Brotherband 3: The Hunters (42 page)

Z
avac, staying well back behind his crew as the Skandians drove them inexorably towards the bow, had seen a flash of movement astern as Hal crossed the deck and dropped into the well where the rowing benches were situated.

Instantly, he knew what the young Skandian was after. The Skandians had been present when Mihaly’s man described the spot where he’d found the emeralds. And he’d mentioned the ‘large yellow ball’ of glass as well.

Zavac was seized with a sudden rage. The cursed young Skandian, and his shabby old one-armed friend, had checked him and foiled him at every turn. They had been instrumental in his defeat at Limmat. They had rescued the wolfship he had rammed outside Limmat harbour. They had caused him the loss of half of the emeralds he had stolen.

And now they were destroying his ship. He had no doubts about that. The decks were heeling sharply as the giant member of the
Heron
’s crew went on a berserking rage, smashing through the hull and the watertight compartment with a massive axe.
Raven
would never recover from that.

And now that cursed boy – he searched for the name, then found it –
Hal
, would recover the great treasure of the Skandians and return home in triumph.

Zavac snarled in fury. He glanced around. The battle was going badly for his men. Some had even taken oars and spare pieces of timber, hurled them into the sea and dived after them, hoping to be picked up by the Raguzan longboats standing by. Dead and wounded men littered the decks – all of them from his crew. It was only a matter of minutes before the rest of them surrendered.

A red rage flashed before his eyes. Looking around, he could see that the Skandians were fully occupied by the battle. He crept to the port side and dropped into the recess where the rowing benches were situated. Keeping low and out of sight, he slipped like a snake towards the stern. As he came level with the open hatch to his sleeping berth, he took a long dagger from his belt, placed it between his teeth, then crawled forward. With the dagger between his teeth, his mouth appeared to be set in an insane, enraged grin.

‘You!’ Hal cried as he recognised the Magyaran. Zavac reached up and took the dagger from his teeth. He smiled cruelly at the young man as Hal tried desperately to scrabble for his saxe. But the weapon was beneath him and he couldn’t reach it.

Then Zavac hurled himself forward, the dagger plunging down at Hal’s throat as he landed full length on the younger man.

Cramped and confined in the low, narrow space, Hal was trapped by Zavac’s weight on top of him. He clawed desperately for the other man’s knife hand and managed to catch his wrist. But the Andomal, tethered around his own wrist by the drawstring to its bag, swung awkwardly and hit him across the forehead. He was momentarily dazed and he felt the dagger skip closer to his throat as Zavac brought all his weight to bear behind it.

He locked his free hand around the Magyaran’s wrist and managed to heave the knife a few centimetres away from his throat. But then Zavac placed his own left hand on the knife handle as well and began to bear down.

Slowly, slowly, the knife point came closer. Hal struggled and heaved desperately. But Zavac was heavier and bigger than he was and, in this cramped space, weight and strength would tell. Hal realised that the water was deeper in the hull now and he could hear a dull rush from further forward – the sea pouring into the massive rents that Ingvar had smashed in the hull.

If I don’t get out of here, I’ll drown, he thought. Then he giggled insanely as he realised that he’d be dead long before that could happen.

Zavac’s face was only centimetres from his own. The man’s breath was hot on his cheeks. ‘Think it’s funny, do you?’ Zavac snarled. ‘You young swine. You’re dead!’

And he suddenly thrust down with a convulsive heave, putting all his weight behind the knife. Hal just managed to twist his body to the side. The dagger scored a shallow cut across his neck and he felt the hot blood flowing from the cut.

Strangely, he felt no pain. The dagger point buried itself in the planking and Zavac had to struggle to release it.

Dimly, Hal heard voices shouting, heard Stig calling on the
Heron
’s crew to disengage and fall back. The ship beneath him lurched and the angle of the deck increased even further. It actually threw Zavac slightly clear of him and he wriggled away. But then Hal had to grab for Zavac’s knife hand again as the pirate wrenched the knife clear of the deck and attacked once more. Using both hands, Hal tried to twist the blade away from his throat – but with little success.

Zavac heaved himself back on top of Hal and once more the deadly contest of strength began – Zavac putting all his weight behind the knife as he forced it down, Hal trying with all his strength to stop it.

But this time, he realised dully, he wouldn’t manage it. This time, Zavac would force the dagger slowly through his throat. He summoned all his strength into one last, supreme effort to force it back. He heaved upwards desperately. But it was useless. The dagger didn’t budge. Then it began to descend. He could hear Zavac snarling with the effort, feel his breath, and he knew that this was the end. He had nothing more to give.

I don’t want to die here in the dark, he thought. Somehow, it might be more bearable if he could see the sun.

Then something peculiar filled his vision. A piece of polished wood shaped like a double-sided hook came into sight. It looked familiar somehow. The two halves opened like a claw, then closed again over Zavac’s knife hand. The Magyaran looked up in surprise, his weight momentarily coming off the knife and giving Hal a brief respite. Then Thorn’s bearded face appeared over Zavac’s shoulder and he seized the adjusting thong on his false hand and jerked it tight around the Magyaran’s wrist.

‘How lovely to see you again,’ Thorn said.

Then he pulled the hook tighter. Then tighter. Then tighter still.

Zavac screamed in agony as the two-piece clasping hook clamped down on his forearm like a vice. Hal actually heard several small bones cracking as Thorn increased the pressure. Then the dagger fell from Zavac’s hand and splashed into the water filling the compartment. The Magyaran threw his head back and screamed in pain.

As he did so, Thorn jerked him sideways, freeing Hal from his constricting weight.

‘Get out of here, Hal,’ he said and Hal scrabbled awkwardly on his back past the two of them, forcing his way past in the narrow space, backing out of the hatch into the rowing well. He was startled to see that a good two-thirds of the
Raven
was now below the surface, with only the stern still afloat – and that listing heavily to starboard.

He staggered to his feet. The decks were empty. Zavac’s men had either abandoned the ship or were dead or wounded. His own crew were back aboard the
Heron
, shouting for him to join them. He leaned against the butt of an oar, trying to get his breath. Then he saw Stig leap back aboard and sprint towards him. His friend grabbed him under his arms and hoisted him up onto the main deck. Hal tried to turn back.

‘Thorn’s in there!’ he said.

‘He’ll be fine,’ Stig replied, and half-carried, half-dragged him to where the
Heron
was still lashed alongside, and willing hands were ready to lift him aboard. The Andomal, in its leather sack, bumped awkwardly against his side.

‘Thorn!’ he shouted desperately, feeling the
Raven
give one more lurch.

Below decks, Thorn smiled into Zavac’s contorted, furious face. His hand was busy with the strap that held his false arm in place.

‘Try to knife my boy, would you?’ he said in a conversational tone. He slipped his right arm free of the socket that held the false hand in place. The wooden hook was still clamped firmly at right angles across Zavac’s wrist and the Magyaran writhed in agony. Thorn looked around, saw a V-shaped frame on the inside of the hull. He seized Zavac’s wrist with his left hand, twisting it so that he could pass Zavac’s forearm, and the attached hook, through the narrow V. Then he twisted it back again so that the wooden hand was firmly jammed between the frames, trapping Zavac by the arm.

‘A good captain always goes down with his ship. It’s time for you to start being a good captain,’ Thorn told him. Then he backed out of the cabin, crouching on his knees, and ran across the sloping deck to the
Heron.

‘Cut her loose!’ he shouted as he leapt aboard. Ulf brought his axe down on the ropes lashing the ships together, and
Heron
seemed to bounce back and up as she was suddenly freed of the weight of the sinking black ship.

They drifted clear and, for a minute or two,
Raven
’s stern remained above the surface, buoyed up by a pocket of trapped air.

Then a huge bubble burst on the water and she began to slide under. They heard one last, lingering scream, rising in pitch, then suddenly cut off.

And then she was gone.

‘Good riddance,’ said Lydia, her face grim.

E
rak, Oberjarl of the Skandians, had taken to walking down to the harbour front each morning and staring out to sea. Then, after fifteen minutes or so, he would walk back to the Great Hall. People noticed this change in his routine, of course, but nobody commented. Nobody but Svengal, his old friend, that is.

‘Why the morning walk, chief?’ he asked one day, grinning widely.

Erak pretended not to notice the ridiculous grin on Svengal’s homely face. He replied gruffly. ‘Need the exercise,’ he said. ‘I’m putting on weight and the walking does me good.’

‘Well,’ said Svengal expansively, ‘if that’s the case, why not walk up the mountain? There’s a lot more exercise involved there. Get the blood pumping. Get the legs working. That’ll bring your belt in a few notches in no time.’

The Oberjarl regarded his friend stonily. ‘I prefer the view at the harbour,’ he said and Svengal nodded wisely. He knew very well what Erak was looking for every day.

On this particular day, he had elected to join the Oberjarl on his walk. They passed Anders’ shipyard, where
Wolfwind
had been re-launched the day before. After Zavac had rammed the wolfship during his escape from Limmat, Svengal had patched her up then sailed her home, where permanent repairs could be undertaken by Hallasholm’s master shipwright.

‘
Wolfwind
’s looking good,’ Svengal ventured. ‘You can hardly see any sign of where Zavac hit her.’

Erak sniffed. ‘There’s a plank dented badly on her starboard bow,’ he said. ‘It’s just been painted over.’

Svengal raised an eyebrow. ‘Um. I don’t like to mention it, but that happened two years ago when you rammed the wharf coming alongside.’

Erak turned to look at him. ‘I don’t ram wharves,’ he said and Svengal shrugged philosophically.

‘Of course not. My mistake. The wharf rammed you. I remember now, it fairly leapt off its pilings and banged into the ship. Terrible things, wharves. You can never trust them.’

‘Do you ever shut up?’ Erak asked.

Svengal appeared to consider the question. ‘Rarely.’ He grinned.

Erak grunted. ‘Didn’t think so.’

They walked along the mole to the harbour entrance. Erak leaned on a waist-high bollard there and stared out to sea, his eyes moving from left to right as he quartered the horizon. There were half a dozen small fishing boats, probably on their way to Loki’s Bank, and a deep-laden trader was heading for the harbour. But nothing more.

Erak sighed, not realising that he did so. Svengal laid a hand on his shoulder.

‘They’ll turn up one day,’ he said. There was no sign of his previous jocularity. Erak pretended to look puzzled.

‘Just who are you talking about?’ he asked.

Svengal nodded as if he’d made a mistake. ‘I’ve no idea,’ he said.

They scanned the ocean for another ten minutes, then Erak turned and headed back to the Great Hall, his friend keeping pace with him. They had reached the landward end of the mole when a shout came from the watch tower behind them.

‘Sail to the south-east!’

Erak stopped, his back to the ocean, listening as the watch commander called back up to the young sailor in the tower.

‘Report properly. What is she?’ There was a pause, then the youngster replied, a note of puzzlement in his voice.