Blood Feud Read Free

then almost between gust and gust, it shifted, and changed and began to blow low along the ground, brushing up the leaves of the thorn trees to a rough silver; and in a little, the sky was covered by a thin membrane of cloud, like the skin of warm milk, and there began to be a hollow sounding of the sea. But even Gyrth, who was as weatherwise as most of his kind, did not guess how soon the storm would be upon us. He sniffed the wind like a hound and squinted at the sky. ‘Going to be a bit of a blow before morning. Rain too, I’d not wonder. Best take Brindle and get the yearlings down off Black Head.’
    I whistled the old bitch after me, and set off; but before I was half-way up to Black Head, the wind was roaring through the oak woods, the sky racing with darkly huddled cloud like flocks of driven sheep; and by the time I came out on to the open Head above its deep sea inlet, fine grey swathes of rain were driving in from the west, cutting sight to a couple of spear throws. Most of the yearlings were bunched in the lea of the outcrop of dark rocks that gave the place its name; but three or four were lacking. Most like, I thought, they had drifted on down the lea slope before the wind. I left Brindle to keep the rest together, and pushed on after the strays.
    They were widely scattered, and the sodden daylight was fading into the dusk before I had them all gathered up; and it was the edge of dark when I got them back to the rest. They were still huddled in the shelter of the outcrop, with Brindle watchfully in charge. She wagged her tail in greeting when I came out of the murk, and I spared a moment to fondle her great rough head and praise her. ‘So, so, that was well done, my girl. Home now.’
    She gathered the cattle as she had been taught, and togetherwe began the homeward drove, down the windward slope and over towards the combe head and the herd and gleam of firelight from the doorway of Gyrth’s bothy.
    But we never got there.
    Only as far as the place where a rough path, half lost among rocks and long sea grasses, left the track we were following and plunged over the cliff edge down to the inlet below. The rain seemed to blow aside like a curtain just as we got there, and for a moment I had a clear view of the cove, and a flickering blur of light among the rocks that made me check and peer down. Someone had lit a fire down there on the shingle, where the long jagged comb of rock running seaward gave shelter from the pounding waves. There was always driftwood to be found among the boulders and sea-fretted crannies of the cliff foot that would be dry from the rain. There was something else down there too, that had not been there earlier: a long slim shape of darkness on the paler shingle. I peered down through the wind and rain, and realized that it was a ship. Some ship that had come running for shelter before the storm, and either by luck or superb seamanship, was now beached safe in the lea of the rocks above the boiling tideline.
    Merchantman or raider? It could be the same thing at times, for many a trading vessel of the Northmen turned riever on the way home from an unsuccessful voyage, or when they themselves had met with raiders and lost their cargo.
    My heart began to race, and something within me shouted ‘Danger!’ as I pulled back from the cliff edge and turned in frantic haste to get the cattle away. But it was too late. We hadn’t pushed on another spear throw, Brindle weaving to and fro at the heels of the jostling yearlings, when all at once the darkness among the wind-lashed furze bushes was alive with men.
    Maybe there were no more than six or eight, but in thestormy darkness they might have been an army. The world burst into a reeling chaos of shouting men and bellowing cattle. The yearling were all ways at once. It did not last long. I pulled my knife from my belt and went for a big man who loomed suddenly before me. My foot slipped on the sodden turf, and naked steel went whitt-t-t past my