The Sword Song of Bjarni Sigurdson Read online

  Bjarni, settling to his oar, cast a parting look out past the high curve of the stem to the boat-strand they were leaving, and saw the crowd that had gathered to see them away; old men – not many of those – women and bairns and dogs, Hugin’s lean black shape among them. The first summer Hugin had tried to swim after Sea Witch and Bjarni had had to go overboard himself and drag him back to land and beat him to make him understand, but now he had settled into the life-pattern of his kind, who followed at their master’s heels while the longships were in their winter quarters and ran as a pack or hung around the women and baims during the summer sea-faring. So now he barked furiously but made no attempt to follow. There was another pair of eyes to watch Bjarni go. Thara Priestsdaughter had hobbled down on her still-sore foot to see the galleys away; but he never noticed her,

  ‘Lift her! Lift her!’ came the call of Onund at the steering oar. At sea Arnulf his second-in-command was Sea Witch’s steersman. But always Onund Treefoot himself took her to sea and brought her in to harbour.

  ‘Lift her! Lift her!’ as Sea Witch led the Barra fleet out into open water.

  In the fore-dawn darkness half a moon later, Bjarni was squatted among the thin scrub of hazel and dwarf willow at the southernmost head of the Dark Islet, Eilean Dubh in the tongue of the Old People, and gazing southward, his sword naked across his knees because somehow that made him feel more ready for action and less like to fall asleep at his watch-post than if he had left it in its old wolfskin sheath at his side. Behind him Loch Ruel ran away up into the mainland mountains; ahead, dark and furry as a crouching beast, the mass of Bute lay nose-on-paws on the paleness of water, where the water divided to become the tideway of Eastern and Western Kyles flowing past on either side of the island to the sea. The moon was still up; and in the light coming and going with the drifting cloud-roof, he had been able to glimpse from time to time scatters of low-lying islets and the ruffled bars of shoal water that spread their danger across the head of the Eastern Kyle, even between the muzzle of the crouching beast and the thrust like an elbow where the Western Kyle changed direction and was lost to sight, the half-fallen remains of one of those strange towers that some people said had been built by the Old People for defence against the Viking kind, but not even the Old People knew for sure.

  Onund had been right about the slave market. They had picked up the wake of the raiders as they headed north again out of Dublin, lightened of their load of captives. But in open water five against eight was odds that not even Onund was crazy enough to take on needlessly. Better this way, this kind of shadow-hunting among the islands. In all likelihood Vigibjord and Vestnor must have guessed before long that the shadow ships, now glimpsed, now lost again like a wolf pack on their flanks biding its time, were fewer than themselves, but even so they would know that they must get rid of them, whoever, whatever they were, before they could run freely on their own hunting trail. And so Onund had drawn them northward back and back into this chosen spot that could even all odds.

  The Barra fleet had slipped into the Western Kyle at dusk, when the last of the fighting light was gone; up to the place where they lay now quietly waiting behind the Dark Islet. With any luck the scouting galley that they had glimpsed the previous evening would have carried back word to Vigibjord that the fleet was only five keels strong. If any among the raiding fleet knew these waters well, they would know the Kyles for open tideways, coming together at the mouth of Loch Ruel, but even if they did, even if they came in up the Eastern Kyle, chancing the shoal water and tided eddies among the islets there, hoping to take them in the rear, the Barra scouts that Onund had sent up last night onto the highest point of Bute would bring the word in plenty of time for the Barra ships to fall back into Loch Ruel ahead of their coming. Loch Ruel, like the Kyles, was only wide enough for five keels to come in line abreast, with fighting space, at a time.

  However, Vigibjord and Vestnor, it seemed, were not well-knowing of those waters, and to a stranger’s eye the Western Kyle had the look of being a sea-loch because of the way the land seemed to close in where it rounded the beast’s elbow and changed direction. They might think that the shadow fleet taking shelter there for the night had run themselves into a trap. That would be best of all, for there they – the raiders – could be brought to battle under the walls of the ancient tower, the tower where Onund had set ashore a band of stone throwers last night with orders to gather up fallen stones and prise others from the walls, and carry them up to the highest point . . .

  Late into last night – a long time ago it seemed – one of the scouts had got back to them with word that the raiders had indeed come in after them up the Western Kyle, and reaching the elbow of Bute and finding that open water went on beyond, had pulled up for the night on the good landing-beach there, kindled a couple of shore-fires and set scouts of their own around their flanks. There had been those among the sea lords who had been all for attacking them then and there, but to do that, Onund had pointed out, would be to lose all the advantage that they had gained and hurl themselves against a war-band nearly twice as large as themselves. So they held to the original plan.

  That was when Bjarni had been ordered off to keep his solitary watch on the southern lip of Eilean Dubh, to watch out for anything that might be happening on Bute. There was a small hard knot of pride in him at having been sent there with maybe – who knew? – the safety of the Barra fleet in his hands. But he knew in reality that it was only because, like the rest of the scouts, he could swim. Most of his kind could not, holding by the old belief of seamen since seas began, that if the ship went down you would drown anyway, and drowning was quicker and less trouble if you could not swim.

  He found himself thumbing the edge of his sword blade, for the familiar feel of it as much as anything else, hanging on to that pride. He hated this quietness and aloneness before battle. It wasn’t natural, it was strange somehow. In the normal way of things he could have been with the rest, and there would have been noise and to spare; battle-singing and the thunder of weapons on shield rims and the flare of fire and torches to set the blood racing and bring the blood-smell into the back of one’s nose before ever the fighting joined. And the silence wasn’t the only thing that was strange; or rather it was only the beginning of the strangeness. Bjarni had been with the Barra men long enough to know that Treefoot had odd ideas about sea warfare, and this would not be the customary Viking battle, which had almost the formality of a duel, in which ships were lashed together into a fighting platform on which enemies fought it out like land armies on a dwarf battlefield. Onund had ideas about manoeuvring his fleet so that the ships themselves took on fighting power and became weapons in their own right. It was a frightening way of battle because there was no known pattern to follow: only the shifting pattern in the mind of the leader, which might change at any moment as need or chance arose.

  The moon was down now, but an ashy paleness as yet without warmth or colour was spreading behind the mountains eastward; and the sea birds were beginning to call again along the rocky ledges. The tide, which had been running strongly southward, stood at slack water, was on the turn. Slowly, slowly the first promise of colour was stealing back into the world, feathering the edges of the drifting cloud-roof with dim foxglove colour, though the hills and shoreline were still bloomed with darkness. The waters of the Kyle, faintly reflecting the promise of a squally sunrise, ran seemingly empty of all life save for the wings of the wheeling gulls, as Bjarni strained his eyes for any sign of movement on the shoreline of Bute. Then something dark – a man’s head – appeared on the brightening surface, and as Bjarni knelt up, his hand instinctively tightening on his sword-hilt, Leif Johanson pulled out onto the rocks like an otter, close beside him, shaking back his wet hair.

  ‘What word?’ Bjarni demanded.

  ‘They’re dousing the fires,’ Leif said, ‘running the keels down into the water.’

  And he was gone, crashing away through the willow-scrub toward the far end of the islet and th
e fleet lying there.

  Bjarni waited a few moments wondering whether he should keep his watch any longer, but with the word gone through that the raiders were on the move there could be no further need for a lookout on Eilean Dubh and it was for him to be getting back to Sea Witch. Also there was the chance of something still to be had of the morning issue of bannock; for now that the solitary waiting time was over and the ready-making for the fighting had begun, the coldness had gone from his belly and he was wolf-hungry.

  He got up and headed in the direction Leif had taken. But though Eilean Dubh was little more than a bowshot in length it was home to a pair of sea-otters and the sundry other beasts that he had heard going about their own lives in the dark. And as he went, suddenly the ground went from under him, as he put a foot into the hole that was the mouth of some creature’s lair, and pitched headlong. There was a sharp crack somewhere, and a small starburst of coloured sparks inside his right temple, and for a few moments sky and earth and water spun around him. Then, as the world cleared and steadied, he found himself lying with his head on what seemed to be an outcrop of rock. He went on lying there for a short while, wondering, though at a distance, where he was and how he came to be there, until the thought came to him that it might be a good idea to get up. He rolled over and sat up, feeling a little sick and still a little dizzy, and the light, which had grown, though not much, while he lay there, showed him his naked sword still clenched in his left hand, and at the sight, thought and memory shook themseles into place in his head. Sea Witch. He must get back to Sea Witch . . .

  He got to his feet. The world dipped and swam a little, then he steadied and lurched off in Leif’s wake towards the northern point of Eilean Dubh. But still somewhat deaf and confused from the bang on his head, he forgot to allow for the fact that Leif must have got back to Sea Witch some time ahead of him and she and the fleet would likely have up-anchored and be under way by now, and he did not hear, or at least did not properly take in, the sounds of voices and creaking timbers and the dip and thrust of oars passing between him and the mainland. And when at last he did hear, and altering course blundered out through the willow-scrub onto the shore, Sea Witch was already clearing the southern point of the islet, and Wave Rider was already past him with Thrond at the steering oar.

  It would have been more sensible to head for Star Bear, following after, but the only thought in Bjarni’s still slightly addled head was to get as near to Onund and Sea Witch as he could. He drove his sword into its sheath and plunged into the water and struck out after Wave Rider, shouting, ‘I come – wait for me!’

  Luckily they had not worked up any speed yet, but the oar-thresh was in his eyes and ears and he came near to getting another crack on the head from a swinging oar. Then willing hands hauled him in over the stern, and he stood shaking himself like a dog on the stern planking.

  ‘It’s Bjarni Sigurdson,’ somebody said and somebody else asked, ‘What have you done to your head?’

  Bjarni put up a hand to his forehead and when he took it away the half-light showed him the darkness of blood on his fingers. ‘I had a fight with a rock – it tried to bar my path,’ he said with dignity. He was not going to have Wave Rider’s crew laughing at him for falling over and banging his head like some three-year-old bairn.

  They laughed, all the same, Thrond with them. Still laughing, the ship chief said, ‘Well, now that you are aboard, you may as well get forward and join the fighting men.’

  Bjarni said steadily, ‘I will go forward and join your fighting men for this while, but do not count on my sword, for the first chance that comes I will be over the side to join Sea Witch, for I am Onund’s man.’

  ‘I will blame that piece of insolence on your split head,’ Thrond said, his gaze on the waterway ahead, ‘and therefore it may be that I shall not demand your head from Onund in payment, when the fighting is over. Nevertheless your fighting today will be with Wave Rider. Fighting time is no time to be dog-paddling from ship to ship, unless you would be having what few brains you possess knocked out by the blade of an oar. Now get forward.’

  And as Bjarni made his way toward the bows he heard the ship chief raise the rowing chant behind him.

  ‘Lift her! Lift her!’

  The last of the Barra ships cleared the southern point of Eilean Dubh, and the fleet spread out sideways wing-wise with Sea Witch in the centre and in the lead, headed down the Kyle, straightening from wild-goose formation to line-abreast as they went. And as they went, suddenly, rounding the elbow of Bute, appeared the longships of the enemy fleet.

  It seemed to Bjarni that Wave Rider checked for an instant then surged forward, with the rest of the fleet, like so many hounds slipped from the leash. A great shout went up, the rowers swinging to the increased rowing-beat, ‘Lift her! Lift her! Lift her!’

  Tide and wind were both against them, and behind the enemy keels; they must use all the speed that was in them to come up with Vigibjord and Vestnor before they drew level with the old shore fortress, to make full use of the plan laid by the slight man at the steering oar of Sea Witch. Once the fight was joined, wind and tide, which now seemed friend to the raiders, would be their enemy, making it hard to pull back when they had need to.

  Bjarni, standing among the fighting men, sent up a spear-thought of gratitude to all the gods of war and sea-faring, that even though he was in the wrong ship, he was not among the rowers, pulling backwards into battle, missing the fine fierce sight of the two fleets drawing towards each other, the ruffled waters of the Kyle narrowing between. He could sense that the dragon-prow of every ship rose higher, like the heads of great sea beasts lifted for a better sight of their foe, a better judgement of each other’s fighting-power, eager for blood.

  The light was broadening on the oar-thresh, glinting on shield rim and war-cap. The gulls were crying round the ruined tower on the shore as the Barra fleet surged past.

  ‘Lift her! Lift her, my heroes.’ The rowing chant came almost as a caress.

  The tower with its crowd of crying gulls fell astern. Ahead, the raiders were almost within hailing distance. The timing was perfect.

  For a few heartbeats of time as they drew together it seemed that the fight was going to follow the old formal pattern after all, the two fleets meeting prow to prow all across that narrow Kyle, where there was space for only five galleys under oars to come abreast while the three remaining raiders must hold back in the rear. But there was no lashing of prows together, so the fight would remain loose and free to manoeuvre. For a long breath of time the two fleets confronted each other, little more than a spear’s length apart, and something like the very old formal salute before battle, each using their oars just enough to hold station. The silence was filled with no more than the lapping of the water and the sky-wide diving of the gulls

  Then the man high in the prow of the centremost enemy vessel flung up his arms, the first sunlight jinking on the boss of his painted shield; and his bellow came clear across the water. ‘Who are you that comes playing wolf pack in our hunting runs?’

  From the stern of Sea Witch, where he still stood at the steering oar, Onund’s voice, that light clear voice of his that carried like a hunting horn, made answer, ‘Do you not know me, Vigibjord? I am Onund Treefoot, whom you have good cause to remember. And with me Thrond, brother of Evynd Easterner, who long ago made these waters unsafe for your kind. Also Thormod and Aflaeg, all of us the sea lords of Barra.’

  Vigibjord laughed, and his laughter rang and re-echoed to and fro between the rocky shores. ‘I never yet saw a man go into battle who could not get there on his own two feet!’

  Then Onund laughed also, flinging his own challenge into the wind, ‘Did you not? Aye well, there must be a first time for all things – a first time – and a last! Best be turning tail and heading for the skyline now, lest this be the last fight you see at all – you and your pack of curs.’

  There was a sudden roar of fury from the enemy longships. And the rowers who had been ligh
tly, sullenly, backing water against the tide, bent to their oars and sent their vessels plunging forward on the full thrust of the oars.

  ‘Hold water,’ came the order from the man in Sea Witch’s stern, echoed from Wave Rider, Red Wolf, Reindeer and Star Bear. ‘Lift her,’ and again, ‘Hold water.’

  The two fleets came together with a shock, a grinding kiss of prow against prow, quarter against quarter, like herd animals trying to shoulder each other off; and instantly the champions on the fighting deck thrust forward against each other. Bjarni, tensed among Wave Rider’s lesser fry, his drawn sword waiting in his left hand, glimpsed through the reeling press men bounding forward, one foot on the bulwark, the blink of morning light on the up-swung blade of sword and war-axe. The shouts and the weapons rang. But chiefly he was aware of what he could not see, for it was almost behind him: Onund braced on his wooden leg at the Sea Witch’s steering oar, watching the fight with narrow eyes, watching for the exact moment to pull back his fleet, as the swordsmith watches a cooling blade, waiting for the exact change of colour that marks the instant for plunging it into the tempering trough. Would he be able to whistle the Barra ships off in time . . . long enough for the enemy to get their blood up, not long enough for the Barra men to forget that this was only the skirmish to draw them into the trap, not yet the full Ravens’ Gathering after the trap was sprung . . . The moment was not long, not long enough for the thing to pass from skirmish into full fight. How it happened, Bjarni did not know; in the uproar he did not hear the orders to the rowers, he only knew that before he had even had a chance to blood his sword, the fighting-line was falling apart, the rowers backing water, raggedly. One by one the Barra ships shuddered and fell away; seemingly a fighting fleet that found itself outmatched, falling back shamefully from more than it could handle.

  For one incredulous moment clear water showed churning between the bows of the two fleets. Then with a yell of triumph Vigibjord’s rowers sent their vessel surging forward in pursuit, the rest of the reiving pack with them.