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

by James L. Nelson

  “There was no wolf, you say?” he asked Jorund. “You never saw any wolf, no wolf attacked you? Killed anyone?”

  Jorund shook his head. Ottar felt as if the sun was coming out. “And what of Aghen? And the others? What became of them?”

  “That’s why I was so desperate to find you, lord. Warn you. Aghen and the others, they went to the ringfort of that Irishman, Kevin. They meant to swear loyalty to him. And they’re on their way here, now. Aghen and those men and all of Kevin’s men-at-arms. Mounted men, a hundred or more.”

  There was an edge of panic in Jorund’s voice, but there was no panic in Ottar heart, none at all. One hundred mounted men? That worried him not in the least. He welcomed that, cherished the thought of going sword and shield against them. Bring them on, every filthy Irish bastard. He was ready. Because there was no wolf.

  He stood, straightened up to his full height, which he had not done for a while. “Ketil, you stupid son of a bitch!” he roared. “Get the men ready for battle! Get your weapons, all of you, you sorry bastards! We have some Irish to kill!”

  Even from a hundred yards away Lochlánn could see that the shield wall was wavering. The line of horsemen that he and Niall and Louis led was sweeping forward like the wrath of an angry God, and he could see the Northmen and the Irish in particular were already sensing the horror of what was about to be visited on them.

  He looked to his left and right. The riders on the flanks were starting to peel away. They would make wide arcs around the ends of the shield wall, get in behind the men, and that would break them completely. A minute of that and they would all be running and then they would be easy prey for the horsemen.

  The mounted warriors could probably kill them all, and do it with ease. This was open country, no place to hide. But the idea was still to drive them to the east, push them into the shields and swords of Ottar Bloodax. Let them fight, heathen on heathen, let them weaken Ottar as well as themselves. Then it would be time for Lochlánn’s men-at-arms and Kevin’s to kill the ones still standing.

  Lochlánn was leaning forward in his saddle, his spear thrust out ahead of him. He sighted down the shaft, past the iron point, picked out the place in the line he would strike, the shield of the man he would kill first. He kicked his heels into his horse’s flanks to coax more speed from the animal. And then he saw that all their plans were starting to collapse around them.

  He had been counting on the shield wall standing fast at least until the horsemen reached it. Louis and Niall had been counting on the same. But even as Lochlánn looked down his spear, he could see the defense falling apart, men breaking and running in fear, some even flinging shields aside as they ran.

  “No, you cowardly bastards!” Lochlánn screamed as he tried to make his horse run faster still. “No, come back here, you whores’ sons!”

  The line was dissolving like salt in hot water. What just a second before had been a near solid line of men and shields was now just a wild mob racing off for safety, running before the lethal force coming at them.

  Niall was at his side now and he looked over and shouted. “They’re running east!” he called, and Lochlánn could see he was smiling despite the effort of riding hard with weapon in hand. “They’re running east!”

  And then Lochlánn understood what he was saying. The heathens and the Irish bandits were running off in exactly the direction they had hoped to drive them, exactly in the direction of Ottar’s camp.

  Perfect! Lochlánn thought. It would have been a fine thing to kill some of them there on that ground, but that was not their chief goal. Their chief goal was to drive them east, but the stupid shits were going that way on their own.

  The heathens were not heading back the way they had come, which was good. That way was uphill, up the sloping fields they had just descended, and Lochlánn guessed that path would not tempt them. It would be slower and more tiring running that way, and the riders would be on them before they reached the top.

  Instead, they were fleeing in a more easterly direction, where the land sloped away into a low valley between two hills, a valley perhaps a mile across with a pond and a long stand of trees at its low point.

  They’ll run like water…Lochlánn thought. They’ll run downhill, like water.

  The fleeing men were racing over the slope of the hill that ran down into the valley and disappearing from sight, one after another. All along the line the horsemen called insults, calling for the cowards to turn and fight. But there was still close to a hundred yards between the riders and those they were riding down, and Lochlánn could barely here the calls himself over the pounding of hooves. He did not think the heathens would be much inclined to fight even if they could hear the taunts of the men-at-arms.

  The land began to slope away as Lochlánn and the others reached the edge of the narrow valley, green fields running downhill, a pond at the bottom, dark under the gray sky. On the far side of the water stood a patch of woods a hundred yards wide and stretching for two hundred yards across their path, like a massive green ship floating on a lighter green sea. Beyond the edge of the wood the trees yielded once again to open ground that ran uphill to the valley’s eastern side.

  Niall slowed his horse to an easy trot and Lochlánn and the others followed suit. They still had miles to go before they succeeded in driving these fleeing men into Ottar’s camp and they did not want their horses blown. Neither did they want to go charging into a possible ambush. This enemy could be wily and dangerous; they had already proved as much.

  But there was no ambush, no trap waiting for the men-at-arms. The heathens and the Irish were still running, fleeing headlong down the long slope to the pond at the foot of the hill. The same number of men as had been in the shieldwall; no one was lurking in wait, nor was there any place on the open ground for them to lurk.

  “Damn them, they’ll get in the woods!” Lochlánn said. He could see that the heathens and the Irish were racing for the dubious protection of the trees, and he could see as well that the riders could not stop them before they reached that place.

  “We can surround the woods,” Louis said. “Flush them like birds.”

  “No doubt they’re hoping we do just that,” Lochlánn said. “The last time this happened they did a great slaughter of our men. We won’t be lured into that trap again.”

  Niall nodded in agreement. “I’d guess they’re hoping to cut us up the way they did the last time. But we learned that lesson. We can surround the woods, but we don’t get any closer than the distance of an arrow shot.”

  Louis did not agree with such caution, Lochlánn could see that. He probably thought he and Niall were being a couple of old women, but he kept that opinion to himself.

  Niall kicked his horse and headed down the slope in the wake of the heathens, and the rest of the line of horsemen followed behind. They walked the horses. There was no point in riding fast now. The swiftest among the enemy had already reached the woods and were disappearing into the stand of trees.

  “They can’t hide there forever,” Niall said.

  “No,” Lochlánn said. He looked up and over his shoulder, trying to judge how far the sun remained above the horizon. “But they can stay in there until dark, and that might be all they need. Once it’s dark they might well manage to sneak away.”

  “We have men enough to screen that stand of woods,” Niall said. “Make a great circle of men all around it. They won’t get out.”

  “We drive them east,” Louis said. “Don’t forget, we drive them east.”

  The line of horsemen reached the edge of the pond, the water standing like a moat between them and the woods on the far side. All of the enemy had now gone into the trees, every man of them lost from sight, as if they had been swallowed up by some great sea creature. Niall spurred his horse ahead, then turned so he was facing the others.

  “Forty of you will go with Louis around to the far side of the woods,” he called, his voice carrying down the line of men, over the snorting, restless h
orses, the jingle of tack and chain mail.

  “Keep spread out, cover the whole tree line,” he continued. “Twenty men with me around the southern end, and the rest with Lochlánn on this side. Get no closer than a long arrow shot from the trees. If they come out in any direction but east, we want to drive them back. We want to keep pushing them east.”

  The horsemen nodded, wheeled their horses around, and trotted off to take up their places. Lochlánn saw his men deployed along the line of trees, a long, thin line of horsemen studying the woods for any sign of movement, but getting no closer than seventy-five yards or so away, a distance at which it was unlikely even a good bowman could hit an individual on horseback.

  Once again Lochlánn looked up and to the west. The sun had passed its zenith back when they were still lolling around the ringfort, and now it was on its way to the horizon. Two or three hours were all they had left before it would be too dark to effectively chase their enemies. Try to flush them out and it could be a bloodbath, let them remain in the woods until dark and they might lose them entirely.

  “Ah, damn you, you heathen bastards!” Lochlánn said out loud, no longer able to contain his frustration. And no sooner had he said it than the heathens came bursting out of the woods.

  They came out of the trees almost directly in front of where Lochlánn was sitting his horse. Twenty, thirty of them, skirting the edge of the pond, swords held high, shields on arms, screaming as they came. Lochlánn recalled the madman who fought shirtless with the two axes in hand and he looked to see if he was among these men, but if he was, Lochlánn could not see him.

  “Here they are! Here they are! After them, drive them back!” Lochlánn shouted and he spurred his horse forward. He was frantic to get at them, to ram the point of his spear into one of their bellies or their fleeing backs, but he was not so crazed that he forgot that they wanted to drive them east, always east.

  To his left and right Lochlánn saw the horsemen turn and close on him, all racing for a single point: the nearest of the heathens who were charging their way. The Northmen had picked a good spot to sally out, keeping the pond on their left side, which shielded that flank. Still, Lochlánn had to wonder why they had come out at all, and in that direction.

  What are they thinking? They were going back the way they had come; it made no sense, and that made Lochlánn immediately suspicious.

  “Watch for bowmen, watch for bowmen!” he shouted as he rode. He searched the enemy in his front for archers, but he could see no one with a bow.

  More riders were coming around the far ends of the path of woods, Niall’s men and Louis’s men responding to the sounds of alarm and the cries of the men-at-arms as they raced toward the enemy.

  And just as suddenly as the heathens had started this mad run from cover, they stopped, as if realizing how bad an idea it was. The lead man paused in his rush, held up his hand, and the men behind him stumbled to a halt. There were no more than fifty yards between him and Lochlánn now; Lochlánn could see it all with perfect clarity. The whole lot of them, Northmen and Irish bandits, stopped in their tracks and seemed to notice the riders for the first time. Then once again panic swept over them and once again they turned and ran for the woods.

  “Stop, you whores’ sons, stop!” Lochlánn shouted. Once again these slippery bastards would deny him the chance to come to grips with them. He spurred his horse hard, desperate to get a spear point in one of them at least before they disappeared into the dark tree line.

  And then he remembered the rain of arrows that had caused such carnage the last time he thought he had the bastards trapped in the woods. He pulled his horse to a stop, spun the animal around, and the men with him did the same, not questioning, just following his lead.

  “Back, back!” Louis shouted and he rode back over the ground he had just covered. He realized that he was hunching his shoulders, bracing for an arrow in the back. But it never came, and soon he was too far from the woods for that to be a concern.

  Niall was there, reining his horse to a stop. “What was it?” he asked.

  “The heathens,” Lochlánn said. “They came out of the woods, looked like they were trying to run off, but west, not the way we wanted. We drove them back before they got far.”

  Niall nodded. More and more men were coming around the far side of the woods to join them, men who had heard the action but could not see it for the trees and did not know it was over now.

  Louis de Roumois came riding up at a gallop, then stopped with a flourish beside them. “They tried to run?” he asked. “Came out of the woods?”

  “Yes,” Lochlánn said. “There.” He nodded to the place from which the enemy had come and where they had disappeared again. “They came out and then they turned and ran back.”

  “Cowardly bastards,” Louis said, and for a moment they were silent, looking at the trees.

  “By my guess we’re still three miles from where we’ll run into Ottar Bloodax’s camp,” Niall said. “We have to get them moving.”

  Then from far off, from the far side of that stretch of wood, came a cry, a single voice. It was too far and too muffled by the trees for them to make out the words, but the tone of alarm was unmistakable.

  Lochlánn looked around. There were a lot of the horsemen there, men who had ridden to counter this new threat. Nearly all of their riders, in fact. He turned to Louis.

  “How many men did you leave on the east side of the woods?” he asked.

  Louis shrugged. “A few. The fighting was here,” he said, but it was clear from his forced nonchalance that he recognized his mistake.

  “Oh, damn them!” Lochlánn shouted and his shout was greeted by another cry from the far side of the woods, and then a second, as the handful of men Louis had left there tried to make their warnings heard. The heathens had lured nearly all the mounted warriors to the west side of the woods, then had crossed to the east and made a run for it, slipping through the trees where the horsemen could not follow.

  “Come!” Niall shouted and he turned his mount and put his spurs to it and raced off around the perimeter of the woods. Lochlánn and Louis did the same, and the rest of the men followed, once again moving as fast as they could push their horses to run. If the men-at-arms on the far side of the trees shouted further warnings, none of the riders heard their cries over the pounding hooves and the thump and clatter of their war gear.

  The ground flew by underfoot, the trees sweeping past on their right-hand side as they raced to get around the barrier and rejoin the chase. Lochlánn could not help but recall how the Irish bandit sons of bitches seemed able to disappear at will the last time they had played this game. He vowed he would not let them do that again, would not let them out of his sight.

  Which of course he already had. And he had no idea if they would be in sight again once he cleared the end of the woods.

  They came pounding around the north end of the tree line and beyond that they could see the fields sloping up the far side of the little valley, and on those fields sixty or so men, running as hard as they could run, visibly struggling to get up the slope and once again disappear over the crest of the far hill.

  “Come on, push them, push them!” Niall shouted and the horsemen raced off across the field, up the sloping pasture, stretching out into a long line as the faster horses and better riders surged into the lead.

  Lochlánn was one of those. His mount, purchased a few years before by his wealthy father, was an excellent animal, and Lochlánn an excellent horseman, and soon he and Niall and a few others had pulled ahead of the pack.

  And once again they were just a bit too late. The first of the running men had reached the crest of the hill and were disappearing over the top, even as Lochlánn had halved his distance behind them.

  “No matter, no matter, we want to push them,” Niall shouted as if he could read Lochlánn’s thoughts, feel his mounting frustration.

  “Push them!” Lochlánn called in agreement. By his estimate they had a mile or two
to go before their quarry ran into Ottar’s warriors.

  He watched as the last of his enemy struggled to the top of the slope. If the shirtless madman was there, Lochlánn still had not seen him. Nor had he seen that big one, the massive heathen he had noticed in the fight on the river. No worry. It was difficult to see clearly while riding hard.

  Then the last of their enemy was lost from sight, up and over the crest of the hill that formed the far side of the valley. Fifty yards and then Lochlánn would be over the crest as well and once again he would have them within a few lengths of his spear point. But he could not ignore the ugly feeling in his gut.

  Niall was first over the top and Lochlánn just a half dozen strides behind him. He heard the man’s horse whinny in protest as Niall pulled back hard on the reins, forcing the animal to a halting, clumsy stop.

  Don’t stop, don’t stop! Lochlánn thought as he raced up the last few feet of hill, but he also knew that Niall would not have stopped if he had not had a reason to do so, and that reason probably meant something bad was happening.

  Up and over the crest and Lochlánn pulled back his own reins to come to a stop at Niall’s side. There were men arrayed before them across a couple hundred yards of open ground, and they were not the frightened heathens and Irish bandits they had been chasing. There were a hundred of them at least, bright shields forming a shieldwall, helmets and mail showing dull gray in the muted light of late afternoon. They were not running. They were advancing.

  “Ottar,” Niall said, matter-of-factly. “Ottar and his warriors.”

  Lochlánn looked to the left and right, across the fields that stretched away before dipping down into another valley. Thorgrim’s men were nowhere to be seen. Once again they had managed to disappear.

  “We weren’t driving them into Ottar’s men,” Lochlánn said bitterly. “They were leading us.”

  He looked over at Niall, and Niall shook his head in disbelief. And then a roar went up from Ottar’s ranks and the great line of Northmen surged forward.