Conn shrugged. “Look at the smoke. How many towns do you think there are on this coast?” Lashed together gunwale to gunwale, the ships were bucking and thrashing and everybody had to yell to be heard. “Smell that? That’s a city, over there, beyond the point.”
On the next ship over, Pavo grunted at what Conn had said. “It stinks,” he said. He looked hollow around the eyes and mouth, a horseman far from his saddle.
Volodymyr sat amidships his big dragon, on the weather side of the council. His face was sunburned, and his beard salty. His eyes shone with excitement. He said, “This is Chersonese. Even the chart agrees—only the signs for the star measurer were wrong, Uncle, or we read them wrong. But see here—” He took the chart on his knees, folded over against the lashing wind. “There is the cape, and there—” He twisted to look back eastward. “—the shape of the coast seems the same.”
“You have good eyes,” Conn said. Raef, beside him, nodded.
Volodymyr said, “That bay, there, that’s the entrance. If we sail up that opening, there, we will come to Chersonese.”
He leaned forward as he spoke, his hands in front of him; what he wanted was almost in his grasp.
“We have to do it soon,” Conn said. “Nobody on my ship has eaten today.”
“Now,” Volodymyr said. “We shall do it now. And I will lead the way.” He nodded to Dobrynya. “Uncle, you follow me. Then Pavo. Then the Varanger.”
He held out his hand, and Dobrynya clasped it, and seeing what was supposed to happen Conn laid his hand on theirs and then Pavo’s like a horny paw closed over them all. They looked at each other hard, and drew back.
Conn and Raef climbed back over the stern of Dobrynya’s ship and swung around into their own. Conn went the length of the ship, talking to each of the men. Raef broke open the chests of weapons. The guardsmen and some of the Varanger also had helmets and leather armor and their own weapons, and Raef gave something out of the chest to anybody who didn’t. They had a lot of bows, but very few arrows; they had spent most of them hunting game back at the mouth of the river. The wind was fair for the mouth of the fjord, the sun just climbing up into the shoulder of the sky. Volodymyr’s ship hauled in the drogue. Raef settled into the stern of their ship, his hand on the tiller, Merike huddled into the space behind him, whispering to herself. The oars ran out. They stroked on toward Chersonese, across the frolicking wind.
C H A P T E R S E V E N T E E N
They rowed northeast, to clear the cape; beyond the fringe of white water the ground rose slowly up toward low green hills. Raef, feeling the currents under him roll and surge around the interference of the upthrusting coastline, watched the sky above the lowland and smelled the wind thrashing off it and thought they were burning something bad, in there. The back of his neck prickled up.
The mouth of the bay above the cape was far too wide to be chained and Volodymyr’s ships glided smoothly on into it, with Dobrynya behind him, and then Pavo. Last in the line, Raef was thinking of Hjorunga Bay; suddenly this was the same thing, all over again, sailing up that gut toward disaster. Conn was walking up and down their ship, talking to the rowers, keeping them on their strokes, several lengths behind Pavo.
In the windbroken wavecrests at the mouth of the bay, seagulls were bobbing, resting out of the wind. The curve of the northern edge of the cape was a comb of fjords. Ahead, the bay narrowed rapidly, the northern shore a white ledge of stone rising sheer above the surf.
From Volodymyr’s ship came the blast of a horn. That made sense, Raef thought: if they knew already up there that the ships were coming, be loud about it. The land was closing in on them, and all along the nearer shore to his right, he could see people running. Up ahead, Volodymyr’s ship was pivoting, a hard steerboardside, headed for a narrow southerly inlet in the shore.
Conn called out sharply, and the rowers on their ship began to work harder, moving wide of Pavo. The wind was blowing stiff out of the west; when they all turned, he wanted not to have Pavo under their lee. Raef had nothing to do; the oars managed the ship; he stood up on the steerboard side of the crutched mast and peered ahead of them, at something bobbing in the water just at the mouth of the inlet. If it was part of a chain, it was too low. Volodymyr’s ship stroked smoothly past it, and then Dobrynya’s.
Raef saw two other similar things floating and bobbing out there in the inlet’s mouth; his eyes followed the curve they made with the first, and marked a square wooden rig there on the wide ledge of the shore, cradling some kind of wheel. He shaded his eyes with his hand; he was looking almost due east now, and abruptly realized it was a capstan.
He shouted something to Conn, but then they too were gliding over the chain—he felt the narrow iron links go by, well below their keel, hard and cold against the bones of his feet—and over on the white ledge of the east shore, half a dozen men suddenly leapt out of hiding and rushed toward the capstan, threw themselves on the spokes of the wheel, and began to crank it up.
Conn yelled, “They’re drawing up the chain!” He had seen it too.
“Go for shore,” Raef yelled. He reached for his axe. It made no difference if they stormed the town. Ahead, along the southern and western shore of the cove, he could see the mossy rooftops now, the dingy air, the smoke, even the crowds rushing along the waterfront. There were no other ships, not even fishing boats. Volodymyr’s dragon was halfway to the beach and he could hear the Knyaz’s men cheering themselves on. Then, from the packed waterfront, something whizzed up into the air.
“Fire!” someone yelled, down near Conn, and Conn turned and whacked him. Raef wheeled around to look behind them; the turning wheel of the capstan had drawn the chain up out of the water, and it was stretched across the opening to the cove from one edge to the other. Along its length there were three bobbing little barrels, which were leaking thick and shiny ooze onto the water.
“Fire!”
Raef turned forward again. Volodymyr’s ship was rowing hard toward the beach but Dobrynya’s ship was slow in turning, and Pavo’s was running up alongside, too close. On both those ships some rowers stood up, to look toward shore, and then from the beach another volley of objects flew up into the air.
These were burning. They gave off a faint eerie screech. Smoke trailed after them. The first few dropped tamely into the water, but then several hit the dragon prow of Volodymyr’s ship, burst, and splattered fire all over.
Shrill screams rose from Volodymyr’s ship. The oars clashed together, and a man leapt overboard, and then another. The ship slowed, drifting. Raef threw his axe down, which was no use in this, and bounded up toward Conn. “Look—they have big slings—” Volodymyr’s ship was wallowing, off course; they were trying to put out the fire, which was spreading down the dragon’s head and back along the gunwale. Raef pulled Conn’s attention from that to the beach.
On the white sandy slope below the first houses a clot of men were loading something into a big wooden arc, like Corban’s sling gone large enough for a giant, and another spray of the burning objects hurtled up into the air.
Even Conn froze, for a moment, staring at the balls of flames hurtling toward him. Just in front of Raef, Vagn was still rowing hard, but most of the other oars were still in the water and Raef grabbed the young man’s shoulder to stop him. From Volodymyr’s ship, out in front of them all, a bray of terror went up. Half the crew leapt for the water, swimming for the next ship behind them, which was Dobrynya’s.
Third in line, Pavo had had enough. Conn and Raef were a ship’s length behind him; Raef saw the big Sclava fling one hand up and heard him bellow, and his steerboardside oars all went up and down at once, flaying in the air like broken wings. He was trying to pivot his ship. Conn shouted, “No—you idiot—” and then Pavo’s ship lurched hard into Dobrynya’s, and the prows crossed and with a crunch of wood and a splintering of oars Pavo’s ship went up and tipped sideways, its stern going under water.
The burning shots fell thick all around them. Several men screec
hed in pain and terror. All around Raef’s ship, men were leaping up, abandoning their oars. One smoking ball shattered on the floor of the ship at his feet and splashed the fire over his legging.
He gasped; a searing pain shot up the outside of his leg. Vagn was still beside him. Leaning over the side of the ship the boy scooped water with his hands to throw on the flames. Raef slapped at his blazing legging; he saw the bits of flame leap up, like a fiery liquid, and in his mind, he heard, “It burns underwater.” He grabbed Vagn by the shoulder before he could throw more wet onto his legging.
“No—” He ripped off the legging from his hip to his ankle, taking the flames away with it, and cast it overboard like a burning flag. “Bury them.” He pulled off his shirt and dropped it on the nearest little puddle of fire and crushed it under his feet.
Conn shouted, “We have to get out of here!”
“Reverse,” Raef said. He put out another little flame, just catching on the wood of the ship’s floor. Vagn was peeling off his own shirt. The young man knelt down and crushed a fire, and then jumped toward another.
“Reverse,” Raef shouted, again, and went back along the ship. On his way he grabbed each of the guardsmen, half stunned still in their places, and turned him around to face the other way, making him duck under his oar, guiding him with a hand on his head. He reached the steerboard, now the bow of the ship, just as Oleg got there.
Oleg was stripping off his clothes. “We have to get that chain loose,” he said, and dove into the water.
Raef howled wordlessly; he saw no use in this, one man swimming to the chain, but then Conn was at his side.
“Cover us! Get the bows!” Conn leapt into the water after Oleg and began to swim after him toward the point of land where the capstan stood, and where now the Greek defenders were clustered.
Raef began to swear, a stream of filthy, pleading words; in between, he bellowed, “Oars! Everybody row!” and lunged into the hollow of the ship’s stem. Merike scrambled out of his way. She shouted something at him but he had no time for her. He dragged out the chest with the bows. The men at least were rowing now, the Varanger among them keeping some order, and the ship began to stride back toward the chain. A few feet from him, Vagn on his knees was putting out the last fire on the ship with his bare hands. In the water between the ship and the capstan, Conn and Oleg were only heads moving steadily along the surface.
The men by the capstan were shooting at them; one shot a burning arrow, well wide, which startled Raef, until he saw it land in a patch of the stuff leaking from the barrel floats. The flame flickered there awhile, slow to ignite.
In his mind he saw them ignite, saw the fire spread, and burn, all across the cove, until everything inside was smoke and ash. A searing pain flared in his leg, deep as the bone.
He grabbed a bow. He was no good with this weapon and they had only a few arrows but he nocked one; the ship was gliding swiftly forward now, closer to the point of land, and maybe he could hit something from here. Then Janka snatched the bow from his hands.
“I do this,” the hun said. “You steer.”
Raef bounded back into the middle of the ship; he cast a quick look over his shoulder, back into the cove.
Out in the harbor Dobrynya’s ship and Pavo’s were still fouled, and Pavo’s ship was swamped. The water bobbed with swimming men, patches of slick smoldering stuff, and unbroken glass balls trailing fumes and sodden rags. The slings on shore were loading up again. Volodymyr had somehow gotten control of his ship, and was pivoting it out around the two wrecks, putting them between himself and the beach, coming after Raef’s ship. Fire fluttered from the prow of his ship. The scattered oars rose and fell wildly, out of order.
Raef stood up on the gunwale to see better. Up ahead, Conn and Oleg had almost reached the point where the capstan stood. Janka had picked off two of the Greeks by the end of the chain, and as the ship drew closer the rest of the defenders crouched down behind the capstan frame. Some of the puddle of slick stuff in the water was burning; the flame was spreading slowly but steadily. Oleg and Conn plowed their way past it. Oleg reached the shore.
This was a sheer white ledge of rock, layered like a sandbar, ending in flat grassy ground six feet over his head. The first time he leapt up for a handhold he missed and splashed back into the cove. A Greek with a sword was running down toward him from the capstan and Janka shot him through the chest. By the capstan, the remaining Greeks wheeled and ran.
Below Oleg, Conn gripped the rock with his hands, and the guardsman put his feet on Conn’s shoulders and climbed up. He knocked Conn down as he did, sending him all the way under the water, but the guardsman clawed his way up the white rock bank onto the land. Wheeling, he reached down and pulled Conn up after him.
Voldymyr’s ship was ranging up just behind Raef’s, the dragonhead still burning; all around it were swimming men trying to climb on board. Ahead of them the chain blocked their way out. A sudden hail of rocks and more glass balls pelted down around Raef, and he flinched into the scant shelter of the hull. Bursting near his feet, a ball scattered shards of glass and chunks of rock all over, and but no fiery stuff. He saw Helgi go down, socked in the head by a stone.
Over on the point of land, Conn and Oleg had reached the capstan, were struggling to loosen the wheel, both leaning on the bar. The weight of the chain held it fast. Between them and Raef, floating islands of black ooze drifted by the ship. In one, a glass ball floated, leaking fire, and around the ball, the ooze was sending up thick black smoke. Janka had another arrow nocked. The blazing dragonhead on Volodymyr’s ship was nudging closer, the men trying to get the head loose from the prow without burning themselves up doing it. The prince was screaming his oarsmen to their work, pacing up and down among them, trying to force his ship in between Raef’s ship and the white ledge of rock, using Raef as a shield against the missile barrage. Raef picked up an unburst glass ball and threw it at the other dragon.
“Stay back! Damn you! Stay off me!”
At the capstan, abruptly, Oleg was wheeling around toward the chain. He took hold of the chain and began to pull, trying to lift its weight off the pawl, so they could unbrake the wheel. Raef roared, amazed. Impossibly heavy, the chain never budged, but Oleg bent himself to it, set his feet, lunged back, as if he could drag the world around. Conn leapt to help him, three feet higher on the chain, beside the capstan bar.
Another rain of missiles pelted down on Raef’s ship and slammed painfully into his shoulders. They were bringing the sling closer. Now they were firing barrages of rocks. He guessed they were out of the fiery stuff, whatever it was. Then Oleg let out a shout like a tree limb ripping loose, and up ahead, on the point, the chain crept up off the capstan pawl.
By the capstan, Conn kicked something free, below the wheel, and letting go of the chain he yanked the bar out of the socket. The wheel began to rumble, the chain flying back of its own weight, dragging Oleg in a wild dive into the water with it.
On Volodymyr’s ship a harsh ragged cheer went up. They had finally thrown off the burning dragonhead. The stumpy bow of the dragon pushed in between Raef’s ship and the shore, headed for the open water. Volodymyr stood in the prow, his arms folded over his chest. Raef bellowed, “Oars up!” to let him pass. Wheeling around again, he looked back at the two wrecks.
Pavo’s ship was flooded to its gunwales, dragonhead showing like a sea monster, but Dobrynya had gotten his ship clear. His hull was drifting, half its oars gone, most of its men. The slings on shore were hammering everything with rocks and the few men left on board were cowering down on the floor. Raef yelled, “Reverse! Reverse!”
In front of him, Leif, still bent to an oar rowing forward, gave him a white-eyed look. But he stood up, turned around, ducked under his oar, and sat down again the other way, and the rest of them followed him. Raef shouted again, and the two banks of oars dipped down and into the water. The dragon shot smoothly forward, back to the drifting ship.
Dobrynya still stood in the stern
, a bow in his hands, loosing arrows in a steady stream. He saw Raef coming and one arm went up like a flag. Through the foul smoldering smoky water Raef closed with the crippled hull; he shouted, again, “Oars up!” just as they glided up alongside Dobrynya. Then: “Grab on! Grab on!”
Before Raef gave the orders, the Varangers saw what they had to do. They rode up over the few oars left on the backboard side of Dobrynya’s side, and Leif and Harald grappled the amidships gunwales together. Ulf and Bos and Bjorn leapt across into the drifting ship and found oars to run out on the far side. When Raef screamed again, “Reverse! Reverse!” they rowed, and the men still on his ship rowed, and linked together the two hulls pulled slowly toward the chain.
Raef spun around, looking for Conn, seeing him nowhere. Volodymyr’s ship was past the chain. Flames slithered along the water between. On the scummy blackened flickering surface two bodies floated. He shouted his cousin’s name. Janka had climbed up onto the dragon’s head, a bow in his hand, but no more arrows. The two bound ships were sweeping toward the sunken chain and in a moment would pass over it. “Conn!” Raef leaned out from the gunwale, scanning the water, filthy with black muck.
Then, laughing, Conn rose up over the gunwale near the steerboard, and he pulled himself inside.
Raef let go his breath in a long sigh. He was hoarse, his throat raw, the stink of the burning stuff deep in his lungs and on his tongue. His leg hurt. He watched Conn pull Oleg up after him. Oleg’s head was scummy with the black muck. The ship had crossed over the chain. They stood out to the middle of the bay, over deep water, beyond reach of the land.
The space between them and the cove crept with swimming men. Some were already scrambling up out of the water onto the ship; without orders, the oarsmen had put her around, to wait for all the swimmers. The black ooze covered them so much a few looked like seals. The Greeks sent up another volley of rocks, but they splashed harmlessly short. Raef thought of Merike, and wheeled toward the stem.
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