You must wonder what stupid thing I’m about to do , Thorgrim mused, looking at Asmund’s tall figure aft. You must wonder if I’ve lost my mind .
It was a fair question. One Thorgrim himself could not answer.
Chapter Twenty-Six
West over water I fared
Bearing poetry’s waves to the shore
Of the war-god’s heart.
Egil’s Saga
Harald, rope in hand, leapt up onto the aft deck and stood leaning against the ship’s side. He had snatched up a battle ax and tied it to the end of the rope to give it more heft for the throw. Now he stood poised, waiting, the ax swinging back and forth in little arcs.
Thorgrim looked forward. Less than a ship’s length until they hit. He waited as the men at the oars gave one last pull, until he was as sure as he could be that Sea Hammer carried enough momentum, and then he shouted, “Oars in! Oars in! Now! Now!”
There was no confusion. The men forward were accustomed to handling the oars and accustomed to Thorgrim’s unexpected and unorthodox commands. They pulled the oars in quick and smooth, the long shafts reaching across the deck and resting on the opposite side.
Heads turned right and left. They could see Oak Heart and Fox now, close on either side, and it was clear to all that they were going to hit. Thorgrim saw men turn on the sea chests on which they sat, stare forward, stare from side to side.
Fox , to larboard, was no more than thirty feet away, locked bow to bow with Oak Heart . Thorgrim could see Hardbein standing at the tiller, but he could make out little detail, could not even tell if the man was looking his way. Though he probably was.
“Hardbein!” he shouted. “We’ll send a rope, take you in tow!” There was little chance that Hardbein heard him, but Harald was standing tall and holding the coil of rope up high and swinging it, and that Hardbein seemed to understand. He waved his arm and then apparently shouted something forward to his diminished crew.
Thorgrim wiped rain from his eyes and looked forward at the very instant that Sea Hammer drove into the bows of the other two ships. He felt the shudder run down the length of the longship and he stumbled forward and grabbed hard to the tiller to keep from falling. He shouted in pain as he felt the impact jar his still bleeding wound but happily no one could hear him over the roar of the wind.
They could most certainly hear the sound of wood shattering with the impact, however. Sea Hammer ’s bow struck right at the vertex of the angle formed by the two fouled ships and drove right on through. Fox ’s tall stem, caught around that of Oak Heart , was wrenched clean off, taking part of Oak Heart ’s with it. Thorgrim wondered if any of them would suffer damage below the waterline, which would put one or both ships on the bottom.
We’ll see…
He looked to larboard. Fox , free from Oak Heart ’s embrace, was swinging toward them. He could see men running along her length and oars resting on the sheer strake to fend Sea Hammer off before they struck. Harald was poised with his rope, swinging the ax back and forth, and then he drew back his arm and with a wide, straight-arm swing he heaved the ax and line away.
Thorgrim watched the weapon fly through the air, a beautiful, perfect arc that dropped the ax and the line made fast to it right amidships on Fox ’s deck. Men aboard the smaller ship grabbed it up and raced it forward, while Harald took the other end, the end still aboard Sea Hammer , and made it fast to the heavy cleat mounted on the larboard side.
Sea Hammer shuddered again and again, a series of blows as she bounced off Oak Heart and Fox . Oak Heart had pivoted with the impact on her bow and swung alongside Sea Hammer and now the two ships were smashing one into the other as Sea Hammer ’s momentum drove her forward. Thorgrim could see sections torn from Oak Heart ’s sheer strake and his as well, but it was minor damage compared to what might have been if Oak Heart and Fox had gone up on the sandbar.
He looked at Oak Heart ’s afterdeck, with which he was closing as Sea Hammer bashed down the other ship’s side. Asmund was still at the tiller, looking back at him, with no more than twenty feet separating them. Asmund raised his arm in greeting, as if the two of them had happened across one another on either side of a street, and Thorgrim raised his arm as well. It was odd, very odd.
Then Thorgrim recalled that Sea Hammer was only drifting, that they would soon have the weight of Fox pulling behind them and they had better start rowing again, and quick. He looked forward, but Godi had already thought of that, and was moving from forward aft, ordering the men to run their oars back out the oar ports as each drew clear of the ships on either side.
Thorgrim looked to his left, where Harald stood by the cleat. Harald was a good mariner, and one of considerable experience, even at seventeen years of age. He had taken a turn of the rope around the cleat, which would allow him to keep hold of the line when it came tight, but he did not tie it off for fear it would snap if Fox ’s weight came on it all at once.
Well done, well done… Thorgrim thought. He looked forward. Most of the oars were out now, the men pulling like lunatics. Oak Heart had her oars back out as well, and Asmund was driving his ship as directly away from the sandbars as he could without running afoul of Sea Hammer .
“We’re taking Fox in tow!” Thorgrim shouted forward to the men working the oars. “You better row like you mean it, now!” He wondered if they had the strength enough left to move Sea Hammer, and Fox as well, after driving the longship off the beach.
He felt Sea Hammer ’s aft end began to slew around and he knew that the tow rope was coming tight, the smaller ship starting to exert drag on his own. He looked aft, craning his head around the sternpost. Fox was directly behind them now, the rope between them rising from the short chop, dripping and straining. But Hardbein had had sense enough to drive his men back to the oars, and now one and another and another of the long shafts emerged from the row ports to drive Fox under her own power as much as they could, and help the men of Sea Hammer in their efforts.
Forward the men fell back into their steady rhythm: arms down, lean forward, arms up to dip the blades, lean back to pull. Their faces were still set and grim, but they were driving against the wind, making headway. They could see it, and it gave them more encouragement than any words Thorgrim could speak.
“Father, can I return to my oar?” Harald shouted. It was a torment for the boy to see other men working harder than he was, but Thorgrim could not let him go.
“No, I need you to tend the tow rope!” he called without moving his eyes from the bow. He could picture the look on Harald’s face—he had seen it often enough—but Harald would do as he was ordered and would not argue.
Thorgrim looked back over his shoulder and he was surprised to see how far astern the beach was already. He felt as if they had been rowing for hours and had made no progress at all in that time, but in truth it had been just a few minutes and they had already put a couple hundred yards between themselves and Bécc’s army.
He looked forward, past the bow, toward the shoreline to the north, which appeared as little more than a dark line through the driving rain, and he did not like what he saw. He was steering Sea Hammer in a straight line, but the distant shore seemed to be moving, right to left. That meant the wind was pushing the ship sideways, driving it and the others down onto the sandbars. If they touched, they would be stuck fast and they would be beaten apart before the storm blew out.
Thorgrim pushed the tiller away, turning the ship’s bow more into the wind, and he saw the other ships adjust as well. Eight ships working against the gale force winds. He looked to starboard. The water was piling up and breaking over the sandbars, more obvious now with the still mounting wind, and he could see they were being pushed down that way.
Row…all of you sons of whores…row… His thoughts were not just with the men of Sea Hammer but all the hundreds of men now under his command. His army, his fleet. Would their saga consist of a single defeat at the hands of the Irish, then death in the waters of Loch Garman? It was too much t
o bear. He wondered if there was still room enough to turn the ship and run back to the beach and die fighting Bécc. A proper death. He would try it, if the sandbars got much closer than they were.
Foot by foot the ships clawed their way to windward, the shallow water lurking downwind, the breaking whitecaps like arms beckoning them. But they kept ahead of the sand and the breakers, kept to their agonizing pace, fathom upon fathom, pulling for the northern shore and the beach at Beggerin.
Thorgrim had no sense for how long they had been at it—hours, days?—when the realization came to him, obvious as a rune stone at a junction of two roads: We won’t make it.
Sea Hammer was still at the end of the line of ships pulling for the shore. She had been last to get off the beach and she had Fox tethered astern, half rowing, half under tow. From where he stood, Thorgrim could see how things would play out. The ships were trying to go north, but they were being driven off to the east as the wind and the short, choppy waves pummeled them on their larboard bows.
He could see his own men were tiring rapidly, as of course they must. Every man was at the oars; there were no replacements, no fresh arms waiting. The men pulling oar on the other ships would be as tired as well. Like Sea Hammer , the other ships would be half filled with water, making them harder to row, more susceptible to the power of the wind. If they kept on the way they were, the men’s strength would desert them, and soon. Even the most powerful rowers could only keep at it for so long in the teeth of such a wind. And when that happened, the ships would be up on the sandbars in minutes.
Thorgrim swept his eyes along the horizon. If his current plan would not save them, then he needed to think of something else, and fast. To the north there were the beaches at Beggerin, safe havens where the wind would keep the ship off the sand, keep them from being beaten to death. But they could not reach them. To leeward were the sandbars and beyond them the spit of land that formed the ocean side of the wide bay. They could reach those easy enough, and they would be destroyed once they did.
And just to the northeast, and all but downwind, was the wide gap in the shoreline, where the bay of Loch Garman emptied into the sea beyond.
Thorgrim pressed his lips together. It was madness, and it was not likely to save them, but it was the only chance that he could see. He pulled the tiller to him, just a bit, and swung Sea Hammer ’s bow off to the northwest. He looked beyond the starboard rail at the water breaking over the sandbars. It would be a tricky thing, heading off on that course while keeping clear of the shallows. He had no way of gauging it beyond his gut feeling, and his gut feeling said they would make it, and that was good enough. It had to be good enough.
He pulled the tiller a bit more toward him, and as the bow turned further from the eye of the wind, the ship began to heel and the rowing became much easier. He could see exhausted men looking up in surprise at the sudden easing of their burden. He felt Sea Hammer ’s speed increase as the wind began to aid, not hinder, her motion.
Oak Heart , not burdened with a vessel towing astern, had managed to claw her way upwind of Sea Hammer . A couple hundred yards to windward, she was little more than a dark shape through the rain and the heavy clouded sky, as were the rest of the fleet. They had all been moving in the same direction, but now Sea Hammer had turned away, heading off on her new course.
Do they see what I’m doing? Thorgrim wondered. There was no way, no way at all, to communicate from one ship to another. Thorgrim could only hope that the others would notice him and follow his lead. Or not. What he had in mind was as likely to kill them all as anything else, and he was happy to let the others choose their own watery grave.
They passed downwind of Oak Heart and Thorgrim could see the next ship ahead, which he thought was Blood Hawk , though it was impossible to know for certain. She, too, was still struggling to row to windward, and Sea Hammer , the wind helping her now, began to catch up with that ship as well.
“Father!” Harald shouted. He was still standing at the windward rail, the tow rope in hand, keeping careful watch on the degree of strain that came on it. “Oak Heart , they’re following! I think they’re following!”
Harald, of course, had guessed at what his father intended, and understood the dangers as well. Thorgrim turned and craned his neck to look astern, and he could see Harald was right. The big ship had indeed turned to follow in Sea Hammer ’s wake, and Thorgrim was now looking at her bow as she followed after.
Well, Asmund, you’ll see soon enough if I’ve killed us all , Thorgrim mused.
Sea Hammer continued on her course, turning ever more toward the east as she skirted the sandbars on her leeward side. Whereas once they had been rowing straight into the wind, now with their change of heading the wind was mostly behind them, driving the ship along, until at last the men at the oars could not row as fast as the wind was pushing them, even with no sail set. The long sweeps were run in and laid across the deck and the men collapsed over them, hunched over and resting on the looms of the oars, too exhausted even to look up.
Thorgrim was looking up. His eyes were everywhere: on the shoreline to north and south, on the breakers off the starboard side, on the other ships of the fleet. Like Asmund on Oak Heart , they, too, had seen what Thorgrim had in mind and had turned in his wake, following behind. The tow line running from Sea Hammer ’s cleat to Fox astern was slack now and Thorgrim told Harald to cast it off. The smaller ship was no longer in need of towing.
“Night Wolf!” Thorgrim looked up to see Starri Deathless moving aft, performing an odd sort of dance as he tried to keep his footing on the sharp rolling deck. He stepped up onto the aft deck by Thorgrim’s side and took a moment to look around.
“I’m not the great seafarer that you are, Night Wolf,” he said at last. “But I thought we were making for the beaches at Beggerin, and I’m all but certain they’re that way.” He pointed over the larboard quarter to the strip of land astern of them.
“They are,” Thorgrim said, nearly shouting to be heard, though Starri was only a few feet away. “But we wouldn’t have made it. Couldn’t pull against the wind. And if the rowers gave out we’d have been on the sandbars, and knocked to pieces.”
Starri nodded. “So now where are we going?”
“Only place we can,” Thorgrim shouted. “Out to sea!”
A look passed over Starri’s face that suggested discomfort with this idea. Starri Deathless was not at all certain that a man who drowned would be taken up to Odin’s corpse hall.
“And you think that’s a good choice?” Starri said.
“It’s the only choice,” Thorgrim said. “That doesn’t make it good.”
The motion of the ship changed under them, the stern lifted higher, the bow twisted around as Thorgrim worked the tiller to keep her on course. They had been closer to land before, but now there was several miles of open water behind them, the full width of the bay at Loch Garman, and the wind was building the waves up to a respectable height.
Thorgrim looked aft, larboard and starboard. The other seven ships were behind him now, some close by and clearly seen, some only shadows in the rain and dark. But they were all on the same course, the same track.
The stern lifted again and the ship corkscrewed under him. The exhausted men at the oars began to lift their heads and look around, and Thorgrim wondered if any of them had guessed what he was doing, or if they were so happy to not be rowing that they did not care.
Off the larboard side, directly abeam, Thorgrim could see the point of land that formed the northern entrance to the bay, a beach he knew well, having walked it several times. To the south, also abeam, was the long sandy spit that made the southern entrance, which he had only seen from a distance.
The seas lifted the ship once more, the wind drove her forward, and the land to the north and the south passed astern of them. Thorgrim looked forward, past the bow. There was nothing there but the sea, the open sea, and the massive breaking waves rolling off toward the dim horizon.
Chapt
er Twenty-Seven
Many nobles sat assembled, and searched out counsel
how it were best for bold-hearted men
against harassing terror to try their hand.
Beowulf
The thunder rolled, the long hall shook as if something massive and solid had struck it, and Nothwulf could no longer contain his curiosity.
“That will do for now, Tilmund,” he said to his man, standing at his side. “Sit, have a rest, we’ll get back to it in a minute. You, too,” he added to Bryning, standing off to the other side.
Tilmund grunted and sat on the bench behind him. Bryning remained standing. Nothwulf strode down the length of the long hall, which was all but empty, and pushed open the tall oak door at the far end. He was struck immediately by the wind, a cold, powerful blast that drove the rain before it. Rain like projectiles, like weapons of some sort. The howling sound, muted by the thick walls and thatch roof of the long hall, came at full volume now, a deep moaning sound such as Nothwulf had never heard and never expected to hear this side of the grave.
Heavy as the door was, Nothwulf had to hold it with both hands to keep the wind from smashing it open. He looked out across the courtyard. The roof of the stable was gone, and beyond that the entire bake-house had collapsed into a heap. A couple of carts, quite substantial vehicles, had been flipped on their sides. Clumps of wet thatch torn from roofs lay half drowned in the pond-like puddles that covered the ground.
Nothwulf had no idea what time of day it might be. Near evening, he guessed, but there was no telling from looking at the sky, which had been a preternatural black since early morning.
A Vengeful Wind: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 8) Page 26
