One King's Way

do at the start of a normal battle, to be decided by hard hand-strokes. The screeching music urged them on. Cuthred, grinning sourly, looked up from the shadow of the armor plating. “Ogvind here says he'll row harder without the bagpipe, can you shut him up?” Shef waved back and shouted something no-one heard. As the count ran down, Shef looked again at the scene in front of him, estimating distances, looking at the enemy catapults, the racing skiffs, the Ragnarsson front line, suddenly seeming much nearer. Lucky that that at least had not moved. If they had broken their formation instantly, their “scissors” might have cut his “paper,” large ships riding down small ones. But now his “paper” would wrap their “stone,” his “stone” blunt their “scissors.”

“Ten last strokes,” Shef shouted, “and steer to starboard. Put us broadside on. Cwicca, shoot for the one with the Raven Banner. Osmod—” he raised his voice even more to reach the aft catapult, “—shoot for the one to the left of the Raven and then work left, left, you hear?”

The ship swung, with a final gasp the rowers completed the stroke, slumped sweating over their oars. Shef jumped from his place and ran to another vantage-point clear of the catapults. As the Fearnought drifted to a stop, Cwicca and Osmod stared along the trails of their mules, through the gaps left in the plating.

Cwicca dropped his hand, Hama pulled the retainer bolt, the whole ship shuddered to the thwack of the throwing arm striking its padded bar. Shuddered again a moment later as Osmod followed suit. Shef watched the skimming black dots of boulders tensely. Cwicca and Osmod had had to train most of their crews. They had missed the Crane at a critical moment. Would they do better this time?

Both dots came to an abrupt end in the center of the Ragnarsson line, Shef was almost sure he could see splinters fly. He waited for the sudden collapse, the disappearance of a ship opened up like a flower, as he had seen happen at the battle off the Elbe. Nothing. The line was still there, dragon-heads glaring. What had the Ragnarssons done? Had they armored their ships?

“Two hits,” Shef shouted. “Work out to left and right, as ordered.” He did not know what was happening. But in machine-war, as in the old kind, once battle was joined you just had to put your head down and keep doing your job.

The winders whirled their levers, the oarsmen backed water gently to Hagbarth's directions, trying to keep the ship broadside onto the enemy line. Again the double shudder as the stones released, again the black streaks of boulders flying into the line of ships. Still no gaps, no sagging prows. But he could see men running, leaping from ship to ship. Something was taking effect.

As he stared out, the Fearnought was suddenly battered down in the water. A great clang made Shef cringe, something whirred over his head in pieces. He looked round, realized that the catapults up on the spit of land had changed their aim, were shooting now not at the skiffs closing on them, but at the ship destroying their battle-line. If the Fearnought had not been armored she would have sunk then and there. The boulder had hit dead center, in line with the stepped mast, had shattered on impact with the case-hardened plates, the fragments whistling overhead. Shef stepped through the rowers to join Hagbarth looking at the damage. The plates were unharmed, but the wooden frame that held them had cracked clean through, leaving the outer shell sagging.

Again the Fearnought quivered to her own discharges, and again and again came the violent clangs of boulders striking. One struck forward of center, again shattering the frame, the other on the aft catapult platform. Osmod stepped up, pushing sagging plates out of the way, shoving winders back to their places. “Some rope,” he called, “tie these timbers back, we can shoot again.” The whole platform was out of line, Shef saw, something broken deep in its mounting. They could not take very much more of this battering. A steel plate slid free of its broken frame, fell into the sea, leaving a gap of sunlight. “Turn the ship while they're winding,” Shef shouted. “Turn the undamaged side towards them. Three more volleys and we're done.”

The leading skiffs had reached the shore, on the spit a hundred yards short of the battery. As they closed they had been engaged first by the dart-shooters, then the quick-shooting stone lobbing devices Shef's men called pull-throwers. The former were no danger to boats, but demoralizing as they drove their huge darts through man and mail. The latter could sink a boat, but only by random shooting, unaimable. The boats pressed on, clumping at the last moment to make a concerted charge onto the shore.

Two hundred picked men faced them, knee-deep in the water, ready to beat them back, protect their own catapults, give them more time to destroy the ship that was destroying their own front line. In the boats the cross- bowmen cocked their weapons, prepared to shoot them down. In machine-war all the parts had to fit together, each part doing its job. If the parts separated, they were useless. If they fitted together, battle turned into butchery. The air filled with the zip of crossbow quarrels shot at short range through shield and mail. As the Ragnarsson champions fell, shot down by unarmored skogarmenn, the heavily-armed Germans stumbled from the boats, formed a line in the water, locked shields and marched forward, Bruno in the center. The Swedish and Norwegian oarsmen grabbed swords and axes and followed. For a few moments there was the traditional melee of battle, the clang of blade on blade. Then the Ragnarsson line, already shot full of holes, disintegrated completely, became a scatter of men fighting back to back or trying to struggle to safety. Bruno called his men together, dressed their ranks, took them up the slope at a steady trot. Some catapulteers ran at once, others tried for a last shot or groped for sword and shield.

How the Ragnarsson ships stayed afloat Shef could not tell, but someone seemed to have had enough. Behind the front line he could see their smaller craft beginning to sweep put, to come forward in a charge. And the front line might not be sinking, but they were lower in the water, he could see a dragon-head tip sideways. The Fearnought had almost done her duty. She had battered the Ragnarssons' twelve largest into unmaneuverable hulks, though they were grapneled together so that the one held the other up. Now the smaller craft would have to take over.

But as they swept forward King Olaf, also reading the battle from half a mile behind, ordered his horns to blow and his rowers to pull. The Heron and her three consorts drove forward to engage the enemy, horns blaring relentlessly across the shivering water. Paper had wrapped stone—small boats against catapults. Stone had blunted scissors—the Fearnought's catapults against the large craft. Now, as King Olaf's giant warships swept towards the Ragnarssons' conventional longships, it was scissors to cut paper.

Shef watched as the Heron swept past, seeing Olaf and Brand on the forecastle directing the course, watching the two leading Ragnarsson ships boldly steer to take her on each side, like mastiffs trying to pull down a bull. They were met by a volley of crossbows, a shower of javelins hurled downwards, great rocks as heavy as a man could lift flung over the side to shatter the bottom-boards. One smaller ship hurled grapnels, managed to pull herself alongside though already starting to sink. Her crew scrambled up the sides of the larger ship, met spear-thrusts and sword-blows before they could free a hand. The Heron brushed them aside, steered to run down another. Behind her and her consorts the main body of Shef's fleet poured on, aiming for gaps in the enemy ranks, picking their targets.

Shef leaned on the gunwale, looking round. That was it, he thought. The battle was over, except for finishing off. He could see the Ragnarsson catapults had been captured, could see the row of abandoned skiffs drawn up on the shore. King Olaf's late but well-timed charge had broken the back of the enemy fleet. The biggest Ragnarsson ships had never come into action at all, been battered down by the Fearnought.

How easily it could have gone the other way! Without the crossbows the skiffs might not have made their landing. Then the Fearnought would have been battered to pieces, and King Olaf's ships as soon as they moved forward. If the Fearnought had not been there, then even if the Ragnarsson catapults had not done the business, their twelve great dragon-boats would have come out and engaged Olaf three to one. But paper wraps stone, stone blunts scissors, scissors cut paper. Every time. That is how it is with machine-war.

“She's going to the bottom,” Hagbarth said briefly. “I think one of those boulders broke her back, finally. Look.” He pointed to the water swilling round the open hold.

“Cwicca, Osmod,” shouted Shef. “Get your crews bailing. All right, Hagbarth, see if you can beach her. Over there, on the spit below the catapults.”

The crippled Fearnought crept across the water, while the battle both in the bay and on land moved rapidly away from her, leaving her limping across an empty sea dotted with wreckage and the heads of exhausted swimmers.