Night Wolf: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 5)

by James L. Nelson

  He looked up river and down, judging the strength of the current. He heard the sound of something falling on the deck, felt the shudder in his feet, and looked up to see Godi dropping a great armload of mail shirts and swords and axes over the sheer strake forward. More men were behind him, similarly laden. Their faces were grim and Thorgrim guessed that they, like himself, understood the need to do what they were doing, but were not happy about doing it.

  Thorgrim looked out at the beach. The men were back scouring the dead for weapons, but the two prisoners just stood watching, arms folded. They were enigmas, a man and a woman, both clad in mail and wearing swords, of which they had been relieved. They had come walking down the riverbank and stumbled into Thorgrim and his men. They were Irish, as far as Thorgrim could tell, but he had the sense that they were trying to escape from something, or someone.

  The man carried a sack over his shoulder, which Thorgrim had correctly guessed carried a small chest with a hoard of silver, gold and jewels inside.

  Thieves? Thorgrim wondered. Perhaps, but they were dressed and armed better than any itinerant bandits that Thorgrim had ever seen. Nor did it matter at that moment. Whatever they were, they would not be idle.

  “Harald!” Thorgrim called. “Tell our new friends there to find some helmets and get to bailing.”

  Harald nodded and called to the two ashore, addressing them in the Irish tongue. He had picked up much of the language during their time in that country, motivated by a desire to speak with the various Irish women he had met, for better or worse.

  Grudgingly, the prisoners found helmets and climbed aboard and soon they added their efforts to the bailing. Thorgrim felt the vessel shifting underfoot as the water level dropped and the keel came up off the bottom. More water went over the side. Sea Hammer rolled more upright.

  “Night Wolf,” Starri called from forward. “Riders.”

  Thorgrim nodded. “That’s all we get,” he called. These horsemen might have been the Irishmen coming back with more men, or they might not have been, but either way Thorgrim knew they could not risk waiting to find out. He looked over the side. The ship seemed to be floating, and high enough that they could get her off the shore. “Shove her out, let’s be gone!” he said. The men gleaning weapons ashore left off and put their shoulders to the side of the ship, and Harald leapt overboard and did likewise.

  With a minimum of grunting and cursing, Sea Hammer’s bow slid off the gravel beach and, before climbing aboard, the men who had pushed her off turned her so she was pointing downstream. The current took her and swirled her away and Thorgrim steered as best he could until the oars were out and the ship was making way. They were around the bend and lost from sight before any of the mounted warriors appeared on the shore astern.

  For two hours they worked their way downstream, rowing and bailing, until at last Sea Hammer came to rest on the sandbar that had stuck in Thorgrim’s memory.

  Harald crossed the gravel to the trees beyond, uncoiling the rope as he went, and soon had the ship tied fore and aft. On Thorgrim’s orders the yard was lowered to the deck, the parrel binding it to the mast untied, and the heavy spar was set to rest on the larboard side.

  That done, the vantnales were cast off to free the lower ends of the shrouds and the mast was unstepped and set beside the yard. This was no easy task with so few men, and those few in such bad shape, but it would greatly help in hiding the ship. More importantly, the weight of the spars on the larboard side lifted the hole to starboard out of the water, and so the ship was no longer in danger of filling.

  Thorgrim pulled the soaked tunics from the rent in the side and was finally able to examine the hole more closely. He knelt on the deck and leaned into the damage. In his mind he saw the shattered planks cut back to where they were still solid, the holes drilled in the new pieces, the clench nails set in place. His thoughts traveled to the space beneath the deck boards where the spare strakes were stored away. In his mind he sorted through them just as he had with his eyes when they had first come aboard.

  Sea Hammer was Thorgrim’s ship in every way. He built her, he and Aghen Ormsson, the skilled old shipwright who made his home at Vík-ló. All through the winter months Thorgrim and Aghen had worked side by side, shaping Sea Hammer and the other ships, Dragon and Blood Hawk. They had discussed every step, argued about some things, readily agreed on others. They had selected wood, shaped the strakes, laid out the keel and the frames and the mast steps. While every man in the longphort had had a hand in the building, the creating was done by Thorgrim and Aghen alone.

  And so Thorgrim had no doubt that he could make his ship strong and whole again. Not just strong enough to live on the Irish river, but strong enough to survive the open sea. And he knew it would not be a simple task.

  He also knew that it would not start that day. The sun was sinking in the west, and even as he looked at the damaged strakes, Thorgrim felt exhaustion wash over him. He recalled, with some surprise, that it was only that morning he and his men had been fighting for their lives against the mounted Irish warriors, that it had been just after dawn that he had seen his men, his shipmates, hacked down around him. It seemed like half a lifetime’s worth of horror and rage and grief had been shoved into those dozen hours of daylight.

  He gathered his men and set a watch, and despite his exhaustion he took the first shift himself. The others crawled off to sleep and Thorgrim took his place on the afterdeck, his eyes turned out toward the darkening shore, his ears sharp for any sounds that were not the normal sounds of the night.

  The details of the shoreline faded with the setting sun, and as they did the ghosts appeared, the images of the men he had lost that day: Agnarr, Skidi Battleax, Bersi, Sutare Thorvaldsson, all those men who had put themselves under his command, all those men who had followed him, and he had led them only to their deaths. In his mind he could see them all still alive, and some he could see at the moment their lives had ended, cut down by the Irish swords and spears.

  He had led men before. And he had seen slaughter before. But he had never seen his own men butchered in that way. And he had never felt so entirely responsible for having led men to a bloody end.

  In the younger days, and even when they had first come back to Ireland, the men he commanded were Ornolf’s men, not his. He might have been leading them, but the ultimate responsibility had rested with Ornolf, not him.

  He reminded himself that the other chief men, Skidi and Bersi and Kjartan, had also agreed to take part in this raid. They had wanted to, and so had their men. And that thought did nothing to lift his burden.

  “Never again,” he said, softly to himself. The men under his command might still meet with bloody and violent death, but not because he had been played for a fool.

  The hours passed, and somewhere beyond the thick clouds Thorgrim knew the stars were wheeling in place, and at last he woke Godi to take the watch. With a grunt Godi hefted himself up, stood and stretched. Thorgrim gave one last look around. All was quiet. Some of the men were snoring. He lay down on a fur on the deck and closed his eyes. He was not sure sleep would come to him, and if it did he was wary of what dreams it might bring, but in the end exhaustion won the night and he slept, deep and dreamless.

  And then he awoke and he knew something was wrong. He opened his eyes to the gray light of rismál, the hour of rising. It was quiet, no sound of alarm, but he knew something was wrong. He sat up just in time to see Godi stepping toward him, moving sideways, his eyes never leaving the riverbank.

  Thorgrim stood. There were men coming out of the trees, armed men. Twenty at least, probably more. They were Irish, but they were not men-at-arms. They were something much worse than that.

  Chapter Two

  A generous prudent man of shields

  Who brought plenty to landed Temair,

  Against iron-tipped spears a buckler

  From the forge-fire of the land of the sons of Mil.

  The Annals of Ulster

  Lochlánn mac A
inmire, formerly Brother Lochlánn, novitiate at the monastery at Glendalough, led his twenty mounted men-at-arms back to the dúnad, the soldiers’ camp, just outside of the monastic city. They rode hard. They did not know if the Northmen were coming in pursuit. And whether they were or not, Lochlánn was desperately eager to round up more men, return to the river, and crush the heathens before they could escape. But for all that, the ride back was a blur. He was aware of none of it.

  Louis…damn him…Louis…son of a bitch… Those disjointed curses echoed through his mind as he rode. Rage, confusion, fear—it all swirled around in some unholy brew and it would not let him think.

  Louis de Roumois…

  A fellow novitiate. A Frank, a former soldier, a second son exiled to the monastery by his family, as Lochlánn had been. But then Louis had been lifted from that unwelcome circumstance and set at the head of the men-at-arms, charged with defending Glendalough against the heathens, and he had taken Lochlánn as his aide. He had given Lochlánn a purpose and a new life. He had taught him how to be a soldier and showed him how to fight the heathen.

  Louis, you son of a bitch… And then Louis had murdered his second in command, a man named Aileran, and run off with the wife of Colman mac Breandan, the nominal head of Glendalough’s defense. And now Colman was dead, too, and Lochlánn had no reason to think that Louis had not killed him as well.

  Except that Louis insisted that he had not.

  There at the river. Lochlánn was preparing to burn the heathens’ ship to the waterline and Louis de Roumois, of all people, had come out of the woods, arms spread to show he meant no harm. Lochlánn drew his sword and might have cut Louis down on the spot if he had not been so stunned.

  Then Louis had begun to talk, the words calm, forceful, with a hint of pleading, the Frankish accent so familiar. “Lochlánn, I must say two things, and you will listen to me, and then you can kill me or not, as you wish,” he said.

  Lochlánn was still too stunned to reply.

  “The first thing is that Colman sent Aileran to kill me,” Louis said. “Colman was paid by my brother, I think. It is very complicated. But I killed Aileran because he was going to kill me.”

  “So you did kill Aileran?” Lochlánn said. A stupid question, but he had not recovered his wits.

  “Yes. Because he was going to kill me. The next thing is that there are sixty of the heathens coming up the river, not far now, and they’ll kill you all if you don’t flee.”

  Lochlánn squinted at Louis. The other men at arms began to move around Louis’s flanks, ready to block any attempt at escape. “How do you know this?” Lochlánn asked.

  “Because they sent me. They want you to flee. They don’t want to fight. They just want to leave.”

  Lochlánn’s reply was on his lips. Why should I believe a murderer like you? But before he could speak he saw movement on the edge of his vision. He looked up. Two hundred feet downstream, the heathens were coming out of the woods, weapons in hand. Coming toward them. Just as Louis had said.

  “Go,” Louis said. “Go now. There’s no reason for you and your men to die.”

  Lochlánn hesitated. He shook his head, not in refusal but in hope that doing so might help order his thoughts. But it did not. “Come with us,” Lochlánn said.

  “No,” Louis said. “The heathens have Failend. They’ll kill her if I go with you.”

  Failend… Colman’s wife. That name brought another thought into Lochlánn’s head.

  “Colman is dead,” Lochlánn said. “Did you kill him?”

  There was a look of surprise on Louis’s face, and it seemed genuine. “No,” Louis said. “How was he killed?”

  “His throat was slashed. In his own home. I found his body. It looked as if he had been digging up a hoard, but if he was, someone stole it.”

  Louis had no reply to that. For the first time since his appearance on the riverbank he seemed as dazed as Lochlánn. Then Senach, who was second in command of the small detachment of riders, made a sound in his throat, a low warning sound. Lochlánn looked up. The heathens were still advancing through the shallow water, ten men at least, and likely more in the trees.

  Louis saw Lochlánn’s eyes move downstream. “Go,” Louis said again. Lochlánn slid his sword back into its scabbard.

  “You men,” Lochlánn called to his soldiers, “let us mount up and go. We’ve had fighting enough for today.” And that was true, though Lochlánn had already decided they would ride back to the dúnad for more men and with luck return in time to kill the rest of the heathens and to take Louis de Roumois prisoner. If your task was wiping out a nest of vipers, you did not suffer a few to live that they might strike again.

  He turned to Louis, who was also starting to back away. “I’m not done with you,” he said, and at that Louis visibly bristled.

  “You mind how you talk to me, boy,” Louis said, the calm all but gone now, the anger rising up. “You knew nothing before I trained you, and you hardly know more now.”

  Lochlánn’s men were moving back. Not fleeing, but returning to their mounts, and Lochlánn took a step back as well. He pointed at Louis. “You killed Aileran and you admitted as much. If you had to kill him or not, I don’t know. You ran off with Colman’s wife. These are things you must answer for. In the eyes of the law and of God.”

  Louis shook his head. “Go, boy,” he said. “Go and see how the world of men really works.”

  And that was the last that Lochlánn mac Ainmire had seen of Louis de Roumois. He and Senach and the others mounted up, kicked their horses to a gallop. They had been riding for nearly an hour when the steeple on the big church at Glendalough came into view, and Lochlánn’s mind was no more settled than it had been standing by the river.

  In truth he had not known Louis for so very long, but in that short time he had come to love him as he loved no other man, not even his brother. Certainly not his father. And that made him all the more desperate to take Louis prisoner and to find out the truth and to drive a sword through his heart if Louis had indeed betrayed them.

  Lochlánn slowed his tired horse to a walk and he heard the men behind him do the same. Senach gave his horse a kick and drew up by Lochlánn’s side and for a moment they rode on like that without speaking. Senach was only a few years’ Lochlánn’s senior, but he was a man-at-arms by training and had considerable experience in combat. Still, he did not seem to resent Lochlánn’s having command. Lochlánn’s father was a Lord of Superior Testimony, wealthy and influential. Lochlánn could read and write. That seemed enough by Senach’s lights to qualify him for leadership.

  Just a few weeks before, that would have been all the qualification Lochlánn could have mustered, that and some remedial training as a young man. But since that time he and Senach had fought side by side in several ugly battles. And despite the fears that had kept Lochlánn awake in the nights leading up to the mayhem, he had acquitted himself well. Every warrior among them would have to say Lochlánn was an able fighting man.

  “These men,” Lochlánn said, giving a slight nod toward the mounted warriors behind them, “will they ride back to face the heathens again? Do they have the strength still, or are they too tired?”

  “The horses are too tired,” Senach said. “We’ll need fresh horses. The men? If you lead them back to fight, they’ll go. They’d be more afraid of seeming backward in their courage.”

  Lochlánn nodded. “Good,” he said. He was ready for more, but he understood that he might feel more driven for this fight than the others did.

  They rode up over a rise in the land and saw the dúnad spread out beyond them, or what remained of the dúnad. At the end of the fighting that morning there had been three or four hundred men there. Some were the bóaire and the fuidir, the small-time farmers, those who were not freemen, who had been called up for the military service they owed their lords. Others were the household guards and the men-at-arms that the various rí túaithe maintained. But already they were melting away, the farmers back to
their sorry plots of land, the men-at-arms back to their lords’ halls. The heathen had been driven off; no one was eager to remain.

  “Damn them for fools,” Lochlánn said. “Do they think the threat’s gone? Will they just abandon the dúnad?”

  He looked over to Senach for an answer, but Senach just shrugged. They rode on for a moment more, and then Senach said, “We did great slaughter among the heathens this very morning. All their ships are gone, save for the one we nearly burned, and that one had a great hole in the side. I guess they don’t see a need to tarry here.”

  Lochlánn made a grunting noise. There was reason enough for the army to remain. They did not know where the heathens had gone, if they had returned to the sea or if they were just a few leagues down the river, biding their time. Louis de Roumois had said there were sixty at least within striking distance of Glendalough.

  What’s more, Lochlánn and his men had failed to take Louis prisoner. That, Lochlánn realized, was the thing that bothered him most of all, the chief reason it angered him to see the army breaking apart like a sheet of ice on a spring lake.

  They came to the edge of the encampment where a group of soldiers were folding tents and taking down a rather impressive pavilion that no doubt belonged to the lord whom they served. Louis reined to a stop.

  “You there,” he said, and the man nearest him left off what he was doing, straightened, turned, and looked up at Lochlánn.

  “Yes?” the man said.

  “Who is the lord of the highest standing in the dúnad now?” Lochlánn asked. “Who has command here?” With Colman dead and Louis run off, Lochlánn did not know who to turn to for instructions, or who might have the authority to order more mounted warriors to accompany him on his renewed attack on the heathens.