The Lord of Vik-Lo: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 3) (13 page)

  Then he saw something he had never seen before. The great oak gates in the earthen wall that separated the longphort from the Irish countryside were open. Not wide open, just parted the width of a man, but since Harald had first seen those gates they had never been opened at all.

  “Come along, this way,” he called and raced for the gate, pulling it open a few feet more and charging out into the unknown territory beyond. If the Irish had come on horseback, Harald realized, then they were long gone, but it would have been hard to approach the walls mounted and not be noticed.

  The country surrounding the longphort was dark and Harald could see no sort of human habitation. The moon had crept above the trees, and the hills that surrounded Vík-ló and the road running off inland were just visible. Harald stood and let more of the details resolve themselves - the stands of trees, the Danes’ cattle herd lying in the field. And then, finally, the small band of people moving quickly off down the road.

  Starri saw them an instant before Harald did. He shouted, “There!” and like a rabbit flushed by a dog he was off, going from a full stop to a flat out run in two strides.

  “Careful of the girl!” Harald shouted as he chased after Starri, “Watch for the girl!” In his mind was an image of Starri in fighting madness cutting Conandil down with the rest.

  It was hard to see in the moon light, harder still to see while running as fast as he could run but Harald thought the group ahead had seen them and was making ready for the coming assault. The dark shape of massed and moving men seemed to stop, to spread out, and Harald guessed they had turned and formed a line of sorts, preparing to meet this new threat. The Irish were no more than one hundred paces away and they would have an advantage because Harald and his men were already winded, and they would be more winded still by the time they came within a sword’s reach. But there was nothing for it.

 
Here we go, here we go
, Harald thought. Charging into battle. Less than a minute and they would be flailing at one another with swords and axes and the fear he felt now would melt into that odd calm he had come to know from many fights. An image materialized in his head; he knew it well, it was the same image, bloody and frightening, that always came to him in the seconds before combat; an ax hacking deep into his body, right where his neck and shoulder met, splitting him through collar bone and spine.

  Harald fixated on that image and the particular horror that went with it, though he did not know why. An ax to the head, a sword in the belly, these were terrifying possibilities, and real possibilities, but for some reason the thought of an ax splitting him from the shoulder down terrified him more profoundly than any other potential death blow. And the image always rose, unbidden, in the seconds before a fight.

  The Far Voyagers had more than halved the distance by the time Harald could see weapons in his enemy’s hands. A few held shields but most did not. And there were not that many men, perhaps ten. Fewer than the Far Voyagers, but they were not heaving for breath as Harald was.

 
Here we go…here we go…

  Starri hit the line first, leaping high, ax flailing, and in a moment he and the men with whom he engaged were no more than a trashing form in the dark. But Harald’s attention was drawn to the man at the center of the line, a man who stood a head taller than the rest. The moonlight illuminated the blade of his big battle ax, a Viking weapon, not one the Irish generally employed, but the way he held it suggested he knew its use.

 
Lorcan…
Harald thought. This had to be Lorcan himself. He had heard the legends, and this man, looming like a bear on hind legs, seemed to match the stories he had heard. Even as the sight of the ax renewed his horror, Harald adjusted his path just a bit to take him directly at Lorcan. He did not think about it, did not decide he would personally do combat with the giant, he just moved in that direction because that was who he was.

  Twenty feet away and Harald could feel himself tiring but he could also feel the momentum he had built up in his flat-out run at the line of men, and he could feel the pre-battle surge of energy. Lorcan stood directly in front of him, arms spread as if he was going to give Harald a welcoming hug, a look belied by the big battle ax in his right hand. In the pale light Harald could make out some of the man’s features: white skin and dark eyes showing through those parts of his face not covered by his massive beard.

  Harald knew how he would come at Lorcan, though he had put no thought into it. His body just reacted in the way he had trained himself, hour after hour, week after week, for years. The second son, terrified of being found wanting in battle, he had spent much of his short life alone practicing with sword, shield and ax the way his father had taught him, as well as creating new things on his own.

  And here was one. Four feet from Lorcan, running as fast as his bulky frame could run, Harald launched himself off the ground. He went into the fight airborne, like Starri. But unlike Starri, who flung himself chest first at the enemy, inviting a death that never seemed to come, Harald came at Lorcan the other way, both feet coming up off the ground and slamming into Lorcan’s chest with the power of his fourteen stone weight hurtling through the air.

  There was moonlight enough for Harald to see the shock on Lorcan’s face, the sheer unexpectedness of this move being one of its best attributes. Lorcan’s ax came swinging around as the big man tried to catch his attacker, but he was too late and Harald could see it. Harald’s feet hit hard and as Lorcan staggered back the swing of the ax became an uncoordinated flail at the air.

  In his younger days Harald had practiced this attack on the massive fir trees on the edge of his father’s farm until he realized he would injure himself less often practicing on hay bales. Now, as he hit Lorcan, he was reminded of the trees. The Irishman seemed almost as unyielding as a fir, and Harald, as he fell to the ground, wondered if he had made any impression on the man at all.

  He had. He could see that. He had managed to knock Lorcan clean off his feet. One of the problems with this trick was that Harald also found himself on the ground, but he knew it was coming and could scramble to his feet quicker than his enemy, who went down in surprise.

  Harald was up in a flash and moving on Lorcan, who was still on his back. Shield in his left hand he went in straight with Vengeance Seeker, looking to drive the point into Lorcan’s massive body. But Lorcan was ready, surprise notwithstanding. The big ax came around and would have split Harald in two if it had not buried itself in his shield.

  Harald staggered but Vengeance Seeker was still driving for the mark when Lorcan swung his right leg around and caught Harald’s hand with his foot, knocking the sword out of his grip. He continued the momentum begun with the kick and rolled himself over and onto his feet, his ax ripping from Harald’s shield as he did, splintering the wood.

  Harald leapt back as the ax swung at him again. He could hear the sound of the blade sweeping through the air. He stepped back. Vengeance Seeker was somewhere to his right on the ground, but he could not take his eyes from Lorcan long enough to look for it. A second’s distraction – less - and his head would be split like cordwood.

  “Whore’s whelp!” Lorcan bellowed in rage as he leapt forward, faster than Harald would have thought a man that size would be able to, and hacked down with the blade. Harald held up what was left of his shield and the ax lodged in the wood as Harald had hoped, and Harald twisted the shield to jerk the ax from Lorcan’s hand.

  That, at least, was his intent. He found instead that he could not move the shield at all; it felt as though it had been spiked to a ship’s mast. Lorcan was more powerful than any man Harald had ever encountered, and just as he found himself marveling at that fact Lorcan pulled the ax back, taking Harald’s shield with it. Harald, lost in the tugging match, did not see Lorcan’s left hand come arcing around and was only aware of it when the fist slammed into the side of his head and sent him staggering, the shield lost from his grip, Lorcan and the men around him now a blur to his unfocused eyes.

  His mind was screaming a warning that he was seconds from death but he was too disoriented to do anything at all but try and keep his feet. He sensed men coming up on either side and Lorcan, who he expected would kill him in the next instant, stepped back instead, his ax held on the defense.

  Harald’s sight began to clear, like he was blinking water from his eyes, and he saw that two of the Far Voyagers had moved past him and were coming at Lorcan from either side. The huge Irishman was wielding his ax and holding them at bay as they tried to find an opening with their swords, the dogs nipping at the bear.

  Harald shook his head. He looked around. The Far Voyagers were fighting up and down the line and they were winning. The Irish were backing away and they fought with that hesitancy of men on the verge of breaking and running. Harald had seen it enough to recognize it.

  Then he saw Conandil. She was standing off to the side where she had been surrounded by Lorcan’s men, but those men were now fighting for their lives and could not be bothered with her. Indeed, no one seemed to pay her the least mind. Harald darted forward, twisted around the gaggle of men who were trying with no success to get their swords on Starri Deathless, and jumped over a body on the ground. He grabbed Conandil by the arm and she looked up at him, surprised.

  “It’s all right, it’s all right,” Harald said, remembering only as he opened his mouth to speak Irish. “We’ll save you, we’ll rescue you.”

  And then those words became true, as if by magic, even as he spoke them. The Irish almost to a man turned and fled, racing off into the dark. Lorcan alone did not know the fight was over, or would not allow it to be. He continued to bellow and swing his ax as he was set on by more and more of the Northmen. Harald saw him glancing around, looking for his men and seeing they were not there.

  Finally he, too, seemed to understand it was done. There were times when a man should stand and fight to the death, but this was not one of them, a night time raid against overwhelming odds. With a final bellow and sweep of the ax Lorcan backed away, then backed away some more, and the Far Voyagers did not follow. Finally there was distance enough between the Irishman and the Norwegians that Lorcan turned his back on his enemy and raced off into the night.

  Harald still held Conandil’s arm. Now he took her other arm and looked into her eyes. “It’s all right,” he said softly. “I have you. You’re safe now.”

  Then, to Harald’s surprise, the corners of her mouth turned down and her eyebrows came together. Harald was about to ask her if she was hurt when her right hand came around and she hit him hard on the side of the head.

They could not mar my shield

with their resounding blows.

It protected the poet well.

                                                              Gisli Sursson’s Saga

Grimarr Giant was not dead. This surprised Thorgrim.

  Once the Irish had been driven off, once the Danes had arrived and Thorgrim had left to them the task of saving the ships from the flames, he went in search of Harald. He brought a dozen men with him because he still was not sure how things lay in Vík-ló. They took to the plank road, heading up the slight rise toward Grimarr’s hall. Thorgrim’s best guess, based on what he knew of his son, was that the boy would have gone in defense of Conandil.

  They found the entrance to Grimarr’s hall open. It was quiet but they approached with caution nonetheless, not sure what they would find. Thorgrim went first through the door, Iron-tooth in hand. There had been a fight, that was clear, and it seemed the Danes had not prevailed. A man was lying dead in a pool of blood just inside the door. In the dying light from the hearth Thorgrim could see two others. One he guessed was Grimarr Giant, judging by the size of the heap he made. The other might have been Sandarr, his son, but he could not be sure. There was light enough to tell by the clothes that none of them was Harald, and that was the only real concern that Thorgrim had.

  Agnarr stepped around Thorgrim and pulled a dead torch from a socket mounted on a beam and touched it to the weak flame in the hearth. It spluttered and then took and Agnarr moved through the room, Thorgrim and the rest of the men filing in behind.

  The light fell on Grimarr’s unnaturally white face as the big man lay on his side, his mouth open. There was a laceration on the side of his head and cheek. Two feet away, lying on the rush-covered, packed earth floor, was the spit from the hearth, an iron bar three feet long and nearly an inch thick, a weapon substantial enough to fell even Grimarr.

   Thorgrim put a toe to the Dane’s shoulder and rolled him on his back and to everyone’s surprise he groaned. Thorgrim started, nearly jumped. He felt himself flush with embarrassment at that reaction, but happily someone behind him actually gasped, more embarrassing still, and so by comparison spared Thorgrim any humiliation.

  Thorgrim knelt at Grimarr’s side. “Agnarr, get that torch here,” he said, looking over Grimarr’s face, then undoing the broach that held his heavy cloak and moving the cloth aside. The light of the torch fell over Grimarr’s bulk and Thorgrim expected to see the dark gleaming spread of blood soaking the man’s tunic, but there was no blood that he could see.

  Grimarr groaned again and moved his head slowly. Thorgrim stood. Grimarr’s eyes began to flutter open and Thorgrim leaned over him. “Grimarr…” he said. “It’s Thorgrim of Vik. Whoever did this, they’re gone.”

  “Help me up, help me up,” Grimarr said, his voice a half growl, half groan. Thorgrim grabbed one arm and four others stepped up and grabbed on to him where they could and with considerable effort they lifted Grimarr to his feet and maneuvered him to the bench by the table, where he sat heavily and leaned on his elbow.

  A drinking bowl filled with ale was produced and Grimarr took it and poured it down his throat, the excess running in two rivulets through his beard. When he was done he let the bowl drop to the floor and stared off into the dark, his head half slumped to his chest. Finally he lifted it part way and said, “The girl?”

  Thorgrim glanced around the room. The others glanced around as well. Godi said, “We’ve looked through the other rooms in the hall and there’s no one here. The girl’s not here.”

  At that Grimarr nodded his head slowly but his expression did not change. “Lorcan, damn his black soul,” he said. His words were mumbled, his voice filled with resignation.

  “Lorcan?” Thorgrim asked. “Lorcan did this?”

  Grimarr nodded. “We fought. The ships…just meant to distract…” he managed to say, but it was clear that his head was swimming and his thoughts no more than a jumble. That was hardly surprising. He must have taken a massive blow to the head. Likely he had been hit so hard the Irish had thought him dead, as any normal man would have been. That was why there were no stab wounds.

  “Your son Sandarr?” Thorgrim asked. They had rolled the second dead man over; it was not Grimarr’s son.

  Grimarr looked up and looked around, his eyes wide and confused. “He fought…” Grimarr said. “Came from his chamber and fought Lorcan….” He seemed confused by Sandarr’s absence. He looked up at Thorgrim. “I don’t know what’s become of him,” he said, then his eyes rolled back and he slumped over the table and was gone from the conscious world again.

  Thorgrim put a hand to Grimarr’s neck and was actually surprised to feel a pulse there. He was not sure if they should try to revive him or let him remain unconscious. Thorgrim was expert at ministering to broken limbs and wounds made by stabbing weapons and wounds made by slashing weapons, but beyond that he was no healer.

  He was still pondering the best course of action when they heard, from beyond the hall’s entrance, the creak of the big gate in the earthen wall swinging open and the sound of men approaching. Thorgrim’s men turned toward the sound and spread out, giving themselves room to fight, but it was more reflex than real preparation. Hands fell on the grips of swords but no one drew a blade. There was nothing threatening in the approach; it sounded like weary men walking. The Danes coming back from the ships, Thorgrim guessed.

  But they were not Danes. The first through the door was Sutare Thorvaldsson, a Swede who had joined
Far Voyager
in Dubh-linn. Thorgrim felt the tension in the hall ease as more of their fellow Far Voyagers filed in. They were bloodstained and streaked with sweat and had the look of men who were spent from battle. Starri was near the end of the line, moving in that odd jerky way he had when the fighting spirit was dissipating. After him came Harald, with something over his shoulder that Thorgrim thought at first was a well-filled sack but which he quickly realized was a girl.

  Harald stopped and spun the girl off his shoulder and onto her feet and Thorgrim saw it was Conandil. She did not look happy. Her eyes moved around the room like a cornered rabbit, looking for some avenue of escape. Seeing none – she was surrounded by men on all sides – she pushed through the crowd and retreated to a dark corner of the hall.

  “Harald!” Thorgrim stepped over and embraced his son. He stepped back, unsure what to say next. These men, the signs of a fight, the girl…there was clearly much for Harald to tell. “Speak to me,” was all he could manage.

  A cask of mead was found in one of the rooms beyond the hall and, with Grimarr in no condition to object, it was broached and bowls and horns filled while Harald spoke. He told his tale with the humility Thorgrim expected of the boy, but Thorgrim could hear enough that was not being said to realize what a remarkable business it had been.

  “So, we managed to get Conandil before the Irish carried her off,” Harald said by way of conclusion, “but I’ll own she did not seem too pleased.”

  “I would think not,” Thorgrim said. “You recall that she’s Irish herself. She probably looked on Lorcan as her rescuer, not you.” Harald could be very astute at times, such as when he divined that Conandil was the real object of the raid, and at other times he could be astoundingly dense.

  Harald nodded as the truth of Thorgrim’s words came to him. He took a drink and his face assumed a puzzled look. And a troubled one. Thorgrim guessed that Harald was taking this line of reasoning to its logical conclusion - that he had just put Conandil back on the road to the slave market at Hedeby.

  His thoughts, and Harald’s, and the men’s talk, were interrupted by a groan that built in volume until it was nearly a roar, and Grimarr rose from where he had been slumped over the table. “What is this?” he demanded. “What is the meaning of this?” Thorgrim could see he was swaying on his feet, his head still feeling the effects of Lorcan’s mighty blow.

  “We are celebrating, Grimarr!” Thorgrim shouted and held his horn aloft.

  “Celebrating?” Grimarr growled, the outrage building. “In my hall? With my mead? On such a night?”

  “Celebrating that my son Harald has brought your Irish girl, Conandil, back to you!” Thorgrim called.

  “Conandil?” Grimarr said. His mind was not working fast, and Thorgrim did not think he had ever really known her name, though Harald had told him. “The Irish girl? Fasti’s thrall? Is back? Back here?”

  “She is!” Thorgrim said. “And my boy Harald is the one who retrieved her. From Lorcan’s very grip!”

  Grimarr looked stupidly around. His eyes lit on Harald and the true import of what Thorgrim had said began to work its way through the haze. And then Grimarr did something that no man in that room had ever seen. He smiled.

For all the time they had been at Vík-ló, the only sounds of labor Thorgrim and his men heard on the riverfront had been their own. Theirs was the sole saw, the single mallet, the solitary ping of iron on iron. They were the only ones arguing or cursing or smiling in pride at a job accomplished. But no more.

  Despite the fortunate and timely interference of Thorgrim and his men, the Danish longships had suffered damage. Masts had burned down to the steps, and the steps had burned as well, strakes had been scorched, some clean through. Sails, yards and rigging were either reduced to charred bits or gone completely.

  The second of the four longships, the one called
Wind Dragon
, had suffered the worst. As bad luck would have it, three small casks of pine tar had been stored aft by the sternpost. The Irish had discovered them, smashed them open, let the tar run over the deck before setting it on fire. Tar and flames had taken firm hold on the dried oak. Thorgrim’s men had tried sincerely to put the flames out, fighting the fire nearly as hard as they might have had it been their own ship. By the time the Danes arrived, with more men and greater enthusiasm for the task, it was too late. Most of the stern section had been burned away, and it would take months to repair, if indeed it was worth repairing at all.

  The damage to the other three was not nearly so extensive, and just after the sun rose on the morning after the attack, with tendrils of smoke still curling up from the charred wood, Danish shipwrights descended on the remaining vessels. The Danes in passing had always been cordial enough, and Thorgrim thought they might be more so now, even enthusiastic in their greetings after the good turn his man had done for them. But they were not. They gave the same nods, the same half-hearted waves as they passed by, tools in hand, oak planks over shoulders.

  “Damned ungrateful bunch,” Thorgrim said to Starri and Ornolf as the men watched the Danes pass by as if marching off to battle. There had been no word from Grimarr since Thorgrim and his men had left the hall after finishing off the better part of the cask of mead. “They act as if we stole their women, not saved their ships.”

  “Damned Danes, that’s what you would expect from such whore’s whelps!” Ornolf said, being careful to speak just loud enough that his words might be heard by those walking past. “I personally killed six of those Irish dogs, fighting for
their
ships!”

  “Ah, ‘saved’ there’s the thing of it,” Starri said. “No man likes to be saved by another. Women are for saving. A man who is saved only resents his savior.”

  Thorgrim nodded. Starri was right. But Thorgrim did not need gratitude as long as he continued to get help in setting his ship to rights so he could once more put out to sea. And in that Grimarr had been true to his word, and so
Far Voyager
was nearly ready to swim again, nearly ready for stores and gear and plunder and cargo to be loaded back aboard, for the long oars to sweep her out into the easterly wind.

  Not every man of her crew was eager to return to Norway, though Thorgrim had made it clear that this was their one and only objective. While most were looking for passage to the homeland, some, he was sure, were hoping that the chance for more plunder might still come their way. Such was the way of wandering men who took to the sea.

  Starri was going because he had attached himself to Thorgrim for reasons Thorgrim still did not quite understand. Harald, after they had had a falling out in Dubh-linn and after he saw that the old man might have been right in the end, seemed to have rededicated himself to staying by Thorgrim’s side. Thorgrim sometimes had the impression the boy thought of himself as his father’s protector, a notion that annoyed Thorgrim in the extreme.