Fin Gall (The Norsemen)

by James L. Nelson

  Thorgrim waited for the right set of the waves, then pulled hard, swinging the longship broadside to the curragh, and for the first time it occurred to him that for a fishing boat she carried a damned lot of well armed men.

  Chapter Two

  The morning sleeper

  Has much undone

  The quick will catch the prize.

  Hávamál

  T

  he two ships slammed together, the longship’s larboard side to the curragh’s starboard. They hit harder than Thorgrim had intended, but he had little control in those wild seas. If the curragh had been made of sterner stuff it might have sent them both to the bottom, but the leather-sheathed craft made little impression on the longship’s oak planks.

  Thorgrim left the tiller and rushed forward as the Vikings readied themselves to break over the curragh’s side. Vefrod Vesteinsson was foremost. Ax in his hand, foot on the gunnel, he shrieked and launched himself over the narrow gap between the ships and into the twenty or so armed men on board the curragh. Kotkel the Fierce was next, pushing in front of Ornolf who was too wet and fat to move with any speed.

  Kotkel flung himself into the air and young Harald was behind him. Thorgrim felt the longship dropping away and he reached out and grabbed Harald’s collar and pulled him back just as the longship swooped down into the trough of a wave and the curragh was lifted high over their heads, with Kotkel clinging to the side.

  The wave passed under, dropping the curragh down and for a second they were side by side again. There was not much left of Vefrod the Quick. He had been caught alone by the Irish and well dismembered in the few seconds the vessels were apart. They were still hacking at him.

  “Get the hooks!” Thorgrim roared. “Grapple them!” They could not fight like this - already the next wave was lifting the longship up in the air, so they were looking down on the curragh, the bloody mess that had been Vefrod Vesteinsson, and Kotkel the Fierce, unseen, still hanging from the side.

  Then down they went, and a half dozen grappling hooks soared through the air, snagging the leather boat, binding them together.

  One of the curragh’s defenders lifted his sword, two handed, and slashed at Kotkel, who could do no more than watch. Olaf Yellowbeard cocked his arm, heaved his spear, caught the swordsman square in the chest. The Irishman toppled back and Kotkel pulled himself on board the curragh, ahead of the press of Vikings who poured shrieking over the side.

  Thorgrim found a place on the curragh’s deck and leapt across, but the curragh was half the length of the longship and there was hardly room to fight. He pulled his sword, which was called Iron-tooth, from its scabbard and held his shield in fighting position, just in time to catch an ax coming down on his head. He had forgotten his helmet.

  The ax hit the wood shield and embedded itself, with a force that jarred Thorgrim’s whole body. Thorgrim turned the shield aside. The man who wielded the ax foolishly hung on to the handle, exposing himself, and Thorgrim lunged.

  His sword caught the man’s tunic, rent the fabric, glanced off the mail shirt underneath. No damned fishermen, Thorgrim thought. Fishermen did not wear mail. Mail was for men of means.

  Thorgrim Night Wolf felt the red madness - that was what he called it - creep in around the edge of his eyes. He tried to hold it back, to remain in the present world. He breath was coming sharp and fast.

  The axeman let go of the ax embedded in Thorgrim’s shield, fumbled for his sword, too late, as Thorgrim ran his blade through the man’s throat, the shower of red blood mixing with the blowing sea spray.

  There was shouting and screaming all around now and Thorgrim looked for his next fight, but he could hardly move in that press of bodies. The curragh came back into focus, the colors vivid as the battle spirit passed.

  He was nearly all the way aft. He looked to his left. One of the Irishmen was there, but he was not fighting, in fact he was kneeling with his back to the fight. Thorgrim thought he must be praying, or puking - it was madness otherwise to turn his back to the attackers - but then he saw the man was reaching for something in the space beneath the deck boards.

  The Irishman stood and turned. He was a young man, perhaps twenty, and there was nothing of the peasant or poor fisherman about him. He wore mail, sword and dagger, and had the bearing of one who was used to command. He held a bundle in his hands, wrapped in canvas, about the size of a bread loaf. His eyes met Thorgrim’s and for a second they stared at one another, then the young Irishman turned to toss the bundle over the side.

  “No!” Thorgrim shouted and lunged. He did not know what was in the bundle, but if the Irishman would risk his life to keep it from the Norsemen’s hands, then Thorgrim was sure he wanted it.

  The bundle was over the water when Thorgrim’s sword came sweeping up from under, striking the mail-clad arm and twisting the Irishman around so he dropped the canvas-wrapped thing back on the deck of the curragh.

  Again they faced one another. The Irishman had no weapon in his hand, but Thorgrim could see no trace of fear on his face. Thorgrim waited for him to go for his sword, knew he could hack the young man down as he struggled to free the long weapon. But the Irishman went for the dagger instead, whipped it out and held it in front of him with the ease and confidence of long use.

  Thorgrim paused. Heavy sword and shield against a light, quick dagger in a confined space. An interesting tactical problem, but the Norseman’s fighting blood was up and he did not care for subtlety. He took a step forward, pushed with his shield, launched the point of the sword at the Irishman’s throat.

  He missed. The Irishman ducked quick and Thorgrim’s sword found air. The Irishman grabbed the edge of his shield and yanked it hard, throwing Thorgrim off-balance, and now the Norseman’s heavy weapons were a liability.

  Thorgrim saw the dagger coming up at him, an uppercut that would slice up under his mail. The blade seemed to move slow, the red fog was at the edge of Thorgrim’s vision. He saw his own hand drop Iron-tooth and grab the Irishman’s knife hand, envelope his hand so the Irishman could not let go of the dagger if he wanted to.

  They stood, every muscle straining, the strength of each man holding the other in check, a perfect balance of force and resistance. Their faces were inches apart and through the mist Thorgrim could see the hatred on the young noble’s face.

  Then the Irishman spoke. Thorgrim could not understand the Gaelic words but the fury was unmistakable.

  There was a strength that came with the red madness and Thorgrim felt it surge through him. He felt the sound building in his gut. He opened his mouth and he howled, a terrible sound he would not have thought himself able to make.

  And suddenly the Irishman’s strength was like that of a child to Thorgrim, and Thorgrim twisted his hand back and plunged the knife into the Irishman’s chest, plunged the wicked needle-point right through the mail. Inches away, the Irishman’s eyes went wide and he coughed, then coughed again and this time blood came from his mouth and he went limp. Thorgrim let him fall to the deck.

  For a moment Thorgrim just stood, until his breathing settled and the madness subsided, like water rushing back after a wave. The world returned to the place it was meant to be, and Thorgrim became aware of the quiet.

  He turned. The fight was over. Twenty Celts lay dead. Not a man had surrendered, they had all fought to the end against odds of five to one. Thorgrim had never seen the like, not even when Vikings fought Vikings.

  Then he remembered the bundle. He dropped to his knees, shot a furtive look over his shoulder, because he had a feeling that whatever it was, it was not something for all the men to see.

  He set his shield down and lifted the thing. It was heavier than he would have imagined, and bound tight with leather cord. Thorgrim pulled the dagger from the dead nobleman’s chest and cut the cord, unwrapped the bundle slowly.

  He knew it was made of gold before he knew what it was. He caught a glimpse of the yellow metal, luminous even in the muted light of the storm. He unwrapped layers of can
vas.

  It was a crown. Thorgrim had seen crowns before - there were enough minor kings in Norway - but he had never seen the like of this. A band of solid gold a quarter inch thick and two inches high, with a series of filigrees like little battlements running around the top. On each of the filigrees and around the band there were mounted jewels and bits of polished amber, but lovely, with as little ostentation as was possible in a thing such as a crown. The whole surface was etched with a delicate woven pattern, not unlike the intertwined beasts favored by Norse artisans.

  Thorgrim stared at the crown and turned it over in his hand. Its beauty worked on him like magic, enthralled him. He had no sense for how long he squatted there, turning the thing around in his fingers. Then he heard Kotkel shout and he started with a guilty flush. He shoved the crown back in the canvas, grabbed up his shield and held the crown hidden behind it. He stood and turned back to his fellow Norsemen.

  Harald was unhurt, save for a scrape on the cheek that left his pale skin smeared with blood. He was smiling, laughing louder than he generally did. Thorgrim recognized the flash of exuberance that comes on the heels of a fight. He himself was too old and too battle-worn to feel that flash any more, but he had experienced it many times in the younger days. Everything was sharper with youth - fighting, feasting, lying with a woman. Things wore dull with age.

  Harald was helping Sigurd Sow pull the mail shirt off one of the dead Irishmen.

  “Thorgrim!” Ornolf came rolling down the deck of the curragh. “Great lot of work for nothing!”

  “Oh?” Thorgrim adjusted his grip on the crown. He could taste guilt in his mouth.

  “These bastards...” Ornolf kicked one of the lifeless bodies to further punish the dead man for his disappointment. “They have some silver on them, and some damned fine mail. A few swords worth the having. You wouldn’t expect a bunch of fishermen to have such fine weapons. But beyond that, nothing.”

  “I don’t think they were fishermen.”

  “No? What then, coastal traders?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The crown, it seemed, was the only cargo, and twenty well-armed noblemen the crew. There was a tale here, and not a man left alive to tell it.

  Chapter Three

  Only fools

  hope to live forever

  by escaping enemies.

  Hávamál

  T

  he longphort of Dubh-Linn, squalid and ugly, sat huddled on the banks of the River Liffy. It was not much to look at. A small wooden palisade fort, a hundred feet along each wall, stood a quarter mile up the rise from the marshy banks of the river. The palisade wall on the landward side of the fort extended out east and west, slowly curving down to the river, forming a great, half-moon shaped wooden shield that cupped the town and kept the rest of Ireland beyond at bay.

  A plank road, largely obscured by the ubiquitous mud, ran from the fortress down to a series of docks that thrust out over the shallows into the deeper water.

  Clustered around the plank road were thirty or so buildings, most small, most one story, wattle and daub built with thatched roofs. These did double duty as homes and as woodshops, and blacksmith shops, and goldsmiths and merchants’ offices. There were only two buildings that might be called large and substantial, plank built; a temple to Thor to the south, and nearest the docks, a mead hall.

  Dubh-Linn was not much to look at on the best of days, but on that day, with the low clouds rendering everything into shades of gray and brown and muted green, and the cold rain blowing in nearly sideways, it was even less lovely.

  Orm Ulfsson did not care.

  He stood at the gates of the fortress and looked down the slope toward the river, and he knew that the bedraggled appearance belied the town’s growing import.

  Certainly, Dubh-lin was no rival to such great trading centers as Kaupang in the Vestfold district of Norway, or the Danish Hedeby. Not yet. But Dubh-Linn would rise to take its place among the great ports of the world. Orm was certain of it. That was why, in a bloody purge, he had driven out the Norwegians who had founded the town and claimed the place as his own.

  It was happening already, Dubh-Linn’s ascendency. Crowds of men stamped along the muddy road, huddled under furs, heads bent into the wind, and they understood, as Orm did, what Dubh-Linn’s future would be. They were artisans and merchants and warriors who had come to Dubh-Linn to stay. And they brought their women, Irish women and Norse women who had accompanied their men as wives or slaves.

  Now, looking past the crowded road and alleyways, busy even in the face of the storm, past the docks where longships and curraghs, knarrs and merchant ships from the Norse countries and warmer climes were rolling in the incoming swell, Orm might well have been pleased. But he was not.

  His eyes were fixed on one longship, mauled by the storm, pulling hard against the current. He could see the yard was snapped a little outboard to the starboard slings, hanging like a broken wing from its halyard. The tall sternpost was also snapped off, and most of the shields which had lined the sides were gone. Part of the upper edge of the gunnels just aft of the starboard bow was smashed in.

  Asbjorn Gudrodarson, known properly enough as Asbjorn the Fat, was standing just behind Orm. He let out a low whistle. “Magnus was hard pressed by the storm, so it would seem,” he said.

  Orm grunted. He was quite indifferent to Magnus’s difficulties, he cared only about Magnus’s success. If Magnus had met with no success, then Magnus would wish the storm had taken him. Orm would see to that.

  The longship crawled toward the dock at a pace too agonizing to watch. Orm turned hard on his heel. “Send Magnus to me, when he lands. If he ever lands,” he said to Asbjorn. He pulled his heavy fur cape further up his shoulders and ran a hand through his thick beard to comb the water out. He pushed through the wind and rain back to his quarters.

  It was another hour before Orm heard the knock on the door. He was seated then in his imposing wooden chair, one leg over the arm, a cup of warm cider in his hand. The house had a low, square fireplace, more a fire pit, in the center of the room, after the Norse style. The fire was roaring, casting a yellow glow over the dirt floor and the gloomy interior of the small house, built against the north corner of the fort’s interior wall. The smoke that was not able to escape through the windows piled up against the thatch ceiling overhead.

  Orm’s impatience had turned to a smoldering fury, but when the knock came he took a long drink and waited for Magnus to knock a second time.

  “Come!”

  The door creaked open. Magnus Magnusson stood there. The wind ripped in around him, fluttering the papers on the table beside Orm’s chair but it could not move Magnus’s drenched fur cape or his long hair, plastered down by rain and spray. Asbjorn hovered behind Magnus and he seemed to be hopping from one foot to the other, though whether from eagerness or a need to urinate, Orm could not tell.

  Magnus stepped into the house and Asbjorn followed, closing the door. Magnus gave a shallow bow. He was handsome, clean-shaven, with a reputation that was well earned. He was ambitious. He did not do subservience well.

  “Yes?” Orm said.

  Magnus shook his head.

  “You failed?”

  “They failed. Either they did not dare go out, or they were sunk in the storm. In any event, they did not enter the River Boyne.”

  Orm pressed his lips together and stared off into the dark end of the house. Damn this impertinent bastard... he thought. Magnus did not fail often, and when he did, he had a genius for making it appear as if it was not really failure, or that the failure belonged to someone else.

  He looked back at Magnus, who stood, stoic and expressionless. Orm had a notion that this was exactly how Magnus would look facing his own execution. Perhaps we’ll find out, he thought.

  “How do you know they did not get into the river? How do you know they are not there now? While you stand here dripping on my floor.”

  “We kept at the mouth of the river for as
long as we could, until my ship could bear no more. We were nearly wrecked half a dozen times. If my longship could barely live, then no ship built by Irishmen could have survived.”

  Orm grunted. Magnus could well be right. Orm had been a bit surprised to see Magnus’s ship come limping in - he had thought it would certainly be lost. If it had been anyone else living through that storm at sea, then he might have won Orm’s grudging respect. But Orm reckoned that Magnus had respect enough from every other quarter, and needed no more.

  “I suppose,” Orm said at last, “we won’t know for certain if you’ve failed until these Celt whoresons are putting our heads on pikes as an offering to their Jesus. Very well. You may go.”

  Magnus gave another quick bow, turned and left. Asbjorn remained, eager for some intrigue, but Orm had had enough of the corpulent, sycophantic advisor.

  “You may go as well,” he snapped and Asbjorn wisely said nothing, just gave a hint of a crestfallen look before scurrying out the door.

  Damn him... Orm thought, not even certain who he was damning. All of them.

  Magnus had done him no good at all. He had discovered nothing, resolved nothing, had left only more doubt behind. He had not even the decency to get himself drowned.

  The Celts were a disorganized rabble with nearly as many kings as they had sheep, and as such they were no concern. But if they were able to unite against the Norsemen, that would be a different story.

  Orm drained his cup. “Damn!” he said out loud. Morrigan, the Irish thrall he had taken when he took Dubh-linn, looked warily from the next room and Orm flung the cup at her. It was not enough that he should take and hold the town, build it up in a way that the idiot Norwegians could never hope to do. Now he had the Celts at his back and the threat of Norwegian vengeance from the sea. At times he wondered if it was worth the aggravation.