Wayland helped him out. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Fine,’ he said. He passed a hand across his face. ‘Fine.’
He remembered little of the Vikings’ descent except that they sang as they went down into the torrent and that Wulfstan, stepping coolly onto the ledge, said, ‘I’ll take those two pounds of silver now if it ain’t too much trouble.’
Between the rapids the river flowed as smoothly as watered silk. Stars stippled the sky and a pale aura showed over the eastern clifftops, where the moon would soon show itself.
Richard leaned into his stroke. ‘I’m glad you rejected Drogo’s cruel suggestion.’
‘I would have left the slaves if Wulfstan hadn’t come up with his plan. The Cumans wouldn’t have killed them. They would have taken them for slaves. Better the nomads as masters than perverts in Constantinople.’
Richard looked over his shoulder at the pallid figures. ‘Such a fragile cargo. It grieves me to think of what’s in store for them.’
They rowed on through the dark, the current speaking in hollow gurgles. The moon appeared, close to its zenith. Its coppery light outlined the rims of the gorge, shadowing outcrops and crevices deep enough to conceal an army of ambushers.
Hero watched the heights. ‘Do you think the Cumans are tracking us?’
‘No,’ said Wayland. ‘They can’t follow the crest because the edge is too broken. The only way they can keep track is to watch from headlands. They don’t know that we saw them so they won’t be too cautious. I’ve been keeping a lookout and I haven’t seen any riders.’
Vallon nodded. ‘If there were only four of them, at least two would have ridden south to raise a force. The pair left behind weren’t expecting us to run the rapids tonight, so when they saw us leave, they would have had to warn the others.’
Wulfstan rose on tiptoe and scanned ahead. ‘Approaching the next rapid.’
They lifted their oars and heard a faint seething. For a long time the noise didn’t increase and sometimes it fell away to almost nothing. Strange and foreboding. Then without warning the hissing swelled to a sullen roar.
They turned to face it.
‘There it is,’ said Wulfstan.
Vallon made out a ragged streak in the dark. The river sucked and slurped. Ridges of water sped past the boat. The uproar deepened to a heavy rumble that boomed off the canyon walls.
‘The Echoer,’ said Hero.
‘Back water,’ Wulfstan ordered. ‘Wait until both galleys are through.’
The first galley entered the rapid, showing its stern like a diving duck before yawing down the rip of foam. It came through safely. The second followed, also without mishap.
Wulfstan sniffed and spat. ‘Piece of piss.’
Richard uttered an hysterical laugh.
They slid into the mouth and a snarling flood seized them. They jostled through tumbling crests, pitching in three planes at once. A wave slapped Vallon in the face.
‘Rock ahead!’ Wulfstan yelled.
‘Which way do we steer?’
‘Left! No! Right!’
Their efforts were puny compared to the power of the flood. Vallon saw waves gnashing at the boulder. They were going to hit it. He braced for the impact. The shock knocked him off the thwart, but the boat had struck only a glancing blow. Then the tail of the rapid was below them and they glided out into calm water.
The river slowed almost to a standstill. The moon hung halfway across the gorge. They rowed through a chain of islands towards the sound of thunder and when they passed the last one they saw spray misting the air in mid-channel.
‘This is the big one,’ Hero said. ‘The Insatiable. It runs for half a mile.’
‘We’ll lose the line if we wait for the galleys to get through,’ Wulfstan shouted. ‘Give the second one a good lead before following.’
The rapid was so long and steep that the first galley had dropped from sight when they slid towards the funnel. Vallon saw Syth slip a hand into Wayland’s. Hero took one hand off his oar and laid it on Richard’s. Vallon had seen similar gestures performed many times before battle and he delivered his war-cry.
‘Be strong of heart! Whatever happens, we’ll still be together. If not here, in the hereafter.’
‘Here or in the hereafter!’ the company shouted, and paddled into the cataract.
The boat dipped with a heavy slop. Snarling white teeth leaped at them. They jounced over steps with a force that drove grunts from their bodies. Shock after shock hit them. Incredibly, Wulfstan kept his position standing in the bow, bellowing instructions they could hardly hear. Spray dashed over them. They dropped into a trough between ledges and an eddy seized them, holding them almost stationary and swinging them round. The boat they were towing overtook them and began to pull them clear stern first.
Wayland punched Vallon. ‘The other boat’s going to hit us!’
Vallon saw it pitching towards them. No room for it to pass. Wulfstan reacted in a flash, drawing a knife and slashing the towrope. The spare boat bounded away over the crests, carrying with it the skiff and one of the horses. Their own terrified horse flailed at the planks with its hooves. They were going backwards. They scrambled round to face the right way and as they did so the spare boat veered off from the main channel and cannoned down between rocks. It struck a boulder with the sharp crack of something terminally broken. A bursting wave hid it from sight and when the spray cleared it was gone. They could see the apex of the rapid now and the galleys in the pool beyond. The hull was half-awash, the second boat only yards behind them. More shocks and confusion, a squealing as they grazed a rock, and then with one last smack they popped out of the rapid like a cork shot from a bottle.
XLIII
They found the wreckage of the spare boat not far downriver. The horse was still tied in its stall, dead by drowning and massive concussions. Further on they recovered the skiff. Somehow it had broken free and its buoyancy had preserved it intact, allowing it to skim the waves like a leaf. They tied it to the stern and went on. The moon sank towards the western rim. After the turmoil of the rapids, the silent drift downriver worked on Vallon’s mind. He couldn’t shake off the sensation that they were being watched. ‘What time is it?’
‘Around midnight,’ said Wayland.
‘That early?’
The moon dropped below the cliffs, leaving only a scatter of stars to show the way. The boats bunched behind the galleys to keep them in sight. More islands ghosted past and the moon glided back, shining up the canyon like a cat’s eye.
‘We’ve turned west,’ said Hero. ‘This is the long calm reach.’
‘How many more rapids?’
‘Four.’
‘Richard, do we have any mead left?’
‘Half a barrel.’
‘Break it out. A pint a man.’
The crews ran the next three rapids slightly drunk. The moon disappeared again and they took the third rapid almost blind. Only the Serpent lay ahead. They threaded a channel between islands in pitch dark. From ahead came a crash and frightened cries.
‘What have you hit?’ Hero shouted.
‘A ledge,’ Kolzac answered.
The company crept alongside the stricken galley. ‘Are you holed?’
‘By God’s mercy, no. We’re stuck, though. You’ll have to pull us off.’
The slaves transferred to the other galley and the rowers hauled the stranded ship off stern first. The pilots
