A Vengeful Wind: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 8)

by Nelson, James L.

  But Failend knew no such fear. She was a woman and so did not jealously guard her reputation as a warrior as the men did. Besides, she had proven herself often enough that no one would have thought to question her courage.

  “We don’t need this fight, but the gods demand it,” Thorgrim said. “Look at the sky. Do you hear the thunder? The gods would never favor a man who was so backward in his courage as to flee before the fighting starts. That’s what they’re saying now.”

  “I see,” Failend said. She was quiet for a moment, and then said, “You know, Bécc is out there somewhere, and he’s certain that the sky is a sign that God…his God…my God…wishes him to drive the heathens from Ireland.”

  Thorgrim looked at her. This surprised him. “You think so? You think Bécc sees this as a sign from his God?”

  “Yes. I’m sure he does.”

  Thorgrim made a grunting sound. How odd. How odd that a man could read the heavens so wrong.

  “How will you fight him?” Failend asked after some time. Another question that no one but her would have dared ask, not even Harald.

  “There are two ways that Bécc can get at us,” Thorgrim said. “Over the walls or through the gate. If he has a great number of men, and he attacks along the whole length of the wall, then we won’t be able to fight them all off. But Bécc will lose a lot of men doing that. So I don’t think he will.”

  “But if he comes through the gate, won’t he also lose a lot of men?”

  “He could. But if they’re bold and quick it won’t be so bad for them. Or Bécc might do both, come through the gate and over the wall as well. So we’ll make ready for that. We’ll make ready for anything.”

  They climbed down off the wall as the men were eating the last of their breakfast and bundling up their gear and getting their weapons in order. Thorgrim called Godi and Jorund and the other captains to him, along with Harald and Louis. And Starri, of course, who would have come anyway.

  “They’ll attack soon, I would think,” Thorgrim said. “They’ll come over the wall or through the gate or both. Here’s what we’ll do.”

  The others listened close as Thorgrim laid it out, step by step, how they would defend the longphort and beat back the Irish, so that the Irish would not think the Northmen weak, and the gods would not think them cowards for slinking away. And then they set to work.

  The morning was well along, and the rollers that had been used to move the ships piled into makeshift walls extending out from the gate, by the time Bécc and his men finally made their appearance. It was Starri, positioned on the top of the wall and scanning the countryside, who saw them first. He had asked Thorgrim—begged him—for leave to go down the far side of the wall and scout out Bécc’s movement, but Thorgrim had refused. He did not trust that Starri would limit himself to looking and reporting back, and he did not want Bécc to think they were in any way prepared to counter his attack.

  “Ah, here we are, Night Wolf!” Starri said, pointing off into the distance. “The rabbits are showing themselves, peeking out from their burrows!”

  Thorgrim looked in the direction Starri was pointing, but he saw neither man nor rabbit nor much of anything beyond grass and trees. He turned to Harald.

  “Do you see them?” he asked.

  Harald nodded. “Yes, I see some men. Not many. Just to the left of where those tall trees stand.”

  “Bécc and his captains,” Godi suggested. “Come to see what they’re up against.”

  “I’d wager you’re right,” Thorgrim said. He turned and looked down at the men clustered on the ground. “You men for the wall, come up here now!” he called and a couple dozen men swarmed up the ladders to the top of the wall. They had already been told of their part: to defend the walls, but also to feign surprise and confusion at the sight of the enemy. The more excessive confidence they could inspire in Bécc, the better. The more likely that Bécc would do something stupid.

  Thorgrim did not necessarily think that Bécc would do something stupid—he knew Bécc well enough to know he was no fool—but it was worth tempting him. Because he knew this would not be an easy fight. Bécc would not have come back unless he had considerably more men than the Northmen had. He would not attack if he did not have reason to think he might win.

  Overhead the thunder rolled again and another gust of cold wind, stronger this time, hit Thorgrim on the back and nearly made him stagger. He thought about Bécc out there, across that open ground, certain that it was his God who was calling for blood that day. It gave him an odd, unsettled feeling. He had seen much of the Christ God during his years in Ireland, and he wondered how powerful He was.

  Then a general murmur ran through the men along the wall and Thorgrim was pulled from those pointless thoughts to more immediate concerns. A few hundred yards away, where the more trampled earth yielded to a field of taller grass, the Irish had appeared. Not the handful who had shown themselves earlier, but the army, Bécc’s army, the horde he had led here to drive the heathens out. There were a lot of them.

  Harald and Godi and Jorund had joined Thorgrim on the wall and for a moment the four men watched in silence as more and more soldiers appeared from the field and formed up into three divisions.

  “Three hundred men, at least,” Harald said.

  Godi grunted. “At least. I would make it more like four hundred.”

  “More like four hundred,” Jorund agreed.

  “They’ll be tripping all over themselves,” Thorgrim said and that elicited grunts from the others. “Now go. You have other places to be.”

  They left him on the wall, took their positions with the men behind the barricades. The men picked for standing on the wall—the men and Failend, with her deadly bow—were spread out along its length, watching the Irish as they began their slow advance, but they were not motionless or silent. Rather they were rushing back and forth in a lovely imitation of panic, and pointing at the Irish and shouting to the men below them in the longphort.

  Thorgrim smiled. “Archers!” he shouted, and the men on the wall armed with bows, began to draw and fire on the enemy, now just a few hundred feet away. Failend, too, had dropped to one knee and was pulling arrows from her quiver and firing into the oncoming enemy, taking her time, taking her aim, which was bad luck for any man she picked out of the line.

  The Irish did not hesitate. In fact, their pace built as they came on, and almost as one the front ranks raised shields, clearly reacting to some order Thorgrim could not hear. Men were falling here and there, victims of the Northmen’s arrows, but still they came on.

  How will you do this? Thorgrim wondered. Bécc’s men were still in their tight groups. If they were going to assault the walls he would expect them to attack as many points as they could, to make the Northmen spread their defenses so thin as to be useless. But that was not what they were doing.

  Then Thorgrim saw the center group moving forward, shields up, protecting the cluster of men in the center, and he knew. “They’re using a battering ram!” he shouted. “They’re coming through the door!”

  He turned and looked down the length of the wall. “You men, get behind the barricades, get ready to meet them when they drive through!”

  The archers and the spearmen on the wall obeyed, and turned, climbing and sliding down the slope to the ground. Thorgrim grabbed two men before they could make their descent.

  “You two, stay on the wall. Keep clear of their spears but keep an eye on what they’re about. If it looks like they’re going to make an attack somewhere along the wall as well, you let me know, and be quick about it!”

  The two men nodded and crouched down, making smaller targets of themselves, and Thorgrim clambered down to the ground below. The bulk of the men were lined up along the two barricades. Once the Irish smashed the flimsy gate in and poured through, they would be caught between the log walls and the shield-bearing men behind them and they would be cut down.

  Thorgrim took a position a dozen feet back from the men lining th
e log walls, a spot where he could see all that was going on in one sweeping glance. He looked at the grim and patient men standing there, and as he did, the battering ram took its first solid blow against the gate. It was a deep and substantial sound, the sound of a heavy log wielded with considerable force, and with the sound of the impact came the sharper, softer sound of shattering wood.

  This will not take long, Thorgrim thought.

  The men along the barricades shuffled closer and raised their shields a little higher and refreshed the grip on their weapons, but they were not silent. As Thorgrim had instructed them, they were yelling out to one another, shouting words of confusion, bordering on panic. It made a comical sight, these men standing firm and stoic, weapons at the ready, eager for the coming fight and screaming like frightened children

  Starri was shirtless and spinning around in place, his twin battle axes in hand. Harald was at the center of the far barricade. Those men who had been with Thorgrim and those who had just thrown in with him seemed tossed together in no particular order, and that was good. Cohesion was good. Factions were not.

  The ram struck again and the sound of breaking wood was considerably more pronounced. It struck again. “Stand ready!” Godi bellowed, his big voice carrying over the faux panic.

  Thorgrim looked up at the wall. The men he had left to keep an eye on Bécc’s movements were gone. He looked down at the ground. One was lying at the base of the wall, a spear jammed in his shoulder and he was kicking his legs and twisting and holding the shaft of the spear, trying to summon the nerve to pull it out. The other man was nowhere to be seen. Thorgrim frowned and cursed under his breath. He could not afford to be blind to Bécc’s movements. The assault on the gate might be just a diversion.

  He turned to order two more men to take their place when the gate gave way and the screaming, triumphant Irish came pouring through.

  The change was quick and startling. The Northmen at the barricades stopped their silly playacting and took up their battle cries, calculated to bring terror to an adversary. The Irish in turn came pouring through the gate, rushing forward with shields and spears, shouting as if they had already won. But those cries of exaltation wilted on their lips as they realized they were trapped between the two low barricades, with armed men on either side and more of their own pushing in behind them, driving them further into the jaws of the trap.

  The confusion had not yet left their faces when they began to die in earnest, the Northmen thrusting out with spears and swords, hacking at the crowd of men with their long battle axes. And the Irish began to scream—in pain, in terror, in fury—but to their credit they turned and fought. Shields up, spears driving over the barricades, they struck back as hard as they could.

  These are not the men-at-arms, Thorgrim realized. There were only a few with mail, a few with swords. Most wore the simple, rough clothes of working men and they carried simple weapons. Bécc had sent the dispensable men in first, with a smattering of men-at-arms to boost their courage. He wanted to weaken his enemy as much as he could before sending in the real fighting men to finish the job.

  It was a good plan, Thorgrim had to admit, and it might have worked if they had not built the barricades to pen the attackers in. These farmers, Thorgrim knew, would not overpower his warriors. They would not even do them much hurt. If they turned and fled and tried to get back out through the gate, they would run smack into the others pushing forward, and the result would be a tangle of panicked men. If they stood and fought they would create a third barrier with their bodies as they fell.

  You are not so clever after all, are you, Bécc? Thorgrim thought, and that thought made him uneasy. The gods were apt to punish such pridefulness. He pulled his eyes from the fighting and looked back up at the wall. There were two men there now, but they were not his men. One looked thin and lithe, a young man, apparently. He held a pole with a banner at one end, though he held the cloth folded against the pole.

  The other was stouter, solid-looking. There was a look of permanence to his stance, a posture of command.

  Bécc… It had to be. Bécc had mounted the wall so he could watch the action below.

  Why are you not in the fighting? Thorgrim thought next. He and Bécc had crossed swords not long before. He knew the Irishman was not shy about taking his part in a fight, putting himself in danger.

  Then the young man beside Bécc released the banner and the wind grabbed the cloth and whipped it out straight. He raised the staff high and began to wave it side to side in a wide, sweeping motion.

  What, by the gods…? And then the thunder boomed overhead and Thorgrim understood. A signal.

  “You bastard!” Thorgrim shouted at Bécc, but his real anger was with himself. He turned around again. The fight at the barricades had not slackened off, but now at the far end of the longphort, near to where the earthen wall met the water, he could see men-at-arms coming up over the top. They wore mail and helmets and carried shields, because they were the real warriors whom Bécc had held in reserve. Now they were pouring over the wall while his men were distracted by the useless farmers.

  Thorgrim drew Iron-tooth from its scabbard, a reflex gesture. He had no immediate need of the weapon; there was more to do before he could cross swords with the men-at-arms. His own warriors, fighting at the low log walls, had to disengage and turn to face this new threat, but at the same time they could not turn their backs on the spearmen in front of them. His own trap had been turned on its head.

  He ran at the line of Northmen ahead of him, grabbed the nearest man and pulled him back, then grabbed the next. “Step back! Step back! Back!” he roared, loud as he could, and pulled a third man from the wall.

  Harald, fighting at the opposite barricade, was nearly opposite him. At the sound of Thorgrim’s voice he looked up and their eyes met across the mass of struggling men and Thorgrim pointed with Iron-tooth at the coming threat. He saw Harald turn his head, saw the boy’s eyes go wide, saw him begin to push his own men back from the log wall.

  The Northmen backed away from the barricades, eyes shifted toward the wall, swords and spears pointed in the direction of this new threat. Thorgrim could see both confusion and relief on the faces of the Irishmen caught between the barricades as the enemy inexplicably broke off the fight. He could see his own men pointing to a place behind him.

  He turned once again and saw what the others had seen. Bécc had not sent one division of men over the north wall, he had sent two: one over the north wall and one over the south. Thorgrim had not seen the second division, coming in behind him, but he did now. A lot of men. More than one hundred, certainly, and the same number coming in over the north wall. His own men were outnumbered, and even the spear-armed farmers would be able to do considerable damage now that the Northmen had the men-at-arms to contend with.

  This does not look good , Thorgrim thought. And indeed it did not. But his men were already divided into two battle groups, and that would help. On the far side of the barricade Harald and Godi were already pushing the men away from the log wall, getting them turned and formed into a shield wall of sorts, while the Irish men-at-arms did the same.

  Thorgrim turned back to the men on his side of the barricade. “Make a shield wall! Make a shield wall! They’ll be on us quick!” Gudrid was there, and Jorund and Halldor and they were pushing the men into line and echoing Thorgrim’s orders.

  Failend came rushing past, nearly colliding with Thorgrim as she did. She ran two dozen paces out ahead of the nascent shield wall and dropped to a knee, in the same motion whipping an arrow from her quiver and setting it on the bowstring. She drew, shifted her aim a hair’s breadth and let fly. She was already reaching for a second arrow when Thorgrim saw the first take one of the men-at-arms square in the neck and send him reeling back, arms flung out, shield and sword flying off in either direction.

  He heard the familiar clatter of shield on shield as his men overlapped the iron-bound disks to form a wall. He looked behind him. The farmers in the barri
cades were all but motionless: surprised, confused and grateful for their unexpected salvation. But soon someone, one of the men-at-arms among them, would push them over the log walls and back into the fight.

  “Forward! Forward!” Thorgrim shouted, Iron-tooth raised high. He stepped off, making for the Irish who were also forming a shield wall, and the rest of his men followed. Failend let off another arrow, then dashed out of the way of the advancing line of men.

  Thorgrim looked off to his left. Harald’s men were moving forward as his were, putting distance between them and the spearmen behind them, advancing on this new threat. Four shield walls, two Irish, two Northmen, converging on one another like ships on course to collide. And then the rain began.

  It was only a few drops at first, big, heavy drops that made dark spots on the brown trampled earth. Then more. Then lightning flashed and the thunder came right on its heels and the dark, ponderous clouds seemed to open up.

  It fell like no rain Thorgrim had ever felt before. It fell with a force and weight that seemed like an assault, as if the gods were set on using the deluge to inflict hurt on the men below. In the space of three steps the world around them went from dry to soaked. The rain beat down on iron helmets and mail shirts, it drenched tunics, it turned the ground into a viscous mess. Thorgrim opened his mouth to shout an order and it was instantly full of water and he spit and choked. He wiped the water from his eyes, a useless gesture.

  “Forward! Move it!” he managed to call, but the words had a gagging sound to them. The rain was disorienting, blinding, it was hard to think. The ground, instantly muddy, pulled at his soft leather shoes. “Forward!”

  He pushed on, angling the line toward the water. He wanted to get as close to the ships as he could, in case Bécc’s men had some designs on them. At least now he knew they would not be setting them on fire, even if that had been their plan.

  The Irish were surging forward, a row of round shields coming directly at Thorgrim and his men. Thorgrim blinked and resettled his grip on Iron-tooth. Thirty feet. Something brushed past him and he thought for an instant it was Failend again, but it was not, it was Starri Deathless, screaming louder than the rain, louder than the near continuous rolling thunder as he raced for the enemy’s shield wall. He had been thoroughly covered in blood from the fighting at the barricades. Now the blood and driving rain made streaks and swirls down his back and chest, as if he had been painted by some mad, blind painter, and it made him more frightening still.