They spent a somber day aboard Sjávarbotn. No one spoke; there was nothing to say. The expedition had failed. Short of a miracle occurring, there was nothing to do but wait for the order to embark for home. O’Brien, knowing everyone was hoping for him to produce a miracle, couldn’t muster the strength to do anything but sit in the prow and stare at the great plume of flame that was all that was left of the oil well.
“I’m not going home,” a voice said from behind him. Dorian. O’Brien didn’t respond. “I can’t do it. The voyage over here nearly killed me. I’d rather die here than go through that again.” Dorian sat down next to him.
“The voyage back will be quicker,” O’Brien said.
“I don’t care,” Dorian said. “I’m not going.”
“You’re going to stay here alone?”
“If no one else stays, yes.”
“I can’t spare any men. And I won’t abide mutiny.”
“I understand. But I’m worthless on a sea voyage anyway. Have me hanged if you need to. I’m not going back.”
“I don’t think that will be necessary,” O’Brien said. “If you stay, you’ll be dead fast enough.”
“What if we all stay? We can give the well another shot. We know we can do it now. We just need to be more careful.”
“The well is on fire. We’re down three men and short on food. Odds are that our only allies knew this attack was coming, if they didn’t instigate it. Our chances of getting more food are slim.”
“We can go farther upriver. There are more people we can trade with.”
“How far? Twenty miles? Forty? We don’t even know where these Indians came from. For all we know, the Indians a hundred miles upriver are allied with them.”
“Then we’ll go two hundred miles.”
O’Brien laughed. “You want to sail two hundred miles upriver? I thought you didn’t want to be on the boat.”
“I’m okay if I can see land,” Dorian said. “It’s those endless sea billows I can’t tolerate.”
“We don’t know if we’ll hit oil two hundred miles north. I don’t think the basin extends that far.”
Dorian thought for a moment. “What if we go south?”
O’Brien was growing impatient. “There’s nothing south of us but the bay.”
“Yeah. What if we go to the bay?”
“What are you talking about, Dorian?”
“When I was researching oil drilling, I found a lot of information about offshore rigs. I didn’t look into it that much because it seemed impractical, but… how much more difficult can it be?”
“You want to build an offshore oil rig. In the Gulf of Mexico. During the Middle Ages.”
“Hey, you’re the one who wants to build a spaceship.”
O’Brien smiled. It was easy to forget just how absurd their ultimate goal was. “All right, I’ll humor you. What’s involved in building an offshore oil rig?”
“It’s the same principle. We drill for oil, just like we did here. But the first thirty feet or so is water instead of sand. The bay is pretty shallow a long way out. We just have to be far enough from shore to be safe from Indian attacks.”
“We’d need to build a platform to drill from.”
Dorian nodded, growing excited. “A tripod for stability. Strap several of those pine logs together. We’ll need more lumber.”
“I think there are a couple axes left in the hold.”
“Then we’ve got everything we need.”
“How far out are we talking?”
“How far would we need to be to be safe from attack?”
“Theoretically they could paddle those canoes for miles out to sea, but they’d be extremely vulnerable. If we were half a mile from shore, we could pick them off with rifles before they ever got close.”
“And we can raise the platform above sea level, so even if they got close, they’d never get to us.”
“The legs would be vulnerable.”
“To what? Tomahawks?”
“Fire.”
“You think Indians in canoes with torches are going to be able to burn through a six-foot-thick timber column?”
“With enough fuel, yes. And we’ve just given them an endless supply.”
“Assuming they can put out the fire. That well might burn for a hundred years.”
“Or the next hard rain might put it out.”
“Fine. Then we put it out ourselves. Use the explosive charges in the hold. Cap the well, bury it, cover it with concrete.”
“We’ll run out of food before we finish the platform.”
“Then we sail upriver first. Find someone to trade with. Hell, take food by force if we need to. We tried getting along with these people, and look where it got us.”
O’Brien nodded thoughtfully. He didn’t particularly want to start a war with the Indians, but there was something say for making a show of force. They’d put up a good fight at the fort, but it needed to be clear to every tribe in the area that the Norsemen were not to be messed with. “What if we could figure out who attacked us?”
“You’re thinking of a counterattack?”
“Why not? Better than randomly attacking some tribe down the river. And we know the people who attacked us have food, not to mention axes, shovels and a lot of other useful stuff. We almost beat them when they were at full strength, with every advantage. They’re not going to stand a chance against twenty riflemen in a stealth attack.”
“How will we figure out who they are?”
“Chegaoo and I will go talk to Chiggilli. I’d give you five-to-one odds he knew about this attack. Either the Indians who attacked us are his allies or he sold us out to his enemies to save his own skin. I’ll give him a choice: either he tells us who attacked us, or we take what we need from Chiggilli’s tribe.”
“What if Chiggilli warns them we’re coming?”
“If we lose any more men, we won’t have a big enough crew to get home. That means we’re stuck here, which means our mission has failed and we’re as good as dead. Dead men have nothing to lose.”
“In other words…”
“In other words, if Chiggilli betrays us again, he’d better hope his enemies are thorough. Because anyone who is left alive is going to come back and burn his village to the ground.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chiggilli was, to put it mildly, surprised to see them. O’Brien couldn’t be certain whether he was surprised that they’d had the temerity to visit him after the attack or that they were alive at all. One thing was certain: he was well aware of what had happened at the camp, and who was responsible: he gave up the name of the tribe before Chegaoo even asked.
“Chiggilli says it was the Makawaki people,” Chegaoo said. “They are his enemies, the tribe who has been attacking villages along the river. He says that if you had allied with him, he might have been able to warn you of the attack.”
“Asshole,” O’Brien said, maintaining a straight face. He handed the chief a map of the river he’d brought from Svartalfheim. “Tell him to point to the Makawaki’s location. “I want to know how many fighting men they have, as well as how many women and children. And anything else of tactical value he can tell me. Tell him we will take the spoils, but the women and children are his, assuming we’re successful. If we fail…”
Chegaoo nodded. He knew what O’Brien had in mind for Chiggilli’s people if they failed.
*****
O’Brien’s men attacked three days later. The Makawaki people lived in several small villages occupying a two-mile stretch that began about eighteen miles upriver. Following Chiggilli’s instructions, Asger and Chegaoo had taken a canoe ten miles upriver and then proceeded overland, thoroughly reconnoitered the area. It didn’t take them long to locate the storehouse where most of the Norsemen’s supplies had been taken: following the sound of steel axes striking wood, they located the largest village in the area and the spied on the residents until they determined where the tools were being stored. The chief’s h
ut was nearby. The village’s inhabitants numbered around two hundred, with about sixty fighting men. Most of these were hunting or gathering food at any given time during the day, leaving only about twenty warriors to defend the village. Many of the women tended to wounded men, whose moans and cries could be heard well into the woods around the village. The people showed no sign of expecting an attack. The trick would be getting in and out before the other villages and the men hunting nearby could respond to the sound of gunshots.
On the morning of the third day after O’Brien’s meeting with Chiggilli, a strong wind blew out of the south, carrying rainclouds with it. Fritjof skillfully piloted Sjávarbotn up the river, faster than any canoe could travel, running it into a sandy bank about Asger and Chegaoo had identified two days before, about a mile southwest of the main Makawaki village. Chegaoo and two other Mi’kmaq leapt out of the boat first, followed by the sixteen Norsemen with rifles, led by Asger. The Mi’kmaq, armed with bows and knives, would be the vanguard of the attack, silently eliminating anyone they came across between the river and the village. With any luck, the riflemen wouldn’t have to fire until they reached the village. O’Brien, Dorian and Fritjof remained on Sjávarbotn with the wounded man and three other Norsemen. While O’Brien and Dorian kept a lookout, the others furled the sails in preparation to row downstream when the war party returned.
O’Brien set the timer on his cuff the moment Chegaoo’s feet hit the shore. He estimated it would take the men six minutes to get through the woods to the village, assuming they didn’t meet significant resistance along the way. The first gunshot sounded at five minutes and twenty seconds. It was quickly followed by a hundred more. Either the war party had reached the village faster than expected, or they had run into resistance. He waited nervously, scanning the woods for any sign of movement. The gunfire ceased as quickly as it started, which was a gun sign: a protracted battle meant certain failure. They had no backup plan: if the war party hadn’t returned by the time O’Brien’s timer hit fifteen minutes, he and the others left on Sjávarbotn would have to decide whether to take their own lives or risk being skinned alive or disemboweled by the Makawaki. Seven men would never be able to row Sjávarbotn fast enough to outrun canoes, and they had nowhere to go even if they could. As the timer hit fourteen minutes, O’Brien’s fingers anxiously gripped the pommel of the knife at his belt.
A few seconds later, he heard men crashing through the woods. This was followed by the sound of distant war cries and then more gunshots. Soon a Norseman named Halfdan emerged from the woods, his rifle slung over his back. In his hands he carried a shovel. Halfdan bounded onto the sandy bank, hurled the shovel onto the deck, and then spun around, moved a few feet to his left, and brought the rifle to his shoulder. As he did, Chegaoo burst from the woods, carrying a huge wicker basket in front of him. Two of the men onboard hefted the basket, which was full of corn flour, into the ship and then helped Chegaoo over the gunwale. He fell to the deck, panting, his mostly naked body covered in sweat.
Several more Norsemen followed, one carrying an axe in each hand, another with a sack of grain, still another with his arms wrapped around three shovels. As the Norsemen deposited their spoils onto the deck, they moved aside and took aim at the unseen threat behind them. The war cries grew louder, and once there were ten riflemen lined up on the shore, they began to open fire. The last six men out of the woods, among them Asger and the two Mi’kmaq, threw their treasures onto the deck and climbed aboard. The riflemen continued to fire, creating a great cloud of gray smoke that slowly dispersed as it drifted upriver. In between the explosions, O’Brien heard a shout from behind him and saw that a man was pointing upriver at a line of canoes moving quickly toward them. Fritjof ordered the riflemen to the boat, and in near-unison they slung their rifles over their shoulders, took up positions along the sides of Sjávarbotn and heaved her into the water. They splashed through the river after her, vaulting one by one onto the deck. Several men near the bow had already taken up their oars and began to row the big ship downriver. As the smoke cleared, O’Brien saw at least a dozen near-naked men running toward them through the woods.
Moving with incredible speed and precision, the rest of the Norsemen threw down their rifles and took up their oars. By the time the Indians had reached the bank, Sjávarbotn was nearly a hundred feet downriver and moving fast. A few of the men on the bank hurled spears, but these splashed into the water or bounced harmlessly off the gunwales. The men in the canoes, at least some of whom were armed with bows, were a bigger concern. Even with the Indians pausing in their paddling to fire their bows, Sjávarbotn could not hope to outrun canoes. Fritjof had kept tight to the eastern bank, preventing the Indians from approaching from that direction, but a dozen canoes had come along their starboard side and at least another score were closing from behind. Arrows zipped over their heads and thunked into the gunwales. One Norseman was grazed on his shoulder, and another slumped over his oar with an arrow shaft protruding from his right ear.
O’Brien crawled to a discarded rifle and ordered the four men nearest him to drop their oars and return fire. After peaking over the heads of the oarsmen to see the size of the contingent following them, he ordered the four men closest the stern to do the same. With only sixteen men rowing, Sjávarbotn wouldn’t move much faster than a man could walk, but they’d never make it the twenty miles to the bay with Indians in canoes harassing them with arrows the whole way. Their only hope was to scare off the pursuers before more Makawaki could arrive, either by water or land.
As the men in the stern grabbed rifles and moved into position, he and the other four men near the bow opened fire on the Indians to starboard. O’Brien wounded three men before running out of bullets. He scrounged around the deck until he found a crate of ammunition amid the chaotic mess of corn meal, tools and other treasure. As the men near him continued to fire, he supplied each of them with replacement magazines and then tossed a box of cartridges to the stern before reloading his own gun. By the time he’d taken aim again, the immediate threat had passed: the Indians alongside of them, having taken heavy losses, stopped firing and fell behind. Noticing that arrows were no longer coming at them from the rear either, O’Brien stood and saw that their pursuers upriver had fared no better. The Indians in the canoes nearest Sjávarbotn were mostly dead or wounded, and those farther back seemed uninterested in meeting the same fate. O’Brien was about to breathe a sigh of relief when a sharp pain hit him in the rear of his thigh. He fell to the deck, marveling for a moment at the mysterious pain that roared up and down his leg.
“Hold still!” Dorian shouted at him, pinning him face-down on the deck. As blood pooled under his right knee, it dawned on O’Brien that he had an arrow sticking out of the rear of his leg, just below his buttock. He cursed his stupidity: he’d been so concerned about the Indians pursuing them that he forgot there might be more ahead of them.
“To your oars!” Fritjof growled, and O’Brien, pinned to the deck and nearly insensate with pain, could do nothing but hope Fritjof knew what he was doing. He heard Indians shouting from ahead of them, and more arrows zipping overhead, but no one else was hit. There were a series of thuds as something hit Sjávarbotn’s hull, and then he heard nothing but angry cries receding in the distance.
“I think we’re clear,” Dorian said, helping him to the gunwale. “Careful with that leg.”
Peering over the gunwale, O’Brien saw nothing ahead but wide-open river. The canoes had fallen far behind. Dark blotches began to encroach upon his vision and he slumped to the deck, unconscious.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Camp Yeager was shut down in October, before the new mine ever produced an ounce of coal. After the ship carrying Osric was tailed from Scotland to Normandy, the Committee decided maintaining the mine was too big a risk. Svartalfheim had enough coal to survive the winter, if they stopped using coal for anything other than heating and doubled the occupancy of the better-insulated buildings during the coldest weeks of the
winter. Surviving the next winter was another matter entirely.
Winter in Iceland was like being on another planet. High temperatures hovered around freezing, with less than five hours of daylight. With the coal shortage stopping most outdoor work and the oil shortage making it impossible to use torches and lanterns, the inhabitants of Camp Yeager were going to have to spend nearly all their time indoors for at least five months. Bodies produced heat, meaning that the more people they packed into a building, the less oil they would need, but there was a limit—both physical and psychological—to how many people could coexist in a given amount of space for five months.
When the first buildings at Camp Armstrong were constructed, the plan had been to heat them with geothermal energy. This, however, had proved unworkable. The land nearest the underground magma deposits that powered the machinery in Hell was largely unsuited for building, as it was rocky and unstable. Thus most of the buildings were a quarter mile or more away from the heat source, requiring heat to be pumped long distances through insulated pipes. This would require so much labor, and so much heat would be lost in transit, that in the end it was decided that coal—which was in ready supply at Camp Yeager—was a better solution.
Pleiades’ reliance on coal was always going to be temporary, and the process of converting to fuel oil for heating had been underway for some time. With the shutdown of their only coal mine, this process was accelerated. Alma’s engineers had already built a small refinery which would purify petroleum and separate it into gasoline, kerosene, fuel oil, lubricants and other materials. Before the refinery could do them any good, though, they had to have something to refine.
The engineers had designed the furnaces to be capable of running on a variety of oils, from thicker vegetable oils to thinner fuel oil derived from petroleum. In case of a petroleum shortage, they could rely on vegetable oils, more readily available in medieval Europe, as a stopgap. When the coal ran out in March and no word had yet been received from O’Brien’s expedition, it was looking likely that a stopgap solution would be needed to get them through the next winter.
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