Dubh-Linn: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 2) Read Free

fleet, the man commanding the raid on the Irish coast. With those words the long row of sweeps along Thunder God ’s side rose as one and swept forward in perfect symmetry. With the rowers hidden from view behind the line of bright painted shields, there was, to Thorgrim’s eye, something unworldly about it, as if the ship itself had sprung to life.
      “To oars! Take up your oars!” Arinbjorn White-tooth shouted. On Black Raven ’s rowing benches, larboard and starboard, fore and aft, the men pushed down and aft on the thick looms. “Pull together!” Arinbjorn called next and as one the oars came down, the men leaned back, Black Raven gathered way. From a sleeping, lethargic thing, the ship came alive, the water swished down her side. Her fabric groaned with the leverage of sweep against oar port, and her motion changed from a dull roll to a determined, forward thrust. Thorgrim felt his spirit surge with the ship under his feet.
      He looked out to the east and west as in rapid succession the rest of the fleet gathered way and pulled for shore, spreading out astern of Thunder God like men at arms in a swine array. As he shifted his gaze he took a glance at Harald, hoping Harald would not see, not wanting the boy to think he was keeping an eye on him. But Harald was focused on his work, his eyes moving from the man astern of him to the sea and the rig overhead. A good seaman, a sailor’s eye. Thorgrim looked toward the shore. To starboard and larboard the rugged country ran down to the water, but right ahead the land seemed to open up in welcome. It was through that gap they would pull, then a few miles up the mouth of a river to their landing place. There was no movement along the shoreline that Thorgrim could see. No one there.
      It had been near the end of summer when they first pulled Red Dragon up the Liffey River to the longphort of Dubh-linn, late fall when they had returned as part of Olaf the White’s fleet. Even if Ornolf had actively tried to secure a ship to return his men to Norway it is likely the winter weather would have closed in before they could have put to sea. But of course Ornolf made virtually no effort at all, and so he and the men with him had spent the winter months in Dubh-linn, the miserable gray, wet winter in the crowded, fetid, mud-choked town of Dubh-linn.
      Once it became clear to Thorgrim that Ornolf had little interest in getting himself or his men home, Thorgrim asked and received permission to make other arrangements. Ornolf did not want to see him go, and even less did he want to see his grandson go, but for all his drunken raving Ornolf was not one who was oblivious to the way other men saw the world. He, Ornolf, had talked Thorgrim into going a-viking, mostly against Thorgrim’s will. He knew that Thorgrim had come in hopes of dulling the pain of Hallbera’s death. When he thought about it, which he did as infrequently as possible, Ornolf suspected that he might have come for the same reason. And Ornolf knew that Thorgrim was ready to go home.
      But getting home was another matter. As Thorgrim prowled the quays and the mead hall, and came to know the other Vikings and jarls, he soon realized that none would be returning to Norway until their holds were crammed with the legendary wealth of Ireland. There would be more raiding and more plunder before there was a hope of sailing east again. Thorgrim had nothing against raiding and plunder. He had done more of it than any three men were likely to do over a lifetime. But he was not the young man he had been, and he longed for home.
      By that time, Thorgrim Night Wolf was well known in Dubh-linn, his reputation as a fighting man set. Stories of past deeds had swirled around the mead hall, the tale of how he had led his men to escape the Danes in Dubh-linn, and fought the armies of the Irish king at Tara. Talk of shape shifting was passed around quietly when Thorgrim was not about.
      One night, a month or so after his