The Lord of Vik-Lo: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 3) (25 page)

  And so it went with the Norsemen. As warriors abandoned the wall, the Irish swept into the gaps, and more men turned and fled. In no time – less than a minute, certainly – the well organized resistance dissolved into chaotic flight as the men from Vík-ló ran to defend their ships and their only means of escape.

  Grimarr was roaring and flailing with his sword. “Stand and fight, you cowardly bastards!” he shouted but Harald could hear the lack of conviction in his words. He was no more sure of the right course of action than were his men, and a moment later he too abandoned any pretense of holding the line.

  But Grimarr did not run to the ships. He raced over to where the diggers were working, or had been working, and where his men were standing guard. “Come on, come on, down to the ships! Follow me!” he shouted and his men, who had been spread out in a defensive semicircle, now moved in closer. The Irish, however, having put their enemy to flight, seemed in no great hurry to follow. They advanced, their shield wall more or less intact, but they did so slowly, a methodical approach, not a mad rush.

  There was another swirl of noise from behind, shouts building in volume. Harald turned and saw that Bersi’s men had reached their ship and were already getting underway. He could see that
Water Stallion
was floating free, fifteen feet from shore, the rowers awkwardly thrusting oars through the oar holes, but he could not understand how they had reached the ship and climbed aboard in so short a time.

  “They’re taking the ship, they are taking the god-forsaken ship!” he heard someone shout and then Harald realized it was not Bersi’s men who had boarded
Water Stallion
. It was Lorcan and his men. Lorcan had stolen the ship and already he was beyond the reach of those ashore. The men pulling the oars were not accustomed to the work, that was clear. Still, awkward as they might be, they were gathering way, pulling away from the beach, leaving a widening gap of water between themselves and the shingle.

  “Lorcan! You bastard! You whore’s son!” Grimarr shouted. Ornolf’s men had broken like the rest, running with abandon down the beach toward
Far Voyager
. Grimarr’s men, the crew of
Eagle’s Wing
, were the last of the Norsemen still high up on the beach, and the Irishmen were closing in on them.

  Harald grabbed Conandil by the arm. “Now! Go!” he shouted to her and she nodded and he let go and she darted toward a gap in Grimarr’s line while Harald whirled around and charged for the water’s edge and the safety of
Far Voyager
.

  Neither made it far. Harald had a glimpse of a spear shaft swinging at his legs and he felt it hit his shins and he knew he was going down. He could hear Conandil screaming behind him and his hands went out and he hit the shingle hard. He felt knees on his back and the weight of several men on top of him, hands grabbing his arms and twisting them back. He struggled, but once his arms had been pulled behind him he did not have the leverage to resist. He felt a leather thong wrapped deftly around his wrists and pulled taut. He was bound and he was immobile.

  The men who had been kneeling on him stood and Harald gasped for breath. Men grabbed his arms and pulled him up and propelled him forward. Grimarr was leading the way. The rest of the Eagle’s Wings were following him to the water’s edge at a pace just short of running, some turning to keep a wary eye on the Irish. The Irish, in turn, were still advancing slowly; more fighting would mean more Irish dead, and given that they had already driven their enemy off, the Irish apparently did not feel the need to hurl themselves into battle.

  Harald stumbled down the beach, half pushed, half dragged by Grimarr’s men, the going awkward with his hands bound behind. A Dane warrior had Conandil over his shoulder, and he had no doubt carried logs for a hearth fire that weighed more than she did. They reached the edge of the surf, the cold ocean water seeping into Harald’s shoes as he splashed out alongside
Eagle’s Wing
. It was all happening so fast, and he had taken enough blows to the head that he was having trouble concentrating.

  He looked out to sea, past
Eagle’s Wing
.
Far Voyager
was already under way, the oars moving with practiced rhythm, the ship clawing away from the shore. He felt emptiness and despair seeping in like the water in his shoes; Ornolf had left without him, had abandoned him to whatever horror Grimarr had in mind. His grandfather, his shipmates, were more worried about saving their own hides. He was not angry, which surprised him. He was alone.

  The hands that had been pushing him along now grabbed his arms and more grabbed his legs and he was hefted aboard the ship. Fore and aft the crew were leaping up over the sheer strake, pulling out the long oars, while more stood waist deep in the sea and heaved at the ship’s side to break the bow out of the gravel so she might get underway.

  Harald tumbled onto the deck. Alongside, thigh-deep in the sea, one of Grimarr’s men grabbed onto the edge of the ship, screamed, and pitched sideways, a spear jutting from his back. Another spear flew past and splashed into the surf. The Irish had followed them to the water’s edge and were trying to inflict as much damage as they could on the fleeing enemy.

  The man carrying Conandil came alongside and dropped her over the rail onto the deck. She stood, her hands unbound, not enough of a threat, apparently, to warrant tying up. She reached down and took Harald’s arm and with a grunt helped him regain his feet, then the two of them stumbled forward, clear of the men desperately getting the ship underway. They pushed and twisted through the press, and Harald wondered why the ship was so crowded until he realized that most of Bersi’s men were aboard as well, their own ship now in Irish hands.

  Harald slumped down on the deck again, just aft of the tall, curving stem, leaning against the ship’s side. He felt the motion of the vessel change as the bow slid off the gravel and the hull reacted to the small surf rolling in from off shore. The few men still in the water hurled themselves aboard. Irish spears thudded into the planking or sailed over the gunnel, forcing some of the men at the oars to duck and twist, but no one was struck.

  Grimarr came last. He did not come over the side with the ease and grace of some of the younger, more lithe hands, but still he moved with an impressive fluidity for a man of his size. He gained the deck and strode aft. He gave no orders, as his men were already doing all they could do, backing the oars, driving
Eagle’s Wing
astern and away from the shore.

  Harald was hardly aware of any of it, lost as he was in the agony of having been abandoned by his fellows, his grandfather, having been left in the hands of a man who would murder him without the honor of a fight.

  Then Conandil was kneeling at his side. “Harald!” she whispered, and then looked aft at Grimarr and Harald followed her gazed. But Grimarr was paying no attention to them, he was looking beyond his own ship, toward the other vessels in his fleet, the stolen
Water Stallion
drawing quickly away. He bellowed out orders for the larboard rowers to pull ahead while the starboard continued to backwater, and
Eagle’s Wing
began to spin in her length.

  “Can you swim?” Conandil asked.

  “Yes,” Harald said.

  “You must swim. Grimarr will kill you.”

  “My grandfather, my shipmates, they left me,” Harald blurted out. The words were irrelevant, but he felt he would bust if he did not speak them.

  “Left you?” Conandil asked.

  “They did not try to free me from Grimarr. They left me here. Ornolf left me.” Harald was not generally given to self-pity, but this was too much.

  Conandil shook her head and she looked confused. “Ornolf does not know Grimarr means to kill you or that he killed your father. You only know because I told you.”

  Harald frowned, but he could feel the sun breaking through. Of course Ornolf did not know.

  “Maybe he knows now,” Conandil added. “His boat is not doing what the other boats are doing.” She nodded over the gunnel and awkwardly Harald turned and looked in that direction. Just as
Eagle’s Wing
was settling on her new course,
Far Voyager
, two hundred yards away, was spinning in a tight circle, turning in a direction that would take her across
Eagle’s Wing
’s bow. She paused for a second as her turn was checked, and then the oars to larboard and starboard pulled together and the longship shot ahead, coming obliquely at
Eagle’s Wing
.

  Grimarr seemed not to notice. From the bow, his eyes appeared locked on
Water Stallion
as that ship pulled hard for the north, opening the distance between her and the other longships. “Pull, you sons of whores, pull!” he shouted, unable to maintain his silence. “I want that Irish bastard, Lorcan! I want to eat his heart! Pull, and don’t let him get away!”

  The men at the oars were pulling hard, and most of the oars were double-manned with the addition of Bersi’s men on the crew. Bersi himself was not there, either dead or aboard
Fox
, Harald did not know.

  “You have to go, you have to swim away now!” Conandil whispered with a harsh urgency. She reached up the sleeve of her leine and pulled out a dagger. Harald recognized it; it had been on the belt of the man who carried Conandil to the ship. She glanced up at the nearby rowers and Grimarr, aft, but no one was paying them any attention.

  Harald shifted his bound wrists to the side and with a deft and surreptitious motion she cut the leather thong free and slipped the handle of the knife into his fingers. Harald felt a great sense of relief surge through him - the cutting pain in his wrists gone, a weapon in his hand - and with that relief a new optimism and a readiness for action.

  But he kept his hands where they were because he knew better than to let Grimarr or any of the men see he was free until he was ready to move. He craned his neck to look over the gunnel.
Far Voyager
was closing, Ornolf judging the place where she and
Eagle’s Wing
would meet on their respective courses and speed.

  “Jump, now!” Conandil whispered again. “We are getting far from shore!”

  Harald shook his head. “I don’t want to go to shore,” he said. He looked over the rail again. Another three or four minutes and it would be time. He did not think Ornolf planned to negotiate, and if it came to a brawl, he and his men would be slaughtered given that they would be fighting both Grimarr’s men and Bersi’s. And the men of
Fox
as well, if they managed to get into the fight.

  “Two minutes more,” Harald whispered, and then Grimarr noticed what Ornolf was doing,
Far Voyager
closing on his ship.

  “What is this stupid bastard about?” Grimarr asked. No one answered, but Grimarr did not look as if he wanted an answer. He leapt off the low afterdeck and stamped forward along the ship’s centerline, between the rowers’ benches. He stopped near the bow and looked down at Harald. “Seems your people have not forgotten you, boy,” he said. “So we’ll wait until they are close enough, and then they will see you die.”

  He leaned forward and reached out for the neck of Harald’s mail, and Harald whipped the dagger around and plunged it through Grimarr’s hand. Grimarr reared back, his eyes wide, his good hand cradling the ruined one. Harald had driven the dagger clean through, right to the hilt, the blade jutting out through Grimarr’s palm. Blood was already running bright down the tapered steel and between Grimarr’s thick fingers.

  All that Harald saw in the instant it took him to move. He leapt to his feet and bent forward at the waist and the momentum shucked off his mail shirt which fell with a jangling sound onto the deck of the ship. Grimarr was roaring with pain and outrage, but most of the Eagle’s Wings were caught behind their oars and could not easily stand, and those who were not were too stunned to react.

  “Go! Now! Jump!” Conandil shouted. There was a look of desperation on her face, one of terror. Then, in the space of a heartbeat, it changed to one of confusion and horror as Harald bent, grabbed her around the waist, and hefted her over his shoulder. He took three steps aft to the nearest rowing bench, stepped up on that with his left foot, put his right foot on the sheer strake, and with Conandil still on his shoulder he leapt clean over the side of the ship.