Brotherband 3: The Hunters (28 page)

‘They’ve seen us,’ Lydia said and, in the same moment, Hal heard the whip of the atlatl again. He didn’t see the dart hit, but he heard a cry of agony. The longboat was drifting to their left once more as the
Heron
came in on an angle.

‘Left a little, Ingvar,’ he said. ‘That’s it. Keep it there.’

Another dart flashed away towards the longboat. Another cry of pain. They were getting closer now. Barely ten metres separated the two craft. The helmsman on the longboat watched them bearing down and swung his boat to starboard, attempting to escape. It was a mistake. Had he gone to port,
Heron
would have had to tack to follow him. As it was, Edvin saw the move and matched it, Ulf and Wulf trimming the sail to compensate for the change in angle.

Hal held his breath.
Heron
’s bow rose slightly on one of the small waves. As he felt it reach the crest, he angled the Mangler down as far as possible and pulled the trigger.

There was the usual
SLAM!
as the limbs released and the cradle leapt upwards in recoil, then crashed back as the leather thongs checked its movement. The heavy bolt flashed away, ploughed through the crowded men in the longboat, then smashed into the bottom.

It struck the join between two planks, smashing them apart. It split one and tore the other completely loose from its fastenings, opening a gap over a metre long and thirty centimetres wide in the bottom of the hull.

Water poured in and the crew tried desperately to stem it. In their haste, they tried to plug the gap with shirts and jackets. But as they pushed the clothes into the gap, they put pressure on the second, weakened plank and forced its shattered ends aside, doubling the size of the hole in the boat’s bottom. What had been a serious wound became a fatal one and the boat was already beginning to settle. Some of her crew saw the inevitable end coming and dived overboard. More and more followed, swimming desperately for the shore. Half a dozen, presumably non-swimmers, stayed aboard the drifting hulk.

‘Bear away,’ Hal called to Edvin. As they swung away from the wreck, he saw that Mannoc and his men had overwhelmed their opponent. The pirate longboat was barely afloat, sinking by the bow.

He looked towards the third pirate boat. Thorn and Stig were sitting in the stern, waving cheerfully to him. There was nobody else in the longboat, although at least a dozen men were in the water beside it, clinging to the gunwales.

‘Looks like a bad day all round for pirates,’ he said. ‘Let’s go fetch Stig and Thorn.’

I
t was late in the day and it would be dark in two hours. Hal decided to spend the night in Drogha, the town where the trading fleet were headed, and make for Raguza the following day. With all the delays they had experienced, he had virtually given up hope of catching the
Raven
before it reached the pirate citadel.

‘We’ll have to figure something else out,’ he told Thorn and the shaggy-haired old sea wolf agreed.

‘It was never a good chance that we’d catch up with her on the river anyway,’ he said. ‘We may as well have a comfortable night while we figure out what to do next.’

At Mannoc’s invitation, they sailed in company with
Seahawk
and the three remaining traders. They pulled alongside the
Seahawk
for a quick council of war. Mannoc expressed his gratitude to them for their prompt action in coming to his aid.

‘I would have lost another two of those ships without you,’ he said. ‘And the skippers know it. Don’t be surprised if they want to feast you tonight.’

Hal pointed to the drifting remains of two of the longboats, still with members of their crew clinging to the wreckage.

‘What will we do about them?’ he asked.

Mannoc shrugged. ‘Leave them. Most of them got away ashore and we’d never catch them if we went after them. As for those –’ he indicated the forlorn figures drifting with the wrecked boats ‘– the river can have them. The crews are scattered now and they’ve lost their boats. They won’t be a threat for months to come. And I have no wish to rescue them.’

Aside from that, Hal realised, there would be an inherent danger in taking so many of the pirates on board. There were at least fifteen of them on the two wrecks.

‘There’s another point,’ Mannoc added. ‘There’s nothing to say that they’re the last pirates we’ll encounter today. There could be another band waiting round any bend in the river. And I don’t want to have to spare men to guard prisoners if I have to fight another action.’

Hal nodded. Six of Mannoc’s crew had been badly injured in the fight with the longboat. He was short-handed – probably the reason why he had invited them to sail in company with his little fleet.

In the end, the trip to Drogha was uneventful and they reached the town just before dusk.

It was a pretty port, well maintained and with a harbour filled with ships. On Mannoc’s order,
Heron
and
Seahawk
hove to and let their three charges precede them into the basin. Mannoc pointed to a mooring to one side and Hal steered to follow him, tying up alongside the larger ship.

Now that they were safely moored and there was no further chance of another pirate attack, Thorn removed the war club from his right arm and replaced it with his grasping hook.

‘That’s better,’ he said, flexing his elbow and flourishing the polished wood hook. ‘That club gets a little weighty after a few hours.’

The crews of both ships were kept busy for some time, stowing gear, furling sails and checking weapons. Lydia took stock of her supply of darts for the atlatl. She’d been using them at a rapid rate over the past few days and had barely a dozen left.

‘I’ll need to make some more,’ she muttered. As she was doing this, Stig was inspecting the blade of his axe, where a chance blow against the iron rim of a pirate’s shield had left a large nick. Sighing, he sat down and took out his whetstone, working away to grind it out and restore the razor-sharp edge. Thorn nodded approvingly. Taking care of weapons, and not leaving the task till later, was the sign of a good warrior. His club-hand was scarred and scratched in several places, but that didn’t reduce its effectiveness.

It was half an hour after they moored when Mannoc made his way to the waist of
Seahawk
, calling across the narrow gap to Hal.

‘Mind if I come aboard?’

Hal smiled and motioned for him to step across. He saw with some surprise that Mannoc was accompanied by three other men. They were all somewhat older than Mannoc. The average age of the three of them would have been around forty, he decided. Their clothes were tar stained and their long hair was gathered in pigtails and queues. Their hands were callused and obviously well used to hard work. Sailors, he thought. Then he noticed an air of authority about them that marked them as separate from common sailors. Their clothes, although stained with tar, were more expensive in cut and fabric than the traditional rough wool that deckhands would wear, and two of them had gold ear rings.

Before Mannoc could introduce them, he realised who they were. They were the skippers of the trading ships
Heron
had helped rescue that afternoon. They stepped aboard, moving easily with the ship as she swayed under their weight. As Mannoc had done earlier that afternoon, they reacted with surprise when they saw how young the skipper of this ship, and her crew, were.

‘They’re boys,’ one of them said before he could stop himself. His face reddened instantly with embarrassment, but Mannoc stepped in to soothe any possible ruffled feelings.

‘They may look like boys,’ he said, ‘but they fight like men. Especially that one there.’ He pointed to Stig, who flushed with pleasure. Behind him, Thorn caught Mannoc’s eye and nodded almost imperceptibly. Good move, the look said.

‘Hal,’ Mannoc continued, putting a hand on the young skirl’s shoulder and drawing him forward. ‘These men are the skippers of the ships you saved this afternoon. Algon, Freyth and Crenna.’

Each of the men nodded as his name was mentioned, then stepped forward, offering his hand to Hal. Hal shook hands with them in turn, reflecting on the roughness of the calluses that hardened their palms.

‘Delighted to meet you,’ he said, feeling a little foolish. He wasn’t quite sure what was the correct thing to say under such circumstances. Perhaps he should have said something seamanlike, like
avast there and belay, shipmates all, let’s splice the mainbrace
, but he would have felt even more foolish saying that. The captains didn’t seem to mind.

‘That was well done this afternoon, young Hal,’ said Crenna, who appeared to be the oldest. He hesitated, then added, ‘You don’t mind me calling you “young Hal”, do you?’

‘Not at all,’ Hal replied, grinning. ‘That’s what I am, after all.’

‘It was well done indeed,’ Algon put in. ‘No matter what your age.’ And the other two mumbled their agreement. They stood nodding their heads and smiling at Hal and the rest of the crew. Finally, Mannoc prompted.

‘Algon, was there something else you wanted to say?’

Algon gave a start of surprise, and reached inside his jerkin to produce a soft leather bag that chinked in a most attractive way.

‘Aaah, yes. Well, we reckoned that you lads saved our bacon today.’

‘And a good more besides,’ Freyth put in. ‘Reckon you saved our cargoes as well.’

‘’At’s right,’ Algon continued, holding out the leather sack to Hal. ‘So we reckon we owe you the going rate for escorts – same as we pay Mannoc here.’

‘And that’s five per cent of the value of our cargoes,’ Crenna said. ‘So we collected it up and there you are.’

Algon thrust the purse out to Hal once more and the young skirl, somewhat taken aback, accepted it awkwardly.

‘Well, we’re very grateful,’ he said, ‘but it hardly seems fair to pay us the same as Mannoc. After all, he protected you all the way downriver. We only took a hand –’

‘When we were in trouble,’ Freyth completed the sentence. ‘Take the money, Hal. It doesn’t reduce Mannoc’s payment one penny piece. But you boys earned it, well and truly.’

Hal glanced quickly at Mannoc, who was standing slightly behind the three men. He gave Hal a small nod of confirmation.

‘Freyth’s right,’ he said. ‘You’ve earned the money. Matter of fact, I’d like to talk to you about joining us in our convoy escort business. You could make a lot of money escorting traders on this river. Particularly with that giant crossbow you’ve mounted in your bow. I’ve never seen the like of it.’

Hal put the money sack down by the steering platform and made a deprecatory gesture to Mannoc.

‘I appreciate the offer,’ he said. ‘I’m sure we all do. But we’ve got other business to take care of first.’

‘Ah yes. Zavac and his crew,’ Mannoc said. ‘Well, I wish you well with that. I’d be glad to see this river rid of that cursed black ship of his. But if you won’t join us on a more permanent basis, how about joining us tonight, for a feast? I’m paying.’

Hal looked around the crew and saw nothing but grins of anticipation. ‘Well, since you put it that way, we’d love to,’ he said.

They gathered later that night in one of the more pleasant taverns, a little removed from the rough and ready venues that were to be found close to the waterfront. Mannoc had secured them a large, low-ceilinged private room, with a log fire blazing at one end. The Herons, the three trading captains, Mannoc and his first mate gathered round the giant table, eyeing a row of glistening ducklings that were roasting on a spit in the fire. The fat hissed and spluttered as it hit the coals. While they were watching, with stomachs rumbling, the innkeeper entered with two huge game pies, covered with golden brown flaky pastry. As Mannoc cut into one, steam erupted from inside, along with an even more delectable smell than the ducks. The diners fell to eagerly and, within minutes, there was little left of the pies but a few crumbs and a stain or two of gravy.

There were bowls of steamed green vegetables, the ducks, and a leg of pork roasted so that the skin was crisp and crackling. Potatoes were served. They had been baked in their jackets in the coals of a fire. They were black on the outside, but the charred outer skin peeled away to reveal that they were beautifully crumbly and moist inside. Stig heaped a couple on his plate, cut them open and slathered them with butter.