Lord of the Isles (Coronet Books) (11 page)

It was almost midday before the first signal reached them, a man waving a plaid, from the top of a nearby hillock with a view. He went on waving, up and down. That meant that ships, many ships, had come into sight, presumably round Ardnamurchan Point. It was not long before another signal, circular, indicated that the vessels had indeed turned into outer Loch Moidart.

Now all was activity in the narrows, messages being sent, final positions taken up, men covering themselves in greenery. But there were still doubts. So much depended on what the Norse leader did now.

Signals continued to be received. The oncoming fleet was keeping to this south side of the loch. It was not dispersing or lying-to. It was approaching the Kentra entrance.

The excitement grew as men crouched, hidden. Somerled had difficulty in keeping himself from getting caught up in it, especially with that young woman beside him no help. He had to be ready to use the most exact and careful judgement presently. All might stand or fall by one swift decision—
his
decision, for once the enemy entered Kentra channel, decision for the time-being was no longer theirs.

The final signal from the hillock came—the first ship had entered.

From his stance of vantage behind a rock outcrop Somerled watched. Soon the first longship came into view, alone. In these tidal narrows, ships had to go in single file anyway; but no second craft appeared. And this, he was certain, was not Ivar’s own ship; there were no special markings, on sail or prow, to distinguish the leader. So this was but a scout, to spy out conditions ahead. Ivar was being careful, after all.

Somerled gave no sign, therefore, though biting his lip.

The time factor was now, of course, more urgent than ever. Half-a-mile further and this vessel would be into Kentra Bay proper, and fairly soon after that would be able to see the township and Conn’s company massed there. Then, presumably, it would turn back, or otherwise seek to warn the others—which must not happen. Yet to intercept it now would give away this ambush.

The ship rowed on, in mid-channel, and past.

Then the agonising further waiting, every moment counting. Would the Norse leadership hold back out there until they got a signal from their scout? Or would they be satisfied that it had got through these dangerous narrows without trouble? In Ivar’s place, what would
he
do? With a thousand men to play with? He would come on, he thought . . .

The scout-ship disappeared into the bay.

A man, further along this bank than himself, held up a hand, presumably indicating action. Then, almost at once, a prow rounded one of the bends in the channel—and this was a prow indeed, an arrogant, towering dragon-head, painted red-and-black. The vessel behind was half as large again as the ordinary longship, with sixty-four oars, not forty-eight, a full-sized dragon-ship, most certainly Ivar’s own. A few lengths behind it came another craft, this one of normal size, then another behind that.

So this was it—the moments for judgement, decision, at last.

Holding himself in—and hoping that his men would do so likewise—Somerled calculated, assessing distances. Every yard could tell. He snapped a curse at Cathula when she whispered. He let the dragon-ship pass. A fourth vessel was now in view and a fifth appearing round the bend—too close behind to please him. With a muttered exclamation, part-prayer, part-imprecation, he raised his horn and blew two blasts.

Men had been waiting anxiously for this, and there was no delay now. Between the dragon-ship and the next craft, narrow as the gap was, there was an explosion of activity. Out from the farther, west side, men raced, straight into the water, many men, dragging behind them a boom, a succession of tree-trunks bound together and linked close with ropes. Pushing and pulling, they splashed and swam out with this, whilst from this east side others emerged from hiding to plunge in and swim to join them across the mere two hundred yards of channel. At the same time, arrows began to shower down upon the ships from both sides. Archery was not greatly advanced amongst the Celtic peoples, any more than with the Norse, as a weapon of war—it was the Normans who had developed this arm—but Somerled had recognised its advantages and had gathered a number of bows and arrows—of the hunting variety necessarily—and this was an easy target.

When he saw the first boom well under way, and the confusion aboard the vessels, he blew another three blasts on the horn, and set off another similar manoeuvre between the second and third ships.

The Vikings were not idle, meantime, however surprised. But strung out as they were, there was no coherent action. Those facing the booms hastily backed-water with their oars, and in consequence bunching developed. Clearly a third boom was going to be difficult to get across—although the archery was having effect amongst the oarsmen.

It was the dragon-ship which demanded most of Somerled’s attention. It had no boom in front of it. When the trouble erupted astern, it slowed, uncertainly, then also began to back-water to the aid of the ships behind. There was much shouting and sword- and battleaxe-brandishing.

A single long blowing of the horn was the signal for Saor to have another log boom run out, the most southerly, in front of the dragon-ship. Almost immediately after this, a succession of short blasts initiated a new stage in the attack.

This inevitably took more time to mount, for it entailed flint-and-tinder work, lighting resin-soaked rags attached to arrows, to shoot down into the ships. This was slow work, at first, but it was certainly effective in causing maximum confusion amongst the packed rowing-benches and setting canvas, shrouds and gear alight.

Somerled sent racing messengers to Conn and to Dermot, the one to bring on the rest of their men, making much noise about it, the other to mount a display, a distraction, in the outer loch with some of their longships.

There was a brief hiatus in this peculiar encounter. The Norse, the first four ships at least, found themselves bottled up individually, unable to move more than a few yards one way or the other. Apart from the arrow-shooting, Somerled’s people could do little in attack, since any assault by swimmers on the shield-hung sides of the stationary longships would be suicidal; and they had no javelins for throwing. Given a little time the enemy would undoubtedly rally and evolve some coherent strategy, but for the moment there was confusion and indecision.

More horn-blowing therefore, ushered in the second phase of Somerled’s plan. Fire again, this time localised and over on the far side, where piles of dead timber, brushwood and the branches of the felled trees were lit along that western hillside, for the smoke to pour down, on the prevailing south-westerly breeze of that seaboard, into the channel-valley, enfolding ships and men ashore alike in its murky, throat-catching shroud. Just before it became really thick, however, Conn’s men came baying round at the run, scattered, and in the haze looking more numerous than they were.

Somerled, eyes running, moved down to meet Conn as near to the dragon-ship as he could get. He was going to concentrate on Ivar Blacktooth.

It must have been a strange situation for the Viking chief to find himself so divorced from initiative, and with so few options open to him. He could either sit still in his ship and do nothing, under the falling fire arrows. Or he could order his men over the side to try to come to grips with the enemy, or to seek to remove those booms and free his vessels. There was not much doubt, of course, as to which the savage sea-rover would choose.

With much splashing of long oars, and considerable chaos on the rowing-benches, the dragon-ship began to swing its tall prow round, to turn in on the eastern shore, where at least the smoke was not in Norse faces. Only a few yards were involved. There were perhaps one-hundred-and-sixty men aboard.

After all the tactics and artifices, it came down to sheer bloody hand-to-hand fighting in the end, of course. But at least Somerled had evened the odds very considerably. The Norse thousand was split up and detached from the leadership, unsure of what was happening, or of what numbers were against them, initiative lost, amidst conditions bad for unified action, smoke hiding everything more than fifty or so yards away.

With Conn’s men, Somerled had some two hundred at this point, surely sufficient to deal with Ivar and his dragon-ship’s crew. In time, no doubt others would come to aid their leader. It was Saor’s task to delay this for as long as possible.

There was no mistaking Ivar Blacktooth, smoke or none, as he stood on his forward platform, in leather-scaled armour and great horned helmet, a thick massive man of early middle years, battleaxe in hand. He looked formidable.

As the dragon-ship’s prow ran aground, the Norsemen began to leap down into the water, with swords and axes and their round, painted shields, to be faced at once by the eager gallowglasses. The advantage was with the latter, for the others had of course to jump down individually, recover themselves in the shallows and wade ashore into a solid phalanx of their enemies. Quickly this was proved to be an expensive procedure and they began to mass at the ship’s side before wading to land in groups. This was more effective but they were still much outnumbered.

Somerled refrained from joining in the hacking, stabbing, shouting mêlée. From streaming eyes he was watching the man Ivar, who was trying to direct his people’s assault from his platform.

A messenger arrived from MacIan of Uladail to say that the last three enemy ships were backing out of the channel. If they then turned to land their men on this shore, three hundred at least, he with his mere sixty could do little to prevent them coming to join their chief. What should he do?

Somerled hoped that Dermot Maguire’s display of their ships in the outer loch might inhibit any such move, but he could not rely on it—and three hundred newcomers arriving could change the picture here drastically, especially as there were four other ships’ crews in the narrows who might also break out. He told the runner that Uladail should demonstrate along the shore, if a landing seemed to be contemplated, to discourage it, disguising his lack of numbers as best he could; but to send word at once if they got ashore and to retire here before them, making suitable noise opposite the other trapped ships.

Cathula was tugging at his arm. Ivar Blacktooth had evidently decided that he was losing this immediate battle by letting his crew trickle ashore in groups. He had jumped into the water himself and was gathering all his remaining men into a tight formation around him, leaving only a few in the ship. With this, behind a solid defensive ring of shields, he made for the shore.

Almost with a sigh of relief, now that he could give in to his urge for personal combat, as distinct from detached generalship, Somerled hurried down into the fray.

He pushed his way through the struggling, smiting throng to where Conn Ironhand was seeking to maintain some sort of direction in the confused conflict, his helmet gone and with a bleeding scalp wound.

“Ivar comes! With some eighty men,” he shouted. “Solid. Behind shields. We must open. Encircle him. Part your gallowglasses.”

That was more easily ordered than done and there was chaos before anything like an encirclement was achieved. However, the turmoil likewise affected the enemy, with the Norse who were already engaged faced with their colleagues’ ring of shields and negating their impact. Their absorption into Ivar’s tight company in fact much loosened it.

Somerled and Conn saw their opportunity and bored in, hacking and thrusting mightily, ably supported. They were almost two-to-one, to be sure, and morale high. Once broken, the circle, which could have been very effective, did not fully reform.

Somerled sought to cleave his way directly to Ivar himself and not to be inveigled into lesser contests, difficult as this was. He had necessarily to exchange many a blow with others and indeed suffered a glancing blow on his left shoulder from the axe of an opponent for whom he had shown insufficient respect. In the excitement he scarcely felt this, and pressed on.

At length he won through to the Viking chief. He was younger and taller and armed with a short stabbing sword against the other’s battleaxe and dirk. The sword was more manageable, lighter, but the axe could decide the issue with one well-placed blow. He was wary, therefore.

Ivar was nothing loth and no doubt recognising the quality of this assailant by his gold belt, if nothing else, hurled himself upon him without pause. With a curious sideways swipe to the neck, he could have finished the matter there and then, for Somerled was unready for so unorthodox a stroke and only managed to jerk himself aside with a mere inch or so to spare.

Admittedly such wielding of a heavy axe required some recovery. Unfortunately Somerled’s hasty avoiding action threw him a little off-balance and he was unable to take advantage of the other’s very brief vulnerability, especially as Ivar’s dirk, in his left hand, contrived a lightning-quick thrust which the other had to avoid by a further contortion. He did achieve a jab with his sword but it was less than truly aimed and without full force. The steel struck only an oblique blow and by no means penetrated the Norseman’s leather.

They circled. Other men left them to it.

Somerled drew his own dirk. As the other’s eyes flickered towards it, he lunged, low. But even as Ivar slashed down with his axe and took a pace backwards, the sword changed direction, swept up, and as its owner leapt forward, stabbed at the throat.

It was a near thing. But Somerled’s footwork on the pebbly strand flung him off-true and his sword-tip only grazed the other’s jaw, scoring a gash but nowise disabling him. The Norse dirk nearly caught him, also, as he teetered close.

He danced back, panting. He recognised that he must retain the initiative, the advantage of his speed. Barely giving time for the other to raise the axe again, he flung his dirk in Ivar’s face. The man, surprised, dodged and staggered; and darting in again, both hands on his sword-hilt now, with all his might Somerled slashed down his blade on the unprotected axe-arm. Bone snapped and blood spurted.