Wulfstan wiped blood from his mouth. ‘Drop a makeshift anchor astern.’
Within minutes the soldiers placed two hundredweight of ballast in a net secured with a rope to the mainmast. Six men heaved it over the stern and as soon as it hit bottom it dragged, halving Jifeng’s speed.
Something exploded on her foredeck. Fire broke out and two men howled from their burns. Their companions wrapped them in hides to suffocate the flames.
‘Quicklime,’ Wulfstan said.
The abrupt slowing of Jifeng flat-footed the commander of the junk. The oarsmen tried to back water, but the vessel had too much momentum behind it. Jifeng was almost stationary when the enemy junk slid to within ten yards and Wulfstan opened the valve on the siphon.
Crouched only ten feet away, Vallon felt the singeing heat of the incendiary as it sprayed the junk’s bow. Through the pressurised roar, he heard screams. Next moment he was thrown down as the junk collided with Jifeng’s stern. Globules of Greek Fire sizzled on the wet hides.
Squinting through the smoke, he saw that the incendiary had taken hold on the junk’s bow. Flames ran up shrouds like fiery squirrels. A patch of foresail flashed into flame, fire feeding fire until the junk’s foredeck dissolved in an inferno.
Vallon’s eyebrows charred in the heat. Holding his breath to preserve his lungs, he slashed the anchor rope. Slowly Jifeng separated from the enemy junk, flames six feet high rising from the leather drapes hung over the stern. Wulfstan in his fireproof suit walked into the blaze and cut the hides away. They fell into the river and continued burning. Pockets of flame danced on Jifeng’s deck. The Outlanders swatted them as if they were rats or goblins, only to see them spring back to life.
‘Use sand and vinegar,’ Wulfstan ordered.
When the fires were out, Vallon removed his helmet and splashed water over his scalded brow. The enemy junk was ablaze from bow to midships and its complement of sailors and soldiers had retreated to the stern and were stripping off their armour. Vallon saw figures leaping into the river clutching kegs and planks, anything buoyant.
Wulfstan spat blood. ‘Two down.’
Through the noxious billows of smoke the third ship came churning, froth kicking up from paddle wheels hidden behind a false hull protected by a heavy fender or bulwark. It was the ugliest and most pointless vessel Vallon had ever seen. Where a junk had a bluff bow and low tapering foredeck, this monstrosity had a square tower twenty feet high, its wooden parapet loopholed for archers and crossbowmen. Behind the tower and taking up almost the rest of the hull was a superstructure shaped like a house, with a pitched roof and walls that had no windows, only doors – a dozen of them ten feet high, each one painted with a snarling tiger.
Vallon looked for Wulfstan. ‘What the hell is it?’
Clasping his chest with his hooked left arm, Wulfstan lurched up. ‘Those doors are hatches and boarding ramps hinged at the bottom. Behind each tiger half a dozen men are waiting for the ship to come alongside. When it does, they drop the hatches and as soon as the ramps hit our side-rail, over they pour.’
‘Can you turn the siphon on them?’
‘I emptied the tank. I’ve got only one barrel left and there ain’t time to cook it.’
The paddle-wheeler took an erratic course, scooting like an aquatic insect well wide of Jifeng’s starboard side and holding position while its invisible commander weighed up the opposition and calculated how and when to attack. The absence of any visible threat unnerved the Outlanders and they drifted back to Jifeng’s port side, putting maximum distance between themselves and the hidden enemy.
Vallon stood at the starboard rail and bellowed at his troops. ‘Why are you hanging back like maidens at their first dance? You’re not virgins. They’re not demons. They’re soldiers the same as you, and they’ve seen us destroy two ships and kill dozens of their comrades.’ He lashed a hand at Josselin. ‘Two squads to form up in line with me. One squad of archers at the rear.’
The Outlanders shuffled into formation. Lucas approached Vallon. ‘Where do you want me to stand?’
‘My left ankle is weak. On that side if you would.’
Lucas took up position, breathing in deep but controlled gasps. Vallon glanced at him and all the fetters around his heart broke. In one quick movement he embraced Lucas. ‘Whatever our fate, I want you to know how proud I am to have my son standing at my side.’
‘I wouldn’t choose to stand anywhere else. I’ve found my place, even though the journey has been painful.’
‘How can I ease your pain? Tell me. We don’t have much time.’
Lucas hunched his shoulders. ‘Your sword. Every time I see it, it reminds me of that night.’
Vallon hissed. ‘Of course. I should have thought of it myself.’ He began to turn. ‘Josselin, fetch me another —’
Lucas pulled him back. ‘I don’t mean now. Not with the enemy about to attack.’
Vallon turned to face the foe. ‘You’re an excellent swordsman but you lack combat experience. Here’s my last lesson. Killing is a mortal sin, to be avoided unless absolutely necessary. But when there’s no other resort, killing is all that matters. Nothing must intervene between intention and execution – not thought, anger or conscience. The soldier who kills without hesitation will triumph nine times out of ten. Kill your enemy and leave God to do the judging.
For all that the paddle-wheeler had the grace of a privy, it was surprisingly nimble, able to change direction within its own length. It fell behind Jifeng before putting on a burst of speed that brought it level, only twenty feet separating the two ships. Vallon looked along his line of soldiers and was dismayed to see how flimsy it was.
Wulfstan staggered up. ‘I’ve got an idea. Use Fire Drug.’
‘How? We don’t have time to light it. Even if we had, it will probably blow us up.’
‘Leave that to me.’
Vallon’s eyes darted. ‘Someone fetch the barrel of Fire Drug.’
A trooper ran below and returned with the barrel. ‘Wrap it in a net and tie it to my hook,’ Wulfstan said.
While a soldier lashed the barrel to his claw, Wulfstan picked up the last keg of Greek Fire. ‘That’s the problem of having only one hand. Someone else will have to pour it over me and set it alight.’
Vallon gaped. ‘Wulfstan!’
The Viking touched a small blood-rimmed hole in his asbestos suit. ‘A bolt has stuck me through the vitals. I’m going to die whatever happens, so I might as well make my death count.’
Vallon swallowed. He looked around and his eye fell on Gorka. ‘Do as he says.’
‘Sir, I can’t.’
‘That’s a direct order. Soak his suit with Greek Fire and stand ready to ignite it.’
While Gorka was pouring the incendiary over Wulfstan, the paddle-wheeler nudged closer. A dozen crossbowmen sprang up on the bow castle and triggered darts, dropping three Outlanders where they stood.
Wulfstan coughed up a gobbet of blood and tissue. ‘As soon as they grapple, I’ll run for the stern hatch. Have your archers clear the way.’
Vallon swung round. ‘Hear that? Concentrate your aim on the two stern hatches.’
The paddle-wheeler sidled into boarding range. Vallon cleared his throat. ‘You know what I’m going to say next so you might as well say it for me.’
The Outlanders struck their shields with their sword hilts. ‘Here or in the hereafter!’
Only twelve feet separated Vallon from the snarling tigers. Ten feet… eight…
The hatches swung open and clattered onto Jifeng’s rail. Down each ramp surged a file of soldiers wielding poleaxes and swords. Before the first one leaped onto the deck, Vallon registered his soldiers on each side dropping under a hail of bolts from the tower, Gorka holding a lamp to Wulfstan’s robes and – Vallon could hardly credit his eyes – Hauk Eiriksson and his Vikings in the forefront of the assault.
Vallon pointed his sword. ‘Traitor! Villain!’
He had no more time to consider Hauk
’s treachery. The first wave of soldiers leaped onto the deck. First to confront him was a Chinese infantryman swinging a poleaxe. Vallon ducked under the blade and skewered his attacker from groin to chest. Before the man had fallen he’d withdrawn the sword and was looking for the next target. From the corner of his eye he saw Wulfstan erupt in a ball of flame and greasy black smoke. The human torch ran across the deck and paused at the rail before climbing onto the ramp. Two soldiers tumbled backwards to get out the way of the frightful apparition, and Wulfstan disappeared into the paddle-wheeler’s hull.
Vallon was embroiled in a mêlée. He sidestepped a soldier wielding a halberd and slashed down at the junction of the man’s head and shoulder. The space occupied by the dead man filled with Rorik, the giant Viking who’d defied all natural law by recovering from a gangrenous leg back in Turkestan. Vallon led him left, led him right, right again, and when the man didn’t know which way to move next, Vallon killed him with a quick thrust to his heart.
Jumping back, Vallon saw Lucas hard-pressed by two swordsmen. He dealt with one of them with one stroke and the other sprang away in search of easier opposition. Lucas’s mouth twisted.
‘Hot and heavy work.’
‘Stay close.’
One sweeping glance told Vallon that the battle was lost. Knots of Chinese infantry had closed around his Outlanders, cutting them down one by one. He saw Hauk kill Josselin the centurion, a gentle man who’d always dealt courteously with the Vikings.
‘You’ll pay for that in hell,’ Vallon shouted.
Hauk heard him. ‘I’m saving you until last.’
Vallon didn’t have time to respond. Two more men assailed him and he forgot his own injunction, so enraged that he cut the sword arms off both enemies with a single stroke. Lucas had drifted away and Vallon sprang towards him. ‘Back to back.’
A mob of soldiers forced them to give ground. Vallon thrust, swung and hacked, but for every man he killed another two stood ready to fill the space. His suspect left ankle gave way and he buckled.
‘Father!’
Vallon regained his feet. ‘Don’t worry about me.’ He fended off another attack, knowing that the next or the one after that would be the end.
‘Behind you!’ someone shouted.
Swinging round, Vallon turned headfirst into the path of a mace that smashed into his helmet. The world went white and then black.
He was sprawled on the deck, trying to regain control of his limbs when a hand wrenched the helmet off his head and he found himself looking into the smiling face of Hauk Eiriksson.
The Viking’s voice seemed to reach him from far away. ‘We never bade each other a proper farewell, Vallon the Far-Farer.’
Vallon coughed. ‘I said goodbye to you two or three times, and always you returned like a cur in want of a master.’
‘Not this time,’ Hauk said. He raised his sword. ‘So close to the grave, so far from heaven.’
Vallon was dimly aware of the clash of arms continuing around him. ‘If Lucas is alive, spare him. Spare Qiuylue.’
‘I’m on commission and can’t afford to be lenient. Lucas will join you in hell. As for your tart, we’ll use her tonight and discard her in the morning. When we’ve finished with her, no man will want to come near her again.’
‘Why so much hatred?’ Vallon groaned. ‘After all we did for you. After everything we went through together.’
Hauk stood and drew back his sword. ‘Do a proud man a favour that’s to your own advantage and you make an enemy for life.’
Vallon saw the sword fall. Everything dissolved in a roaring red light, a hurricane that smashed the universe into pieces and sent them pinwheeling into a black vortex.
From very far away Vallon heard shouting, one voice closer and more insistent than the others. Something was pulling at his hand. He blinked and saw a smoke-blackened face. It was Lucas, dragging him out from under a dead weight. He struggled free and managed to kneel. It was Hauk’s body that had fallen onto him, a jagged piece of timber sticking out of the back of the Viking’s head. Vallon used his sword to lever himself upright. The paddle-wheeler was drifting apart from Jifeng in a cloud of fumes, most of its superstructure blown open.
The explosion had taken the fight out of the Chinese. They tried to leap back onto their vessel, offering no resistance to the Outlanders, who followed up raining blows like tired drunks. The gap between the two ships was growing and many of the enemy soldiers fell short, their armour pulling them straight under.
Vallon riddled his ears. The screams of men being burned alive carried from the hull of the paddle-wheeler. He looked around at the carnage on his own deck and saw Lucas. He held out his hands and both men fell wordless into each other’s arms, tears mingling on their sooty and blood-spattered faces.
Vallon broke the clinch and stood holding Lucas at arm’s length. ‘You called me “Father”.’
‘Look to the fires,’ Gorka shouted.
A dozen flames had taken hold and would probably have devoured the ship if it hadn’t been sheathed in hides. When the last blaze had been extinguished, Vallon looked at the paddle-wheeler blazing in their wake.
‘God keep you, Wulfstan. You gave yourself a funeral any Viking would have been proud of.’
He turned with heavy heart to count his other casualties. The toll robbed him of any satisfaction in his victory. Seventeen dead. He looked around, still fuddled by the explosion.
‘Where’s Wayland?’
‘Over here,’ Aiken called.
Wayland sat propped against the port side, holding his upper arm. A dart from a repeating crossbow was lodged in it.
Vallon breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Thank God it’s not worse.’
Hero looked up. ‘It’s poisoned.’
Vallon didn’t take it in. ‘Poison? What poison?’
Wayland’s grin was a rictus. ‘The fatal kind.’ He removed his hand to show viscous black blood leaking from the wound.
From a state of fogged consciousness Vallon was hurled into a reality too stark to bear. ‘Can’t you do anything? What about water? Try bleeding him. Keep him moving.’ He reached down to lift Wayland to his feet.
‘Don’t,’ Wayland said
‘Where does it afflict you?’
Wayland’s breath came in rapid gasps. ‘It feels like an icy hand is squeezing my heart.’
‘No,’ Vallon cried. ‘You’re not going to die.’ He dropped to his knees and clasped Wayland to his chest.
‘I’m sorry,’ Hero said. ‘There’s nothing I can do.’
Vallon watched Wayland die by degrees, the blood draining from his face and his eyes dulling over. Close as he was, Vallon couldn’t make out Wayland’s words except the last – ‘Syth’, delivered on an expiring note of love, guilt and sorrow.
His head arched back and his body convulsed before relaxing into death.
Hero stood wet-eyed but composed and pronounced the Te Deum. Lucas sobbed openly and the other Outlanders looked on bereft. Vallon cradled Wayland’s head against his chest and raised grief-sodden eyes.
‘Leave me alone with him.’
He rocked Wayland’s corpse as if lulling a child to sleep. ‘Not you, Wayland. Everybody else, but not you. You shone like the sun, with a light I thought could never be extinguished. On our first journey I came to look on you as a son, so talented and so contrary. And then you found my real son and on the day he called me father you slip into the void. Oh Wayland. What will I tell Syth?’
The surviving Outlanders committed the bodies of their comrades to the sea where it turned from muddy yellow to clear blue. The sun’s dying rays spread like a golden fan over the receding coast. After the last rites, Vallon stood alone at the rail. He unsheathed his sword for the last time, looked at it for a few moments, then hurled it end over end. It disappeared into the ocean with hardly a splash.
The last of the Outlanders stood on the foredeck. Vallon hobbled over.
Hero held out a compass. ‘Do you recognise th
is?’
‘Oh yes. The south-pointing mysterious direction-finder that made me turn in my tracks when we met all those years ago. If I’d known then where it would lead me, I would have ridden on.’
‘It doesn’t dictate fate,’ Hero said. ‘All it does is show directions. You have to decide which one to take.’
Vallon screwed a knuckle into his eye. ‘Wayland has shown us the way. South, then west. Back home.’
‘This breeze is carrying us east,’ Lucas said.
‘What lies out there?’ Gorka asked.
‘If we continue east, we’ll come to Korea,’ Aiken said. ‘Beyond that is an island called Nippon. “The land where the sun rises”.’
‘Sir.’
Vallon turned. Everyone turned. Qiuylue had come on deck dressed as Vallon had first seen her, wearing a gown decorated with cranes and pines – symbols of longevity and fidelity. She had made up her face and arranged her hair in the conch style.
She walked towards the stern. Nobody else moved.
‘Qiuylue?’
She turned at the stern rail, faced him, brought her hands together and bowed.
‘Someone stop her!’ Vallon shouted.
The nearest man was still feet away when she gathered the folds of her gown, stepped onto the transom, spread her arms like a bird taking flight and jumped.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I drew some of the Kaifeng street scenes from Zhang Zeduan’s Spring Festival on the River, an early twelfth-century scroll painting depicting society in the Chinese capital. This remarkable work, more than seventeen feet long, is unmatched in the amount of information it gives about a medieval city anywhere in the world. As well as showing the architectural details, it presents a pageant of everyday life in the metropolis, including scenes of traders and storytellers, caravans and cargo boats, fishermen and scholars, wrestlers and garden designers, conjurors and musicians, students and stevedores…
As ever, I’m grateful to my agent Anthony Goff and his colleagues at David Higham Associates. Thanks, too, to Ed Wood and Iain Hunt, my editors at Sphere for their invaluable input.
Imperial Fire Page 59
