The Lord of Vik-Lo: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 3) (34 page)

  “Pull in your oars!” Lorcan called next and the men awkwardly ran their oars in and laid them across the rowing benches.

  Lorcan turned to Sandarr. “They’ve stopped, as you can see. They must be offering battle.” Ronnat, who had followed Sandarr across the deck, translated.

  Sandarr nodded slowly as he heard the words, but Lorcan was sure he would never do anything so simple as merely agreeing with him, and he was right.

  “Perhaps,” Sandarr said. “Or perhaps they are playing some trick. They’re not in much of a position to stand and fight. They are weak and outnumbered.”

 
But perhaps they are not cowards like you,
Lorcan thought, but he did not say it. Rather, he said, “They have no choice. We were running them down. They would have to fight us before long. Now they have chosen the place where they will make their stand.”

  “Yes,” Sandarr said. “That’s what worries me.”

  But it did not worry Lorcan, and it did not worry Ultan or any of the other warriors. In fact, there was palpable relief among them when Lorcan ordered them to prepare for a fight. This was something they understood. This was what they lived for, their meat and bread.

  And each of them, Lorcan was sure, thought that winning this fight meant getting off the cursed ship. He did not enlighten them in that regard, even though the exact opposite was true. This, Lorcan hoped, would be only the first of a long line of sea-borne battles.

  All along the deck the men stood and stretched cramped muscles and those who had them took up mail shirts and pulled them on, and others found helmets and swords and shields and set them down on the rowing benches.

  Lorcan found his own mail and ax. He drove the ax into the deck by his feet and hefted the mail shirt over his head, settled it on his shoulders, and looked forward. His men were standing ready, some looking toward the
fin gall
ship, some looking back at him in anticipation. Some had their swords in hand. Lorcan wanted to shout in frustration.

  “You stupid bastards, we still have to row over to them!” he yelled. “I want one man at each oar, and the rest standing ready to jump onto the
fin gall
ship when we are next to it!”

  It was no surprise, of course, that every man wanted to be among those rushing into the fight, and none wished to be stuck on an oar. But Ultan sorted it out with shouts and blows, and soon the oars were once again manned and run out and
Water Stallion
slowly gathered way toward the ship they had been chasing since first light.

  Lorcan held the tiller, aiming the longship right at the middle of the
fin gall
vessel. He willed his men to pull hard, but he held his tongue. And even without his verbal blows, they did pull, they pulled with a will, and
Water Stallion
all but skimmed over the surface of the sea. It was Lorcan’s fear that the
fin gall
would once more try to slip away, and he guessed his men felt it, too. Every man aboard seemed desperate to come to grips with them before they could even try.

  Then Sandarr was talking again, and Ronnat translated. “Sandarr says we should not go in this fast, that there might be some kind of trick.”

  “What trick?” Lorcan demanded. “They are there and they are standing ready to fight. Look!” He pointed toward the other ship, growing closer with each stroke. She was lying motionless save for rocking a bit in the swells. The oars were run in and the shields were off the rail and held on the arms of the warriors who stood in a loose shield wall along the starboard side. They were close enough now that Lorcan could see helmets and mail gleaming in the muted sunlight.

  “Sandarr says he does not know what trick they are pulling,” Ronnat said, “but he thinks it would be prudent to come at them slow.”

  Lorcan laughed, a short, uncharitable laugh. “Tell Sandarr only cowards inch their way into battle, like children sticking their toes into the water. That may be the way of the
dubh gall
but it is not the way that an Irish warrior fights.” He was done with Sandarr. Anything more he might learn from that craven fool about the sailing of a longship was not worth the aggravation of listing to his mewling.

  But Sandarr, apparently, was not done, and once Ronnat had translated Lorcan’s words, he stepped up to Lorcan, so close they were nearly chest to chest, and thrust his face forward. Sandarr was not short, and his face was just a bit below Lorcan’s. He spoke, and his words were clipped and spittle flew from his lips.

  Ronnat translated, as if the words needed translating. “Sandarr says no one calls him a coward. He says you are a fool and a dumb ox and…”

  She got no further, because Lorcan had had enough. Enough of Sandarr’s arguments, enough of his arrogance, enough of the insults he would never have endured from any other man. Sandarr had betrayed his father and his people, and whatever his reasons had been, regardless of how much it benefited Lorcan, Lorcan could not stomach such a man. He never could. And now that Sandarr was of no use to him, he did not even have to pretend.

  Lorcan lashed out and down with one massive hand, grabbed Sandarr’s crotch and squeezed hard. Sandarr’s eyes went wide and his mouth went wide and a scream formed in his throat, but it came out as a strangled sound. He batted at Lorcan’s arm but he might as well have been batting at an oak tree.

  Before the scream could materialize Lorcan grabbed Sandarr’s shoulder with the other hand, took up a fist-full of his tunic, and with one fluid motion hoisted the
dubh gall
up over his head. It was no easy task holding the big man aloft, particularly as he thrashed and kicked and flailed with his arms, but Lorcan was immensely powerful and he did not have to hold him long. He took two stumbling steps to his left, came up hard against the side of the ship, and let that abrupt stop aid him in launching Sandarr out over the sea.

  He saw the man come down in a great welter of spray and foam. His arms flailed as if trying to grasp at the water. Lorcan caught a glimpse of wide, terror-filled eyes and then Sandarr went under and
Water Stallion
shot forward, her speed building with every stroke, and the place where Sandarr had hit the water was lost from view. From the rowers’ benches and the men standing ready to fight, a wild cheering broke out. Lorcan let them yell. It would only bolster their fighting spirit and frighten the
fin gall
who would be the next to die.

  Ultan was coming aft and Lorcan called to him. “Take the tiller,” he said. “Aim us for the center of the
fin gall
ship. At the last moment, turn hard, to the right. We will put our left side against their right side and we will go on board them that way.” Ultan nodded. If he was disappointed about not being part of the initial attack, which Lorcan guess he surely was, he hid it well.

  Lorcan jerked his ax from the deck and stamped forward and the men parted before him. “We will be putting the left side of the ship against the
fin gall
’s ship,” he called in a voice that easily encompassed the entire deck. “Keep clear of the rowers, but be ready to attack over that side, go right at them as soon as you can. They are weak and outnumbered and we will kill them all. No one lives. The same as was done with Fasti Magnisson’s men.” He could see grins up and down the deck, heads nodding. The blood lust was up and they were ready to go.

  He continued forward, right up toward the bow. The lookout was still there but he took a few steps back, yielding his place to Lorcan. Lorcan stepped up and put a hand on the tall, carved prow and looked forward. They were close now, a hundred yards, and
Water Stallion
was rushing into the fight. Lorcan could see the patterns on the
fin gall
’s shields, the axes and swords held ready. He had to imagine that every man aboard the distant ship was standing in their shield wall, which meant there were fewer than he had thought.

  Fifty yards.
This will be over quickly
…

  Twenty-five yards. There was something in the water, floating between
Water Stallion
and the
fin gall
ship. Lorcan squinted at it. It looked like a log, stripped of bark and gleaming dull in the filtered sunlight.

 
No, not a log…

  It was something made of wood. It looked like it had been carved, or worked in some manner. Lorcan could see it was bobbing in the waves, which meant it was not solid, not a rock or some such, which meant it was of no concern to him.

  “Stand ready!” he shouted over his shoulder to the men behind him. He could see faces now on the enemy’s ship. He thought he could see the bastard with whom he had fought on the road outside Vík-ló, the young, clean-shaven one. He looked at him and scowled and thought,
I will kill you first, you
fin gall
swine!

  There was no more than ten yards to go when suddenly the
fin gall
ship jerked ahead, leapt forward as if it had been pushed from behind. Lorcan’s eyes went wide with surprise, his mouth fell open. He saw a rope lift dripping from the sea and running out ahead of the ship and a dozen men along the deck hauling on it, pulling the
fin gall
vessel out of
Water Stallion
’s path.

  “Turn!” Lorcan shouted. “Ultan, turn now! Pull those damned oars in! You men, make ready to attack!”

  The flurry of orders was sudden, unexpected, and the result was utter confusion on
Water Stallion’
s deck. The oars came in, the fifteen-foot looms hindering those men preparing to board the enemy ship. The boarders in turn stumbled between the rowers’ benches, hampering the men in their efforts to pull the oars in. The
fin gall
was surging forward; Lorcan was already looking at their stern as they pulled away and
Water Stallion
turned hard in their wake.

  “Damn you!” Lorcan shouted at the
fin gall
, and just as the words left his mouth
Water Stallion
came to dead stop. The deck heaved up under his feet and the momentum flung him forward. He slammed against the prow, wrapped massive arms around it to stop himself from being flung clean over the bow.

  He pushed himself back aboard and turned to look behind him. The young lookout was sprawled on the deck at his feet, and further aft men were lying in heaps where they fell, having been tossed down by the force of the impact.
Water Stallion
sagged off at an unnatural angle to the sound of crushing and splintering wood.

  Lorcan looked down. Ten feet aft, the ship was buckled, the forward end jutting up at an ugly angle, the after end twisting and moving independent of the front. He could see the strakes on the sides and the deck planks straining, bending and tearing apart, and as they did they revealed beneath the ship the rocky ledge on which they had run with every bit of force that
Water Stallion
could muster.

  “No, no!” Lorcan shouted. The forward part of the ship where he was standing twisted and slid to one side and the rent ten feet aft opened wider and the water began to rush in and aft. The lookout was shrieking in terror now. He was on his feet and flailing his way forward, grabbing at the stem, at Lorcan, at anything that looked solid in that shifting world.

  “Quiet!” Lorcan shouted. He could not think with that screaming right in his ear. But the lookout did not stop; he showed no sign of even having heard him. Lorcan grabbed the man by the throat and squeezed, and the screams turned into a choking, gagging sound. Then Lorcan lifted him and flung him sideways into the sea.