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

by James L. Nelson

  Lochlánn was still thirty yards away when the other two came running out of the woods, and now, being closer, he recognized them as well, the broad one with the yellow hair and the one with the dark beard. He recognized them from the fight in the garden at Glendalough and from the fight on the river. The bearded one had been steering the ship, he recalled.

  Are you Thorgrim Night Wolf? Lochlánn wondered. But he did not have time to wonder long, as the two were rushing to the aid of the shirtless heathen with the axes. Lochlánn turned his horse a bit, charging at the newcomers, ignoring the wild man who was already surrounded.

  There was more shouting to his left now, and Lochlánn, despite himself, turned to look. Once again his men were charging around in frantic circles. He remembered the bowman running into the trees there, wondered if he was once again putting arrows into his men. Or if there were others who had not revealed themselves.

  “Ah, damn you!” Lochlánn shouted in frustration. These sons of whores had played him and his men for fools, had thrown them into confusion, made them react just as they wished and then taken advantage of each twist and turn. It had to stop.

  He whirled his horse around again, once more facing the mad, shirtless one, turning just in time to see him and the two others disappear back into the trees.

  “To me! You men, to me!” he shouted, putting his every bit of strength into his voice, and this time his words cut through the panic and confusion. One by one the riders pulled their horses’ heads around and trotted over to where Lochlánn waited, well out of range of the bowmen in the trees.

  “Where’s Niall?” he asked. “Does Niall still live?”

  “Here he comes, yonder,” one of the horsemen said, and a moment later Niall rode up. His face was red with exertion and an arm was hanging at his side, a bright stream of blood running down the links of mail.

  “You’re wounded,” Lochlánn said, nodding toward Niall’s arm. Niall made a dismissive gesture.

  “Arrow,” he said. “Not too deep. Mail did its work.”

  Lochlánn nodded. “All right, these bastards have led us on a fine dance so far,” he said. “Now it will stop. They’ve gone to ground in the woods, and they have no way out, save through us. If we can flush them out, we can ride them down and kill them.”

  He made a gesture with his hand that took in a dozen of Kevin’s men. “You lot, ride around the far side of this stand of trees. Make certain those heathen swine don’t escape that way. Listen well for my orders.” The men Lochlánn had indicated wheeled their mounts and rode off, kicking their horses to a gallop, aware of the importance of not letting their tormentors escape out the far side of the woods.

  “How many are they, do you think?” Senach asked.

  “I don’t know,” Lochlánn said. “A dozen? Not much more than that. We outnumber them for certain.” He grew angrier as he spoke, thinking of how that handful of men had done his warriors such hurt.

  Don’t get angry, you’ll lose every time… He could still hear Louis de Roumois’s voice in his head.

  “There were sixty at least that we saw marching along the river,” Senach said. “Men and women. If there’s but a dozen in the trees, that means the rest are still out there.” He nodded toward the country south of them.

  “That’s right,” Lochlánn said. “And these bastards in the trees will want to get back to them. We have men around the far side of the woods. We’ll keep more on this side. There’s a creek that runs right through this stand of trees. Ten men ride up the stream, ten down from the other side. We’ll fight them on foot or horseback, whichever makes sense. We’ll try to flush them out into the open and ride them down.”

  The rest of the men nodded agreement. Lochlánn ordered them off in different directions: ten men to the downstream end of the trees that ran for about two hundred yards along the water course, and ten to the upstream end. He positioned the twenty men he had left with him in a long line that stretched the whole length of the woods. When the heathens came running out into the open, the men patrolling the edge of the trees would be called on to ride the swine down and kill them. And Lochlánn intended to be one of those.

  That done, there was nothing left but to wait and see what would come barreling out of the trees.

  The wait was not so very long. For ten minutes the afternoon was quiet, the only sounds the breeze in the branches, the running water, the occasional bird call. It seemed very odd after the violence and chaos of the past half hour. And then it ended with the sound of shouting from the stream bed, lost behind the screen of trees, the thud of horses’ hooves as the animals were spurred to a gallop, the crash of men running through the woods.

  “Here they come, here they come!” Lochlánn shouted. He could hear bodies tearing through the brush and he had to guess it was the heathens they were hunting. He peered into the trees, hoping to see them, to gauge where they might emerge, but he could see nothing but the leaves and the undergrowth.

  He cocked his head, straining to hear, to make sense of the sounds. His men were riding down the stream bed, he was sure of that. He could hear shouting in his native Irish and the sound of the horses, and he imagined they were pursuing the fleeing enemy as best they could, given the difficult ground.

  And then, to his right, he saw men come bursting out of the woods, moving at a full run, with the crazy, shirtless heathen and the Irish bowman in the lead. Lochlánn was a full hundred yards away, but still he was the closest of all the mounted warriors to them.

  “There! There! After them!” he shouted as he put the spurs to his horse and leaned forward and whipped the reins. He saw the other horsemen wheel and kick their mounts to a gallop as well. He felt his horse’s speed building under him, a good animal, smart, fast, not at all skittish. The quarry were running like rabbits across the open country and Lochlánn’s eyes were fixed on their backs as he rode them down.

  That’s it? he thought. Five, just five?

  It did not seem possible that five men alone had done so much hurt to his warriors, and he wondered if this was yet some other trick. But even if it was, it did not matter because he knew these five were the men who had surprised his riders and killed and wounded a number of them, and now they would die under his spear and his sword. They were running across open country and he was on horseback and it was only a matter of time. A few minutes, no more.

  With that thought he readjusted his grip on the shaft of his spear. He was half standing in the stirrups, taking the motion of the running horse in his bent legs. He held his spear up at shoulder height and he could already see in his mind what he would do: ride up alongside the fleeing men, drive the spear into the back of the first one he reached, then draw his sword, slash at the next, feel the razor edge cut through his arrogant heathen flesh.

  The five men raced over the crest of a small hill and were lost from sight. Lochlánn did not follow, because his shortest path to intercept them took him around the hill. He charged across the open ground, flew past the grassy rise, the country opening up before him, but he still could not see the men he was chasing.

  Behind that far hill, Lochlánn thought. It was the only place they could be, though it did not seem there had been time enough for them to reach it. But it was rolling country, and he knew his prey would go in and out of view as they ran through the dips and over the high spots.

  He raced on, the next hill rising in front of him, and he was certain the men he was chasing were very close now. He might well run right into them as he came over this rise. He held his spear a bit tighter, raised it a few inches to give more strength to that first cathartic thrust.

  As he came up over the hill, the ground rolled away before him to another stand of trees a half mile distant, down where the shallow river ran to Ráth Naoi. And the men he was chasing were nowhere to be seen.

  “What in all hell?” Lochlánn shouted out loud. There was no place between him and the river where the men might be concealed, and they most certainly had not had time enoug
h to reach the river. They had just disappeared.

  And then he heard shouting from behind, a mad shriek like he had heard earlier, voices shouting in Irish, and he felt the bottom of his stomach drop away. He pulled the reins to check his horse’s forward momentum, no easy thing with the animal running flat out. In a flurry of thrashing mane and straining legs the horse came to a stop and Lochlánn whirled it around and once again drove his spurs into its flanks to get back to a gallop, heading back the way he had come.

  Up over the hill again, and now, one hundred yards back, Lochlánn could see that the first hill he had ridden around was hollowed out on the backside and the five had been hiding there, but they were hiding no longer. They had run out into the open, shouting and waving, as more of his horsemen had come around the hill. Then, as Lochlánn’s men had wheeled in surprise, the heathens had set upon them.

  Lochlánn pushed his tiring mount as hard as the animal could run, but he was still some distance away, unable to do anything but watch. He saw the crazy, shirtless Northman drag one of his men from the saddle, chop down with his battle ax, then leap on the now riderless horse. He saw another of his men go down. He saw one of the horses rear in fright, sending its rider toppling to the ground, and then the Irish bowman was on the animal’s back.

  Lochlánn was fifty yards short of reaching them when the big, yellow-haired Norseman swung himself up into a saddle, and then all five of them were up and kicking their horses to a gallop. Lochlánn realized his fingers ached from gripping so hard on his spear and he threw the encumbrance away. His clenched his teeth, whipped his horse with his reins.

  Again…bastards…they did it again… He could not recall having felt fury like this, not for a long, long time.

  He looked over his shoulder. The other riders, those still alive and still mounted, had also seen what was happening and they, too, were giving chase. Lochlánn felt just the slightest bit of hope. They were still thirty against five, and the heathens and Irish outlaws could not be as skilled riders as were his own men. Their luck and fine tricks could not last forever.

  The five hunted men had been running in one direction, but now they were riding off another way, heading more south than they had been going, trying to flee as directly away from their pursuers as they could. Audacious as these bastards might be, even they had to know there was a limit to what they might get away with.

  Lochlánn could see more and more of his men taking up the chase, riding hard in the wake of Thorgrim Night Wolf and the others, falling in behind the quarry. It was a fox hunt now, the prey flushed from the woods, running in open country, outnumbered, and they could not run forever.

  In the distance Lochlánn could see the shallow river that Thorgrim’s band had been following in their approach to Kevin’s ringfort, the watercourse dotted with an occasional stand of trees. He thought they would likely head for the trees, try to lose themselves in the woods as they had before, but instead they seemed to be racing for an open field of high grass that ran down to the water.

  He was thirty yards or so behind the fleeing men and overtaking them, his horse fast, his skill as a rider greater than any Northman’s. He wondered if he would reach them before they reached the river. He had only to get a sword-length away, make the whore’s sons turn and fight, and then the rest of his men would be up with them and it would be over.

  The rest of the heathens… Lochlánn thought. I wonder where the rest of the heathens are? Senach had told him there were near sixty of them, men and women.

  He felt that now familiar and unhappy sensation in his gut. What are you up to? he thought. Every time so far he was sure the Northmen had made a mistake, the mistake had been his. But the five were alone and he was right behind them and he did not see what trick they might pull.

  He reached his hand across his belly and drew his sword from the scabbard, took comfort in the feel of the familiar grip in his hand. He raised the weapon so the point rose above his head like a banner. It would rally his men and give him more momentum when he brought that first blow down on the men he was rapidly overtaking.

  Then ahead of the five fugitives and off to the right Lochlánn saw movement, saw someone rise from the tall grass, saw him burst from cover like a startled pheasant and come running toward him, shouting and waving one arm, clutching a cloth sack with the other.

  Trap! Lochlánn thought. They had ridden into a trap and now it was closing. He looked up at the five he was chasing and saw they were reining their horses over, some to the right, some to the left, their actions sudden and confused. They seemed as surprised as Lochlánn.

  Lochlánn pulled back on his reins, trying to stop his horse as quick as he could. He did not know what was happening, but something in his head was shouting a warning. He looked back at the figure who had emerged from the grass, still yelling, still running directly at him. A familiar figure, very familiar.

  Louis de Rumois…

  Louis was running his way, shouting, and now Lochlánn could hear the Irish words in the Frankish accent. “Lochlánn! It’s a trap! Go back, go back!” Louis shouted, and suddenly there were forty men rising up from the grass, fifty feet beyond where Louis had emerged. They were holding swords and spears and some had shields. Thorgrim and his small band had been leading Lochlánn and his men right into their midst.

  Louis was closer now, still running, waving, shouting. “Wait for me! Wait!” he called and Lochlánn, who was about to turn and charge off, paused. The other men in the tall grass were starting to run as well, coming for Louis and for Lochlánn. The five men on the stolen horses had managed to get their mounts stopped and were turning back the way they had come.

  Ten feet from where Lochlánn sat on his prancing horse, unsure of what to do, Louis reached out a beckoning hand. His face was a mask of desperation. He stumbled toward Lochlánn, beseeching, as the Northmen and the Irish bandits closed in behind him.

  Lochlánn stretched out his arm. He grabbed Louis’s hand and pulled and Louis leapt off the ground, pivoting on the grip he had on Lochlánn’s hand and landing on the back of Lochlánn’s horse. Lochlánn put the spurs to the animal, pulled the reins over hard, and the horse bolted away, gaining speed, leaving the shouting heathens behind as it ran.

  Ahead, Lochlánn could see that the rest of his men, those who had taken up the chase, were now stopped in their tracks. They watched as Lochlánn changed direction and raced away from this new threat, and then, almost as one, they did the same.

  Louis had one hand on Lochlánn’s belt, and presumably held the sack in the other. Lochlánn could hear his breathing, loud in his ear. He thought of the bowman, the Irish outlaw who had hidden in the woods and done such lethal damage to his men.

  If he shoots, he’ll hit Louis and I’ll be spared, Lochlánn thought. And that will be two problems solved.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  I’d the option just now

  Of able judges;

  Now the one thing left

  Is the wolf’s tail.

  The Saga of the Confederates

  Ottar Bloodax stood six feet five inches tall and weighed over twenty stone. At the age of eleven he had taken his first drink of ale, and hardly a day had passed since then that he had not consumed ale or mead or both. As a result, it took quite a lot for him to get drunk. But still, through perseverance, he managed.

  It seemed to him that over the past few weeks, and just when he felt in most need of alcohol’s soothing influence, it had become harder still. He had come awake that morning—or it might have been midday, he was not sure—with his head pounding and his eyes watering and his hands shaking. The hall was lost in a twilight gloom, the windows shuttered tight, but the grey light that crept in around the imperfectly fitted slats told him it was not nighttime.

  He did not trust himself to walk, so he crawled to the platform against the back wall where an oversized cup of mead sat waiting, pulled himself up onto the raised section, lifted the cup and began pouring the contents down his th
roat. He managed to swallow at least two thirds of it, the rest pouring down his beard and tunic and over the furs that were scattered on the platform. He threw the cup aside and closed his eyes and waited for the drink to work its magic.

  None of his men were in the hall. A dozen of them would be encircling the building, keeping the wolf at bay, or they should be, at least. Once Ottar had poured enough mead down his throat to give him sufficient courage, he would stand and look out the door, and if he found there were not enough guards stationed around the hall then someone would die on the stake.

  Who? he wondered. Who’s left? His mind was swimming. In his head he was staggering blindly. Ketil Hrafnsson, he thought. That’s right, incompetent whore’s son, he’s the one left in charge now…

  The only ones in the hall besides Ottar were half a dozen slaves, all of whom were cowering behind the wattle wall that sectioned off the back of the hall from the front room. They may have been hiding, but they were also paying attention because they knew the price they would pay if they did not. And no sooner had Ottar’s empty cup hit the dirt floor than one of the servants was picking it up, refilling it with mead, and handing it warily back to Ottar, who took it without acknowledging in any way the frightened man’s existence.

  Night Wolf, Night Wolf, Night Wolf…

  Ottar poured the fresh cup of mead into his mouth and felt the first hints of the drink’s effect, and with it he felt the panic start to subside.

  Night Wolf…

  Of all the men he could have met, here was one with the name of Night Wolf. A man who had earned that name because it was supposed that he…

  Ottar could not bear to think about it. He had hated Thorgrim on first sight, had hated him more when he learned of the nickname Night Wolf.

  “Ah, bastard!” Ottar shouted and flung the cup again, this time with enough force to shatter it against the table, which was overturned and broken.