Fin Gall (The Norsemen)

by James L. Nelson

Now someone was shouting something, shouting in Irish, shouting to be heard above the fighting. Over the tops of the warriors’ heads Thorgrim could see a man on horseback. He wore a bright, shining helmet trimmed in gold, and a cape trimmed in fur over a mail shirt. His sword gleamed dull in the morning light. Thorgrim wondered if this was that Máel Sechnaill he had heard of, the one Morrigan called the king of Brega.

  He was shouting orders and one by one the men were obeying, backing away from the Viking shieldwall, stepping back and forming a shieldwall of their own.

  “Now what are these poxed whores’ sons about?” Ornolf shouted in Thorgrim’s direction. Thorgrim lowered his sword. There was no one left to fight. The Vikings had been abandoned on their little rise, left in their defensive square with no one to defend themselves against.

  Thorgrim turned and looked across the open ground. The line of advancing men was much closer now, a quarter mile or so. They were coming on in a battle array, with foot soldiers in front and mounted warriors behind, banners flying at the end of lances, tunics making bright spots on the gray-green field.

  “These Irish are more worried about these fellows than they are about us,” Thorgrim said, pointing with his sword at the advancing army.

  “There’s a lot of them,” Ornolf agreed. “I reckon we had best worry about them, too.”

  The Vikings backed away from Máel Sechnaill’s men, wary of an attack from that quarter, but it was soon clear that the Irish had forgotten about them. Thorgrim looked for a way out. He did not want his men caught between these two armies, crushed like a bug between two hands, but there was no exit from the field.

  “Let us form a shieldwall, here!” he pointed to a spot of land halfway between the armies and led the men at a trot to that place. They stood, shoulder to shoulder, shields overlapping. They were pathetically few, perhaps thirty in number, the rest were dead on the field behind them.

  We will have friends to welcome us to Valhalla, Thorgrim thought. He had no doubt that his brave men had been picked by the Choosers of the Slain.

  “Stand fast!” Thorgrim shouted down the line. The men were braced for the assault, their shieldwall as solid as it was going to get. Thorgrim guessed they might stand up to the attack for ten minutes perhaps, before they were all cut down.

  It’s still a fine place to die, he thought.

  Cormac Ua Ruairc, sitting on top of his horse, looked along his line of fighting men and then across the field at those of Máel Sechnaill and he tried to fight his rising sense of panic.

  He thought of Niall Cuarán’s body, lying dead on the field a half a mile back. Cormac had killed Niall himself, struck him down with his sword. Niall Cuarán had argued, vehemently, against this attack, until at last it was clear to Cormac that Niall Cuarán was no more than a coward. Cowards could not be suffered to live.

  Worse, Cormac found that Niall Cuarán’s doubts shook his own resolve to do the bold thing, and he could not have that. Killing Niall Cuarán with a single stroke of his sword did more to bolster Cormac than anything else could have done.

  He had pushed his men hard, once Fintan had brought word of the longship on the River Boyne. They had pressed north to the river and then west along its banks. They had marched through the rain and through all the long daylight hours. They had slept fitfully and uncomfortably the night before, woke to the sound of fighting far off. Mounted scouts had brought word back. Máel Sechnaill’s army was out and they were fighting. It was the perfect chance for Cormac Ua Ruairc to fall on him and take him, Crown of the Three Kingdoms or no.

  Now they were bringing the attack to Máel Sechnaill, not twenty miles from Tara. Cormac swallowed and tried to take a disinterested look at his enemy. Máel Sechnaill had more men, to be sure, but not so many mounted, as far as he could see, and mounted troops could swing a battle one way or another. What’s more, Máel Sechnaill’s army had been fighting, they were tired and hurt, and Cormac’s men were fresh.

  I can beat this bastard, yes I can, Cormac thought. I’ll have his bitch daughter in my bed tonight. Brigit had always rebuffed him, out of some misbegotten loyalty to his brother Donnchad, but there would be none of that tonight.

  I will have her or my men will, he thought.

  There was movement in the line ahead, some group of Máel Sechnaill’s army breaking off and moving to the front. A small band, thirty men or so, forming up a shieldwall a hundred perches in front of the rest.

  What the devil... Cormac frowned and tried to guess what Máel was up to. He swiveled in his saddle and shouted out to the rí túaithe who were leading their parts of the battle array.

  “They’ve sent men ahead!” he shouted and pointed with his sword. “They want to tangle us up with that small band and fall on our flanks! Ignore that small shieldwall! Go right around it and right for the main battle line!”

  The rí túaithe on his right and left raised their swords in acknowledgment. The foot soldiers in front began to pick up their pace, a fast walk and then a jog. Cormac could see the men in the advanced shieldwall brace for the impact of the charging troops. Four perches away and Cormac’s troops broke right and left, sweeping to either side of the small band of men, running right past them.

  Cormac and the rí túaithe were right behind the running men, their horses cantering to keep up. Cormac had a glimpse of surprised faces behind shields as he raced past, leaving that small band behind as they concentrated on the chief target, Máel Sechnaill’s shieldwall.

  That trick didn’t fool me, Máel Sechnaill, Cormac thought. If that was the best that the King of Tara could do, then he did not deserve his kingdom.

  Cormac’s men were yelling as they crossed the last one hundred paces and crashed into Máel Sechnaill’s men. The shieldwall bowed in places, weapons waved and slashed above round shields, men screamed as they died.

  Cormac rode his horse back and forth, waving his sword, shouting encouragement to his fighting men. It was going well. Not great – they had yet to break the shieldwall - but well, and if his men could sustain the attack then there was a good chance that they would win the day.

  The rí túaithe on horseback were charging in where they could, reaching over the heads of men to deliver death blows to the enemy. That was good. Horses could win the day.

  He heard shouting from the right, beyond the line of battle. He whirled his horse around, moved back to a place where he could see.

  They were coming from the north, sweeping around the right flank. Horsemen. Thirty or forty mounted troops with long lances, swords and shining helmets. Held in reserve, waiting for the moment to ride out and make a flank attack and roll right up the line of Cormac’s men.

  “Oh, God!” Cormac wailed. He felt his stomach sink. Máel Sechnaill had tricked him, led him into a trap. He was a dead man, and he knew it. Him and every man he had led north into Brega.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  We’ll return to where

  our countrymen await us,

  head our sand-heaven’s horse

  to scout the ship’s wide plains.

  Eirik the Red’s Saga

  T

  horgrim was more than a little surprised to see the attacking army break around the Vikings’ shieldwall and charge on past as if they were no more threatening than a boulder jutting out from the earth.

  Bewildered, the Norsemen spun around and watched the backs of the men-at-arms and the horses’ hindquarters as they raced past.

  “Well, Thor take them all!” Ornolf shouted. “They think they can just ignore Ornolf the Restless!” Sword raised he started after them, but Thorgrim called him back. He had not seen Ornolf’s blood so hot for battle in many years.

  “Ornolf, let us leave the Irish to fight the Irish and we’ll go about our own business. We’ve lost enough men already, and the day is no more than an hour old.”

  Ornolf looked at the Irish, looked at the Red Dragons, then spit on the ground. “You are right, Thorgrim Night-Wolf.” He slid his sword into its scabbar
d and suddenly he looked very tired. “Let us go back to our ship.”

  Every man of Ornolf’s crew was wounded in some fashion, but most were able to make their own way, and others with the help of their shipmates. Thorgerd Brak and Svein the Short lashed a tunic between two spears, fashioning a litter on which to carry Harald. Gizur Thorisson was wounded in the arm, an ugly wound, but his shipmates bound it up and he said he would be all right.

  They headed off across the field, oblivious to the fighting going on at their backs. They had seen fighting enough that morning that they were not particularly curious. They turned around once at the sound of charging horses, afraid that they would be run down. But it was only mounted troops attacking the flank of the new arrivals. The Norsemen watched for a few minutes as the riders cut down their enemy, scattering them and killing them as the ran. Whoever it was who had charged across the field and attacked the army of Máel Sechnaill, it was an ill-advised thing to do, and now they were paying for their foolishness.

  The Norsemen watched the butchery in silence, and then, with never a word, they turned back and continued on.

  They reached the trees and the black patch where their campfire had burned itself out. They retraced the path they had taken the day before in search of Harald. They hacked their way through the woods and came to the banks of the River Boyne. The Irish fishing boat and the Red Dragon were still tied to the bank, lovely and unharmed.

  It was with a great sense of relief that the Norsemen tumbled over the sides of the ship, a relief such as one feels coming through the door of his home after a long journey. They were still many leagues from Norway, ill-provisioned, weakly-armed with only a makeshift sail to drive their ship. But they were aboard a longship. They were afloat. And that, to any Viking, bred to ships and the sea, was a great relief. The ancient sea gods Ægir and Ran might be dangerous and unpredictable, but when it came to treachery they had nothing on men ashore.

  Thorgrim’s eyes ran the length of the ship, fore and aft, inspecting the vessel, a thing he did unconsciously, a habit developed after years at sea. His gaze settled on something aft, opposite the steering board, something he could not identify, standing in the place he normally stood when not at the tiller. The place where he and Morrigan had made their bed.

  He made his way aft. As he came closer he could see it was a sword. He felt his pulse racing. He stepped quicker, hopped up to the afterdeck.

  It was a sword. It was Iron-tooth. Stuck point-down into the deck.

  “How in the world did you find your way home?” he asked the sword, kneeling in front of it, slightly afraid to lay hands on the charmed weapon. There was something hanging from the hilt. He leaned closer. A bit of linen thread, and hanging from the thread, a tiny silver cross.

  Thorgrim reached out and held the little cross between his thick thumb and forefinger, rubbed its smooth surface. He wondered if it was some sorcery of Morrigan’s, some Christ-magic. He glanced over his shoulder and when he saw no one was watching he made the sign of the cross the way he had seen Morrigan do it, hoping that charm would bring him luck. Any magic that could make his beloved Iron-tooth reappear had to be powerful indeed.

  Thorgrim took the tiny cross off the hilt and threaded it through the thong that held his other cross and his hammer of Thor. He pulled the sword he carried from its scabbard and tossed it aside, then plucked Iron-tooth from the deck. He took a moment to enjoy the balance and weight of the weapon, the beauty of the inlay and the etched designs on the pommel and hilt, then he slid the sword into its rightful place at his side. He felt whole again, and strong.

  “Come along, you men!” he called to the exhausted, half-dead men slumped in various places around the deck. “Let us break out the oars and leave this place, forsaken by the gods, behind.”

  They did not move with their usual vigor, but they moved, getting the oars over the side, sitting themselves on their sea chests to row. Harald took his place and insisted on rowing until Thorgrim had actually to raise his voice to the boy and order him to lie down.

  They cast off from the bank, and with the Irish leather boat in tow made their way down river. They were less than half in number from their original company, which meant less than half the oars propelling the Red Dragon. But the current was with them now, and the riverbanks swept quickly by. The rain stopped and even the heavy mist cleared away so that the day was dry under a gray overcast. And then, greatest gift of all, a breeze sprang up from the southwest, enough of a breeze and with enough westing in it that they were able to set their pathetic sail and stow their oars away and let wind and current carry them effortlessly to the sea.

  At midday they anchored in the stream and Thorgrim and half a dozen of the less wounded men used Harald’s leather boat to go ashore. There a sheep herder gave them four sheep in exchange for their not killing him. They butchered the sheep on the riverbank and cooked them and ferried the meat out to the safety of the longship. They weighed anchor, set sail, and ate their fill as the river carried them east.

  Night came on while they were still on the river, so they anchored again and set an anchor watch and slept. Thorgrim put his furs on the deck beside Harald and for a while he watched his son sleep. His face was peaceful. There was no fever this time, and his breathing was soft and steady. Finally, Thorgrim closed his eyes and slept, deep and peaceful, and he was not visited by wolves in his dreams.

  The next morning brought clearing weather, blue skies and a fresh breeze that dried the Norsemen out completely and lifted their spirits higher than they had been since they first raised Ireland out of the sea. They weighed anchor again and set the sail and then there was little to do but haul on the braces every once in a while and watch the green riverbanks slip by and laugh at the sheep herders and cow herders who frantically drove their flocks away from the river when the longship hove into sight.

  It was past noon when they finally saw the wide river mouth spread its arms in welcome to the open ocean. The small, limping, wounded band of men crowded around the bow and stared out to sea, stared longingly at the wide blue glinting ocean, the ship’s wide plains that would carry them back to Norway, poor, perhaps, but alive.

  Thorgrim, standing at the tiller, looked out across the ocean and felt, as the others did, a sense of relief. Of escape. The sea was their land, as surely as was Vik in Norway.

  It is better to live

  than lie dead.

  A dead man gathers no goods...

  Thorgrim thought of the ancient words of advice, wisdom handed down from Odin himself.

  I saw a warm fire

  at a wealthy man’s house

  himself dead at the door.

  Not that he or Ornolf would end this voyage poor. They would be less wealthy, for all their expense and nothing to show for it, but they would still be wealthy. And alive.

  The mouth of the River Boyne grew wider, the shoreline tapered away to sandy beach as river melded into sea. The Red Dragon stood on, leaving the shore behind, the ocean opening up on either side as the last spits of land fell astern. Thorgrim could feel the ship move on the swells, the fine, alive feeling of a ship at sea.

  And that was when Egil Lamb saw the other ship. It was to the north of them and a bit more than a mile and a half off, driving south under a red and white striped sail, hauled fore and aft and tacked down tight. A longship. A line of bright color indicated where shields were set in the shield rack along her gunnel.

  The gods toy with us, they do not stop, Thorgrim thought. They give us a taste of good fortune, and then they snatch it away.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  We feared

  no fellow on earth;

  we were fit, we fought

  in the battle-fleet

  Saga of Arrow-Odd

  I

  f Thorgrim Night Wolf was cursing the gods as fickle, Asbjorn the Fat was blessing them for their kindness.

  Orm had put to sea the very day Asbjorn arrived back at Dubh-linn with word of the crown and Magnu
s’s treachery. He manned his longship Swift Eagle with one hundred well-armed warriors. They stood out from Dubh-linn harbor and worked their way slowly north along the coast, searching for the battered Red Dragon.

  They had seen nothing. They sailed north past the mouth of the River Boyne and with each mile under their keel, Orm become more snappish and curt and made his displeasure more clear.

  Orm was afraid, and Asbjorn knew it. He was afraid of the Irish uniting against him, and that made him desperate to get his hands on the Crown of the Three Kingdoms. He was afraid of a Norwegian fleet under Olaf the White falling on Dubh-linn, and that made him desperate to get back to the longphort and see to its defense. He was afraid of treachery at every step, and that kept him from delegating any of the jobs that needed doing.

  By the time they were a day north of the River Boyne, Orm’s patience had run out. He ordered the Swift Eagle turned around, her course south for Dubh-Linn.

  “No longship. No crown. No Magnus,” was all he said to Asbjorn as the ship settled on her new course.

  “The crown is a valuable prize,” Asbjorn offered. “Perhaps the Norwegians have taken it and sailed for home. In that case it can be no threat to you.”

  “Perhaps,” Orm said and said no more.

  Now it was Asbjorn’s turn to be afraid. Orm would blame him for this. As unreasonable as that might be, Orm would blame him because he was the only one left to blame.

  And so Asbjorn’s spirits were lifted high when the man clinging to the mast, feet on the mastheaded yard, sang out that there was a longship putting out from the River Boyne.

  “It may be Ornolf,” Orm said testily, “and it may not.” Orm was in no mood for optimism.

  “This is true, Lord Orm,” Asbjorn agreed. But longships were not so common on that coast that it was likely to be another.

  Twenty minutes later, as they ran down on the distant ship, Swift Eagle’s bow lifting and slamming down in a welter of spray, Orm said, “I thought you said Ornolf had no sail. That ship has a sail.”