Raven: Sons of Thunder (8 page)

‘Here, lad,’ Penda said, handing me my shield and helmet, which I had left further up the beach. ‘I’d wager you don’t want to miss this.’

‘That wager would not make you rich,’ I said, hopping as I pulled on my breeks. Penda bent and picked up my brynja and I wriggled into it like an eel. I glanced across to see that Sigurd had thrown one end of a shorter rope over one of
Serpent
’s mooring ropes and yanked it down, enabling his men to pull themselves along it without fear of drowning. Out they went, hungry for blood, and I could see Bjorn and Bjarni standing at
Serpent
’s bow yawping for them to move faster. Father Egfrith stood a few feet away in the surf, hurling prayers to the White Christ between imploring Sigurd to resist his bloodlust and seek peace terms.

‘But for the love of God get the book, Sigurd! You must get the book!’ the monk shrieked, his eyes wide and a strange look on his weasel face that could have been terror or elation.

Svein the Red stopped at the waterline and turned to me, a savage grin breaking his huge red beard. ‘Hurry, Raven,’ he said, then turned and lumbered splashing into the sea.

‘So what happened?’ Penda said, looking me in the eye and scratching the scar on his face. He was mailed and battle-ready and I could not believe he was asking me such a thing at such a time. ‘Did you plough the girl?’

I looked out past the breakers but could not yet see
Cynethryth this side of the rocky outcrop. Penda and I were the last. Even old Asgot was halfway along
Serpent
’s mooring rope, moving as quickly as any of the younger men.

‘Time to go, Penda,’ I said. He batted a hand at me and plunged into the sea and in a heartbeat I was behind him, half wading, half hauling myself along. Sigurd’s Wolfpack readied
Serpent
, fixing the beast Jörmungand at her prow and shields along her sheer strake, and slotting the spruce oars through their ports.

‘A screw and a fight all in one day!’ Bjarni called, hauling me up and over the sheer strake with the use of a short boarding rope. ‘Sounds like Valhöll, hey, Raven.’

‘I missed breakfast,’ I gnarled, making him laugh, then took to my row bench, the chest in which I kept all I owned, and gripped my oar, which Svein had readied for me. I turned to look for Cynethryth but could not see her as Olaf gave one sharp ‘Hey!’ for us to pull the first stroke.

Then we rowed. We knew we were counting on surprise and surprise meant silence. So we watched Olaf, who had set himself at
Serpent
’s stern, plunging his fist over and over rather than calling out the time. Knut moved the tiller, turning the ship so that we hugged the coast and would emerge from the bay at the last possible moment, like a hawk out of the sun.

It always feels good to row. We would complain eventually of course, but for the first hour or two, when your strength is up and the rhythm is set, rowing is a joy, at least for me. Two oars may look the same to a man’s eyes, but they are not the same. You come to know your own oar as you know your own arms and legs. By touch alone your calloused hands know your oar from a hundred others, just as they would know your lover’s tits or arse. There is always comfort in familiarity.

Sigurd and Black Floki readied the grappling hooks and gathered together thirty or more spears, which we had taken from our enemies in the last weeks. I had never fought in a
sea battle before, but I knew what would happen. We would throw spears and hand-axes into
Fjord-Elk
to clear her deck, then hurl the grappling hooks and heave on the ropes so that the hooks would bite into her sheer strake and the ships would crash together, making a floating fighting platform. A cautious jarl might continue to hurl missiles, spears, even stones, until the issue was settled. Not Sigurd. I watched him as the battle-trembling began in my legs and snaked upwards. The jarl’s face was hard as stone, his eyes black as storm clouds below the helmet’s rim. His left hand rested on his sword’s pommel and his right gripped two great spears. If you’d told me that Óðin Spear-Shaker had come down from Asgard and entered the jarl’s body, intent on making a slaughter to drown the world in blood, I would have believed you.

Yes, I knew what would happen in my first sea battle, just as I knew what Sigurd was seeing in his mind’s eye. Ealdred’s men had probably never fought at sea and they would not be ready for a fight now. We would board
Fjord-Elk
and then the real butchering would begin. And afterwards, when we had killed them all, Sigurd would claim three prizes, all equally valuable in their own way. First, Sigurd would have Ealdred’s head on the end of his spear. Then he would take Ealdred’s own personal treasure chest for himself, including the holy gospel book of Saint Jerome. Last, Sigurd would win back
Fjord-Elk
, which was as fine a ship as was ever made to cross the grey sea.

‘The gods are smiling on us, Raven,’ Svein growled behind me.

I was nervous now. Edgy enough to fear that I might piss my breeks. We had almost reached the end of the out-jutting rocks and would come into Ealdred’s view at any moment. I hoped Cynethryth was sticking close to the submerged rocks so that we would not ride over her.

‘How do you know, Svein?’ I asked. ‘That the gods are with us?’ Our oars dipped and rose as one, the drops barely having
time to fall from the blades before those blades fell again into the sun-gilded sea.

‘There’s no wind, lad. Even a fart’s worth of wind makes it impossible to lash to another ship and fight. My uncle Bothvar was drowned when his jarl, Ragnvald, tried the same thing in a swell.’ He sucked in a great breath. ‘They grappled their enemy’s boat and their enemy, a man named Moldof, even helped to lash them good and tight so that they could get on with the fighting. Perhaps Njörd was drunk that day and belched. Anyway, both dragons were swept off and wrecked on the lee shore. No man survived. Bothvar’s father saw it all from the cliffs.’ The oars sploshed and
Serpent
skimmed across the sea like a water snake. ‘We have no wind and the sea is calm,’ Svein said. ‘Yes, the gods are with us.’ I did not have to see Svein’s face to know the smile that was on it. I whispered a prayer to Óðin asking him to lend me courage and stop the shivering that was deepening now, eating into my muscles, turning my bowels to water and filling my guts with ice.

I looked back at the beach and was relieved to see Cynethryth emerging from the low breakers. She stood in her sopping kirtle beside Father Egfrith and even at that distance I could see the short gown clinging to her breasts and I was glad that Egfrith was a Christ slave and, so far as I had seen, had no interest in women. I could not see her face but I remembered it well enough. Her scent was still on me like a spell, the only thing convincing me that we had just lain together and that it was not some dream sent by Freyja goddess of love, who weeps tears of red gold.

‘There they are, the sheep piss drinking whoresons!’ Sigurd bellowed, striding forward in sheer craving, like Fenrir straining at his chain. I could not look behind me easily but I could imagine the terror-struck faces of
Fjord-Elk
’s crew as they read the weave and weft of their doom. ‘Kill them all!’ Sigurd yelled, spittle lacing his beard in the red morning light.
‘But leave the turd Ealdred for me. I’ll take the head of any man who touches him.’ I looked over to Penda. He stood at the mast step, feet apart, sword and shield ready, a thin smile on his scarred face. He was not trusted to row yet. Normally you could not take your place on a fine dragon ship such as
Serpent
unless you could row hard and well enough to carry a ship off the ocean’s edge, and fight like a demon, too. It was unlikely that Penda could row well. He had spent the first day aboard puking his guts into the waves. But the man could fight and Sigurd knew it. Penda was a born killer, a warrior of rare skill, and to Sigurd’s mind this made up for the rowing. Besides, even though we had lost many, with all who remained on one ship there were more men than row benches.

‘You can’t touch Ealdred, Penda,’ I shouted in English to the Wessexman.

‘Who says I can’t?’ he yelled above the clamour of men rousing themselves to violence with curses, prayers and howls.

‘Sigurd says it,’ I called, and Penda spat at his feet and growled something foul. Penda wanted his own revenge, but like the rest of us would have to wait. In the Fellowship Sigurd’s word was law and that law was backed by his own right arm and his father’s blade.

I leant back in the stroke, heaving, relishing the swell of the muscles across my shoulders, for I was broad now and proud of it. Sweat began to pour down my back beneath my leather gambeson and mail. I wondered how Penda could spit, for my own mouth was as dry as old pine needles, though I was not the only one whose nerves were dancing. Two of the men not at the oars were pissing over the side even as we sped to a battle. I could hear old Asgot shouting at
Serpent
’s prow, invoking Óðin Lord of War, Thór Slayer of Giants, brave Týr the battle god, and other gods too, gods whose names I had never heard, to help us kill our enemies, slaughter them for being followers of the White Christ who was a god of lepers and weaklings.
And whatever I thought of Asgot, there was comfort in his wild keening. We all put some stock in the godi’s magic because he was old and skinny and had fought with Sigurd’s father and yet was somehow still alive when stronger men were not.

‘Oars in!’ Sigurd yelled. We moved like a squall, pulling the oars back through the ports and stowing them with a thump and clatter before stuffing leather plugs into the holes. Now I got my chance to see what was happening.
Fjord-Elk
was all seething panic. Ealdred must have recognized Jörmungand and known then that Sigurd had come for him and if he had any sense at all he must have been terrified. His steersman had changed course, trying to take the ship out of our path and into the open channel. He might as well have been hoping for a boatload of young virgins to carry him away on a ship made of silver and gold. If they had seen us earlier they might have stood some chance, though not much of one. As it stood, our prow would strike
Fjord-Elk
amidships, and when that happened corpses would be made.

I gripped my spear tight enough for the knuckles to whiten, for I did not think that ramming the other ship would be a good thing for anyone. I could see faces now, perhaps even Ealdred standing at
Fjord-Elk
’s stern. I took a deep, stuttering breath and glanced at Sigurd, thinking that being amongst that clamour without clamouring myself was somehow like being underwater.

‘Now, Knut!’ Sigurd roared, dropping his arm, his eyes suddenly wild. Knut pushed the tiller and
Serpent
heeled violently so that some of us fell and I looked back just as our hull sent a wave crashing into
Fjord-Elk
with enough force to rock her like a child’s cradle and send the crew reeling.

‘Kill them!’ Sigurd screamed, hurling his spear into the panicked press of the enemy who were desperately trying to arm themselves.

‘Gut the leaking-arsed mares, you blood-loving wolves!’
Olaf bellowed, throwing his own spear, which took a huge, grey-haired man in the face. We all screamed and hurled our spears and it was devastating, for when a man with shoulders of iron from years of rowing launches a spear it is not always stopped by flesh; sometimes it tears right through the body. Our enemies had been under sail on a level sea with no reason to expect trouble, so were not wearing mail, and now there was a desperate press by
Fjord-Elk
’s shallow hold as they clamoured and brawled to get to the weapons stowed there. With the enemy packed so tightly it was hard for us to miss and blood-soaked screams rent the dawn. In the crush some of the Wessexmen tried to use each other as shields. Black Floki and Bram already had two grappling hooks biting into
Fjord-Elk
’s hull and they grimaced as they heaved on the ropes to pull the ships together. Osk and Arnvid threw two more hooks. Osk’s did not catch but Arnvid’s did and Bjarni gripped that rope with him and hauled. Once the grappling hooks were in the wood the only chance the enemy had was if they cut the ropes, which was no easy thing with spears streaking amongst them like lightning bolts. Three white-faced, wide-eyed Wessexmen stood at the stern, drawing bows and sending arrows into us, but the ships were rocking in the fray enough to spoil their aim. Still, one or two hammered into us, bouncing off shields or glancing off brynjas as the ships came together with a thump.

The Norsemen roared and that sound was thunder. Sigurd was the first to leap across, battering two Wessexmen with his shield and taking a third in the neck with his sword. All along
Serpent
’s length, Norsemen jumped, axes and swords swinging, carving into
Fjord-Elk
’s unprepared crew, and I jumped after Penda, slipping on
Fjord-Elk
’s deck which was already blood-slick. A man jabbed a spear at my chest but I met the blade with my shield and scythed my sword into his shoulder where it stuck like a knife in a tough joint of meat. He screamed and I
rammed my left boot into his belly, doubling him over, and the blade came free so I whomped it down into his skull. It was easy killing. The English were not used to moving around
Fjord-Elk
and they tripped and fell as we hacked them to pieces, their torn flesh steaming in the morning air so that a dragon’s breath fog hung over the deck.

‘Ealdred! Ealdred! Where are you, worm?’ Sigurd was yelling through the din. Men were begging for mercy, but when they saw they would find none some jumped over
Fjord-Elk
’s side and Norsemen ran across the deck to spear them like fish. A man dropped to his knees before Penda, wringing his hands and babbling as Penda swung his sword to send the man’s head thumping across the oak deck, spraying blood as it bounced. Seeing this, another man who had thrown down his sword bent and clasped the leather grip again. If he knew Penda he must have known that begging would help about as much as fouling his breeks, so he chose a good death instead.