The snake-ship was sinking. We had struck her with our prow, the strongest part of Spearhafoc’s hull, and we had splintered her low freeboard as easily as cracking an egg. Water was flowing in, she was tilting, and her bilge, which was crammed with ballast stones, was flooding fast. Her crew, dressed in mail, was doomed, except for those few who had managed to cling to our ship, and meanwhile we were being blown backwards towards the other enemy boats, who, their oars at last in the water, were straining to reach us. We were wallowing. I bellowed at men to haul in the larboard sheet of the sail and loosen the steerboard sheet. To my right the snake-ship was on her side in a maelstrom of white water, surrounded by flotsam, and then she vanished, the last sight of her a small triangular banner at the peak of her canted mast.
I thrust the steering-oar over, praying that Spearhafoc would gain enough way to make the oar’s big blade bite, but she was still sluggish. Our prisoners, there were five of them, had been hauled inboard, and Finan had men stripping them of mail, helmets, and sword belts. ‘Watch behind, lord!’ Folcbald said, sounding alarmed.
The nearest enemy ship, the vessel with the lime-washed cross on her high prow, was closing on us. She was as large as Spearhafoc and looked much heavier. Her crew was bigger than the snake-ship’s doomed crew, but her commander had only ordered twenty-four men to the oars, a dozen on each side, because he wanted the rest ready to leap aboard Spearhafoc. There were helmeted warriors in the bows and more crammed into her waist. At least seventy of them, I thought, maybe more. The first arrows flew, and most went high to slap into our sail, but one whipped close beside me. I instinctively made sure Serpent-Breath was at my side and shouted for Roric.
‘Lord?’ he called back.
‘Have my shield ready!’ The cross-prowed ship was lumbering towards us, and we were being wind-driven towards her. She was not coming fast because she was rowing into the wind, she was heavy, and she had too few oarsmen, so it was doubtful that she could sink us as we had sunk the snake-ship, but the height of her prow would let her warriors leap down into our wide belly.
Then Banamaðr suddenly crossed our bows. She was running before the wind and I saw Egil thrust his steering-oar to turn towards the cross-prowed ship. The helmsman of that ship saw the Norseman coming and, even though Banamaðr was half his size, he must have feared being rammed because he shouted at his larboard oarsmen to back water and so slewed to meet Egil’s threat bows on. He was close to us now, so close! I shoved the steering-oar, but still it would not bite, which meant Spearhafoc was dead in the water and still being wind-driven towards the enemy. I let go of the oar’s loom and took my shield from Roric. ‘Get ready!’ I shouted. I drew Wasp-Sting, my seax, and the short blade hissed from the fleece-lined scabbard. Broken waves slopped between our ships. The enemy ship had turned towards Egil and would now crash broadside into us, and her crew, armed and mailed, was standing ready to leap. I saw a half-dozen archers raise their bows, then there was sudden chaos in the belly of the cross-prowed ship as Banamaðr slid down her larboard side to shatter the oars. The oar looms were driven hard into the bellies of the rowers, the ship seemed to shiver, the archers staggered and their arrows flew wild, Egil loosed his sail to fly free in the wind as he turned to slide his bows against the enemy’s stern. He had men with long-bearded axes ready to grapple the enemy, Banamaðr’s bows glanced on the enemy’s stern quarter, both ships lurched, the axes fell to draw the two hulls together and I saw the first screaming Norsemen leap onto the cross-prowed ship’s stern.
Then we hit. We crashed into the enemy’s steerboard oars first, which cracked and splintered, but also held her off for a moment. One huge man, his mouth open as he yelled, leaped at Spearhafoc, but his own ship lurched as he jumped and his bellow of defiance turned into a desperate shout as he fell between the ships. He flailed as he tried to grab our rail, but one of my men kicked his hands and he vanished, dragged down by his armour. The wind drove our stern against the enemy and I jumped onto her steering platform, followed by Folcbald and Beornoth. Egil’s savage Norsemen had already killed the helmsman and were now fighting in the belly of the boat, and I was shouting at men to follow me. I jumped down from the steering platform, and a boy, no more than a child, screamed in terror. I kicked him under a rower’s bench and snarled at him to stay there.
‘Another bastard coming!’ Oswi, who had once been my servant and had become
