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

by James L. Nelson

  They continued on until the late afternoon, sometimes walking by the river, sometimes skirting the woods that bordered the watercourse. Thorgrim was feeling the first hints of exhaustion when Cónán’s man announced that they had reached the spot where Sea Hammer had been tied the day before. Whether that was true or not Thorgrim did not know, because the river was blocked from view by a wide band of trees, but he took the man’s word for it and passed word that camp should be set up here.

  In surprisingly short order campfires were lit and meat set to roasting and ale handed around. Thorgrim took a cup from one of the Irish women and nodded his thanks and thought, There’s much to be said for this idea of bringing women along when one is going a’viking.

  He looked over at Failend, who was sitting and drinking ale with the Norsemen. She was making no effort to help the other women in their cooking and making camp, and she did not look like she intended to, or as if she had done much of that sort of thing in the past. The other Irishwomen seemed in no way put out by this, and from what little Thorgrim had seen of their interactions they seemed to show Failend great deference.

  I wonder if she’s royalty of some sort, or wealthy. She certainly did not have the worn, haggard quality he saw in many of the poor Irish women, including those who accompanied Cónán and his men. He had seen her hands, and they were not the hands of a woman who had scrubbed clothing and tended a fire all her life.

  He shook his head. She’s an odd one, he thought. But at least she’ll likely prove to be a good hand in a fight. In truth she already had.

  Thorgrim posted guards, arrayed in a great arc far away from the camp, so they would not be taken by surprise during the night. He sent them in twos, a Northmen and an Irishman in each pair. His men and Cónán’s had already fought side by side, but anything that helped reinforce that sense of brotherhood would only make them all the more formidable in a fight.

  Once everything was arranged to his satisfaction, Thorgrim lay down near one of the fires and pulled a blanket over himself, covering his head to keep the light mist that was still falling off his face. He slept deeply, the sleep of an exhausted man, and the sun was above the horizon, illuminating the wolf-gray sky when he finally woke.

  Breakfast was oat porridge and cold beef. Thorgrim was well into it when Vali appeared in camp, breathless from having run from his station to the south where he had been keeping lookout through the second half of the night.

  “Men coming,” he said to Thorgrim as he sucked in breath. “Coming from the south. About thirty or so.”

  “How far off?”

  “A mile or so. They don’t seem to be trying to hide or sneak up or any such thing.”

  “Very well,” Thorgrim said. This was most likely Cónán and the men he had gone to find, but if it was not, it would not do to be caught with leggings down. He ordered the men to arms and then he and Harald and Godi took up shields and swords and followed Vali back to the place from which he had come.

  They crouched behind a tall patch of rushes and watched the strangers approach. They were closer now. Thirty men, as Vali had said, spread out and walking toward them in a manner that did not suggest they were looking for a fight. Some of the strangers carried shields, but they were slung on the men’s backs, not carried on arms. No weapons were evident, save for a few spears resting on shoulders.

  For another five minutes Thorgrim and his men watched from their hidden place. Then the Irishman who had been on watch with Vali spoke.

  “He says it’s Cónán; he’s certain,” Harald translated.

  Thorgrim nodded. He had just come to that same conclusion. He recognized Cónán’s easy gait, like a big cat, and he thought he could see the shock of rust-red hair and the green tunic from that distance. He stood and stepped from behind the rushes and the others followed. He could see the surprise of their appearance ripple through the approaching men, some hesitating, some swinging spears down to the ready. But Cónán never broke stride and soon the others were with him again.

  Thorgrim waited for Cónán to reach him, and he clasped the Irishman’s hand once he did. He was pleased to see Cónán again, and that surprised him, because generally he had to know a man well before he cared in the least about him. The men who had come with Cónán hung back and looked warily on. Thorgrim turned to them, ran his eyes along their disorderly line.

  They appeared much the way Cónán and his band had when they first approached Sea Hammer across the sandbar: ragged and poorly armed, with a hungry look, an undisciplined look. Their hair was long, their beards unkempt. They wore tunics and leines and various bits of cloth in sundry configurations. Their weapons, up close, were even less impressive than they had been from a distance. Clubs, farmers’ axes, a smattering of sorry-looking blades, a few spears.

  “These are the men to help us beat Kevin and his warriors?” Thorgrim asked, giving the doubt in his voice free rein.

  “Ah, don’t be taken in by their fair looks,” Cónán said. “They’re some hard bastards, these, used to a fight and eager to take down a whore’s son like Kevin mac Lugaed.” He took Thorgrim’s arm and led him over toward one of the newcomers who was standing apart from the others, a small, stout man, a man whose beard was the most obviously impressive thing about him.

  “Thorgrim, this is Blathmac, who commands this lot,” he said, gesturing toward the stout man. He turned to Blathmac and spoke in Irish, gesturing toward Thorgrim.

  “Cónán says that you are the famous warrior Thorgrim Night Wolf,” said Harald, standing at Thorgrim’s side and leaning close, “and he says I am your son, and he takes care to tell this fellow I speak the Irish tongue.”

  At that Thorgrim smiled, just a bit. You’re a tricky one, Cónán, you son of a whore, he thought, but with no malice. He liked Cónán. And he trusted him. To a certain degree. Which was not much.

  He looked at Blathmac and found that Blathmac was looking him up and down, appraising him. Thorgrim extended his hand and Blathmac hesitated, just a heartbeat, before reaching out and grasping it. As they shook, Blathmac spoke to Cónán and Thorgrim was all but certain he saw Cónán wince.

  “This Blathmac says you don’t look like such a famous warrior,” Harald said, “and he tells Cónán that there had better be more men than just this.”

  Thorgrim finished shaking Blathmac’s hand and released it. As a rule he tried not to judge any man on their first meeting. He had been wrong in the past. But Blathmac he had disliked with the very first glance, and nothing so far had altered that assessment.

  Cónán was talking again, talking to Blathmac. “He’s telling Blathmac that there are more men, fin gall and his own men, waiting near the river,” Harald said. “He says…”

  Harald got no further. Blathmac grunted and pushed past Cónán, past Thorgrim and Harald and Godi, and marched off on his own toward the river, his men following behind. Cónán stepped after him, but Thorgrim grabbed his arm and jerked him back. Cónán was clearly not pleased with such treatment, but Thorgrim did not care.

  “Who is this miserable little shit?” Thorgrim asked. “Who does he think he is? And who does he think I am?”

  Cónán glared at him, but then his expression softened. He held his hands up, palms toward Thorgrim, as if in surrender. “He is a miserable little shit,” Cónán agreed. “But I’ve told him who’s in command here. He’ll listen to you. He’s too greedy not to.”

  For a long moment Thorgrim just held Cónán’s eyes, and Cónán returned the stare without flinching. Then Thorgrim spoke.

  “I made it clear. I am going to kill Kevin and I’m going to kill Ottar, and if the gods will favor me I’ll take back what’s mine. I don’t care about anything else. Or anyone. Not you, not your men, and certainly not this little whore’s son you’ve brought to me. I’ll kill any man who stands in my way. I’ll kill you if I must.”

  “Yes,” Cónán said. “You said you would. Many times. And you’re welcome to try whenever you wish. But if you look close you’l
l see we’re still fighting with you, not against you. And until that changes let me suggest you keep your sword in its scabbard.”

  Thorgrim remembered a time when he was a boy and found himself hanging from a rope over the water. The rope hung from a cliff edge above the bitter cold fiord on which he lived. He couldn’t recall now how he had come to be in that position, clinging to the rope, trying to pull himself up. The strength had gone out of his arms and he was slipping down, inch by inch, and he knew that it was only a matter of time before he plunged into the icy sea.

  That memory just leapt into his mind, standing there in that field in Ireland. He could still recall the sensation of his grasp finally giving out, of the rope whipping from his hands, of the cold rush of wind as he fell, the shocking pain of the ocean water wrapping itself around him. He had managed to kick his way to the shore, drag himself out onto the gravel beach, heaving for breath and shivering so hard he could barely move.

  He felt that way now. The rope burning though his fingers, his hold on circumstances slipping, slipping. This was how it had happened before, when he had first agreed to take part in the raid on Glendalough, yielding control inch by inch, first to Kevin and then Ottar, until his grip gave out and he fell.

  But he was not a boy any longer. And he was not a fool. His grip was strong and he would not let it slip ever again. Cónán could make his plans and Blathmac could think what he wished. Thorgrim Night Wolf would pull himself up the rope until he was on top once more.

  He nodded at Cónán. He rested his hand on Iron-tooth’s hilt and headed off through the thigh-high grass toward his men waiting by the trees.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Make the tyrant flee his lands,

  Frey and Njord; may Thor

  The land-god be angered at this foe,

  The defiler of his holy place.

  Egil’s Saga

  Aghen had forty men under his command, though it was not entirely clear whether or not he was in charge.

  Ottar had picked the men for the wolf hunt. He had not asked for volunteers, which was understandable judging by the lack of enthusiasm Aghen was seeing among those who had been chosen. Ottar had also named one of his household guard to take charge of the reluctant forty, a tall brute of a man named Einar Skulason. Einar might have been loyal to Ottar, but he did not strike Aghen as one of the inner circle, one of those closest to the new Lord of Vík-ló. Of course, in the wake of the mysterious wolf attacks there were not so many of those left.

  Einar had charge of the men, but he made it clear he expected Aghen to devise the means by which they would trap and kill the wolf. “This is your business,” Einar said flatly after Aghen had posed the question of which direction they should go. “I know nothing of this. Ottar said it was on you to find this thing. You find it, me and my men will see about killing it.”

  Why do you think I know anything about this? Aghen thought, but he resisted saying it out loud. He seemed to now be considered the expert on wolves simply because he had seen one in Vík-ló and it had not killed him. It actually had not killed anyone, but that was not a point that Aghen could make.

  It was not clear whether Einar thought Aghen had some sort of preternatural knowledge of the wolf, as Ottar seemed to believe. What was clear was that Einar did not intend to take responsibility for any potential failure. If they actually succeeded in killing a wolf, Aghen guessed the man would be more willing to own up to his part in the effort, but unless that happened, failure would be Aghen’s concern.

  They were gathered in the open space by Ottar’s hall. The men were in armor, some wearing mail, most wearing leather. They carried swords and spears, the latter considered the most effective weapon against an enemy they wished to hold at bay. A horse stood patiently in the traces of a wagon. The wagon was piled with food and ale and shields and tents.

  It was anyone’s guess how long they would be gone. No one cared to return without a dead wolf to show Ottar. Aghen might have been the only one whose life had actually been threatened, but no one thought Ottar would be very forgiving of anyone if they failed.

  “Very well,” Aghen said, giving his voice a decisive tone and surveying the distant mountains as if this were something he did all the time. “We’ll need bait, of course. I think the haunch of a pig. Fresh killed. We’ll drag it behind the cart, make a trail with the blood and the scent.”

  “Drag a haunch?” Einar said, and Aghen was sure he was about to argue that doing that would only attract the man-killer to them, but Einar caught himself before the words came out. “All right,” he said and turned to one of the others and issued the orders. Fifteen minutes later a fresh-killed sow was hefted into the back of the wagon and there were no valid excuses left for their remaining in the longphort.

  Einar waved his arm at the men at the gate. They lifted the bar and swung the big wooden doors open, and the hunting party reluctantly moved out toward the open country and the mountains in the distance.

  “We’ll head off this way,” Aghen said, pointing in a generally northwest direction. He spoke the words with certainty, as if he had chosen that course after much consideration, but in truth he was making it all up. He had no reason to go that way, had no clue as to how they would find and kill the wolf, had no idea what he would say to Ottar when he returned empty-handed.

  There was a road of sorts running off in the direction Aghen had indicated, one reason perhaps he was drawn to that direction. It was not so much a road as a wide, worn track, but it had seen enough traffic over the past winter, with the Irishman Kevin sending wagonloads of supplies to Vík-ló and returning to his home with silver in his purse, that it was rutted and well-defined. They set out on the road, moving no faster than the horse was willing to pull the cart.

  Half a mile from the gates of Vík-ló, Aghen called a halt. “Let’s get the pig haunch dragging astern the wagon,” he said. With expert strokes of his knife, one of Ottar’s men separated one of the rear legs from the dead animal and made it fast to a length of rope tied to the back of the cart. Soon they were moving again, the pig’s leg bumping and jarring behind, leaving an ever-diminishing streak of blood on the grass and earth.

  Aghen, leading the small band, turned to see how the others were fairing. He almost laughed at the sight of the men, walking with spears poised, looking intently in every direction as if they expected to be set upon by a hundred wolves that might spring bodily from the earth.

  They walked for a few hours, zigzagging back and forth, crossing and recrossing the road but generally following it northwest. Aghen was not sure how far he wished to get from Vík-ló, or how far from the dubious protection of the longphort the men would be willing to go. If no wolf was found, he realized, it would be far better for him to not return to Vík-ló at all, and he toyed with that idea as he walked.

  Around midday they stopped for a meal, the men sitting gratefully on the ground, their former vigilance all but abandoned. The horse was released from the traces and turned happily to the grass beneath its feet.

  Oddi, who was one of the men sent on the hunting party, sat by Aghen, a strip of dried beef and an oat cake in hand. “This is a lot of walking for an old man like you,” he said, smiling as he spoke. “How are you fairing?”

  “Fine, fine,” Aghen said. “I’ll ride back in the wagon after the wolf has killed you all.” As soon as he spoke he could see this joke did not sit well with Oddi, and he was about to assure him that such a thing would not happen, when Einar joined them. He did not sit, but rather squatted on his heels, coming down to Aghen’s level but making it clear he would not remain.

  “You have a reason for going in the direction we’re going?” he asked. There was suspicion and accusation in his tone.

  Aghen shrugged. “Just a feeling. It’s all I have.”

  Einar looked up the road as if hoping to see something in the distance. “From what I’ve been told by those who were at Vík-ló over the winter, this road leads to the ringfort of that Irishman, Ke
vin.”

  “Yes,” Aghen said. He, too, had been in Vík-ló over the winter, which Einar knew but apparently dismissed. “We’re still some miles from that place, however. Or so I think. I’ve never been this way. Is that a problem?”

  “We don’t want to go near Kevin’s stronghold,” Einar said. “Ottar would not allow it.”

  Aghen made no reply at first as a host of thoughts crowded into his head. He wanted to ask why Ottar would care. He wanted to insist they keep on in that direction so that he could blame their failure to find the wolf on Einar’s refusal. But before he could speak, Einar stood and walked off.

  Aghen turned to Oddi. “Why doesn’t Einar want us to get near Kevin’s ringfort?”

  It took Oddi a moment to chew and swallow a mouthful of the unforgiving beef and cake before he could speak. “I don’t know for certain,” he said. “But we joined up with this Kevin when we were going to Glendalough.”

  Aghen nodded. “I recall when he came to Vík-ló and talked Thorgrim Night Wolf into joining him.”

  Oddi nodded. “I guess he talked Ottar into joining him, too. Because we did meet up with him and his men. By the river. Where the two rivers meet. Of course I only hear rumors, but as I understand it, Kevin was supposed to fight with us, but then he switched sides. I don’t know about that, but I know for a fact he and his Irishmen were not fighting on our side. They just disappeared. Some said they saw him fighting against us, but I don’t know for certain.”

  “Hmm,” Aghen said as Oddi braved another bite of food. He considered this new information. Ottar had betrayed Thorgrim, and so had Kevin. No wonder Thorgrim and his men had been wiped out.

  “So Ottar has reason to hate this Kevin?” Aghen asked. “To want revenge, maybe?”

  Oddi nodded vigorously as he swallowed. “Oh, yes, Ottar is crazy for vengeance against Kevin. He used to talk of it all the time. In fact, he was making ready to lead a raid on Kevin’s ringfort when this whole wolf business happened. And then he went crazy about that.”