Loch Garman: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 7)

by James L. Nelson

  The question, of course, was not whether or not Failend was able to hit a moving target in the dark. Thorgrim had no doubt she could hit anything she wished to hit. The question was whether or not she could put an arrow in a fellow Irishman.

  “Yes, I can do that,” Failend said, and there was no note of doubt in her voice.

  Thorgrim turned and approached the edge of the wall. He sat and half slid, half fell the fifteen feet to the ground below, taking the fall in his knees, feeling a sharp stab of pain. Behind him Harald, Louis and Starri dropped to the ground as well.

  Thorgrim stepped back, toward the gate, and the others followed. The doors to the gate were oak, two inches thick, with a great bar across them and sitting in iron rests. But he knew that already. He had seen it before.

  Harald and Louis grabbed hold of one end of the bar, Thorgrim and Starri grabbed the other and together they lifted it free and carried it clear of the gate. Still no reaction from the dark monastery grounds. They set the bar carefully down and then Thorgrim pulled the gate open, just wide enough for a man to slip through. His hands were still on the edge of the gate when Onund slipped soundlessly through, and then Gudrid and then Armod and Vestar and Hall and the rest, one by one, slipping through the gate and forming up in a rough line abreast, facing the dark monastery grounds.

  But not so dark. The sun was still below the horizon but it was making its presence known, casting a dull gray light around that made the buildings stand out in a way they had not before, pushing the dark away enough for the Northmen to distinguish one building from another, the narrow roads that ran between them, the run of the earthen wall surrounding the place.

  Godi came last, pushing the gate a bit more open so that he could squeeze through. And then they were all there, all ninety of the Northmen inside the walls of one of the wealthiest monasteries in all of Ireland and, as far as Thorgrim could tell, still undetected.

  “The longer we’re unseen, the easier this will be,” Thorgrim said in a low voice. “Quiet, now, keep your mouths shut until I give the word.” He took his place at the center of the line of men and two steps ahead of them. He adjusted the shield on his arm and drew Iron-tooth. He took a step forward, advancing on the empty grounds, wondering if they would have to wake the monastery up just so they could sack it.

  Behind him he heard the sound of his men keeping pace as he moved, one cautious step after another. He was a dozen yards from the main gate when he heard a new sound, a creaking sound, the sound of an iron hinge. It was followed by a deep thumping noise and Thorgrim knew what it was. It was the sound of the gate being closed behind them. And he knew that it was not one of his men who had closed it.

  He didn’t bother looking behind. Because he knew that whatever was coming would not come from there, and he was right. From the dark places between the buildings, down the roads that were hidden by the church or the outer buildings, the men-at-arms emerged. They had spears and shields, swords and axes. Behind them, mounted, were more warriors. It was dark still, but Thorgrim was fairly certain that one of the mounted men was Bécc, and another Airtre. Even if it had still been fully dark he would have known those two were there.

  Bécc, no fool he, had guessed. He had guessed that the Northmen would come back to Ferns, and he had guessed right. He had not been chasing all over the countryside looking for Thorgrim and his men, he had gone to Ferns and let Thorgrim and his men come to him.

  “Well,” Thorgrim said, loud enough for everyone to hear, “I guess we knew we’d have to fight these bastards some time. Looks like that time is now.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  We will dare great deeds

  even to the very death.

  Gisli Sursson’s Saga

  One of the horsemen walked his mount forward and the Irish men-at-arms parted to let him pass. He advanced a few paces beyond their line, and behind him, more tentative, another rider followed. And now Thorgrim had no doubts at all. It was Bécc, with Airtre in his wake.

  The two of them, Thorgrim and Bécc, looked at one another over the fifty yards that separated their lines. The last time Thorgrim had been in that place, Bécc, in the Christ priest’s robe, had been escorting him and his men to speak with the abbot. Now Bécc was wearing mail and a helmet, and he did not look as if he was there to talk.

  Will he talk? Thorgrim wondered. Will he ask for our surrender? He did not think so. Bécc would know better than to think the Northmen would simply give up, particularly after they had already been betrayed by Bécc once.

  He won’t ask, for fear that we will surrender, Thorgrim decided. He does not want us prisoners, he wants us dead.

  It was like personal combat, one warrior against another, him and Bécc, facing off across the ground. Like single combatants, they each waited for the other to make a move they could exploit, and looked for weaknesses and places to strike. But it was not just a sword and shield that each man controlled, but dozens of warriors.

  Bécc turned his head and called out an order, a sharp, loud bark, and his line of men—a hundred at least, probably more, far more than Thorgrim commanded, certainly—took a half dozen steps forward and brought their shields together in a shield wall. They were silent and disciplined and ready to drive the Northmen back against the earthworks, pin them there and cut them down.

  Thorgrim pictured his own line of men, stretched out on either side of him. The left and right ends of the line were untethered, like a torn pennant flapping in the breeze. Bécc’s men could encircle his own, crush them under the weight of an attack on three sides. No good.

  There was no going back, that was clear. Whomever Bécc had ordered to shut the gates had no doubt been ordered to see they stayed shut. So the only way was forward. But where?

  Failend was at his side, bow in hand, and arrow nocked on the string. “I can take one of those men on the horses down,” she said. And it was a tempting offer, but if the men-at-arms had any discipline at all it would not solve their problems.

  “No,” Thorgrim said. “There. You see where the men are standing in front of the road between those buildings?”

  He pointed with his sword. Most of Bécc’s line was stretched along the front of the big church that dominated the central area of the monastery. But there was another building beside it, also stone built. Thorgrim recalled it was the building in which the abbot lived, and between that and the church there was a road about thirty feet wide. And that would do, for now.

  “Yes,” Failend said.

  “Those men, lined up across the road. Drop them.”

  Failend nodded, raising her bow and drawing as she did. The men had shields up, but they held them only at chest level, giving an archer of Failend’s skill plenty of target. A heartbeat’s time to aim and the arrow was away, too fast to follow in the weak dawn light, until it came to a stop in the leather-clad chest of one of Bécc’s men-at-arms, just above the edge of his shield.

  The man was knocked backwards by the impact, the shield flying from his hand, and Thorgrim could see the men on either side turn in confusion. They had not seen Failend shoot, and they apparently did not see her as she loosened another arrow because they were still looking down at their comrade when the man to the right went down in the same way.

  Shouts of surprise came from the line now and Bécc, who also had not seen what was happening, turned his horse half around just as Failend’s third arrow claimed its third victim and the men began to back away from that deadly spot.

  Thorgrim heard Bécc roar, but if they were words or just rage he could not tell. He saw Bécc’s men begin to advance, the whole line rolling forward, and he knew it was time for his men to do the same.

  He lifted Iron-tooth straight up. “Swine array! Follow me! Follow me!” he shouted and pushed off, shield across his chest, sword still held high. The swine array was like an arrowhead, driving for Bécc’s line, with Thorgrim as the very point and his men spread out in a rough triangle behind him. At least he hoped they were; there was
no chance to turn and look now.

  If the Northmen were an arrow, the small hole that Failend had opened in the line was their target. It had mostly closed up now, but not completely, and Thorgrim knew the men there would be wary after three of their fellows had been dropped where they stood.

  He shouted as he ran, loud, wild, meaningless sounds. Terrifying sounds. It was light enough now that he could see the wide eyes of the men in the line he was charging at. He felt the battle madness building in him, felt the strength surging in his arms and legs, felt the dozen aches that were usually with him burn off like a morning mist.

  The spot for which they were charging was not the center of Bécc’s line, and it was not the place the Irish would have expected the chief thrust of the attack to fall, and that only helped the onrushing Northmen. Thorgrim was only fifteen feet away from the nearest of the Irish men-at-arms when he finally saw their spears come down in a panicked reaction to this unlikely attack.

  Then Thorgrim was on them, swinging his shield in a wide sweeping backhand, knocking the spears aside, never breaking stride. He brought his shield back against his chest an instant before he collided with the nearest of the Irishmen, hitting shield against shield with a sound like bone being crushed. The impact knocked the Irishman back a step, off balance, and that was all the opening that Iron-tooth needed to dart in and tear through the man’s leather mail and his stomach beneath.

  Thorgrim pivoted to his left, looking for the next man in the line, but instead he saw Harald who was just bringing his sword down on the helmet of the man Thorgrim was looking for. The Irish warrior tried to raise his shield a breath too late, and Oak Cleaver, true to its name, parted his helmet and kept on going.

  A blur to his right and Thorgrim saw Starri Deathless come flying at the line, his two battle axes flailing, his manic screams louder than any sound of the fight. Godi was in it too, looming over the Irishmen, hacking like a madman, as one by one the rest hit the line of men-at-arms and were locked in the desperate fight.

  Thorgrim raced forward, past the line of Northmen, through the line of the Irish warriors until he found himself on the far side of the fight, in an odd place of calm, five feet from the nearest struggling men. He looked up and down the line. He had broken through Bécc’s shield wall, which to Bécc would seem the most dangerous of threats. He would expect the Northmen to drive through, come behind the Irish, roll up their lines.

  That’s what Bécc anticipated. Thorgrim could see he was already driving his men to shift their positions, to pivot so they could meet the Northmen head-on. But in truth, Thorgrim did not intend to make an attack on Bécc’s lines that way. He never did. Because he knew he could never win.

  “Northmen! To me! To me!” he shouted in his substantial voice, shouted to be heard over the clash of shields and steel and iron and Starri’s shrieks. He held Iron-tooth aloft. “To me!”

  It was not what his men had expected, because the plan was all in Thorgrim’s head, made up in the instant that he had seen Bécc’s warriors and understood the trap. “To me!”

  He stepped back, back toward the road between the church and the abbot’s house, facing the fight, the backs of the Irish warriors, looking at his own fighting men. “To me!”

  One of the men-at-arms saw him, a big Irishman wearing mail and armed with sword and shield, a professional fighting man. He pushed himself away from the broken shield wall and advanced, not a wild, heedless rush easily knocked aside, but a quick and deliberate move, shield at chest height, sword ready.

  “To me!” Thorgrim shouted again, one last shout before he had to devote all his attention to this threat. And even as the words left his mouth the man’s sword darted out, a sharp jab at the throat. Thorgrim brought his shield up fast, knocking the blade out of line with the rim, then slashing low, under his shield, at the man’s legs.

  Iron-tooth found the man’s shins, or rather the iron guards on his shins. The blade made a ringing sound as it bounced off and Thorgrim jumped back as the Irishman’s sword came down in a chopping blow. The tip of the sword swished past Thorgrim’s face by an inch, no more, and the blade drove into the ground at Thorgrim’s feet.

  Thorgrim took a step forward, brought his foot down on the sword and felt it flex. He saw the Irishman’s eyes go wide, the mistake recognized. Thorgrim was sure the man would struggle to free the weapon and die as he did, but the Irishman knew better than that. He let go of the sword, jumped back, and lifted his shield to stop the blow Thorgrim had thought would be the end of him.

  “To me!” Thorgrim shouted again. He could see that Bécc was charging back and forth on his mount, turning his lines to attack the Northmen. There was not much time.

  “To me!” His words seemed to cut through the din, and even as they struggled against the Irish shield wall, his men pushed through the line, fought their way through, cutting and hacking to the far side.

  “Come! Come!” Thorgrim shouted, stepping back and then back again, his men following, step by step, fighting for each inch of road. They backed away from the line, toward the church, toward the abbot’s house.

  The Irish men-at-arms, thrown into confusion by the breaking of the line, not expecting the Northmen to push through in this way, were putting up a weak and disorganized resistance. But that would not be true for long. Thorgrim knew that Bécc would set his lines to rights, and then fall like an avalanche on the invaders.

  “Here! Here!” Thorgrim was gesturing with Iron-tooth for the men to follow and they did, moving up the road quicker with each step, until the massive stone walls of the church were on one side of them, the walls of the abbot’s house, thirty feet away and nearly as formidable, on the other.

  “Shield wall!” Thorgrim shouted. “Shield wall, here!” And now it was clear to most of the Northmen at least what Thorgrim had in mind. A shield wall across the road, the left and right side pressed up against the stone walls so that none of the Irishmen could get around it, and there was not room enough for all the men-at-arms to attack at once.

  Godi took up the cry, and Harald as well, pushing the men into place even as they fought off the ragged edge of the Irishmen’s lines. They took up their places across the dirt road, shields overlapping, forming a tight wall of men and weapons, a wall that would be no easy task to break.

  “Another wall!” Thorgrim shouted. “Facing the other way!” As it was, it would be no problem for Bécc to send men around the church and attack the shield wall from behind. But now the Northmen formed a second line, backs to the men in the first, facing in the opposite direction. Human ramparts, earthworks of flesh and steel.

  Thorgrim was between the two lines, along with Failend, too short to stand in the shield wall, and about thirty other men who could not find room in the two walls that had formed. He looked around for Starri, suddenly afraid that the berserker was still out fighting the Irish alone, but he saw him at last, leaning against the wall of the church, breathing hard, his skin and hair a mess of splattered blood, little if any of which would be his.

  He’s not as tireless as he once was, either, Thorgrim thought, and the notion gave him a certain satisfaction of which he was not proud.

  “You men, form up behind the others, make two lines, each way,” he shouted and the men between the two shield walls made new shield walls behind them, the ranks doubled up and more able to resist the concentrated attack that Thorgrim knew would come. The Irishmen they had taken prisoner, the men from the boat, were gone, and Thorgrim guessed they had run off as soon as the Northmen launched their first attack on Bécc.

  “What now, Night Wolf?” Thorgrim turned. Starri was there. He held one of his axes under his arm and was rubbing the split arrowhead he wore around his neck between his thumb and fingers. The berserker madness had drained away, for now. He was asking Thorgrim the most obvious question. He was the only one of their company who would have dared to pose it.

  “I don’t know,” Thorgrim said honestly. “I was a fool and I walked right into Bécc
’s trap.”

  “Not a fool, Night Wolf,” Starri assured him. “Just not as smart as Bécc, that’s all.”

  “I’m much relieved to hear that,” Thorgrim said. “What we do now, I’m not sure. We’re strong here. Bécc will lose a lot of men if he attacks our shield wall. Maybe he’ll tire of that and wish to talk.”

  “Maybe,” Starri said. “Or maybe he’ll wait until we’re so thirsty we’ll wish to talk.”

  That of course was another possibility. It was what a patient man would do, but Thorgrim knew enough of Bécc to guess he was not a patient man.

  And he was right. It was not long after his discussion with Starri that the Irish began to assemble for the next onslaught. Bécc had reassembled his shield wall to face Thorgrim’s, while half the Irish army had gone around the far side of the church and were making ready to attack from that direction. At either end of the road they gathered, men-at-arms and frightened-looking spear men pushed into position across the width of the road, Bécc and Airtre and a few others behind them on horseback, getting them organized, getting them ready for their desperate frontal assault.

  “Stand fast!” Thorgrim shouted. “Stand fast and kill them as they come! Let them beat themselves to death against our shields!”

  The Northmen yelled. They cheered and shouted their defiance and Thorgrim saw more than a few of the Irish looking nervously their way. Because it was the Norsemen, trapped in the monastery between these stone walls, surrounded by a superior enemy, who should be afraid. And clearly they were not.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  The heathens were driven from Ireland…

  and they abandoned a good number of their ships,

  and escaped half dead after they had been

  wounded and broken.

  The Annals of Ulster

  Failend had managed to find a barrel, out beyond the shield wall, and three of Thorgrim’s men raced out to fetch it for her. Now it was set up next to the church with Failend on top of it, her bow in hand, quiver slung at her side. She had a few dozen arrows left, and while that would not be enough to win the day, it would give the attackers pause.