The Lord of Vik-Lo: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 3) Read Free Page A

outnumbered,
    yet I fed the raven’s maw.
                                  Gisli Sursson’s Saga
     
     
     
     
     
    They rounded the headland, so close Grimarr could feel the spray on his face from the seas crashing against the ship-killing rocks. Off the larboard bow the land seemed to drop away as the coastline ran off to the north and west, a near ninety degree bend around the high cliffs to where the shore ran for another few miles to Vík-ló.
      The sounds of the fight were louder now, the metal clang of sword on sword, of ax on helmet, the shouting of furious men, the screaming of dying men. Louder, but Grimarr still could not see it. Fore and aft the men at the rowing thwarts craned their heads around, trying to get a glimpse beyond the bow.
      “Keep you minds on your damned oars!” Grimarr roared. “I’ll tell you when there’s something to see!”
      Heads snapped back, muscled arms pulled at the long wooden shafts, and Eagle’s Wing shot through the water.
      And then he saw them, the combatants, visible at last as Eagle’s Wing doubled the far end of the headland. Grimarr cursed out loud, shouted oaths to the sky, pounded the tiller with his fist. Sea Rider was a half mile away, low in the water, listing to larboard from the weight of the men, the dozens and dozens of men locked in a bloody struggle on her deck. She was surrounded by boats, low and black in the water. Irish boats, what the Irish people called curachs. They were flimsy things, insubstantial frames of wood covered in oak-bark tanned ox hide - nothing compared to the great Viking longships.
      What they lacked in size and stoutness, however, they made up for in numbers. Here was a swarm of curachs that all together might have carried a hundred men or more. They had been waiting just north of the headland, Grimarr guessed, had struck fast as soon as the longship had come into view. They must have been watching from shore, tracking Sea Rider ’s progress. They looked to Grimarr like a pack of wolves set on a furious bull.
      Sea Rider was surrounded. The curachs had come at her from all sides, the Irishmen at their oars climbing aboard, overwhelming the Norsemen. Or trying to, in any event. Fasti and his men were fighting back with the fury of their race. Swords and axes rose and fell, spears jabbed at men climbing over the low sides. By Grimarr’s calculation the fight had been going on for twenty minutes at least, which meant the Sea Riders were making a bold stand. But Grimarr could see they were greatly outnumbered.
      They don’t see us , he thought. The world of men in battle did not extend beyond the borders of the fight. No one had yet noticed Eagle’s Wing coming up fast astern. Grimarr clenched his teeth in impotent fury.
      Bastards! Whore’s sons! I’ll butcher them all!
      He willed his ship to move more swiftly through the water, but he knew his men were pulling with every bit of power they had and he would not shout at them and risk alerting the Irish to their presence. How beautiful it would be if he could burst in among them, unseen until his sword began to do its deadly work.
      “Sandarr!” he called to his son. “Come take the tiller.” Sandarr limped aft. He would not join in the fighting, at least not in the first assault. With his wounded leg he had no agility, the injury he had sustained on a raid the year before - a wound he had taken in an honorable fight - still causing him pain.
      Grimarr was silently disgusted by his boy’s weakness.
      Sandarr stepped around the end of the tiller and took the smooth oak bar from Grimarr. “Right up to Sea Rider ’s larboard side,” Grimarr instructed him, “just smash every one of those damned curachs right between our two ships. We’ll cut those Irish dogs off and kill them where they stand.”
      Sandarr nodded. Grimarr yielded the tiller and moved forward. He removed the cloak that was clasped around his neck, picked up