Norseman Chief (31 page)

My whetstone sang along the blade.  Pajack called, “Enkoodabooaoo, why don’t you teach us how to make this “steel” of yours.  Your people could use it to kill the Mi’kmaq, starting with Luntook’s Pohomoosh.”

Hurit asked me this very question many years ago.  The answer was simple.  Thorfinn, the man who married my Gudrid and who wound up leading me for several years, made me swear to never do so.  And so I would not.  “I made an oath many years ago.  I will honor that oath.”

“And where does your allegiance lie?” Pajack asked, angry with my answer.  Like Hassun he held anger toward me and my rank as chief.

You may assume by now that I wanted to plunge through the creek and smash his nose with the heavy pommel of my sword.  I did not have to because younger Rowtag crashed his balled fist into Pajack’s nose, sending blood bursting in two great streams down and back his face from his nostrils.  He tipped like a tree onto his back roiling in pain.  “I think young Rowtag’s answer is enough for you.  Now son of my long-dead friend, help get this man’s face cleaned up so that he may aid us in battle should it come to that today.”

With humility, Rowtag the Younger said, “It will be as you say.”  And I thought, yes it will!

Then the runners came in.  They were the youngest of our warriors, proud to have endured the trials just months earlier.  But their youth meant they were swift and did not tire, so after just one moment to take in air they simultaneously babbled on about the reports they carried.  One of them, exceptionally short, caught my angry glance and smacked his friend on the head so I didn’t have to raise my hand to them both.  “Now,” I said when they both fell silent, “You give your account.”

The short man started.  “Taregan says to tell you that your suspicions were correct.  Signs of a Pohomoosh party abound.  Taregan has not found them yet, but he and three others track them further south and east as if they try to circle around the great lake and fall upon our village from the east.”

“And your news?” I asked of Chansomps, the other young man, whose eyes darted about as if he were nervous or needed to relieve his bladder in short order.

“We’ve found another party on your lands Chief Enkoodabooaoo.  They march up the western coast toward the village.”

“Huh!” I said.  “One group hopes to be a hammer and the other an anvil with our village playing the part of red-hot steel.”  Both runners looked at me confused since they knew nothing of what I spoke.

“Short one, tell Taregan to return to us.  Let the war party he follows go.  They will be many days navigating around the lake.  And even if they currently portage and plan to paddle across the lake, we had best address those closest the village first.”

Pajack, his voice altered by a newly-broken nose, interrupted, “Chief Enkoodabooaoo, your plan is sound, but what if the Pohomoosh set some type of trap for us?  Should we not leave a group behind to keep watch on the war party Taregan has found?  Perhaps Taregan, his father Rowtag, and the warriors of their families should move toward the lake now.”

“I don’t want them knowing that we are aware of their presence.  If we leave men behind, eventually the Pohomoosh will know.  They are dogs, but they are not foolish.  And you’d have me leave behind our best warriors as the rest of us march to battle.”  I regretted my choice of words as soon as I said it.  They were true, because I always tried to speak plainly, but I did not want to stoke the incessant rivalry between Pajack and Rowtag on the eve of a fight.

To my surprise, Pajack allowed the slight to roll down his back.  “Ahh,” he snorted, “That is wise.  Then perhaps my family of warriors should stay behind to protect your men’s rear.”

“And you’d leave the glory of victory to another?”  Then, without waiting for an answer, I said, “Rowtag, I guess that last fist of yours knocked sense into the man.  That is sound advice Pajack.  Luntook has begun to show himself as exceptionally crafty.  It will make me confident knowing that you and yours take the watch.”

Pajack answered, “It will be as you say, chief.  This short runner can join you now.  My family will send Taregan and his men in your direction so you do not find yourself in want of numbers.  May Chansomps join us on the watch?”

Another set of good ideas, I thought.  I would have all my best warriors and be rid of the thorns.  Men sometimes did surprise on the good, though rarely.  I nodded.

The men who rested nearby began to rouse themselves, performing duties before they had to receive any orders – bringing in other scouts or packing up the small amount of food we carried.  As we began preparing to leave and bring battle to the Pohomoosh on the west coast, Chansomps, who was talking quietly with Pajack called to me, “Chief, if you move directly toward Aoutjaduch Island, you’ll be able to cut off their advance as well as their scalps.”

“Aye, that’s sound advice, young man.  It is a shame you will miss the honor of killing these Pohomoosh.  But there will always be more, I suppose, for they breed like rodents in the bilge.  We’ll give you a chance to redden your scalping knife when those skulking about the lake materialize.”

He nodded, “It will be as you say, chief,” before returning to his conversation with the grimacing Pajack who had blood drying to a crust on his face and clothing.

. . .

We had only been a single day’s march from the shore opposite Aoutjaduch Island, which sprawled out in the sea only a matter of ells off the western mainland of my territory.  The journey was rapid and uneventful as the rain still saw fit to stay away from our lands and not slow our progress.  The leaves had fallen early that year from lack of water and everywhere crunched beneath our makizined feet until we halted at the shore.  The weather had been so dry that I recall thinking the sea even appeared to be lower than usual.  But the surf was still high enough that at high tide a man would find himself covered in water if he strode out toward Aoutjaduch.  Even at low tide, every bit of the jetty, such as it was, between the mainland and the island was beneath the surface.

I set a perimeter of men to act as the whiskers of a fox to feel for the enemy while the rest of us waited for the batch of scouts I had dispatched last evening to return.  My old bones rested on an equally old, sun-bleached driftwood log partially buried in the sand.  I threw small pebbles at the nearby gulls that squawked as they rode the air up from and down to the beach.  I knew that I would have to move the men soon as being trapped against the water was no way to guarantee battlefield success whether our numbers were superior or not.

Rowtag, his arms crossed standing behind me, had been speculating that we would prove to be the larger force.  “After all,” he said, “The Pohomoosh have clearly split their force, so the fifty men we bring should be more than enough.”

I spat out a deer fly that had chosen that moment to commit suicide by flying directly into my mouth.  “Aye, you are probably correct, but I cannot think of a situation in open combat when more men bring anything but a better outcome.”  I drew up another slug of phlegm to rid the taste of the little beast from my mouth and spat again.  “I will appreciate it when your boy, Taregan, comes to us with his men.  He is a fine warrior, that man.  Soon his skin will be covered in tattoos, his mamateek decorated with countless Mi’kmaq scalps, and his woman spilling out more little warriors to fill our ranks.”

Rowtag held his chin high, enjoying the praise I heaped on his son.  “His grandfather, the father who gave me my name, is in my son.  I see him in his eyes and actions.”

“He is indeed,” I said.  “I wanted Taregan to take my Alsoomse as a wife, you know.”

Rowtag pondered my last statement for a time.  “That would have been an honor for my family, but it was not meant to be.  Your daughter has the strength of her father.”  This was his polite way of saying that Alsoomse, my Skjoldmo, proves herself to be a pain in a man’s ass from time to time.

“And her mother,” I said after the conversation waned.

Rowtag chuckled, knowing that our women, though not on the tribe’s council, ruled over our affairs with more strength than their smaller frames suggested.  What man, once married, has not bent his will to match his wife’s resolve just to escape her wrath?  I knew it was every man – at least every man who still hoped to have his wife freely offer herself to him.

“Yes.  Alsoomse has her father’s and mother’s strength.  Thankfully, she received only her mother’s beauty.”  I huffed a little out of feigned anger.  We returned to biding our time.

Soon my scouts found us and confirmed that a small force of twenty Pohomoosh men clod their way through my lands toward this very spot.  They would arrive the next morning and for now seemed completely unaware of our presence, thinking they had surprise on their side.  “Good,” I said with Rowtag looking on.  “Go back to them and keep in contact with me so that we may move to intercept them if they change course.  Don’t be discovered and kill their scouts, only if they find you first.  We want them here at the site of our choosing.”  Setting up the field of battle ahead of time was almost as important as having sheer numbers in your favor.  In the coming fight, I wanted it all in my favor.  We had surprise so far, we had numbers, and we would choose the field.  It was hard to refrain from laughing at the slaughter that would soon come.  However, a jarl cannot let himself get carried away in the moment as a youth infatuated with some pretty face.

I slowed my thoughts down, not wanting to project victory too early, and scanned across the narrow waters to Aoutjaduch and her thick forests.  It was larger than Whale Island which was another day of hiking to the south.  The shoreline of Aoutjaduch gently fell into the sea and narrow channel with sand beaches tucked among pines that grew nearly to the waterline.  For a long time, I stared into the darkness among the branches and needles.

I thought and thought.  Like a priest, I pondered ideas and actions, reliving battlefield decisions I had made in my life.  Quite obviously, all of my decisions had been good for me as I was ancient and readying to kill yet again.  Some of the decisions I had made in the past were not always completely successful, resulting in the deaths of many friends.  I sat there thinking on these thoughts so long that at some point Rowtag tired of me and walked away.  After a while longer the sun was hiding itself below the horizon and Torleik found me.  I know he said something once or even twice and then awaited my response.  None came though.  Something gnawed at me.  I could not place it, but staring at the island brought an unnatural caution to my mind.  I was always thoughtful in the time leading up to battle so as not to be surprised in the midst.  But that evening, my stomach began to turn.  For no reason, it began to turn.  We had all the advantages as the Pohomoosh approached.  But my stomach turned.  Torleik eventually grew impatient and said as much before leaving me alone on the beach.

And then, with the land and crashing sea fully enveloped by darkness, my concerns began to take form.  I pondered.  Our chance to reposition to a better battlefield left as I thought.  Then as the eastern sky reddened with dawn after a sleepless, motionless night, those apprehensions became clear.  We were betrayed.

. . .

The last time I suffered from a traitor’s tongue, a great sea battle roared around me.  Blood washed the deck planking beneath my feet making it slippery.  Cnute, my fellow Berserker gurgled out his last pained words in my arms.  My king lost that battle, his army and navy were destroyed.  Only Einar, King Olaf, and I lived through that terrible day with some trickery of our own.  Would the same ending come to Halldorr the Enkoodabooaoo, jarl of the Algonkin?  Would this be his terrible day when his people were crushed under the heel of the Mi’kmaq?

With my popping leg and creaking joints I pushed myself up to my full height and walked to my men, wincing from the stiffness that settled in by remaining stationary for so long.  I didn’t know if a warning of mere moments would be enough to change the course of the battle, a course that the norns had already spun among the roots of Yggdrasil.  I turned my back to the channel and the island beyond, striking a path just ten or fifteen ells into the forest where most of the men camped.

Without any direction from me the previous evening, my men proved they were sensible enough to avoid striking fires the night before.  They stirred now in the predawn moments when the world seemed fresh and the mind was clear.  Throughout the small camp they chewed on a simple breakfast of roots and smoked venison.  “Rowtag!” I whispered among the men.  His name was passed down the line with similar hoarse whispers.  In no time I saw his familiar gate moving toward me.

“Yes, Enkoodabooaoo?” he asked.

“Did my scouts return during the night?  I mean the ones who were to report on the movements of the Pohomoosh approach, any word?”

“No chief,” Rowtag answered, a look of concern rising from the tone of my question.  “What is it?”