Raven

by Giles Kristian

  On we sailed, each dusk mooring in a different sheltered bay, for there were so many pine-fragrant islands strewn across that glimmering sea that it was an easy thing to let the wind lift us and carry us from one to another like bees from flower to flower. The waters being so clear, we would peer over the sides to look out for hull-splitting rocks, or else use a fathom weight smeared with tallow to discover what the seabed was made of. If we could not get close enough to use the planks, we sometimes dropped our anchors off shore then used the snekkjes to ferry us in because their draughts were more shallow even than Serpent’s and Fjord-Elk’s. We would go ashore to stretch our legs, light fires and cook our night meals, hunting hare, boar and fox amongst olive, cedar and a green tree which Egfrith called Saint John’s Bread because some long-dead preacher who baptized the White Christ had survived on the tree’s seed pods in the wilderness. We found them good eating when roasted, though we all agreed life would not be worth living if that were all there was to eat. We saw many creatures we had never set eyes on before and we tried eating all but the most ugly ones. The best-tasting was a sea creature that would scuffle ashore to lay its eggs. Some of these were almost the size of a shield, with broad backs as hard as toughened leather that could stop an arrow. Not that we needed to shoot them, for once ashore they were the slowest creatures I had ever seen and even a man with one leg could have caught one without breaking a sweat.

  Rome was a distant, sun-faded memory now. Miklagard, the Great City, the golden thread of our future wyrd, was still far away. The scorching days had begun to weigh heavily on the Fellowship, souring men’s moods like old milk and the truth was we were restless. It was only a matter of time before Bothvar’s hound licked its lips. Bardanes was the flint and steel of it, our own silver-thirst was the kindling, and a Moor galley was the slab of meat. This is how it began: three days before, we had caught a gusting westerly wind, letting it push us across a wide stretch of glittering sea called the Aegean, before pointing our prows north and hugging the dry, jagged coast of Nikephoros’s eastern empire.

  Dawn was rich molten copper seeping up the sky’s deep blue hem. We had cast off from a deserted island off the coast of a place called Ephesus and as usual Olaf and Bardanes were goading each other for want of something to do, using Egfrith and his Latin as the sling for their taunts. Those two got along like ringmail and rain. From what I could gather of it that morning, Bardanes was saying that though we Norsemen were brave fighters, we could not match the Greeks for ingenuity and war-craft. Olaf had taken the bait, claiming that there was more truth in a fart than in anything that comes from a Greek’s mouth. He went on to ask why, if he was so cunning and crafty a warrior, Bardanes had let a man whose name sounds like arse steal the throne from under his emperor’s backside. Sigurd and Nikephoros usually kept their distance when Olaf and Bardanes locked horns, but this time they were drawn into the rut, which had turned to the matter of sea-craft now. Perhaps the jarl and the basileus were bored too, but when Rolf yelled across from Sea-Arrow, pointing north at a billowed sail through the hot wind’s shimmering haze, I knew what was coming.

  ‘If we were aboard the basileus’s ship we could run down that Moor galley,’ Bardanes said, shaking his head.

  ‘Ha! You think your ships are faster than ours?’ Olaf said, hoisting his brows at Sigurd, who raised his in return.

  ‘My people have been sailing these waters since long before the Lord Christ’s disciples were casting their nets in the Sea of Galilee,’ Nikephoros said, a proud tilt to his chin. Then he stepped up on to the raised fighting platform at Serpent’s stern and gripped the sheer strake with both hands. ‘Galleys like her prey on my people, Sigurd. The Moors are a plague on us.’

  ‘She is labouring like a pig in mud,’ Sigurd replied, a sour curl to his lips. ‘I’ll wager she cannot sail as close to the wind as we can.’ The jarl was right, for even as we watched, the distant galley showed us her length as she turned into another long tack.

  ‘And I’ll wager that you can’t catch her, Sigurd,’ Bardanes said, smoothing his oiled beard through finger and thumb.

  ‘You hear that, Sigurd?’ Olaf said in Norse, thumbs tucked into his belt. ‘This slippery badger’s cunny of a Greek wants to lose more money to us. You would have thought he’d given us enough.’

  ‘Who are we to piss on such generosity, Uncle?’ Sigurd replied, then he turned to Bardanes and accepted the wager, suggesting that whoever lost would have to fill the other’s helmet with coin. Bardanes blanched a little at that for it was quite a hoard to lose, more silver than a man could hope to get his hands on in four or five decent raids. He avoided his lord’s eye, though if he had looked at Nikephoros he would have seen the basileus shake his head and steel his eye enough to show his disapproval. But Nikephoros kept his tongue locked up behind the wall of his teeth, because he knew warriors and their pride well enough not to get between them, specially now, having fallen so far from power and a throne that was being fart-warmed by someone else.

  When Osten blew our war horn, signalling to the other ships that we were hunting, Rolf replied with three long bellows of his own horn, which meant he wanted to talk to his jarl. Sea-Arrow came alongside and it turned out that Rolf and his Danes wanted the honour of being the first crew to strike the galley, like the lead wolf that sinks its teeth into a deer’s haunches to sever the tendons so that the prey cannot escape. Then the rest of us would hit, ripping out its throat and eating our fill. Sigurd warned Rolf of the wager he had with Bardanes, but this only made the Danes grin, for they were eager to prove themselves now that they were armed like war gods, with ringmail and good helmets and swords that were hungry for blood.

  ‘We will be close as a jealous wife, Rolf,’ Sigurd yelled.

  ‘Don’t concern yourself, Sigurd,’ Rolf called back, ‘we will leave you some scraps and a seat at the table.’

  And then all four ships were squalling with crews working ropes and fighting sails, trying to yoke the shoulders of that hot wind so that we could run down our prey – so that we could show these Greeks what dragon ships could do. Sea-Arrow was true to her name, streaking across the shimmering sea like a shaft shot from a good bow, her crew thronging the thwarts like penned beasts. I remembered how those Danes had fought the blaumen and I shuddered because they were savage as Úlfhédnar, the wolf-skins whose battle frenzy can chill the blood of even the most skilled and bravest of men.

  I was wriggling into my brynja now, wishing I had kept it in the cool of my sea chest longer for the rings were scalding to the touch.

  ‘Who is the other prow man with me?’ Svein the Red asked Sigurd, his eyes wide with the realization that Bram would not be up there with him this time. You always put your strongest warriors either side of the prow beast to strike fear into the enemy and land the first blows. But Bram was gone and no one felt his loss more keenly than Svein, for those two had been close as brothers. The giant gripped his long axe, its head and his enormous brynja glinting in the sun. His red beard was already dripping sweat in that fierce heat.

  Sigurd’s hesitation revealed that he, like the rest of us, had simply expected Bram to muscle his way to the bow, his prideful swagger parting the crew like a hot blade through butter.

  ‘Penda, hang your English balls round Jörmungand’s neck!’ he said, at which the Wessex warrior grinned like a troll in a nunnery. I slapped his back because he deserved the honour of being the new prow man, had earned it long ago. Svein nodded, pleased with the choice even if some were not, for there were some rumbles that Penda was not big enough to be a prow man. But those rumbles had no real grouse in them because, honour or no, being at the prow in a fight was like smearing your naked self in honey and wandering into a bear’s cave, and no one else was volunteering. Besides which, every man aboard knew that the Wessexman had a gift for killing and would work well with Svein.

  ‘That crew would be better off jumping over the side while they still can,’ Bjarni called, tying the helmet strap under his
chin and grimacing as the nasal bar singed the skin between his eyes.

  ‘They’ll wish they had when the Danes climb aboard,’ I said, tucking a hand axe into my belt. A short axe is a useful weapon in a ship fight because it is easier to use in a press of men than a spear or even a sword. We were gaining on the Moor galley fast and were now close enough to see her crew. They wore white robes and turbans, but that was not to say they were not wearing armour beneath and that put the idea in our heads to keep our cloaks on so that they mostly covered our brynjas and kept the sun off the iron rings. I took a deep breath that was hot and stale as old water and did not seem to fill my lungs. The puckered scar along my ribcage thrummed like old men’s bones before a storm and I was suddenly filled with the fear of being cut again, of steel slicing into skin and flesh and the searing agony of it. I told myself that Rolf and the Danes would have savaged the enemy before we sank our grappling hooks into their hull. Or else the Moors would yield without giving us a proper fight of it.

  ‘She is fast, Sigurd,’ Bardanes admitted, putting a foot up on the mast step and strapping an iron greave over his lower leg. Beneath the scarlet cloak his cuirass glittered with hundreds of golden scales, each of them like a miniature sun, so that the armour looked like something Baldr, Óðin’s handsome son, fairest of all the gods, would wear into battle. Mine were not the only eyes scouring it.

  ‘You think it could stop a good sword blow?’ Wiglaf muttered, his face still burnt red though other men’s had long since turned brown.

  ‘I think the thing is more likely to blind you before you could get close enough to wallop him,’ I said, tearing my eyes away from Bardanes and back to Sea-Arrow, which was now less than twice an arrow’s flight behind the galley.

  ‘They look like bloody golden fish,’ Baldred spat through his dense black beard, because Nikephoros was there now and he too wore scale armour, gold greaves and an iron helmet with a gold cross on it, the cross’s upright stretching from nasal to crown.

  There was a knot of blaumen at the galley’s stern now, nocking arrows and preparing to defend her thwarts. Shield bosses reflected the sun which was climbing into the sky on our steerboard side and would burn more fiercely still before the real killing started.

  ‘Go on, Rolf, rip the whoresons apart,’ Bjarni hissed, fist clenched around a spear’s shaft. Men were slotting spare shields into the rail to give height to the ship’s side, creating a bulwark for when we came alongside the enemy vessel, for it had higher sides than Serpent, which was something we were getting used to though we liked it not one bit. We could see arrows flying from the galley’s stern now: black shafts streaking up into the blue then swooping down like starlings to barley stubble.

  ‘Fools are shooting too early,’ Olaf growled. ‘Something must have them spooked,’ he added with a smirk.

  The Moors had turned and were running with the wind now towards the shore, perhaps hoping to outrun us on land because they knew they could not outrun us out here. So said Sigurd, adding that either way we’d win, for we’d take their ship if nothing else. But Rolf saw what the blaumen were trying to do and suddenly Sea-Arrow was slashing east, having caught the wind in her sail and flung her rudder hard over, so that she was heeling wildly, no more than a hand’s length of freeboard between her and the hungry, drowning sea. She righted again and the Danes began loosing their own arrows – no easy thing on a moving ship – banging swords against shields and yelling threats and insults at the blaumen. I saw big Beiner and Gorm hurl grappling hooks into the galley’s foreship and I heard the Danes cheer as those iron claws gouged into the wood and held fast. The Danes hauled on the ropes but the blaumen cut one of them, flinging a knot of Danes back into the thwarts.

  We had turned too and were racing towards the shore and would hit the galley’s stern in the time it takes a drunk man to piss. I stood between Black Floki and Bjarni and pressed my helmet firmly down, gripping a long spear and a shield. The air was thick with the smell of sweat and leather and iron. Behind me men were nocking arrows and readying throwing spears. Others clutched ropes and grappling hooks and still others had long spears with winged blades which were good for stabbing at faces over men’s shoulders but also for hooking on to another ship’s sheer strake so that you could haul it closer. At the stern Egfrith was on his knees praying to his god and Cynethryth was comforting Sköll, for the beast was shaking like a hound before a beating, its ears flat against its huge head, eyes wide as coins.

  Wave-Steed and Fjord-Elk were swooping like eagles upon the Moor ship’s port side, their crews brandishing their killing tools and whooping with the thrill of it. The sun was like a god’s golden shield, blazing down on a sea that was bright blue and burnished white, and we were sea wolves.

  ‘Sigurd!’ Svein roared from the fighting platform at the prow. He was pointing to a low scrub-covered island off our enemy’s steerboard bow.

  ‘Thór’s hairy arse,’ Olaf rumbled.

  ‘Not another fucking trap,’ Gytha said, spitting over the side, because two more dromons had burst from behind the island, their oar banks beating like enormous wings as they came against the wind. Sigurd was already barking orders and men were hauling on ropes, trying to get the wind across the sail so that we could turn back out to sea. Osten was blowing the horn so that the other skippers would know that they were to fly from this, like carrion crows fleeing a carcass when a fox comes, for we did not need a full battle with its carnage and corpse piles.

  Nikephoros fought his way through to Sigurd, teeth flashing white against his neat black beard. ‘You need to get your men away from the Moor ship now!’ he said.

  ‘Rolf is no fool, he knows what to do,’ Sigurd snarled between hurling orders here and there. But it was no good and the jarl knew it. The wind was behind us and it would take too long to try to turn under sail and so he yelled at his men to lower the yard, which they did, others desperately reefing as the sail came down.

  ‘Holy Christ on his cross!’ Penda clamoured. ‘Fire!’ The two dromons had come round the Moor ship’s stern, so that the wind was behind them and now, though I hardly believed what my eyes were seeing, fire was spewing from the dromons on to the Moors’ deck and suddenly men were flailing and burning and screaming. crew had cut the ropes, so that the two ships were no longer tethered together, but they were struggling to disengage from the bigger vessel because the wind was pushing them on to it.Sea-Arrow’s

  ‘Don’t just stand there, you slack-mouthed sons of whores!’ Olaf screamed, grabbing Osk by the shoulder and yanking him back from our shieldwall. ‘Get your damned oars in the damned sea and row, you feckless goat farts!’ And so we dropped our weapons, scrambled to the oar trees, grabbed our staves and took to our sea chests, our minds reeling from what we had just seen: ships breathing fire like dragons. The sail was down, meaning we had a clear view over Serpent’s stern, though I wished we had not. Because Sea-Arrow was burning.

  ‘By all the gods, how is it possible?’ Sigurd gnarred. We were rowing hard, putting water between us and the fire-breathing ships now, but Wave-Steed had not heeded Sigurd’s command to flee. She was swooping down on her sister ship despite the fire and the arrows that were flying in dark flocks from the two dromons, and that was Týr-brave.

  ‘They are my ships, Sigurd,’ Nikephoros called from the side where he stood gripping Serpent’s sheer strake, knuckles white as bone. ‘I know their captains. They will attack any warships they come across.’

  ‘Your ships?’ Sigurd took off his helmet and swept sweat-drenched hair from his forehead. ‘Greek ships breathe fire?’ he said, eyes flaying Nikephoros.

  ‘If not for our liquid fire the Moors would be hammering on the gates of Constantinople by now,’ Bardanes put in through clenched teeth. He was not rowing, having claimed that his duty was to protect his emperor. Sigurd had not had time to argue.

  ‘What in Hel’s hole is liquid fire?’ Olaf asked, eyeballing Bardanes and Nikephoros both.

  ‘See for yourself,
Norseman,’ Bardanes replied and Olaf turned his gaze back to the inferno that was the Moor ship now. Blaumen thrashed in the water, their screams of agony carried off east by the wind, and by some foul seidr magic they were still flame-shrouded. They were burning even as they drowned.

  ‘Water cannot kill liquid fire,’ Bardanes said, a cold edge of pride to his voice that I did not like at all. There was no saving Sea-Arrow now. Her pitch-lined strakes were burning wildly, belching thick black smoke that added to the chaos, blooming dirty against the bright blue of sea and sky. The Greeks were now raining arrows on the blaumen, their archers bunched thick as gorse in a wooden castle by the main mast.

  ‘Good for Burlufótr!’ Bothvar called. Egill Ketilsson, by-named Burlufótr, ‘clumsy-foot’, for his limp, was Wave-Steed’s skipper and it was because of his crew’s bravery that the men of Sea-Arrow were not joining the blaumen in flaming, drowning death. Burlufótr had Wave-Steed’s stern against Sea-Arrow’s prow, the only part of Rolf’s ship that was as yet untouched by fire, and from there her men were helping pull their fellow Danes aboard. The Greeks were streaking arrows over the burning ships, but for the moment the smoke was the Danes’ friend because it meant that the Greeks were shooting blind. Not for long though, as the further of Nikephoros’s dromons was nosing round the doomed vessels, skirting the wind-whipped flames to attack the other snekkje.

  Sigurd raged like the burning ships, violence coming off him thick as black smoke as he stood at the stern, his back to us, watching Sea-Arrow’s doom. We knew he wanted nothing more than to turn his own dragons round, give their beast-headed prows sight of the Greeks, and strike them with cold iron and fury. But fire is a ship’s worst enemy. It will devour seasoned, pitch-lined timbers with insatiable fury, as it did now, our eyes full of the blazing horror of it.