze, the spray from the falls soaked them.

  'We decided a long time back,' Melcorka stood up and spoke over her shoulder as she walked away. 'My decision will not alter because of a falling river.'

  'Where are you going?' Erik called after them.

  'Back to Catriona,' Melcorka said. 'We have to portage past the falls.'

  'You are mad' Arne shouted. 'You can't carry the ships past all this, and if you do, we will be stuck here forever.'

  'I know,' Melcorka did not have to force her smile. 'We must go on and see what the world reveals to us.'

  'You are mad!' Arne repeated.

  'Are you going to try it?' Erik scrambled beside them, his face eager, enthusiastic. 'Are you really going to portage past these waterfalls?'

  'We are going to portage Catriona past these falls,' Melcorka said, 'and then we are going to sail on into the next inland sea, and then the one after that and the one after that until we come to the end. Eventually, we will find a great river, the mightiest river the world has ever seen, and we will follow it southward until we find this evil empire that is sending out its agents to spread death and destruction.'

  'And then what?' Erik asked. 'What will you do once you find it?'

  'That we do not yet know,' Bradan said solemnly. 'We will see what can be done once we are there, and not before.' He stepped on, tapping his stick on the soft ground.

  'Erik,' Melcorka turned around. 'If you accompany us you will be Eric Farseeker indeed, the furthest travelling Norseman of them all. And if you turn back … well, you already know the way to Greenland. The river current is in your favour so you will not find it a hard passage.' She waited a moment before adding. 'You had better ask your mother what to do.'

  'I don't need her to tell me!' There was anger in Erik's voice, as Melcorka had intended. 'I make the decisions in my own household.'

  'Then make one,' Melcorka said and turned away.

  'That was a bit cruel,' Bradan said.

  'It was necessary,' Melcorka glanced to the side. 'The Skraelings are still watching us. Move slowly so Erik and Arne can catch up.' She shouted a warning that saw Erik scurry to them and Arne follow with less speed and more dignity.

  'Where are they?' Arne whipped out his sword as if ready for instant battle.

  'They've been among the trees ever since we came on land,' Melcorka said. 'If they were going to attack, they woul
d have done it when we were sliding down the slope.'

  Arne laughed. 'They know we are Norsemen!'

  'Aye,' Bradan said. 'That must be it. Ten thousand Skraelings are afraid of two Norsemen, a woman and a man with a stick.' He ignored Arne's glower.

  'We can slide Catriona down most of the way,' Melcorka surveyed the route. 'The trees are quite far apart.'

  'We won't need to fell trees,' Bradan agreed. 'Not for the first stage anyway.' He pondered for a long moment. 'We can spread the spare sails under the keel and pull her along the downward slope on that. As long as we ensure she does not slide too fast downhill.'

  With her mast unshipped and securely tied on top and the canvas pad easing her passage, Melcorka and Bradan hauled Catriona onto the land and pushed her onwards and downward through the trees. Much smaller and lighter than Sea Serpent, she moved smoothly and was easier to negotiate than she had been on the log rollers until they arrived at a steep, twenty foot near vertical drop.

  'How do we do this?' Melcorka scratched her head.

  'We use ropes and lower her,' Bradan looked behind them, where ten Norse were cutting trees for rollers as the others pulled and pushed the much larger Sea Serpent through the woods. 'We may have to ask the Norsemen for some muscle-power.'

  Melcorka twisted her mouth in a frown. 'I'd rather not,' she said. 'We'll try this alone.' Wiping the sweat from her face, she first pushed and then tied back her hair with the head-band she had retrieved from the woman in the ice. 'I can see better now,' she said. Removing a rope from the stern locker of Catriona, Melcorka looped it around the central thwarts and then around two of the trees that overhung the cliff. 'Take the tension, Bradan.'

  'I doubt we're strong enough alone,' Bradan said.

  'Take the tension, Bradan!' Melcorka put steel in her voice and Bradan joined her. They slid Catriona gently toward the slope, using the trees as levers to reduce the strain as the ship gradually toppled over, bows first.

  'Hold her!' Melcorka said, and then louder: 'Hold her!' as Catriona increased speed and began to fall.

  'She's going!' Bradan shouted.

  'Bradan!'

  The rush of Skraelings from the woodland distracted her and she reached for Defender, but rather than attack, some of the newcomers took hold of the ropes and others stood beneath Catriona and eased her down to the thick vegetation at the bottom of the cliff.