Casca 3: The Warlord Read Free Page B

sailors could really begin, the Saxons were hauling the two ships side by side, the wood giving a strange muffled shriek as they dragged together. The Saxons crowded at the side, standing on the railing, ready to leap aboard the trader.
    In their eagerness, two fell into the water between the ships and were mashed into a mass of jelly when the waves brought them back together again, leaving only a red stain on each ship to show that here had been two men who were no more.
    "Up and at them!" The command stirred the defenders and they rose in time to catch the Saxons at their most vulnerable point when they were attempting the crossing from their ship to the trader. Normally the barrage of thrown axes would have given them the necessary seconds to make an uncontested assault, but now they faced desperate men with pikes in their hands and murder in their hearts.
    The Saxons were stopped. But only for a moment. Then the leader of the enemy ship threw himself across the gap, landing on board. He began striking down sailors left and right, caving in skulls and chests, as he cleared an area through which the rest of his band eagerly followed.
    The seamen were no match in close combat for the ferocity of the German pirates and were easily being forced back. More and more Saxons rushed into the bridgehead created by their leader, Skoldbjorn, who was slicing down all who opposed him, bellowing for Thor to give him strength to kill all who dared to stand in front of his axe, which was red and dripping with the lifeblood of the sailors. His whirling attack came to a sudden stop as his axe was knocked back with enough force that it left his arm and hand tingling.
    Casca pushed him back using a combination of sword and dagger; thrust, jab, strike high, then low. Casca dodged a blow to the head that would have split him to the chest and whirled low to the deck pivoting in a tight circle, slicing the hamstring muscles of a Saxon who came close. Then, raising himself under the guard of the leader, they locked, the Saxon's axe barring Casca's Gladius Iberius, while his other hand held the dagger away from his stomach where it was only millimeters away from opening him up like a gutted fish.
    They broke away and locked again, two strong men face to face; again they broke, then whirled around each other like madmen, striking, parrying, sparks leaping when their blades met. The force of their combat brought the rest of the fighting to a stand-still. The protagonists from the two ships separated, keeping a wary eye on each other while the two in the center of the deck met again and again like charging bulls. They grappled, faces touching.
    The Saxon spoke between clenched teeth, "Who are you? I have seen you before."
    They broke again and Casca made a deep lunging attack that changed in mid-stroke to a swipe to the gut, leaving a thin line of red across the Saxon's muscled belly.
    "I am the man who is going to kill you, barbarian. I am Casca, the Roman."
    The Saxon stumbled back, nearly falling over a pile of ropes. "Casca from Helsfjord, the Walker?" Terror slipped into his voice and for the first time courage began to slip away from him. "You're dead. You sailed to the ends of the earth."
    Casca struck a blow that numbed his own arm to the shoulder and knocked the horned helmet off the Saxon's head.
    "I'm back."
    The Saxon countered, forcing Casca back. They separated, each gasping trying to catch his breath. “You must be over sixty. My father, Hegsten, fought you at the field of Runes over thirty years ago."
    Remembrance flashed. "Yes, Saxon dog and whore, I only chopped the left arm off the sire, I am going to kill the pup." Casca sliced down in a long stroke that forced the axe up high to counter; as the steel from the blade and the axe met, Casca gave a strange sliding movement obliquely that turned his opponent half around unable to use his free hand. Then Casca's dagger slid to the hilt between the striated muscles of the abdomen, sinking