This was all the distraction Thorgrim needed. The other riders looked over at the sound as they realized they were again being attacked by an enemy they had not seen coming.
“The woods! To the woods!” Thorgrim shouted, waving as he ran. He reached behind and drew the seax and drove the point into the rump of the horse as he passed, sending the animal bolting away, careening into the others massed for the kill.
Even Starri did not need convincing now. They turned and ran and Thorgrim heard their footfalls on the grass behind him as the trees and brush loomed in front. A spear came sailing past, but Thorgrim ignored it. Voices shouted in Irish at their backs, but he knew better than to turn and look.
Fifteen feet, ten feet, and then they were once again into the brush and they kept going until they were surrounded by scrubby trees that hid them entirely from view. The trees were their refuge, their protection. Not because they kept the Irish men-at-arms at bay but because they kept the Irish from knowing how many they were facing.
If the mounted warriors had known their enemy consisted of only five men, they would have come down from their horses, plunged into the woods, and sooner or later killed them all. But they did not know that, because the sudden attack and retreat had thrown them into confusion and denied them the chance to assess the force that opposed them. And so they would have to be more cautious.
For a full three minutes Thorgrim, Harald, and Starri stood doubled over, gasping, listening to the shouts of the Irish warriors from somewhere beyond the foliage. Finally Thorgrim straightened, his breathing nearly back to normal. He was going to ask if the others were all right, but he could see they were. Starri, grinning as he was, actually looked better than Thorgrim had seen him look in some time, despite the wild hair and the blood that streaked his face and bare chest and the ugly remnants of the wound in his shoulder, swollen and red.
Thorgrim jerked his head in the direction that led further into the trees and headed off, pushing the bracken aside, twisting through the saplings. He heard the other two following him, heard Harald curse softly as a branch whipped him in the face.
They were no more than thirty or forty feet into the trees when they stepped out of the woods again and onto the bank of the small creek that Cónán had assured them would be there. Thorgrim looked upstream. The water tumbled and fell over the rocks, running inches deep on its path through the trees. Far off he could see the mountains rising up over the foliage. Closer, a hundred yards away, he could see Cónán and Fothaid step from the trees as well.
Thorgrim headed off again, walking half in the water, half on the narrow bank, sometimes stepping into the stream as the trees crowded the watercourse, Harald and Starri behind him. They met up with the Irishmen at a place where the water raced over a wide, flat, smooth rock. Like Starri, Cónán was grinning.
“Well, that got them in an uproar,” he said. “Just listen to them!”
They fell silent, listening. The breeze was rustling in the trees and the water making its soft sound over the streambed, but behind it all they could hear the horsemen shouting, could hear the pounding of hooves as horses rode hard, the warriors moving around the stand of trees.
“So, now they think they have us surrounded here, trapped in these woods,” Cónán said.
“But they do, don’t they?” Harald asked.
“No,” Cónán said. He paused. “Well, yes. They do. But we only have to outrun them.”
“They’re on horseback,” Thorgrim said.
“We have to run fast,” Cónán said. “But see here, they still don’t know how many we are, and after the fright we just gave them, they won’t be in any hurry to come in here after us. Certainly not on foot.”
“They can ride down the stream bed, if they know it’s open enough for them,” Thorgrim said. “Come after us that way.”
“I’m sure they know that,” Cónán said. “Some of these men, they probably know this country near as good as I do. I’m counting on it.”
“So now what do we do?” Thorgrim asked.
“Confuse them some more. Scare them some more,” Cónán said. “You Northmen, you sit around on your ships all the day, eating and drinking ale. I don’t expect you to be able to run like an Irishman can. So the three of you, you go down to the downstream end of this stand of wood. Just hide yourselves in the trees. If any riders come by, you stay put, stay hidden, understand?”
Thorgrim and Harald nodded. Cónán looked at Starri.
“Stay hidden. Don’t attack them. Understand?”
Starri frowned, then nodded. Thorgrim turned in the direction that Cónán had indicated and then the three of them headed off at a jog, splashing through the cold water, the day still punctuated by the call of the horsemen as they sorted themselves out in the wake of that wild and utterly unexpected assault.
It took only a few moments to reach the far end of the trees and tuck themselves in among the foliage, standing perfectly still, invisible to anyone looking in from the open place made by the stream. And it was not more than a minute after that when the first of the horsemen appeared in view, right in front of them and fifteen feet away.
He rode slowly past, another man coming behind him, and then another. They moved with great caution, and Thorgrim could see their heads swiveling, their eyes peering into the dark woods, and he could well imagine how vulnerable they must feel. An enemy of unknown size, of proven courage and versatility, hiding in the trees, unseen, ready like a pack of wolves to pounce.
But tempting as it was to fall on the riders, Thorgrim remained still and let them pass. Even Starri, who was twitching and jerking his limbs in that odd pre-battle way of his, did not move from the place where he stood.
Ten horsemen. Thorgrim counted them as they moved past. Ten mounted warriors, and then there were only the trees and the tumbling water once again.
Thorgrim took a careful step toward the edge of the foliage, moving to a place where he could see upstream. The riders who had passed them were still keeping to the water, and more riders were coming from the other direction, moving in the same slow, tentative way. There seemed to be ten in that second column as well. Twenty riders moving along the streambed, another twenty circling the woods. Riders to flush the tormenters out and riders to cut them down as they ran.
The Irishmen at the head of each mounted column met about fifty yards from where Thorgrim stood. He heard them speak in low voices. One pointed a gloved hand upstream, and then suddenly he jerked as if someone had yanked a leash around his neck. He slumped sideways, an arrow in his chest, and then the man to whom he was speaking was knocked right off his horse, coming down on his back in the stream, flailing, kicking and shouting, clawing at the arrow in his neck.
Once again the quiet scene burst into chaos as the riders whirled in place, trying to find where this new attack was coming from. Another man slumped sideways, and Thorgrim saw a horse twisting as its rider grasped for an arrow jutting from his upper arm.
Cónán and Fothaid were shooting as fast as they could, and that seemed very fast indeed. Thorgrim guessed they were moving through the woods, downstream, toward where he and Harald and Starri stood waiting. An arrow bounced off a mail shirt, the rider shouting in surprise and pointing at the trees and spurring his horse on, one of the Irish bandits apparently in sight.
“Get ready, I think this is where we start running,” Thorgrim said, and no sooner had the words left him then he heard someone crashing through the trees and bracken. A second later Cónán and Fothaid came racing through the brush, making no attempt at stealth now.
“Here we go, here we go!” Cónán shouted as he ran, his eyes wide and wild-looking, a crazy grin on his face. He was enjoying himself, genuinely finding pleasure in this. Thorgrim was impressed, and a bit envious. He himself felt like a sea-worn ship, battered about, tired and waterlogged. It had been some time since he had felt such unabashed exhilaration.
Cónán and Fothaid raced past and Thorgrim followed behind and Starri and H
arald after him. They leapt over rotting logs and pushed tall ferns and thin oaks and maples aside as they ran. Cónán was a wonder to see, dodging here and there, side to side, under branches, around trees. Thorgrim could do nothing but stay in his wake and try to follow.
Even Fothaid could not keep up with Cónán, and by the time they had covered fifty feet he was three steps behind. Starri, however, had caught up with the Irishman and was running at his side, matching him step for step, dodge for dodge. Starri could not help but turn such a run for his very life into a competition of speed and agility. It was just who he was.
They burst from the trees and into the open country, never breaking stride. There were no horsemen near; the closest were sixty or seventy yards off and looking in an entirely different direction. If this was by Cónán’s design or a happy coincidence, Thorgrim did not know, and he told himself to ask Cónán later if they happened to still be alive.
There was a shout from the left, and another off to the right.
They’ve seen us now, Thorgrim thought. He could hear more shouting and the pounding of hooves, growing louder and more rapid as the horses built speed and thundered toward them.
We have to run fast.
Thorgrim remembered Cónán’s words. Stupid Irish bastard, was this really his idea, to simply outrun the horsemen? Cónán had never been very specific about this part of his plan. Now, as Thorgrim’s breath came harder and he began to feel a burning in his chest and he realized he was falling behind the other four as they raced across the open ground, he wished he had asked more questions.
They were going uphill, climbing one of the innumerable hillocks that rolled like waves across the countryside. Thorgrim’s legs were beginning to tire and he was starting to consider just turning and fighting. How many of these Irish whores’ sons could he kill with his seax before they sent him off to the corpse hall?
Cónán was up over the crest of the hillock and lost from sight, and then Starri, Fothaid and Harald. Thorgrim pushed up the last few feet and reached the top. He expected to see the ground roll off downhill on the other side, but it did not. Instead it just ended with a sharp six-foot drop to the ground where the back side of the hillock had eroded away into a small dirt cliff.
Thorgrim felt his feet come down on air and he fell, hit the ground, and sprawled out on the grass. He felt hands grabbing him and pulling him and he looked around to see the other four pressed against the bank of dirt, hidden under the overhanging sod above them where the earth had been chewed away.
Thorgrim half stood and scrambled toward them, dropping in a spot between Harald and Cónán, back to the earthen wall, mouth hanging open as he gasped for breath. He could hear the riders getting closer, could feel the little vibrations in the ground from the pounding of the horses’ hooves.
The horsemen swept past from the right and the left, coming into view as they raced around the partial hill, which hid Thorgrim and his men, from one direction at least. They pounded off toward the small river which Thorgrim’s people had been following. The horsemen, Thorgrim guessed, must have thought the five of them were further ahead, maybe hidden behind one of the other hills. That was why they were still riding even though their quarry was no longer in sight.
At last Thorgrim’s breathing settled enough that he trusted himself to speak. “Did you know this was here?” he asked Cónán, gesturing toward the dirt bank against which they were concealed. “Or are you just very lucky?”
“I’m very lucky,” Cónán said, “but I also knew this was here.” He turned and looked out over the countryside, toward the riders racing off in the distance. “There’s fifteen of them,” he said. “So there’s at least another twenty or thirty still back at the woods who’ll catch up with them. And pretty soon they’ll figure out that they’re not chasing us any longer.”
Thorgrim nodded. “So we run again? Very fast?”
Cónán smiled. “No, we can’t outrun horses for long. Not even you.”
“So what do we do?” Thorgrim asked.
“Now we get some horses of our own.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
The foreigners inflicted a battle-rout on Flann son of Mael Sechnaill…
The Annals of Ulster
Lochlánn had seen enough of fighting to know how quickly it could all fall apart, but still he was amazed that his plans had collapsed around him so fast and so completely.
He whirled his horse in a circle, confusion and chaos on every hand. It could not have been thirty or forty minutes since he had led his line of horsemen forward, but it seemed like a week, so completely had his world been turned upside down.
Until that moment it all seemed to be going as he had prayed it would. Once Kevin mac Lugaed had agreed to give him the additional men, Lochlánn had thought he was on the road to an easy victory. He could see now he was wrong.
The head of Kevin’s household guard was a man named Niall. Kevin had insisted he go with Lochlánn and the rest, no doubt to make certain that whatever Lochlánn did, it was in Kevin’s best interest. And that was fine with Lochlánn, because his interest and Kevin’s interest were the same—kill Thorgrim Night Wolf and his men, capture Louis de Roumois and hang him. The hanging could come after a trial or before, either way. It did not matter to Lochlánn.
Lochlánn had even received further proof that God was blessing his mission. Senach and the rest of the men from Glendalough had joined them ten miles from Kevin’s ringfort with the surprising news that the heathens had left their ship and were approaching overland. Lochlánn had envisioned a punishing ride along the banks of the Avonmore, trying to overtake the heathens’ ship before it reached the sea. But now, far from having to chase them, the heathens were walking right into their arms, with, apparently, a covey of Irish outlaws in tow.
This news also meant that Kevin had been right to fear the return of Thorgrim Night Wolf. In that stretch of country there was not much of any value between the River Avonmore and Kevin’s ringfort at Ráth Naoi. If Thorgrim was coming this way, he was probably coming for Kevin mac Lugaed.
Lochlánn and Niall worked out their plans. There was little disagreement.
“They must be down by the river,” Lochlánn said, pointing to the south. The horsemen had stopped at the top of a small hill that gave them a view of the countryside beyond. “I say we advance in a line, right down to the water. We’ll certainly sweep them up if we do that. Once we’re driving them like deer it should be no great hardship to ride them down, kill the lot of them.”
Niall agreed. They gave the men leave to have a meal, then mounted up again and moved across the hilly ground, Lochlánn and Niall near the center of that long line of horsemen. Lochlánn had been about to suggest to Niall that they pick up their pace, close faster with the heathens, when the shouting had started on their right flank, right by the stand of trees that bordered a small creek there.
He and Niall had wheeled their horses at the sound, but it was not at all clear what was going on. The riders by the woods were turning out of line as if their horses had spooked. Lochlánn was still trying to decide if he should leave his place and go see what was happening when a man came out of the trees, shouting, bow in hand, and Lochlánn realized they were under attack.
“After him! After him!” Lochlánn shouted, digging his spurs in, pushing his horse to a gallop as the man ran out into the open and sprinted away ahead of the line. He was an Irishman, Lochlánn was all but certain. He had the red hair of a Norseman, true, but the clothing was Irish.
Quick son of a bitch, Lochlánn thought, as the Irishman bounded away and the mounted warriors continued in pursuit.
Why show himself? Lochlánn wondered next. If the man was hidden safely in the trees, why come out in the open where the horsemen could ride him down?
An ugly feeling was forming in Lochlánn’s gut, a sense that something was wrong, and so he was not too surprised when he heard more shouting behind him, from the place where the bowman had come from the woods. He
pulled the reins over, turned his horse toward this new sound. More men had come out of the woods, and they already had two of his riders down on the ground.
How many are they? Lochlánn wondered. Were the woods crowded with heathen killers, or was it only a handful? That was the crucial question, and he had no way to answer it. He raced off toward this new fight while Niall continued to lead his riders after the Irish bowman.
This is bad, Lochlánn thought. He could feel his control over the situation slipping, chaos taking hold. There were men riding in every direction, with no purpose and no leader directing them. Men-at-arms were all but useless if they did not act together as a unit. Louis de Roumois had taught him that.
“You men! You men! Form on me! To me!” Lochlánn shouted, but if anyone heard him, they did not obey. The Irish bowman had disappeared into the trees and so had the other two men who had surprised his riders. Time for Lochlánn to get things back under control, to gather his men-at-arms and think about how they would flush these bastards out of the trees and kill them.
Then the air was split by a terrible shriek. Lochlánn felt the hairs on his neck stand up. He twisted in the saddle. Further off to his right another man had come racing out of the woods, bare-chested, a battle ax in each hand.
“Bastard!” Lochlánn shouted. This one he recognized. He could still recall him leaping from the side of the heathen’s ship and taking Airt down to his death. Once again he spurred his horse to a run, lowered his spear. This one he would personally stick like a boar.
But he had some distance to cover before he did, and already more of his men were converging on the wild Northman. It was a frantic melee with horses turning and prancing, riders trying to find an opening to strike at the heathen, and the heathen moving like an eel, fast and slippery.
Night Wolf: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 5) Page 26
