Fin Gall (16 page)

             
“Thorgrim!”

             
His blade met Magnus’s sword - his sword - and swept it aside and he lunged but Magnus was quick and side-stepped the blade.

             
“Thorgrim!”

             
Someone was calling him. It came though like a light in the fog, someone was shouting his name.

             
“Thorgrim! To the ship!”

             
Hands were pulling him now, and others were jabbing at Magnus with spears, holding him off and Thorgrim was dragged back, still howling, still flailing with his sword.

             
Then suddenly his legs banged against something and he stumbled back and he landed hard on a rough, wet surface. He was looking up at the black sky and the rain was lashing him in the face and his whole world was moving, the earth no longer stable under him, and he had no idea what was happening.

             
The ship! We’re on board the ship!
Thorgrim realized now. They had pulled him on board, cast off. The ship was rocking in the stream. He had told the men they only had to escape, not win, and then he had ignored his own orders.

             
The fighting madness dissolved away and Thorgrim pulled himself to his feet. They were twenty feet from the dock already. A spear came whistling through the rain and passed a foot from Thorgrim’s face, another thumped into the planking by his feet. Some of the Danes had bows, and now arrows were whipping through the air. One found a mark in the arm of Thorgerd Brak and he shouted and tumbled to the bottom of the ship.

             
The Danes on shore were raging but there was nothing they could do beyond flinging spears and shooting arrows. There were too few of them to come after the
Red Dragon
in another longship. They would have to wait for the others, but the others were fighting the fire at the mead hall.

             
Ornolf was on the bow, shouting insults at the Danes. A spear embedded itself in the neck of the prow inches from his belly but Ornolf seemed not to notice. Most of the men, more pragmatic than their leader, were swinging the long oars into place.

             
Thorgrim stepped aft to the steerboard. Morrigan was there, and Thorgrim was surprised to see her.

             
“How did you get here?”

             
“I snuck aboard during the fighting.”

             
“Good.” Thorgrim took up the steer board’s tiller and pushed it away, turning the longship away from the dock. The first few oars were in place and the men pulling them. The
Red Dragon
built speed through the water.

             
And then Thorgrim remembered. He looked frantically around the longship. Nothing. He turned to Morrigan. “Where is Harald?” he asked.

Chapter Seventeen

Cold are women’s councils...

                                  Norse Proverb

              O

rm Ulfsson wanted to kill someone. More than anything else he wanted to drive his sword into someone’s guts, and if he could have found one person alive whom he felt reasonably certain was to blame he would have killed them.

              He would have killed the men guarding the prisoners but Thorgrim and his men had done the job for him. He would have killed that traitorous Morrigan but she was gone, off with the Norwegians, he guessed.

             
Orm wanted to kill Magnus Magnusson, because he suspected somehow Magnus had something to do with this. But there was no proof. Magnus had always sworn undying loyalty to Orm. Magnus had come to his home to protect him when he thought Orm was being murdered. And besides, Magnus was not without his followers, men loyal to him and not necessarily to Orm. Killing Magnus might cause more problems than it would solve.

             
He wanted to kill Asbjorn the Fat for no reason at all. Just because he wanted to kill him.

             
But he stayed his sword. He had been around long enough to know that just killing men because you felt like killing them was counter- productive in the end.

             
The first light of day was turning the skies gray to the east before Orm had a chance to think on any of that. His first priority, even over catching the Norwegians, was saving the mead hall. The mead hall was the social and spiritual center of Dubh-linn. Without it he would be hard pressed to keep his small community of surly, rough men placated.

             
The roof was fully involved by the time he got there, and there was nothing anyone could do about it, but they could prevent the fire from consuming the walls as well. Orm led a clutch of men into the burning building and together they dragged bundles of flaming thatch out the door. They beat the thatch with rugs, doused it with water hustled up from the river. They dragged dead and half-dead men out of the flames. The rain did the rest.

             
It took hours of brutal effort, but in the end the fire was out and the walls of the mead hall still stood. It would be no great task to replace the thatch roof. Dubh-linn, for now, was safe.

             
Orm returned to his house, leaving instructions for his men to finish cleaning the charred debris away. Magnus followed. Asbjorn the Fat, who had slept through it all, was summoned.

             
Orm collapsed in his wooden chair. “Bring me some ale, damn you!” he shouted before he recalled that there was no one left to shout at. His thrall was gone.

             
“Allow me, my lord,” Magnus said, snatching up two cups and filling them. Magnus was being unusually solicitous. Orm wondered if he thought his life was in jeopardy for the Norwegians’ escape. If he thought that, he was not entirely wrong.

             
Asbjorn the Fat appeared at the door, breathless. Magnus sat. He did not offer Asbjorn a cup.

             
“My Lord Orm,” Asbjorn managed. “By Odin, what has happened here?”

             
For a long moment Orm just stared at Asbjorn and wondered how the pig could have slept through all that chaos. Asbjorn was clever, but that was all he had to recommend him. “The Norwegians have escaped,” Orm said at last. He felt suddenly very weary.

             
“Damn them,” Asbjorn said.

             
“They won’t be far,” Magnus said. “I took the sail out of their ship.”

             
“I’ll get a longship fitted out,” Asbjorn said. “One hundred warriors. The wind is getting up from the southeast, we’ll overhaul them by noontime.”

             
Orm nodded. Asbjorn was obviously trying to get back in his good graces, but that was all right. Decisive activity was welcome for whatever reason.

             
“Hold a moment, my lord...” Magnus said. He leaned forward in his chair and Orm thought,
Now we shall hear what this smooth character has in mind...

             
“There is something I have come to suspect, my lord,” Magnus continued. “From something Thorgrim said when I was questioning him. I think the Norwegians have the Crown of the Three Kingdoms.”

             
Orm sat more upright, despite wishing to appear unflappable.
The Crown of the Three Kingdoms?
It was the one thing he feared even more than the Norwegian fleet.

             
“What did he say?” The generosity Orm had been feeling toward Magnus was melting away fast.

             
“It was a slip of the tongue, no more. As if he started to say something about it and caught himself. I could not beat the information out of him after that. He’s a tough one. I didn’t get the chance to question Ornolf on this.”

             
The three men were silent for a moment, digesting the words. Asbjorn turned to Magnus. “You searched their ship,” he said, more an accusation than a statement. “And you did so without informing my lord Orm or myself. If they had the crown, then now you must have the crown.”

             
Orm could see the anger in Magnus’s eyes but his voice was controlled. “The crown was not aboard. If it was, then my lord Orm would have it now and we would have no further concern. They must have hidden it before sailing into Dubh-linn.”

             
Orm pounded his hand on the arm of his chair. “Then why in Odin’s name are we not chasing after them with our swiftest ship?”

             
Asbjorn jumped in, even as Magnus had opened his mouth to speak. “Because they will not try to retrieve it if they know we’re right behind. If they see a well-armed longship in their wake, they will not go to where the crown is hidden.”

             
“So...” Orm began but Magnus cut him off, unwilling to be upstaged.

             
“We follow on land, my lord. The Norwegians have only their oars to propel them. Horsemen on shore could keep up. If they are going to fetch the crown, under oars, they won’t go too far off shore.”

             
Orm nodded and considered the two men in front of him. He didn’t really trust either of them. In truth, he didn’t really trust anyone. It was for that very reason that he did not dare leave Dubh-linn himself to pursue the crown.

             
“Very well.” Orm leaned forward in his seat. “You will go after them. You will both go after them.”

             
Asbjorn was the first to break the stunned silence. “My lord?”

             
“You will both go after them. Magnus, pick twenty of your best men. Asbjorn, you do the same. That should be enough, those Norwegians are wanting for arms. Follow them. When they make landfall for the crown, attack and kill them.”

             
For a moment neither man spoke or moved. Then, as if both realizing at the same instant that the first to obey would gain advantage, they both leapt to their feet and hurried for the door.

             
Orm watched with amusement as they rushed into the street.
They are all traitorous bastards,
he thought, but he hoped two traitors together, each out for his own good, would act as checks on each other’s ambitions. Or they would kill one another. Either way.

             
The elation that the Red Dragons felt at escaping certain and painful death soon turned to grousing and complaining when they discovered that their sail was gone and they had to row themselves to safety.

             
“Shut your mouths!” Thorgrim shouted forward when he could no longer stand the sound of the men’s muttered griping. If Harald had been there, and in health, he would have pulled an oar and been grateful for the chance.

             
They made their way down the Liffey in the dark, with Skeggi in the bow probing with an oar for mud banks. They touched once but were able to back off before grounding out hard. It was their good luck to have the tide flooding as they made their escape, which made the rowing harder but kept them from being swept down river and pinned against a shallow place, or going up on a bar on a falling tide.

             
They made the mouth of the river just as the light was breaking in the east. The rain tapered off to a drizzle and then stopped completely, and the rising sun brought a new surge of optimism to Thorgrim, something he could not feel in the dark hours. The open sea was under their bow and no longship was coming in pursuit.

             
Ornolf came ambling aft, a cup of mead in his hand. “Pull, boys, pull!” he shouted to the rowers, by way of encouragement. “We’ll pull clear to Norway if we must, but these Dane bastards won’t draw our guts from our bellies, eh?” The jarl’s efforts to raise morale were not having much effect.

             
Ornolf stepped up onto the afterdeck. “Where’s Harald?” he asked.

             
Morrigan was huddled at Thorgrim’s feet, leaning against the side of the ship with her cloak pulled over her for warmth, but she looked up at Ornolf’s question and Ornolf in turn looked surprised to see her.

             
“Who’s this?” he asked Thorgrim.

             
“Morrigan. The Irish healer woman,” Thorgrim said.

             
Ornolf looked closer at Morrigan. “So she is. What’s she doing here?”

             
“She brought us the daggers, remember? She stuck a knife in Orm. She reckoned it would be better if she did not remain in Dubh-linn.”

             
“Reckon not,” Ornolf roared. “Good for you,” he said to Morrigan. “Always good to have some pretty little thing on board. Now where’s Harald?”

             
“Ask Morrigan,” Thorgrim said.

             
Ornolf looked at Morrigan. Morrigan said, “You seem very concerned about Harald.”

             
“Of course I’m concerned! He’s my grandson, and the only man worth a damn on this whole boat, besides myself!”

             
“I see,” Morrigan said. She wiped a stray strand of hair from her face. “Harald was too ill to travel by ship. So were the other wounded men. Those sheep herders, one was my brother, Flann mac Conaing. He has seen the wounded men taken to a safe place. I can lead you there to get them back.”

             
Flann mac Conaing?
Thorgrim thought.
That does not sound like the name a poor sheep herd might carry.

             
“Well, I suppose we owe you another debt of gratitude,” Ornolf said, “but I have to say, I’m not so happy about having my men split up thus.”

             
Thorgrim was not happy about it either. And he suspected there was more to this than Morrigan was letting on.