Hellsbaene: Odin's Warriors - Book 1

by Aeryn Leigh

  Snorri gave a small shout as the first Inquisition ships moved into sight. "That's a lot of ships," he said. "Now all we need is the signal."

  On the other side of the water, Beowulf peered through the long, brass telescope. "That changes the plan," he said. "Magnus, prepare the engines. Manx, cage, now." He sounded a long horn blast. The Viking fleet dropped their sails, put their oars into the water and heaved.

  The Furia's own guns at long last now opened up, as the tip of the Armada entered firing range over eleven hundred yards away, and the two fleets hammered at each other. "We need to clear the ships around the battleship," said Admiral McIntosh. "Load the fire arrows."

  "We need to, if we are to stand any chance," said Giorvano. He shouted commands to the crew, as all around the waters men and women died, and a shell tore off the top off the third mast of the ship, sending rigging and sailcloth falling to the water. "Clear that drag," he said, and stole a quick glance at the Purity.

  A smart move, he thought, to chain wooden warships, with their masts chopped off at their main decks, along the length of the battleship to act as a rude shield, and prevent boarding. A cannonball whizzed past his head and splashed into the sea. A shield that fires back. Hold together my Furia, you've come this far. Hold.

  Chapter Eighty-Nine

  Pounds Of Flesh

  The first pair of aircraft started down the runway, the first combat flight of the Republic Air Force. In each aircraft, sat two of the Junior Pilots, back to back. Ella willed the fragile aircraft up into the air, and they did, wobbling a little a bit and they steadied. "There's so much that could go wrong," she said. "New engines, new airframes, fresh pilots... Verdammt."

  Lucius smiled as he climbed up onto the aircraft, and settled himself into the pilot’s seat. "You're just annoyed you can't fly." His smile faded. "Sorry."

  "Thanks," said Ella. "I may get up there yet." She looked at Hilda, sitting in the rear seat, with a small pile of ammo boxes on her lap. "If Lucius should get hit, chuck him over the side and fly this baby home okay?" She winked.

  "Will do," said Hilda. "Ready Lucius."

  "Roger," said Lucius. "See you Ella." He pulled his goggles down. Ella moved to the side, and the rotary engine started with a bang and a cloud of oil and smoke.

  They started taxiing down the concrete strip, Max and Victoria keeping pace in the aeroplane by their side. Robert put a hand on her shoulder.

  "It's okay," he said. "You did your part getting the intel on the fleet. That was plenty heroic enough."

  "Yeah," she said, as the third pair of aircraft readied for take-off. "Guess so."

  Magnus stuffed the wax earplugs into his ears, then reached down and started the massive starboard V12 engine. The twenty-three litre power plant spluttered and popped as it turned over, then fired, sending flame out of the stubby exhausts, the whine of both supercharger and turbocharger singing a glorious medley.

  Like a boy all over again he grinned. He shuffled along the wooden bench, and brought its twin to life. The longship quivered and shook with vibrations from the idling monster engines.

  He gave the thumbs up to his king. Beowulf extended his arm towards the battleship, and dropped it. Magnus twisted around, and with a hand on each throttle, pushed the metal down. Hellsbaene catapulted forward like a bat out of hell as the Merlin's sang in all their glory.

  Beowulf stood at the prow, sea spray flinging into his long hair and gaping mouth as he roared a Viking battle hymn, and pulled back the arming mechanism of the twin .50 calibres.

  This is The Life.

  Giorvano closed the admiral's eyelids, and stood up next to the legless body. "Fire!" he said, "as fast as you can my good people. We can do this." The Furia fired full broadsides both sides, surrounded by enemy ships.

  Only the Furia and a couple dozen Republic ships remained afloat and in action, as the flagship tacked hard into the prevailing wind to make another pass at the Purity.

  At least forty to fifty Inquisition warships still sailed, and all thirteen of their metal vessels. More than half of the ships tethered to the steel monster of Purity were on fire and had been cut loose, and the battleship now laid anchor, dropping its enormous anchor into the ocean a mile-and-half off the beach, giving its gunners a more stable and accurate firing platform. The landing flotilla moved past, an armoured steam paddle-ship taking the lead, it also killing anything that got too close.

  Where are those Vikings? Or for that matter, those mechanical birds?

  On each side of the remaining Armada diamond, the Viking fleet engaged from its rear, and began its own furious assault on the Inquisition. The longships took their own share of losses, but for the most part, the low profile of the ships meant a lot of incoming fire went high.

  "A too high a price," said Snorri, "but we'll gladly pay it. Our names will go down in history," he'd said to Beowulf earlier, and now reality matched his words. The murder cannons on each Viking ship however exacted their own pound of flesh, as grape-shot and fire-heads and other butchers cannon-loads tore into the enemy, and every man of the Norseland sang, as the fleet headed to Purity.

  "All batteries, open fire," said General Versetti, as the landing force passed the bobbing range buoys one mile off shore.

  Lucius led the squadron over the plains, in a rough line abreast, two thousand feet up. The Bay of Harmony looked anything but. In the morning sun, he saw the battleship, surrounded by her fleet, and the invasion fleet moving past the yellow buoys anchored. The shore artillery began landing shots into the massed force, bang on target. He reached around and tapped Hilda on the shoulder.

  He waggled the aeroplanes wingtips, and led the flight down to attack the armada. Lucius looked to his right, just as the wing tore off Jake and Jill's aircraft, the aircraft corkscrewing towards the fields below, the wing spiralling free high above it.

  He gritted his teeth and patted the side of the aeroplane. Nice girl.

  Hellsbaene shot through the battlefield, the fastest ship on the Bay. On either side, the waist guns chattered in small bursts, the large-calibre rounds puncturing the thinly-walled transport vessels and supply ships.

  But there were too many. Out front, Beowulf used the guns even less, waiting for the right targets. Over the deafening sound of the engines, Beowulf pointed to the steamship. Magnus reduced throttle on one engine and the longship swung around, and raced towards the Brimstone. As they passed the battleship, under half-a-mile away, Hellsbaene fired into the remaining chained ship's waterlines, before they swept past into the spearhead.

  Lucius brought the aircraft down to three-hundred feet, and started his attack run, banking in a wide circle around the enemy ships below, Hilda lighting the Molotov cocktails and explosives, dropping them over the side, one after the other. The flammable liquids smashed onto the open-topped transports and barges, as gunfire trained on them and fired.

  "Will someone man the anti-aircraft guns?" said Grieg. He paced up and down the bridge, brows furrowed. A longship with the unmistakable sound of Merlin engines and Browning machine-guns had shot past at terrific speed, great fountains of white water blossoming in its wake.

  The Lancaster and the B-17 were here? But how? On a Viking longship? Grieg massaged his temples. A Viking longboat with Merlin engines fighting an early Twentieth-Century Ironclad skippered by an SS Officer with an aging British command crew on behalf of the Spanish Inquisition and its Emperor.

  It sounded insane, yet here he was. Grieg forced himself to breathe, three big breaths.

  They couldn't do much with such a limited resource. His hatred cooled his veins, refocused his purpose. The day was still his.

  "Target the shore batteries," he said to Captain McDonnell. The flagship of the Republic drifted at a sharp angle in the distance, it's guns silent.

  Chapter Ninety

  Scything Through Wheat

  The ocean's waves foamed upon the shore, as the first landing ships reached the red wooden buoys anchored two-hundred yards from the be
ach, over twelve hundred yards from the first line bunkers. Griffin wiped the sweat from his brow. That goddamn dreadnought needs to die, now.

  He didn't dare open fire, and reveal his and the other's bunkers location, exposing them to the explosive shells of the Purity. Whoever the gunnery teams were on that ship had trained well, as he watched a dummy bunker blow apart after the delayed muskets fired from within, lighting up with orange and red muzzle flashes.

  "Tricks from Gallipoli, he said," Griffin said under his breath, then turned to Sarah. "That's what Captain Laurie said worked well enough in the First World War, back in 1915 when they evacuated the Turkish beach in the middle of the night. Something about setting rifles up over the trenches and filling a dripping can of water attached to a string on the trigger, a crude timer, to make it sound like people were still there when they weren't. Saved his butt and a lot of others, he said."

  "He's a smart man," said Sarah, playing with a lock of hair that'd fallen out of its ponytail. "Smart, but scary. How does he know so much about warfare?"

  "By not dying."

  Hellsbaene caught up to the paddle-ship, amidst the Inquisition flotilla. Beowulf looked down the iron cross-sights, from four hundred yards. Musket, pistol, and rifle fire showered them, their speed throwing a lot of incoming gunfire off target. A few rounds still plonked into the wood next to Beowulf and his crew, but Beowulf barely registered.

  He aimed the twin-barrels at the rear steam engine, and recalled the crude drawing Laurie had made. He depressed both Browning triggers, and held them down. The heavy machine-guns sundered the aft plate surrounding the boilers apart. The Brimstone disappeared in the explosion of steam and fire, now dead in the water.

  The only metal ship still intact and firing called herself Purity.

  Beowulf looked at the ammo belt, and saw the painted-on colours of orange. Only ten more seconds of firing left. He pointed back to the Purity, and Magnus did his best to turn the boat around to engage the Capital ship, as the RAF flew overhead, heading back to base to re-arm and re-fuel. He waved at Lucius, who stuck an arm out in response, and then the two went in opposite directions.

  "It may be the moment for plan B," said Laurie. He winced as a big shell only landed fifty-yards away, sending dust flying throughout the Command Bunker and ringing it like a bell. "What if the Vikings cannot capture the Purity in time?"

  General Versetti gripped her scabbard even tighter. "We need that ship, Laurie."

  "What good is the ship if there's nothing left to fight with?" he said. "At least send the signal to ready the boat."

  A small longship tipped with the one-thousand pound HE bomb. With one Wright-Cyclone radial. A suicide torpedo boat.

  Marietta sighed. "Yes. Send it, Merrion."

  "General," said Merrion, nodding, and walked to the signal officer stationed outside.

  Snorri urged the Viking fleet onward, their drummers pounding upon the war drums on each longship, with every blast of the longhorn. Men and women he'd grown up with, feasted and fought with, died as the Inquisition got a handle on hitting the low-slung warships. Longships exploded in a rain of metal and black powder, or were rammed by support ships and engaged in hand-to-hand combat, puffs of musket fire wafting up into the air.

  The Purity got closer, now naked without it's temporary ship-shield.

  Six-hundred yards. "Now you devil bastard. Is that all you got?"

  The Purity responded. Its pair of Maxim machine-guns, lovingly kept after thirty years, began decimating the Vikings, as if scything through wheat.

  Beowulf could only watch, appalled by the rain of death wrought upon his kinsmen now a mile away. "Magnus," he yelled. "Faster. Magnus."

  Magnus reached down, slammed the throttles open, and twisted the turbocharge controllers around as far as they went. Every Viking hung on for dear life as Hellsbaene hydroplaned across the Bay of Harmony.

  The landing flotilla passed the orange set of buoys. The troops within prepared themselves, chanting their litanies.

  Beowulf tried to signal Magnus to cut the engines, but couldn't let go of the wooden beam. Up the back, Magnus inched his hands forwards, trying to reach the throttle controls. With a final lunge, he stopped the motors, and Hellsbaene slapped back down onto the water, one-hundred yards from the dreadnought.

  The Vikings and their King, manning the machine-guns, all took aim at the Purity's Maxims and raked them dead, and anything that moved on the ship, until the last brass casing fell into the longships hull, both waist guns empty, only a few dozen rounds left up front. The crew set their oars into the water, and closed the final distance. Beowulf pulled out his father's eight-shot musket, and grinned.

  "Kill them," said Grieg, his pistol in hand. "All hands, with me. Captain McDonnell, prepare the crane, and deploy my boat."

  Hellsbaene just beat Snorri's longship and kissed the metal hull. Within seconds, men appeared over the railing and fired into the longboats, as more of the Viking fleet arrived and began boarding the dreadnought.

  Magnus lifted the flare gun taken from the Lancaster and fired the ball of orange-red light into the ocean air. He tossed Beowulf a Damage Inc. grease gun, his king tucking it into his belt, and then threw a grappling hook, joining his kin climbing up the metal side.

  The flare arced through the sky, and hung from the sky, floating down. Griffin returned the amulet to his chest, nodded to Sarah, and closed his hands around Betty. He picked the nearest target, a boxy troop transport, still moments before dropping its troops. Pulled the trigger. He poured short bursts of fire into it, reaping life.

  Up and down the line, the machine-gun nests and bunkers followed Griffin's lead, and started the process of somehow stopping the Juggernaut rolling towards them with a wall of lead and steel

  For all the effort, the sacrifice of the entire Republic fleet, and what seemed like a sizable majority of the Viking armada now under water... over half of the landing flotilla still floated.

  The Inquisition's first flat-bottomed hulls squeaked up the sandy bed on both beaches, and dropped their sides. The foot army touched Republic soil, and waded into their own version of Hell.

  Behind them, the support craft moved into their final positions.

  Chapter Ninety-One

  Bugger Me

  Lucius cut the power, and coasted to a stop, the sound of battle reaching even as far as The Pit. Ella greeted him.

  "How goes the battle," she said. She looked around for the last aircraft. "What happened to Jake and Jill?"

  "Their wing sheared off over the beach. Structural failure," Lucius said, covered in engine oil. "We're giving them hell, but they're returning it." Hilda jumped down, gave a quick salute, and ran off to join the others all full of the cocktail mix containing equal parts of adrenaline, exhilaration, terror and fear, the death of their two friends casting its shadow.

  She like the rest were also smeared with black gold from the crude engines. The ground crews, led by Rob, began re-fuelling the five aircraft and wrenching the planes back into one piece in the little time they had.

  "Verdammt." She looked at her lame leg. Then back at the Main Hanger. Whistling to herself, she walked in its direction.

  The Inquisition Army resembled an ink-blot on watercolour paper, spreading, absorbing everything it came in contact with, the ink of running blood. From the Command Bunker, Laurie watched the landing in grim satisfaction.

  They'd done all they could. He swung the binoculars up and again focused on the battle taking place on board the cruiser-battleship. It's rate of fire had slowed, that much was sure of, as the ship fought the raiding Vikings swarming across it like angry ants. He looked down.

  But at least twenty ships-of-the-line now stretched across the rear of the landing forces, and pummelled the beachhead and the defensive lines with cannon shot after cannon shot. Of the half hundred static Republic trebuchets, only twenty or so still unslung their loads onto the shoreline. Their shore artillery batteries firing back were doing better, bei
ng moved by horses to new locations before the attackers could get a fix on their position.

  But damn it slowed their rate of fire.

  Laurie patted Skippy's head for a moment, taking a break. Marietta barked orders almost non-stop, the stream of personnel in and out of the bunker either taking fresh directives or giving status updates. He bent back up, and resumed watching through the eyepiece. He once more looked at the wide line of support barges moving up behind the troopships, their oars pulling fast under their high wooden sides. Something in his gut quivered. They couldn't have. Could they?

  As if answering his question, blue puffs of smoke rose from each transport, as combustion engines started.

  Son of a bitch.

  "Skippy, stay. General, I'm heading to the forward bunkers to get a better look. Signal the squadron and batteries to focus on those barges and whatever the bloody hell's in 'em." And with that he ran out the back and up the steps two at a time, once more into the fray.

  General Versetti watched him run off, and strode to the small bunker's forward window to see for herself the blue haze that dissipated into the air, Skippy wagging her tail at her. She turned her head, and nodded to Bear, who relayed the message.

  Laurie stopped to let a supply waggon move past, and he thought hard. He muttered to himself. The network of trenches, wide enough for a horse-drawn cart, fed diagonally down the long, sloping plain, criss-crossed with smaller defensive earthworks. The waggon went by, not before he lifted off a box of ammunition and a skein of water. He moved down the trench to the next diamond junction, and zig-zagged down the plain, passing soldiers, trebuchets launching boulders, horses and artillery as the earth shook, raining dirt, until he reached the bottom minutes later, where the front-line bunkers sat in a broad line across the beachhead.