By all the gods, what is this? Thorgrim thought. Morrigan had taken them prisoner, all of them. It was the only explanation. The Irish would never have taken the bodies of the slain, or men who were dying of poison, into Tara. So that meant they were being kept alive. He did not think that Morrigan had any pleasant fate in mind for them, but as long as they lived there was hope.
And that meant his men would live, too. The poison was not fatal. Harald and Starri would live.
But only if he could keep them safe. Morrigan would soon realize that he and Harald were not among the prisoners. Would she care? How much of a threat did she think they were? Enough to hunt them down? He had to assume she would send men after him.
“I have good news,” Thorgrim said in a loud whisper. No response. “The poison, it has made you sick, but I am fairly certain it will not kill you.” He waited. No response. “Is that not good news?” Harald managed a groan. From the others there was nothing.
“The bad news is that we cannot remain here,” Thorgrim said next. He reached down and grabbed an arm, Halldor’s as it happened, and pulled the man to his feet. Halldor swayed and groaned, but he remained upright. One by one he pulled the others to a stand. “Come on,” he said, and plunged further into the woods. Behind him he heard the shuffling, agonizing, stumbling steps of the small handful he had led to freedom. Freedom that might be temporary indeed.
The woods were thick in places, the undergrowth dense and the night dark. In any circumstances it would have been tough going, but with men who could barely walk, progress was all but impossible. They staggered along for half an hour or more, and Thorgrim did not like to think of how little a distance they had covered. In truth he had no idea, but he did not think it was much. He did not even know if they were going in the right direction.
The woods were too dense for him to continue hauling the men forward two at a time, and he could not risk letting them get separated. Once they lost sight of one another there would be no joining up again. So they hobbled on in a single file, moving at the pace of the slowest man, which happened to be Osvif, who swayed and stumbled and heaved for breath.
It did not take too much of that for Thorgrim to realize it was a waste of time. They might get another half mile if they shuffled on through the night, at which point there would be little they could do beyond lying down and letting death take them. Better to stop now, to rest, and hope they could find strength enough to save themselves.
“We’ll stop here,” Thorgrim said when he had found a thick clump of trees that would offer some shelter and hiding. “In here, among the trees. We must rest, and see if that will make us well enough to reach the ship in the morning.” That was all Thorgrim could think to do – reach the ship. The ship was sanctuary, the ship was escape, it was a familiar thing in a strange land. Even if that sanctuary was an illusion, it still drew him like a lodestone.
He heard no protests from the others, no suggestions, no comments at all. Once again freed from the force of Thorgrim’s authority, which alone had been driving them, they collapsed to the ground and did not move again.
Thorgrim stood absolutely motionless and let the night settle around him. He heard the rustle of little creatures in the underbrush, the swish of the trees’ upper branches as they caught the soft breeze. He could smell the pungent soil and the dried leaves underfoot. He could make out the dark bulk of trees and brush in the tiny light of the stars that crept in through the dense growth overhead. There was nothing out of place there, save for himself and his men, and the forest was already ignoring them.
He found a thick tree and sat, leaned back against it. He was weary in such a way as he had not been in a long time, a weariness that went well beyond the physical. He told himself to stay awake, keep alert, keep his senses tuned to the forest. He knew he should not sit. He told himself to stand. He assured himself he would, in a minute. Five minutes. Surely he deserved five minutes rest?
The next thing he knew he was shuttering into wakefulness, and things had changed. How long he had slept he did not know. It was still black night and he was still in the clump of trees, but his senses were sharper now. His men were in the same positions in which they had collapsed, they had not moved. He could see the trees and the brush, dim but visible in a way they had not been before. His nose picked up and pulled apart every scent that drifted toward him from the forest. He thought vaguely that it was the sleep, that the little rest he had enjoyed had sharpened him, but that was not right.
He leaned forward from where he sat, tense, alert, and in his belly a growing fury, an anger he could feel running though him in the way one feels a hot drink running down one’s throat. He wondered what it was that sparked that anger, though the question came not as words in his head, but rather as feelings, instincts more powerful than words.
And then he heard it, far off, and the smell came to him on the night air.
Dogs!
They were coming after him, him and his men. They had dogs. He could hear the baying, far off, but even in the seconds it took for him to understand, he heard them getting closer. But they would not reach him there. They would not find his men, they would not lead men-at-arms with swords and spears and leg irons to where his people slept.
With no thought at all, no plan, Thorgrim was off, running through the woods, running toward the sound of the dogs. The brush whipped past him, the ground seemed to fly by as he ran, the weariness replaced by the drive of his rage. He thought he could taste blood, like a distant memory, in his mouth.
The hounds were closer now, he could hear them coming, and behind them the clumsy tread of the men who held their leashes. A dozen men at least, and a dozen dogs, crashing along the trail of scent left by him and his men in their stumbling escape. Thorgrim was following the same trail, following it back the way they had come, he and the Irish hounds converging on some unseen point.
Then he stopped. The trail of scent was broken where it ran over a narrow stream. Thorgrim recalled having passed it before. It formed a natural break in the path that led right to Harald and the others. He could smell the water, and smell the approaching dogs and the men. He could smell the acrid scent of burning wood and cloth. The men had torches. He could see pinpricks of dancing light flickering through the trees, far off.
Thorgrim crossed the water and found where the trail took up again. He paused there, moved around in the brush, breaking branches, leaving his scent, making his presence there as obvious as it could be. He stopped, listened, his ears picking out the sounds of pursuit, his nose filled with the stink of men and dogs. They were close now. He felt his teeth press together. But this was not the time. Not now. He had to lead them away from this place, away from the real trail.
He bolted to his left, into the thick brush, felt the saplings and tree branches whip against him as he ran. He followed the bank of the stream for a little way and then plunged into the woods again. He stopped. He could hear the whine of the hounds, a confused baying as they came to the place where the trail seemed to take off in another direction. The smell would be different, because it was just him on the new trail, and he did not know if the hounds would be fooled.
He could hear the sound of the men shouting one to the other but he could not make out the words. He tensed. If he had to go back and fight them there, he would, but he wanted to choose the ground himself.
And then he heard them move again. The hounds set up a yelping and howling as they picked up the new trail. They pulled at leashes and sniffed the ground and bounded along, once again following Thorgrim’s scent through the woods, down trails that were hardly trails at all.
Thorgrim ran on. He marveled at the power in his legs, the strength that he felt in his body as he raced through the woods. This might be his night to die, he knew, but he knew he would die well, and he would not die alone.
The trees opened up in a small meadow, one hundred rods across, and beyond it a steep and wooded hill, like a natural wall. The starlight illuminated the open
ground, but still Thorgrim was surprised at how clearly he could see in the dark night. He bounded across the field. The hounds were close, he could hear them, but he could not see them and so he knew they could not see him. He reached the far side of the meadow. A small stand of oaks backed up against the steep ground and he plunged into it. There was little underbrush, and the trees stood some distance apart. The hill behind was eroded away so it formed a sheer face, like an earthen wall. This was good. This was the place to stop and fight. Thorgrim knew he would not find better.
He pulled to a stop and turned. His breath was coming hard and fast but he did not feel winded. He could see the hounds and men emerge from the trees on the far side of the field. Three torches cast a strange, undulating light on the scene. The hounds straining at their leashes, howling and baying and standing on hind legs as they pulled at their collars. They knew he was there, and they were desperate to get at him. And he was ready to let them come.
The men were talking again, but still Thorgrim could not make out the words. He saw arms pointing in his direction. There seemed to be some sort of discussion. And then the men holding the leashes stepped forward and grabbed the collars of the hounds and jerked the leashes free. With a great howling and baying and barking the pack took off like stags across the open ground, tongues lolling out of mouths as they whipped across the meadow. Thorgrim watched them come. He waited. He was ready.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Odin’s wife, the earth,
I clad in a cloak of blood.
Egil’s Saga
Donnel was not happy about this, any of it, and had not been for some time. Morrigan had charged him with leading the search for Thorgrim and whoever else was with him. He was no stranger to this sort of thing, but he knew little of dogs and less of battle. He felt like a man riding a bull, thinking he was in control, knowing in the back of his mind that he really was not.
The master of the hounds and his four men had brought the dogs into camp, straining on their leashes. Thorgrim’s bedding and his cloak, left behind in the tent, were shoved in their noses. It was all they needed. A quick swing around the edge of the camp allowed them to pick up the scent of the escaping fin gall, and they were off.
Donnel had no doubt that the hounds were following a band of men, half a dozen, by his guess. He had been tracking lost sheep through every kind of countryside since he was a little boy, and he knew well how to read a trail. Indeed, he was often called upon by other sheep herders to find lost animals when they could not. And so, even though he could not say for certain that they were following Thorgrim, he knew the dogs were on the scent of men.
They came to the woods where the escaping band had entered. In the light of the torches Donnel could see the broken branches where they had entered the tree line and various patches of disturbed earth where they had apparently fallen to the ground before standing again and moving on.
“The hounds are on their trail, this way,” the master said, his arm pulled out straight by the straining animals on his leash, as if he was pointing down the trail. Donnel looked around him. Their war party consisted of himself and Patrick, the master of the hounds and his men, and five men-at-arms whom Morrigan had sent with them. They did not know how many of the fin gall they were tracking, but however many there were they would likely be deathly ill, and if they were not, the dogs could do most of the work of subduing them.
Still, Donnel wanted more than anything to send the men-at-arms in first, right behind the dog handlers. Though he and Patrick had engaged in a bit of weapons training since coming to Tara, they were not fighting men, not by any means, and certainly not men to take on the fin gall. But he was also the leader of this little expedition, and that meant he had to lead, so he took his place right behind the master of the hounds. “Very well,” he said with as much authority as he could gather, “Let them take up the trail.”
The small group plunged on through the wood, the torches casting weird, frightening shadows. Donnel cursed the dogs and their howling and yelping. He wanted to hear, to let his ears tell him what was out there. Eyes, even with torches to aid them, were all but useless in the thick woods. But they did not dare let the dogs off their leads, not yet. They would disappear into the forest and the men would have no hope of keeping up with them.
The branches whipped their faces and grabbed their clothes as they tumbled after the frenetic dogs, deeper into the woods. He heard Patrick muttering a prayer to the Blessed Virgin and would have loved to do the same, but he did not think the men-at-arms would take it well. They did not seem to him a very pious bunch.
They came at last to a place where the trees opened up a bit and the dogs stopped their headlong pursuit, milling about, sniffing the brush, whining. Donnel stopped before he ran into the master of the hounds, who had also stopped.
“What is it?” Donnel asked.
“Stream,” the master said, jerking his chin in the direction of a small stream that crossed the trail just ahead of them. “Dogs lost the scent.”
“Do you think they took to the stream, might be walking in it?” Donnel asked. It would have been a smart move if they suspected their pursuers would have dogs.
“Don’t know,” the master of the hounds said, and just then one of the dogs took up his baying again, not the confused whimper of the dogs searching for the scent, but the confident call of a hound on the trail. The others converged on it and soon they, too were baying loudly and once more dragging their handlers though the trees.
The chase seemed to Donnel to go on for a long time, and he was a little surprised that men as sick as these - for he assumed they were as bad off as those they had found in camp - had managed to drag themselves so far. He wondered if perhaps they had split up, because the few glimpses of the trail that he saw in the light of the torches did not look to him like the track of half a dozen sick men staggering along. It looked, indeed, more like an animal’s track than that of a man.
Stupid dogs, they’ve likely picked up the scent of a fox or some such, Donnel thought, but he kept his mouth shut. The master of the hounds knew his business.
The trees grew thinner as they plunged on, then yielded to open ground, a meadow of some size that ended in a stand of trees and a steep hillside. Donnel could clearly see the parted grass where someone or something had passed over the ground not long before them. The trail ran straight and true like the frozen wake of a ship right to the trees at the far side of the field.
The dogs seemed to have lost their minds. They were barking and howling and straining at the leads, but there seemed to Donnel’s inexpert ear something odd about the sound, some note to their chorus that was a little off key.
“Are the hounds all right?” he asked the master. “Is there something wrong?”
“They’re fine, fine. Nothing wrong, nothing wrong,” the master said but his tone, too, seemed to belie the words. “Shall we let ‘em go, eh? Let ‘em soften up them fin gall sons of whores a bit?”
Donnel looked at Patrick, but his younger brother just looked frightened. He looked at the men-at-arms who looked tense but unafraid. One of them gave Donnel a small nod. “Very well, master, let ‘em go!” Donnel said.
The handlers pulled the leashes short and deftly released the knots from the collars. Each dog as it was freed shot away like an arrow from a bowstring, bolting across the grass that was belly high to them, charging for the stand of oaks and whatever lay within. The last of them was released and the handlers, the master of the hounds, Donnel, Patrick and the men-at-arms charged off in their wake, racing across the open ground, ready to drag the dogs off the bleeding, shrieking Northmen, bind them and march them back.
They were half way across the field when they saw, in the light cast from the torches, the last of the hounds disappear into the stand of trees. The barking and howling and snarling was terrific, a great chaos of sound. The men came panting to the edge of the wood and stopped, weapons drawn, and listened.
The hounds were in a fur
y, their barking filled the night. And then suddenly the cry of a wounded animal, a mortally wounded hound, pierced through the sound of the others, and that was followed by another. Donnel caught the master of the hound’s eye. The man looked frightened.
“Voices,” Patrick said, almost too soft to hear. “There are no voices, no one’s crying out. Are we sure they’ve caught the fin gall?”
“They’ve caught the damned, bloody fin gall!” the master snapped. “The dogs ain’t stupid, they can follow a scent.” Another cry of pain was cut short in the middle, just stopped, like a flame snuffed out. The barking was noticeably diminished, as if the number of dogs had been cut in half, but it was still loud, and under it a deep throated snarling and the snapping of jaws.
A hound burst from the underbrush, bounding away in full retreat. Its head, its chest, its forelegs appeared and then it stopped in midflight, grabbed by something unseen in the brush and dragged howling in panic back into the trees. They heard the animal’s desperate cry and then it stopped, as suddenly as the last.
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph…” Donnel uttered. His hand, unbidden, made the sign of the cross and he saw he was not the only one to do so.
It was hard to separate out the sounds, but it did not seem as if there were more than two dogs still fighting. A whimper, a crunching sound like a foot on dried twigs, and then there was one.
The men outside the tree line took a step back. The torches were held a little higher. Donnel wiped his palms, wet with perspiration, on his mail shirt, a useless gesture. They heard a cracking of the brush, something coming through the undergrowth, moving slowly. Swords scraped out of sheaths. The last of the hounds staggered into the open, limping, its flanks a mass of blood. It made a whimpering noise and fell over dead in the grass.
Dubh-linn: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 2) Page 28
