“Sandarr says he does not know what trick they are pulling,” Ronnat said, “but he thinks it would be prudent to come at them slow.”
Lorcan laughed, a short, uncharitable laugh. “Tell Sandarr only cowards inch their way into battle, like children sticking their toes into the water. That may be the way of the dubh gall but it is not the way that an Irish warrior fights.” He was done with Sandarr. Anything more he might learn from that craven fool about the sailing of a longship was not worth the aggravation of listing to his mewling.
But Sandarr, apparently, was not done, and once Ronnat had translated Lorcan’s words, he stepped up to Lorcan, so close they were nearly chest to chest, and thrust his face forward. Sandarr was not short, and his face was just a bit below Lorcan’s. He spoke, and his words were clipped and spittle flew from his lips.
Ronnat translated, as if the words needed translating. “Sandarr says no one calls him a coward. He says you are a fool and a dumb ox and…”
She got no further, because Lorcan had had enough. Enough of Sandarr’s arguments, enough of his arrogance, enough of the insults he would never have endured from any other man. Sandarr had betrayed his father and his people, and whatever his reasons had been, regardless of how much it benefited Lorcan, Lorcan could not stomach such a man. He never could. And now that Sandarr was of no use to him, he did not even have to pretend.
Lorcan lashed out and down with one massive hand, grabbed Sandarr’s crotch and squeezed hard. Sandarr’s eyes went wide and his mouth went wide and a scream formed in his throat, but it came out as a strangled sound. He batted at Lorcan’s arm but he might as well have been batting at an oak tree.
Before the scream could materialize Lorcan grabbed Sandarr’s shoulder with the other hand, took up a fist-full of his tunic, and with one fluid motion hoisted the dubh gall up over his head. It was no easy task holding the big man aloft, particularly as he thrashed and kicked and flailed with his arms, but Lorcan was immensely powerful and he did not have to hold him long. He took two stumbling steps to his left, came up hard against the side of the ship, and let that abrupt stop aid him in launching Sandarr out over the sea.
He saw the man come down in a great welter of spray and foam. His arms flailed as if trying to grasp at the water. Lorcan caught a glimpse of wide, terror-filled eyes and then Sandarr went under and Water Stallion shot forward, her speed building with every stroke, and the place where Sandarr had hit the water was lost from view. From the rowers’ benches and the men standing ready to fight, a wild cheering broke out. Lorcan let them yell. It would only bolster their fighting spirit and frighten the fin gall who would be the next to die.
Ultan was coming aft and Lorcan called to him. “Take the tiller,” he said. “Aim us for the center of the fin gall ship. At the last moment, turn hard, to the right. We will put our left side against their right side and we will go on board them that way.” Ultan nodded. If he was disappointed about not being part of the initial attack, which Lorcan guess he surely was, he hid it well.
Lorcan jerked his ax from the deck and stamped forward and the men parted before him. “We will be putting the left side of the ship against the fin gall’s ship,” he called in a voice that easily encompassed the entire deck. “Keep clear of the rowers, but be ready to attack over that side, go right at them as soon as you can. They are weak and outnumbered and we will kill them all. No one lives. The same as was done with Fasti Magnisson’s men.” He could see grins up and down the deck, heads nodding. The blood lust was up and they were ready to go.
He continued forward, right up toward the bow. The lookout was still there but he took a few steps back, yielding his place to Lorcan. Lorcan stepped up and put a hand on the tall, carved prow and looked forward. They were close now, a hundred yards, and Water Stallion was rushing into the fight. Lorcan could see the patterns on the fin gall’s shields, the axes and swords held ready. He had to imagine that every man aboard the distant ship was standing in their shield wall, which meant there were fewer than he had thought.
Fifty yards. This will be over quickly…
Twenty-five yards. There was something in the water, floating between Water Stallion and the fin gall ship. Lorcan squinted at it. It looked like a log, stripped of bark and gleaming dull in the filtered sunlight.
No, not a log…
It was something made of wood. It looked like it had been carved, or worked in some manner. Lorcan could see it was bobbing in the waves, which meant it was not solid, not a rock or some such, which meant it was of no concern to him.
“Stand ready!” he shouted over his shoulder to the men behind him. He could see faces now on the enemy’s ship. He thought he could see the bastard with whom he had fought on the road outside Vík-ló, the young, clean-shaven one. He looked at him and scowled and thought, I will kill you first, you fin gall swine!
There was no more than ten yards to go when suddenly the fin gall ship jerked ahead, leapt forward as if it had been pushed from behind. Lorcan’s eyes went wide with surprise, his mouth fell open. He saw a rope lift dripping from the sea and running out ahead of the ship and a dozen men along the deck hauling on it, pulling the fin gall vessel out of Water Stallion’s path.
“Turn!” Lorcan shouted. “Ultan, turn now! Pull those damned oars in! You men, make ready to attack!”
The flurry of orders was sudden, unexpected, and the result was utter confusion on Water Stallion’s deck. The oars came in, the fifteen-foot looms hindering those men preparing to board the enemy ship. The boarders in turn stumbled between the rowers’ benches, hampering the men in their efforts to pull the oars in. The fin gall was surging forward; Lorcan was already looking at their stern as they pulled away and Water Stallion turned hard in their wake.
“Damn you!” Lorcan shouted at the fin gall, and just as the words left his mouth Water Stallion came to dead stop. The deck heaved up under his feet and the momentum flung him forward. He slammed against the prow, wrapped massive arms around it to stop himself from being flung clean over the bow.
He pushed himself back aboard and turned to look behind him. The young lookout was sprawled on the deck at his feet, and further aft men were lying in heaps where they fell, having been tossed down by the force of the impact. Water Stallion sagged off at an unnatural angle to the sound of crushing and splintering wood.
Lorcan looked down. Ten feet aft, the ship was buckled, the forward end jutting up at an ugly angle, the after end twisting and moving independent of the front. He could see the strakes on the sides and the deck planks straining, bending and tearing apart, and as they did they revealed beneath the ship the rocky ledge on which they had run with every bit of force that Water Stallion could muster.
“No, no!” Lorcan shouted. The forward part of the ship where he was standing twisted and slid to one side and the rent ten feet aft opened wider and the water began to rush in and aft. The lookout was shrieking in terror now. He was on his feet and flailing his way forward, grabbing at the stem, at Lorcan, at anything that looked solid in that shifting world.
“Quiet!” Lorcan shouted. He could not think with that screaming right in his ear. But the lookout did not stop; he showed no sign of even having heard him. Lorcan grabbed the man by the throat and squeezed, and the screams turned into a choking, gagging sound. Then Lorcan lifted him and flung him sideways into the sea.
The men in the after section of the ship, who had been thrown to the deck, now scrambled to their feet and began to back away from the surging water. They moved toward the stern, their retreat growing faster and more panicked as the seas flooded in. And then they turned and ran, clawing over one another in their wild and desperate flight. Forty feet, and then there was no place left to go.
“No!” Lorcan shouted again. He had to issue orders, to take command once more, to lead, to save his men’s lives, but he had absolutely no idea what to do. And so he clutched the ship’s oak stem, alone in the bow, and stared wide-eyed toward the stern as Water Stallion split in two. Wi
th a terrific rending sound the last of the strakes and then the keel itself gave way and the after end of the ship plunged down under the weight of seventy men crammed in the very stern. The broken, jagged hull rose up and knocked the bow section, where Lorcan stood, off to one side as it rolled to the other.
The men on the aft section were screaming. Horrible, high-pitched screams. Screams of terror such as Lorcan would never have thought could have come from his men, his warriors, but here was a death for which they were not ready. The after-end of the ship began to roll to larboard and the men scrambled over one another, struggling to stay on the high side.
And then the hull turned faster still, the forward end lifting high out of the sea, and then it just rolled right over. The bottom, smooth and green with algae, came upright like a turtle’s back and the screaming stopped.
Chapter Thirty-Two
The spinner of fate is grim to me…
Egil’s Saga
Grimarr Giant’s sons came to him in his sleep. The dream was as vivid as any experience he had ever had, in any state. The boys stood near the river’s edge at Vík-ló. They held broken swords in their hands and they were covered with blood. Sweyn and Svein, his beloved sons. They said nothing. They did not have to.
He opened his eyes and looked up at the black sky and said, “Thank you.” He said it softly, so no one else could hear. But now he knew what he had to do. For the first time since the fight on the beach his course was clear and his mind was unclouded.
He straightened his stiff and aching legs. He put his left hand down on the deck for support and pulled it back as the pain from the knife wound shot up his arm. He put his right hand down and stood. He was on Eagle’s Wing’s afterdeck, and before him two-thirds of the men still under his command were sleeping at various places around the ship.
Off the larboard side, barely visible in the dim pre-dawn light, Fox, like Eagle’s Wing, lay with her bow in the sand, her men also asleep. Out on the beach, forming a semi-circle around the ships, the sentries were keeping their eyes fixed toward the land. They were not there to fight off an attack by the Irish. They were there to shout an alarm if the Irish came, to run back down the beach, to push the longships back into the water, and, with any luck, to get back aboard before they were killed.
But the Irish had not come and Grimarr no longer thought they would. Lorcan had a ship now, Water Stallion. Taking her had been a big part of his plan, or so Grimarr had come to realize. Perhaps the Irish still wanted the Fearna hoard. Perhaps they knew for certain what Grimarr was only starting to suspect; that the treasure was not on the beach at all. Either way, they did not renew the fight, and Grimarr did not think they would. At least not there.
Yesterday, in the wake of the fighting, Grimarr had been so twisted up with anger that he could not even give a coherent order to his men. He had been like an enraged bull with dogs snapping all around it, so taken with fury that he did not know which way to turn. Lorcan had caught them by surprise. Not entirely, but surprise enough. Grimarr had taken the precaution of putting the Norwegians in the front, but he had still lost many of his own men. Too many. The Irish had come down a trail the Northmen did not even know was there and had hit them from behind.
And then they had taken one of the ships of his fleet. It was humiliating. But even so, he still had the satisfaction of knowing that he had the boy, Harald, that vengeance for his sons was still within his grasp. And he had the girl, from whom he could get the truth, one way or another, of where the treasure was buried.
And then they, too, had slipped from his fingers. And in rescuing them, the fat bastard driving the Norwegian ship had crippled Eagle’s Wing by snapping half her oars clean off. They had spare oars, of course, but only a few, not enough to replace the sixteen that had been turned to kindling on the larboard side.
Grimarr was rendered incoherent with rage. He had not screamed, had not broken anything, had not killed anyone. He had ordered Bersi to keep up the digging on the beach, to find the treasure, and then he had seated himself on one of the rowers’ benches and said nothing more. He was vaguely aware of the fear that radiated from anyone who came near him, but he did not think on it. In truth, he did think about anything, not in any organized manner. His mind was a jumble of feelings and impressions; fury, hate, impotence.
They did not find the Fearna treasure. Under Bersi’s direction the diggers worked outward from the place where the girl had first told them to dig. They went down three feet and moved out thirty in every direction. Others scoured the beach for signs of where the gravel might have been disturbed. They worked all day with plenty of men put to the task, and they found nothing.
Not every man was digging or searching, of course. Many had been wounded in the fighting, some very bad indeed, and they were tended to by those who knew how to patch up wounded men. Others were posted as guards. They had climbed to the top of the cliffs from which the Irish had come, peered hesitantly over the edge of the high ground, and seen only grass and the trampled place where many horses had been. The Irish were gone. From their place high above the beach, Grimarr’s sentries could see for miles in every direction. There would be no second surprise attack.
When the sun went down and the digging was finished, the funeral pyres were lit. More than a dozen men had been killed, good men, men hard to replace. Those still fit to work, despite their being ready to collapse from a day of digging in the unforgiving gravel, dragged great baulks of driftwood to a spot on the beach. The bodies of the dead were piled on the stack and with some difficulty the wood was set on fire and soon it was blazing high into the night’s sky. And then the living collapsed on the shingle as close as they could get to the flames. They watched the bodies of the dead being consumed by the fire, the earthly remains of warriors who already feasted in Odin’s hall, and they envied them.
Grimarr remained aboard Eagle’s Wing, shifting from the rowers’ bench to a spot in the very stern of the ship where he would not be disturbed, though he did not think anyone would disturb him regardless of where he was. He did not feel like sleep and did not seek out sleep, but eventually the gods brought sleep to him so that his boys might visit him in that world.
On waking, he stood for a moment on the afterdeck, then stumbled forward, jostling men here and there with his toe until he found Bersi Jorundarson. Bersi grumbled and scowled until he realized who it was who was disturbing him, and when he did he sat up quickly. Grimarr could hardly see him; the outline of a man, a dark shape against the darker deck, but he was upright and he seemed alert.
“Bersi?” Grimarr said.
“Yes…Lord Grimarr?” Bersi replied. Grimarr could hear the uncertainty in his voice.
“We must get underway at first light. Can we do that?”
Grimarr thought he could see Bersi look around. There was a pause, then Bersi said, “Yes, Lord. The ships are ready to go. We need only call in the sentries.”
“Good. Then we go.”
“Lord Grimarr…” Bersi said. He seemed less circumspect now in his speech now, no doubt encouraged by Grimarr’s calm and reasonable tone.
“Yes, Bersi?”
“Lord, what of the treasure? You know we found no sign of it.”
“There’s no treasure here,” Grimarr said, and there was finality on his voice. “That Irish bitch was lying. She’ll save the hoard for Lorcan. Or herself.”
“Yes, sir,” Bersi said.
“You recall that Norwegian? Thorgrim?” Grimarr asked.
“Yes, Lord,” Bersi said. “You killed him.”
Grimarr squinted, and a warm feeling ran through him like the first mouthful of strong spirits going down the throat. He had killed Thorgrim. With all that had happened he had forgotten that fact, but now Bersi reminded him, and with that memory came a spreading joy that only added to the feeling of well-being and clarity that his dream had brought.
“Yes, that’s right. I killed him. Do you know why?”
“No, Lord,” Bersi said, and G
rimarr could hear that note of uncertainty creeping back into his voice. And in truth he had not had any intention of telling Bersi this. But somehow, with the dream, and the memory of Thorgrim’s death, and the darkness that brought a certain detachment to their talk, he felt it was right to do so. Bersi had always been loyal.
“I killed him because he killed my sons. Sweyn and Svein. He killed them in Dubh-linn.”
That was met with silence, and Bersi remained silent for some time. And then he asked, “You’re sure of that, Lord? How do you know?” Grimarr heard Bersi’s voice falter with those last words, as if realizing he had gone too far with that question, which he had. Grimarr felt a spark of anger at Bersi’s impudence, but he swallowed and let it fade away.
“I know,” Grimarr said, in a tone of certainty. “That’s why I killed him. But there is more work to do. I must kill Thorgrim’s son. Harald. My sons came to me tonight in a dream and they reminded me of my duty.”
“Yes, Lord,” Bersi said, and wisely he let no trace of doubt creep into his words. “But how will we find him?”
“If they get to sea, I could spend the rest of my days hunting them down. But I know where they will go. My sons told me.”
“Yes, Lord,” Bersi said, and after a pause said, “Could I ask where, Lord?”
“They will go to Vík-ló. Their stores are there, and their hoard. They cannot go to sea without going first to Vík-ló. That’s where we will find them. And that’s where we will kill them.”
Far Voyager’s starboard side oars had been in the water even as Water Stallion was bearing down on her. The midships oars were actually touching the submerged reef, keeping the ship from being pushed onto the ledge by the swell. A quarter of her crew were manning those oars. Another quarter were crouched low along the centerline, ready to ship the larboard oars. A quarter were standing ready to haul on the rope made fast to the anchor and deployed one hundred feet ahead of the ship, and the last quarter were forming a shield wall to hide those preparations.
The Lord of Vik-lo: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 3) Page 31
