The Whale Road

No one spoke much, save for Einar, muttering with Ketil Crow and Illugi and my father. I couldn't hear much of it, but I guessed some: my father would be there to tell Einar whether a ship could be worked out of the bay, whether wind and tide were favourable and, if not, when they would be.

Ketil Crow would have counted heads and knew how many of the Oathsworn were left I reasoned about forty, no more, for we had left some on that forge mountain and whether dead or scattered didn't matter.

They were gone from us, like Skapti.

After a while, as a moon slid up, scudded with cloud, Bagnose came back and had words with Einar, who then called us all round him in that shadowed hollow.

`Steinthor is watching Starkad's drakkar. It seems all his men are ashore, with a nice fire and ale. They have posted two sentries only.' He grinned, yellow-fanged in the dark. 'That's the best of it. The rest is that there are about sixty of them and they are well armed. But they are out of mail and have no thought of danger. So we form up and move, now. Move fast and hard, break them and go for the drakkar. If we can scatter them and board, we can get away, for the wind and tide are right for it.'

And, of course, I was given Hild as my task. I was becoming tired of it, to be truthful, for she unnerved me now with her quiet, knowing looks and calm, black-eyed smiles.

So the Oathsworn scrambled wearily out of the hollow, formed into a loose line and loped off in a rough boar snout. I was in the middle, with Valknut and the Raven Banner unfurled and moving steadily beside me.

We came up over the tufted grass and on towards where Steinthor hid and I saw the red flower of the fire and the great expanse of blackness that was the sea behind it. There was a faint lantern swinging there, almost certainly on the prow of the boat, which swung on the end of a stout rope and an iron anchor in the shallows.

When Steinthor saw us, Einar waved for him to form up. He paused, stretched the bow and, as we came up, an arrow whirred into what seemed darkness to me. Moments later, though, I almost stumbled over the corpse of one of the sentries. Half-turned, I saw Pinleg stop, head bowed. He spotted my worried look and waved. 'Go on, Rurik's son. I will catch you up and race you to the beach.'

And he grinned, so I did as he said. It was the last he ever spoke to me.

When I joined the others, they were pausing, for no longer than a single breath, a mere shortening of stride, to let the line form. Then, at the moment the men by the fire all saw us, looming out of the darkness like a frowned eyebrow, Einar yelled, 'Boar snout.' He hurled himself at the apex of the rough triangle, but he was no Skapti and it came in far too fast and loose.

There was no firm shieldwall to hit, though. We ploughed, roaring, through men who were already scattering in all directions, jogged past the fire, hacking sideways at anything that came too close and, when we hit the water, splintered apart and kept going for the ship. I saw Gunnar Raudi grab a man and heave him up, then leap, miss and splash back down into the water.

I was knee-deep and thrashing through it, blinded by spray, hauling Hild along, trying to keep both of us upright while that damned spear-shaft she would not let go of took both her hands and left me to support us both. Men sprang for the sides and the anchor rope, swarmed up . . . we were going to do it.

I gained the side and hauled up and over, then reached down for Hild, while others were wildly dragging themselves, panting and dripping, over the side of the massive ship. My father was screaming at men to get to the oars, for others to get the sail-spar hauled up off the rests.

And I saw the men on the shore forming, swiftly, expertly. They had no armour, only some had helmets, but all had a shield and a sword or an axe or a spear. They were veterans, were Starkad's men and not about to be shamed by the loss of their ship without a fight for it.

The shieldwall formed with a slap and a roar and then they were jogging forward and I knew, with a sick lurch that made me so frantic I almost tore Hild's arm out of her socket getting her aboard, that they would be on us before we gained enough distance.

Then, suddenly, something broke from the shadowed shallows to our right. There was a blood-chilling shriek, a burst of spray and a blur of movement. Like a troll on wheels.

Pinleg came in a shambling run of screaming, whirling death. They didn't know who it was, but they knew what it was and the shieldwall almost fractured there and then. When Pinleg hurled on it, slashing, biting, screeching, it did, like a still pool hit by a stone.

`Haul away, fuck your mothers!' roared my father and the oarsmen, panting, soaked, white with fatigue and riven with panicked frenzy, dug and pulled, dug and pulled.

The sail clattered up, the wind filled it and the great serpent drakkar slid away into the night, away from where the ends of the shieldwall closed, from where swords rose and fell and the bundle of men, like a pack of snarling dogs, stumbled this way and that over the beach, through the fire, hacking and slashing.

One or two tried to break off and run at us, but Bagnose and Steinthor fired at them and, though their strings were soaked and the arrows went wild or short, it made Starkad's men think about it.

We slid into the dark, further and further, faster and faster, until only the red flower was left to mark the place.

That and the shrieking of Pinleg, so that we never heard him die. It was generally agreed that if we didn't hear it, it probably never happened and that he is fighting still, on that beach.

The rowers gave up quickly, exhausted. They barely had the strength left to haul the oars inboard and stow them; one or two even fell down where they were and slept. Certainly everyone collapsed into some sort of deathlike sleep, even Einar.

But Ketil Crow and Illugi and Valgard stayed awake in shifts, manning the steering oar of the huge drakkar and plotting a rough Course by the stars until my father was more himself and could turn his talent to it.

And I saw it all, dull-eyed and slumped in some strange almost-sleep, hearing the shrieking of Pinleg, seeing the astonished look on Skapti's face, made strange by the great, bloody point sticking straight out of his mouth.

By dawn, we were alone on a gently heaving swell, hissing over it steadily, the grey light brightening into a cold, crisp, clear day. One by one the Oathsworn grunted stiffly into this new day, as if astonished they were there at all.

And then we saw what we had got.

It was perfect, from the graceful swan-necked, lavishly carved bow and stern, down the grey-painted strakes of the hull, up to the huge belly of the sail, sewn in strips of three colours—red, white and green—so that the ship looked like some bright banner, sluicing along the swells, hissing through their breaking tops like a blade.

There was carving everywhere, even cut in fluted chevrons on the oarblades, which added to their bite and recovery, I was told. Panels, carved and painted, shielded the steersman from the weather and the steering oar was carved in whorls, to aid the grip. And the weathervane was gold—gilded, Rurik corrected, but no one listened. It was gold, could only be gold, in this marvellous ship.

There was more: all the crew had left their sea-chests on board. There were clothes and jewellery and money and armour and weapons. There were rings and eating knives and cloaks with fur collars, for this was Blue- tooth's dreng— his chosen men—and nothing was too good for them.

There was another huge bolt of cloth, too small for a sail, but in the same striped colours, which my father revealed was for use as a tent when anchored.

There were barrels of stockfish, salted mutton and water. There was even a specially built firepit in the centre of the tiny cargo space, with solid firebricks and a slatted iron grill, so that you could have hot meals and never need to stop or slow down.

The only things missing were the proper carved prowheads, which were probably still back on the shore, removed as was custom.

`First chance we get, lads,' Einar promised as the booty was divided up, 'we will have new elk heads made. For no matter what this ship was, it is the Fjord Elk now.'

They all cheered and, after everything had been found and argued over—even though there was three times as much as any one of the remaining Oathsworn could have used––Illugi Godi supervised the boiling up of Mutton on the marvellous firepit and everyone ate a hot meal and agreed it the best they had ever tasted on this most marvellous of ships, which carried some 140 and could be sailed by three.

'Though the gods put fire in your arses if we hit a flat calm and you have to row her,' Valgard growled when