Sword Brothers (22 page)

She shook her head, spitting into the river beneath her. "I don't know. I feel like I'm pregnant again."

"Really?" Ulfrik's voice rose in excitement, but when she turned to face him, he knew she had only toyed with him. The dark circles under her eyes had worsened and her skin was sweaty and bluish. "Gods, woman, I only left you alone for an hour. Are you sick?"

"I must be. My bones ache with fever. I feel sleepy. Short of breath."

"Then rest," Ulfrik said, touching her face and feeling a mild heat. Nothing like a fever. He gave her a skeptical look, which she dismissed with a huff.

"Let's get the ships underway. We don't have time to lose." She wiped her mouth inelegantly with the back of her arm, but Ulfrik still kissed her. Her lips were dry.

"This is not right," he said.

He moved to touch her face again, but she gathered his hands in hers and kissed them. "All of these people, our sons and grandchildren, are dependent on us getting these ships launched. Let's go."

The words had drained her of breath, and she collapsed against the prow as her women tried to hold her up. Ulfrik wrapped her in his cloak and kissed her again, then he gave the orders to cast off once Finn had boarded.

"Is she sick?" Finn asked as Ulfrik took up the steering board.

"Maybe the cut was deeper than I guessed. She has trouble breathing. Maybe her lung was hurt?"

Finn shook his head. "It could be, but that's not like any lung wound I've seen. She should be gasping."

"True. Maybe you should steer while I go to my wife."

Relieving him of the tiller, Ulfrik walked down the rows of crew seated on their sea chests as they pulled the oars. He offered encouragement and strong words to each of them. He passed through the recessed hold at the center of his ship, piled high with crates, barrels, sacks, and the recent ale casks. Women and children gathered there, trying to remain out of the way. He also offered them brave words.

Ulfrik's ship, one of the knarrs, nosed out into the Seine and the line of other ships followed. Hakon steered one directly behind his, and Gunnar's ship would be at the end of the line. He set his fighting ships on either flank of his knarrs and the line made an impressive display as it pulled into the current. One ship held mostly flocks of sheep and a few ponies. All other livestock would have to be acquired in Northumbria, but these flocks were a precaution. He heard the sheep bleating in the distance, the water heightening every sound.

He knelt beside Runa, who had grown still and quiet. The oars splashed the waters and the deck creaked as the current shuttled them down to the ocean. More than anything he listened to his wife's labored breathing. She seemed to be shrinking inside his cloak, as if she were melting away.

Once they had been sailing for close to an hour and the sun had set, Ulfrik ordered torches lit. Normally they would not sail at night, but he knew the Seine as well as the roads of his childhood home. There were few dangers now that Hrolf controlled the waters, and they had only to push through the defenses around the mouth of the Seine. If Vilhjalmer had truly convinced Hrolf to allow them to pass, then no one would intercept them before taking to sea.

Runa continued to wheeze, a dry and rattling sound from deep in her ribs. They did not speak, for Ulfrik feared his wife's illness might worsen if he forced her to waste energy speaking. Unable to stand her suffering any more, one of Runa's women fetched an old woman to examine her. Ulfrik had not realized he had a healer aboard, though the old woman made no claim to it. He had known her husband and her son, both long fallen in battle, but she had stayed on with the help of her cousins. She shooed Ulfrik aside with a wordless swish of her arm. Runa's women held the old woman's arms as she crouched. She peeled away Ulfrik's cloak.

He hovered at her shoulders. Runa's dark eyes were unfocused and her breathing labored. The old woman felt Runa's sides, pressed around the rust-colored stains of the bandage, then felt her neck. Runa did not even wince, but let the old woman roam all over her body. She peeled back Runa's eyelids the pulled open her mouth. Nothing was left unchecked, and she folded the cloak back over his wife's frail body.

Her rheumy eyes met his and she shook her head. Her cracked, aged voice was clear. "She has been poisoned."

Ulfrik's hands went numb and his first impulse was to deny the old woman's assessment.

"By the gods, I should've guessed," he pushed aside the old woman and knelt beside Runa, who stared vacantly. "What can we do to help her?"

The old woman shook her head. "I need to know what the poison was. A lot of poisonings look the same." Her wrinkled old hand touched his shoulder. "Jarl Ulfrik, she is far gone now. Cleaning the cut helped slow the poison's spread, but it's been in her blood too long."

"No," Ulfrik said. His voice was hardly a whisper. "Not like this."

From the ships behind his own, Ulfrik heard shouting. He continued to hover over his wife, fearing to touch her might plunge her into death. It was not until the shouts repeated on his own ship that he roused.

"Fire arrows!"

Ulfrik shot to his feet, just in time to see the third ship in line billow up in a ball of fire.

CHAPTER THIRTY

The heat of the fire slapped Ulfrik as he stood staring dumbfounded at the ball of fire lighting the night sky. He had never witnessed such a thing, a roiling ball of orange flame climbing the mast then flaming out into the darkness. Burning debris showered down, burnt rigging disintegrated in the fire. People screamed as they windmilled around the deck, many throwing themselves overboard rather than burn to death. The scent of burnt wood and flesh now rolled over him as the wind blew downriver.

He heard a sharp plop, then realized flaming arrows were screaming out of the night at his ship. They had just turned a bend to discover the shore lined with yellow fires at regular intervals. Shadows moved around the fires, pulling up dots of flame on the tips of their arrows before sending these streaming toward his ships. The bright fire of the burning ship lit the night, but he still could not see what he faced on shore.

Finn held the tiller loose, staring at the burning ship. The explosion had shocked everyone. Even the enemy on the shore paused at the massive fire. The ship and all the people on it were lost. Yet worse still, the fire spread to Hakon's ship.

The volley of fire resumed, yellow streaks tearing through the darkness to thud into wood or hiss in the river. He could not understand what had caused the ship to explode. He had never seen anything like it, except for once as a young boy. Again, it had been at the trade center Kaupang where people came from every corner of the world. A man had set up a stack of barrels and with one shot from a flaming arrow he had caused the entire stack to billow up in fire. At the time it has been a beautiful display to warm the night and begin a celebration. Tonight it marked pure terror.

The casks. He thought of the casks and remembered Finn rubbing his hands on his pants.

"Your hands!" Ulfrik shouted at Finn, who remained fixated on the massive conflagration. The burning ship listed right, its mast like a burning finger accusing the enemy on the shore. Ulfrik jumped the hold where women cowered over their children, then wove through the rowers who had turned to face the fire. The first flaming arrow to reach his ship drove into the deck at Finn's feet.

Ulfrik spun Finn around, his face yellow in the burning light. Ulfrik yanked his hands out and rubbed the palms with his thumbs.

"Your hands are slick with oil," he said. Finn stared at his hands as if they belonged to another man. "Where did you get those casks of ale?"

"The cart was just sitting with the others waiting to be loaded," he said, still staring at his shiny palms. "I thought we had missed it when we loaded the other cart of ale. Someone told me it was more ale to load, then he left. I--I didn't recognize him."

"And you didn't smell anything?" Ulfrik said, dropping Finn's hands. "Those casks were filled with oil. It's part of this trap."

As if to confirm his discovery, another ship down the line burst into fire, a brilliant cloud rolling up from the center of her deck. More shrieks and sparks filled the night.

"Row, you bastards!" Ulfrik screamed at his crew, then turned to the women in the hold. "Throw the casks overboard. They're filled with oil."

No one seemed to understand his directions. Ulfrik grabbed Finn's arm and shoved him at the hold. "Show them what to do. I'll take the tiller."

Finn jumped down into the hold, while Ulfrik stepped onto the rail. Even in his old age his voice was powerful and strong. If ever he needed to be heard, now was such a time. He cupped a hand to his mouth as he shouted at Hakon's ship. "The kegs are filled with oil. Throw them overboard."

Hakon appeared in the prow, then waved before disappearing again. Within a moment Ulfrik saw casks flying over the rails of Hakon's ship.

The hail of arrows had petered out, and Ulfrik wondered at it. He saw his ships of fighting men had swept ahead to the fires and had chased off the archers. The enemy were few for the amount of damage they had wrought. The burning ships and the wind were doing the rest of the enemy's work.

"Keep rowing," Ulfrik shouted. Finn and the people in the hold were throwing casks overboard. "Put space between the ships."

The night echoed with dying shrieks, frantic rowing, and the awful ripple of burning wood. His own ship had black scars of fire arrows that had not hit the casks. He noted how all the burnt shafts clustered around his hold and the mast. Some arrows would break the casks and others would set the oil aflame. The plan was simple genius, and had succeeded. Were it not his own ships and people being destroyed, he would have admired the ploy.

His ship lurched ahead while those strung out behind avoided the two burning ships. The fire on Hakon's ship appeared under control, though pockets of flame still flickered along its length. The first ship to have caught fire was already on its side, crew and cargo dumped into the cold, unforgiving waters and dragged down to the muck to die. If anyone knew how to swim, it would only be a handful of people. Ulfrik himself had never learned, nor had any of his family. To fall into the water was death.

"Jarl Ulfrik! Hurry!" The women at the prow waved both hands overhead, their bodies outlined in wavering orange light. Ulfrik's heart sank and he abandoned the tiller to dash the length of the ship.

The women cleared away. Runa had kicked free of the cloak Ulfrik had given her, and the bandages on her torso showed fresh red through the dried blood. She had both hands at her neck, more like claws than hands. Her skin had turned dark blue and her eyes were wide with fear. She twisted and gasped as if drowning.

"No! Someone help her." He dropped to his knees and scooped her into his arm. Her breath was short and desperate in his ear as he clutched her to himself. "Stop it!"

"I ... am ..." Runa's voice was weak, nearly lost for the terrified screams of the women surrounding her. "Dying."

He set her down gently, his body trembling and weak, and tried to offer her a smile. He collected her twisted hands from her throat and gathered them in his own. "Don't speak. Save your strength."

She closed her eyes, gasping like a dogfish. "You gave me ... a good life. I ..."

"Runa, no. Hold on. We will get ashore and I will find something to cure this poison."

"... love my sons. I ... love you. I wish ..." More gasping punctuated her words. "To stay longer, but ... it's my time."

Runa's breathing became shorter, and he realized she would not survive. "I wanted you to be proud of me, to be a jarl's wife covered in gold and jewels. Without you I have no purpose. What will I fight for? What will I live for?"

Her eyes snapped open and she gulped like a drowning woman unable to surface. She withdrew a hand and grabbed him by the shoulder, then squeezed out her answer.

"Vengeance."

Her hand dropped, eyes lingering on his. Her flesh was the color of a bruise with ugly veins standing out on her neck and face. Ulfrik watched the light flee from her eyes, and the final breath wheezed from lungs that had failed.

He sat back, his body numb. The women around him cried into their hands. Runa stared at nothing, and Ulfrik gently shut her eyes before drawing his cloak over her body.

Without a tear shed, he stood and turned to face his crew. Everyone held still, white fear written in their expressions. Behind them his ships burned like wild asters of fire in the night. Both of his fists balled up and he roared with the thunderous might of Thor's hammer.

"Mord!"

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Ulfrik did not remember anything after Runa's death. Dawn had broken and he now stood on the northern bank of the Seine with five ships hauled up on the narrow stretch of land. People had disembarked and they milled about the grass that gave way to a thin line of poplar trees masking the horizon. He heard weeping and moaning, varied with cries of pain. A cool wind blew over him and he made to pull his cloak tighter, but he was not wearing one.

He remembered covering Runa's body with it. That was his last memory until he woke from a walking nightmare on the shore of the Seine.

The sky above was still blanketed in clouds but no rain came. It was as if the sky held its tears just has Ulfrik did. What good were tears? They fill a man's eyes and make his vision blurry. He can neither talk nor think straight when in the grip of tears. So he frowned at the glowing spot where the morning sun wrestled with clouds, then spit.

"I've the count of the dead from last night," Finn said from behind. Ulfrik had not heard his approach and did not turn to meet him. Instead he watched the brown water flow past him.