The Road to Vengeance

by Judson Roberts

  “Snorre and Gunulf, and their ships and crews, are among the nine staying to hold Ruda,” Torvald told me. “Hastein made certain of that. You will not have to worry about Snorre’s treachery while he is there, and Svein will keep an eye on both of them and report to Hastein what he observes.”

  My own sea chest was far heavier than when I’d begun this voyage. In addition to the ten pounds of silver I’d won as Genevieve’s ransom, I had added to my possessions the fine helm, sword, mail brynie, and padded jerkin I’d taken from the body of Leonidas, Genevieve’s cousin, as well as the long-bladed Frankish spear I’d taken from one of the cavalrymen I’d killed in the fight at the river.

  To me, it seemed our attack on Frankia had already been a successful raid. Our warriors had won many fine goods and much silver from the Franks, and so far, our own losses had been relatively light. I wondered if Ragnar was wise to persist in his desire to make the Franks pay with blood, also.

  If any other warriors among the Gull’s crew harbored doubts similar to mine, it was not obvious as we backed the ship away from the shore and headed upriver. The men around me laughed and joked as they rowed. Beside us on the river, the black shape of the Raven, Ragnar’s ship, cut through the wisps of morning fog drifting over the water’s surface. Behind us, the rest of our fleet followed, two or three ships abreast. For as far as I could see, their oars rose and fell, churning the river’s surface and pulling us deeper and deeper into the heartland of Frankia.

  We were not far upstream from Ruda when the first Frankish cavalry patrols began shadowing our progress from both banks of the river. The swiftness with which they appeared surprised me. It made me think Ragnar was probably right—the Franks must be closing in on the town. I wondered about the risk we were taking. What if the Frankish army ignored our fleet and attacked Ruda now, while only nine ships’ crews remained to hold it? I did not know the size of each of the ships left there, or how many their crews numbered. But at most Svein could have no more than three to four hundred men under his command, and probably considerably fewer.

  When the Franks realized almost our entire fleet was on the move, the ranks of fast-moving mounted troops following our progress from either bank of the river quickly swelled far beyond mere scouting patrols. Ragnar’s stratagem had worked. Even before the sun reached its noon zenith, so many horsemen were traveling parallel to our course that broad plumes of dust rose high into the sky above either side of the river. Along each bank, an army of Frankish horsemen was moving, ready to attack if our warriors should land.

  “The Franks have taken the bait,” Hastein said, a look of grim satisfaction on his face. I was glad he felt pleased. I did not. His words brought a worrisome image to my mind. We were the bait Ragnar was using to draw the Frankish army—or at least its mounted forces, the only ones fast enough to keep pace with our ships—away from Ruda. This seemed dangerous. When fishing, the bait often ends up getting eaten.

  By now I was beginning to recognize sights along the river above Ruda, having passed this way and back twice before. For the first day, we traveled at a steady but easy pace, along the winding, switchback portion of the river that lay immediately upstream from the town. We camped the first night on several large islands in mid-stream, near where two smaller rivers converged with the Seine. The campfires of the Franks twinkled and flickered in the darkness on either shore. There looked to be hundreds of them. It was as though the land along both sides of the river had become the night sky, and the fires of the Franks were the stars.

  We pushed harder on the second day, reaching and traversing the entire straight stretch of the river—the section where I had been brought to bay by the mounted Frankish patrols who’d hunted me after I had captured Genevieve. The islands where we camped on the second night lay in the first bend of the river just beyond the long straight run. It was here, on the open flat land along the north bank of the river opposite the islands, where we’d been supposed to parley with the Franks to negotiate the ransoms for our prisoners. I remembered describing this location for Genevieve’s brother, and telling him of the terms and conditions Hastein had set for the meeting.

  I wondered if Genevieve’s brother was out there now, in the darkness among the Frankish warriors camped on the north side of the river. I suspected he was. He’d said he hoped to someday have a chance to kill me. Was he now anticipating he would have an opportunity to fulfill that threat? It seemed likely that our armies would meet in battle. I wondered if he and I would face each other.

  By early afternoon on the third day, we reached the two long islands in the Seine opposite the point where I had gone ashore and delivered the written messages to Genevieve’s brother. Only eight days had passed since the Gull had last been here; eight days since I had last set foot upon this shore. Yet in that brief time, I had become a wealthy man, Genevieve had regained her freedom, and our army had sailed from Ruda, seeking battle with the Franks.

  Torvald had said Ragnar would fight at a place and time of his own choosing. I remembered that Hastein and Ragnar had studied the land carefully here, while Torvald had taken the Gull slowly along the channel between the islands and the north bank. I realized this must be the ground Ragnar had chosen. This was where we would fight.

  The north bank rose up steeply from the river in heavily wooded slopes opposite most of the length of the first of the two islands, but a short distance downstream from where the first island was separated from the second by a narrow channel, the riverbank leveled out into an open plain that rose in a gentle incline toward a distant village.

  Because of the steep and heavily wooded nature of the terrain abutting the river, for a time we had lost sight of the Franks following our progress along the north bank. No doubt they had swung wide from the river in order to pass around the rugged hills and ridges that overlooked its channel from that side. But when we neared the upstream end of the first island, I could see Frankish cavalry pouring from the tree line at the far end of the plain, and swarming like ants across the pastures and cleared fields surrounding the distant village.

  A long black pennant was run up to the top of the mast on the Raven, and she swung sharply in to the shore of the downstream island. Torvald heaved on the Gull’s steering oar, and we followed. I could feel the keel grating along the bottom as we ground to a stop with the Gull’s bow nosed up against the edge of the shore. At Torvald’s command, we pulled in our oars and stowed them in their racks.

  Three other ships—Ivar’s Bear and Stig’s Serpent among them—tied up near us along the banks of the first island. The remainder of the fleet, led by Bjorn, passed us by. They continued upstream and made land along the north side of the second island, directly opposite the center of the plain, and within clear view of the village. The warriors from those ships quickly began setting up an encampment on the island, as our fleet had done each night of our journey since leaving Ruda. Some crews tented their sails above the hulls of their ships, making shelters onboard to sleep under for the night. Others pitched tents ashore. Men scattered across the island, gathering firewood for the night’s cook fires.

  Aboard the Gull, Hastein stepped up onto the small raised deck in the stern and addressed our crew.

  “Do not bother setting up camp,” he told us. “We will be moving the Gull once darkness falls. Use this time to rest or to ready your weapons and armor. But do not don them while it is still light and the Franks can see. We will cook and eat a meal before dusk. Be sure to eat your fill. Each man should carry water when we move out tonight, and pack a day’s ration from the ship’s stores. It will be a long day tomorrow. Torvald, Tore, come with me.”

  Followed by Torvald and Tore, Hastein walked forward to the bow and leaped down onto the shore. Ivar, Stig, and several of their men were already waiting there. Together they walked down the island toward where the bow of Ragnar’s ship was beached.

  Odd pulled his cloak from his sea chest and rolled up in it on the deck. “Are you not going to try and rest?” h
e asked me. “We will get no sleep tonight, and the morrow will bring heavy work.”

  I felt too unsettled to even contemplate sleep.

  “Why do we move tonight, while the rest of our army camps here?” I asked him. “Where are we going?”

  Odd chuckled. “The camp being set up upstream is just for show. None of our warriors will sleep this night. We will use the cover of darkness to reach the ground Ragnar wishes to fight on.”

  “How do you know this?” I asked. What I really wished to know was why he knew, and I did not.

  “Hastein told Tore of the plan, and Tore told me,” Odd explained. “Tore will command the archers from the Gull and a number of other ships tomorrow when we fight.”

  Tomorrow. What would it bring? What would the battle be like? There were thousands of warriors in our army, and surely at least as many in that of the Franks. The largest engagement I had fought in was the capture of Ruda’s gate. Fewer than a hundred warriors, Dane and Frank together, had fought there.

  Odd was watching my face. “You have never fought in a battle this large, have you?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “No,” I admitted.

  “You will do fine,” he said. “You fought well at Ruda. And you showed great resourcefulness and courage when you were holding off the Franks along the river before we found you there.”

  I appreciated Odd’s words, but they gave me little comfort. When fighting against a single opponent, or even several, at least I could know what threats I must defend against. But fighting among so many warriors, and facing so many enemies, was not the same. Harald had told me, when trying to train me in the skills of a warrior during the brief time we’d had together: “A large battle is different,” he’d explained. “Missile fire fills the air. Death can come from any direction, at any time. Men may not even see the warriors who slay them. In a large battle, perhaps more than at any other time, surviving depends on luck. All you can do is fight as bravely and as well as you can, and meet with courage and honor whatever fate the Norns are weaving for you.”

  “Many will die tomorrow,” Odd continued. “It is the way of a great battle. But death can find a man anywhere, at any time.”

  “How many battles—large battles, like this one—have you fought in?” I asked.

  Odd removed the fur cap he was wearing, and rubbed his hand over the top of his bald head.

  “Well,” he said, “this will be a very great battle. It is likely to be one men tell tales of around the winter fires for many years to come. I have heard Torvald estimate our army numbers five thousand warriors, give or take a few hundred. I have never before fought as part of an army that large. But even in so great a force of warriors, the men we shall actually fight beside, and the enemies we shall directly oppose, will number no more than three or four ships’ companies on either side. And I have fought in a number of battles of that size since I have served the jarl. I would guess ten at least. Jarl Hastein is a man not much given to peace. You will see that, if you continue following him.”

  Would I continue following Hastein? When I’d sought to join the crew of the Gull, it had been to gain experience as a warrior, and hopefully to win, in Hastein, an ally who might help me bring Toke to justice. Once Toke was finally dead—assuming I survived tomorrow to pursue the vengeance I had sworn to bring upon him—what then? When I had been a slave, I had dreamed of living the life of a warrior and a Viking. But that was before I had experienced it. I was no longer certain I would wish to spend my life fighting others, and stealing from them and killing.

  Of course, I might have no choice to make. I might not survive tomorrow.

  Odd must have interpreted my silence as worry about the coming battle. “You will do fine,” he said again.

  After Hastein, Tore, and Torvald returned from the war council with Ragnar, Tore called the archers aboard the Gull together in the stern. Though Tore, Odd, and I were the most skilled with bow and arrow, and the first to be called upon by Hastein, there were ten in all among the Gull’s crew who had brought bows on this voyage and possessed enough skill with them to warrant fighting as archers, if the need arose. Tore gathered all of them around him now.

  “All of you should check your bows and your arrows, and make certain they are ready for use,” he told us. “All of us will fight as archers in the coming battle, at least to begin with. But bring all of your weapons and armor with you when we cross the river—including your spears—for no one can know what the course of the battle will bring.”

  I was surprised Hastein would pull so many of our warriors from the main battle line. Since the fight at the gate in Ruda where we’d taken losses, our crew numbered only thirty-one, including Hastein, and two of our warriors were still recovering from wounds they’d received at Ruda and were not yet fit enough to fight. In this battle, a full third of our crew would fight as archers, instead of in the shield wall. What were Ragnar and Hastein planning?

  “When do we cross the river?” I asked.

  “We will be moving the Gull and these other four ships after darkness falls,” Tore answered. “Two ships will be lashed side by side and anchored in the channel between the two islands. We will use their gangplanks, and those from other ships, to form a bridge across them for our warriors to move from the upstream island to this one. The other three ships, including the Gull, will be used to span the river from this island over to the north bank.

  “The Gull will form the far end of the span. That means she will be the ship to be secured to the river’s north bank, and our warriors will be first ashore there. The ten of us will land first, as soon as the Gull touches the far bank. We must spread out quickly and search the shore for Frankish sentries. Surprise is essential to Ragnar’s plan. If there are any Franks watching along the shore, we must find them and kill them before they can sound the alarm. Hastein and Ragnar do not believe there will be any sentries that far downstream in the woods, though. They think the Franks will expect that if our army does make an attack, we will strike at the flat, open shore directly across from our encampment, because if we attacked there, all of our ships could cross and land at once.”

  “Where are we going after we cross?” a warrior named Olof asked. I did not know him, other than by sight. He rowed at an oar toward the front of the ship. We had never had occasion to speak.

  “There is a ridge that rises steeply above the plain the village sits on,” Tore explained. “The ridge is clear almost to its crest along the side facing the village, but it is wooded on each end and its back slope. After we cross the river, our army will move through the woods up onto the back side of the ridge and wait there for morn. When day comes, we will move out onto the cleared slope below the ridge’s crest and offer battle to the Franks from high ground.”

  I wondered what would happen if we did not achieve the surprise Ragnar and Hastein hoped for? What if the Franks had placed sentries in the woods across from this island? Even in the dark, they would see our ships moving long before we could maneuver them into position to span the river from the island to the bank. The sentries could sound the alarm and fade back into the darkness in the woods before we even reached the shore.

  Odd, too, had concerns. “Even if the Franks have no sentries along that part of the shoreline where we plan to cross,” he said, “moving our entire army across the river in the dark without alerting the Franks will not be an easy task. Without question, the Franks will have sentries farther upstream, across from our encampment. Will not those sentries hear or see signs that we are moving? Where we plan to cross is not that far downstream.”

  “Ragnar has thought of that,” Tore said. “When we are ready to begin the crossing, a small attack will be launched directly across the river from the encampment as a diversion. Five ships will cross the river there, and their crews will land on the edge of the plain. They will attempt to find and eliminate any Frankish sentries watching along that portion of the river. They’ll form a defensive line as if preparing to hold the shore
there for a larger assault to follow. The Franks will certainly respond by sending a force to push our warriors from the shore. When they do, our men will fall back to their ships. But the noise and confusion they cause will cover for us. And throughout the night, other men will move back and forth through the encampment, in and out of the light of the fires there, to create an illusion that many men are stirring on the upstream island, as if preparing to launch a larger assault from there in the morning. The Franks will be watching our feint at the encampment, and will not see our main force moving downstream in the darkness around their flank.”

  Unless there are sentries in the woods where we plan to cross, I thought.

  I did not wish to question the plan in front of the other men. I did not know how great a role, if any, Tore had had in its making. After the rest of the men dispersed, though, I pulled him aside and spoke quietly to him.

  “What is it?” he asked gruffly.

  “Much depends on our army crossing the river undetected,” I said. “I was wondering if we could do more to ensure there are no Frankish sentries watching from the woods across from this island.”

  “Ragnar does not think there will be Franks posted this far downstream from our main encampment,” Tore answered. “And if there are, I have assured him and Hastein that we will be able to find and kill them quickly—before they can sound the alarm. Remember, there will be ten of us armed with bows.”

  I had long suspected Tore had little experience at hunting, or in the woods. This confirmed it.

  “Let me look now,” I told him.

  “What? What are you saying?” he demanded. “You wish to cross the river in the daylight?”

  “No,” I explained. “I will lie hidden among the trees and undergrowth on this island, downstream from where our ships are anchored, and watch the far bank. I know the forest well. I know its ways. If men are hiding in the trees on the north bank, I may be able to see them.”