Thunder God (23 page)

Olaf reached out to help me on board.

We glanced at each other. There was nothing to say.

Olaf lashed the tiller in place. It was no use to us now because we were, in effect, moving backwards. He took his place beside me at the rowing benches and we pulled out into the stream. Once we reached the estuary, we could bring the boat around, but there was not enough room here on the narrow river. We rowed hard through the slackening tide on our way towards the open sea.

Shadows of the trees passed over us. As we drew near to the river mouth, the water ran more swiftly. The smell of salt air reached our lungs.

I heard a dull clapping sound and looked up to see an arrow embedded in the mast. Then two more arrows landed in the water, just short of the boat. They sliced under us, trailing chains of silver bubbles.

Above us, on the ridge, men were silhouetted against the
sky. Others appeared on the river bank. I saw the men on the ridge draw their bows, leaning back to give the arrows height, then jerk their bodies forward as they loosed the strings. The arrows seemed to wobble as they climbed, almost pausing as they reached the crest of their flight. Then I lost sight of them against the trees. The next thing I heard was a crack as one of the arrows smacked into my shield, scattering red chips of paint off the wood.

The men drew their bows again. A flock of arrows sailed above the water. With a loud clatter, three of them struck the deck. Others sliced into the water, passing under the boat before rising to the surface again.

The man with a huge wooden mallet emerged from the forest and stood on the bank, waving the strange weapon wildly over his head and bellowing insults.

We were moving quickly now. The men could not keep up with us. We slid around a bend and they fell out of sight. Now there was no sound except the grinding of the oars in the oarlocks.

As I turned my head to wipe the sweat from my face on my sleeve, I saw an arrow sticking out of Olaf’s back. But Olaf was still rowing as if nothing had happened to him.

‘Olaf,’ I said.

He turned to me, bleary-eyed.

‘You are hurt,’ I said.

He set his oar, then reached over his shoulder and broke off the arrow shaft, leaving a short stump protruding. He looked at the arrow, then flung it away over the side and began to row again.

We reached the muddy estuary, which had become a field of choppy surf now that the tide was changing. Quickly, we brought the ship about, so that Olaf would be steering from the stern again. Meanwhile, I struggled to raise the sail.

As I was doing this, I heard Olaf call to me. When I turned my head, I saw a boat beyond the line of surf. It was just lowering its sail, as if preparing to go up the same river we had just come down. At first, I was relieved to see the familiar dirty wool of the square sail and the overlapping planks which swooped down from the bow into the water and then rose again towards the stern. It was a Norse Drakkar and on board were a full crew, sixteen at the oars, one at the steerboard and another who stood at the bow, pointing towards us. This man’s face was broad and red and his long hair blew in the wind. Around his shoulders, he wore a cloak made from the shaggy brown pelt of a bear and, underneath it, a leather vest with perforated iron squares laced across his chest.

Their shields hung over the side. One was painted black with a blue star in the centre, another yellow with a red sun and rays spreading out to the corners of the shield. And closest to the stern, hung a red shield, flecked with white paint, the mark of a former Varangian.

The crew lowered their sail, since the wind was against them. They set their oars and began to row towards us.

Now my relief turned to fear. I had no doubt what they would do to us if they found out what we were carrying.

Olaf jibed the boat and our own sail filled with the wind. We began to move across the angry surf. Waves broke against our bow, sending arcs of spray across the deck.

The men in the other Drakkar had cleared the line of breakers. They were in the estuary now. The one at the bow shouted at us to draw alongside them.

He spoke the southern Norse of Danes. They had probably come from one of the Danish settlements across the water in Ireland, and were raiding the coast, as Cabal had said they did.

I tightened the sail lines to gather more speed as we made our way towards the open water.

The Danes brought their boat around, oar blades hacking the murky water. The bear-cloaked man stayed at the bow, chanting to keep them in time.

Olaf cried out in frustration. We were not moving fast enough. Between us and the sea, the current surged against itself, waves rolling under each other. On either side of the river mouth, white-bearded rollers crashed against the dunes.

The Danes changed course to cut us off and run our boat aground. Any moment now, they would pull in front. There was nothing to do but keep on towards the jagged surf.

The bear-skinned man swept back his cloak and took a
long-handled
war-axe from his belt. Its sharpened edge shone silver like a crescent moon. He moved the axe slowly back and forth in front of his face, staring past the blade, which was an old trick for setting the range.

We were so close that I could see his pock-marked skin, his rotten teeth and hawk-beak nose.

My palms were bloody from gripping the sail lines.

The Danes were about to overtake us. The strain of rowing showed in their windburned faces and clenched teeth. The man at the steerboard arched his body to hold the boat on course.

The patterns of their shields weaved before my sweat-stung eyes. With a shout from the bear-cloaked man, the Danes on the starboard side hauled in their square-tipped oars. Then they took up their shields and swords.

We were moving straight towards them. All the Danes had to do was to guide their boat onwards, propelled by the force of the current, and they would be able to walk from the deck of their boat onto ours.

I tied the sail line in place and grabbed my red shield. Snapping off the arrow which had struck it, I threw the feathered stick into the waves. My whole body was shaking. Energy for
the fight thrashed inside me. Without thinking, I crashed the hilt of my sword against the boss of my shield. And then again. And again.

Olaf lashed the tiller and came to stand beside me, shield in one hand and sword in the other. After a moment’s hesitation, he began to strike his shield as well.

I had not grasped at first what was happening. But when Olaf took up the strange metallic chant and the sound began to multiply, I understood. Already I could feel the shadow taking shape beneath my skin, climbing to the surface like a face rising up through murky water, moulding its features to my own. It stretched into my fingers, stealing my senses, drawing my flesh around itself. A murmuring fury filled my head, changing my blood. All fear gone. The hammering thunder was everywhere. I felt my lips pull back around my teeth and a horrible, shrieking howl tore out of me. In that moment I no longer knew who I was.

The bear-cloaked Dane roared his hate at us. Sea spray matted his hair and the shaggy ruff of his fur cloak.

I raised my shield to my chest and steadied my legs for the collision of our boats.

As their boat slid between us and the wind, it caused the waves to slacken. Our boat began to turn with the current. Now it seemed as if the two boats might not collide after all. The Danes on the port side struggled with their oars, but they could not make their boat move sideways. The steerman pushed the heavy tiller back and forth, trying to scull their Drakkar back on course.

The bear-cloaked Dane cursed and hurled his axe at us. It flew end over end and thudded against our mast. Chips of wood spat into the air. Then the Dane hurled his shield, which spun flat and would have taken off Olaf’s head if he had not dropped to his knees and let the shield fly past above him.
Now the Dane stepped up onto the prow of his boat. He balanced there uncertainly. One of his crew shouted and held out his hand, ready to help the man back into the safety of the boat. But the man was too crazed now to understand. His cloak billowed around him and the tendons in his arms were taut from his grip on the prow.

As he perched there, ready to leap across onto our boat, a pale and ghostly thing rose from the murky water. The Dane narrowed his eyes, struggling to make out what it was. In the moment of his realisation, he gasped so loudly that I heard it even over the rumble of the churning water.

It was Cabal, this bloodless thing. He floated face down, torn flesh shivering in the current. His body swung back and forth in the slack water between the Danes’ boat and our own. It seemed to hover there, arms outstretched and fingers twitching in the cold grey water, as if there was still life in them.

All of us stared. A great silence descended upon us. We who were about to butcher one another had been bound together in horror.

With movements as slow as in a dream, I took up my spear, which had been lying on the deck. I raised the shaft to the level of my shoulder, drew back my arm and sent the bronze point flying. The spear was only in the air for a moment. It crossed the space between us so quickly that its blade had cracked through the Dane’s chest before the expression could change on his face.

He fell back among his crew, who caught him in their arms and held him while he thrashed out the last of his life.

The silence which had fallen on us tore away and the sounds of wind and water roared back into my ears.

Quickly, Olaf returned to the tiller, while I went back to the sail. We steered towards the breakers, gathering speed.

The Danes struggled to bring their boat around. Some of the
crew remained around the body of their fallen leader, while Cabal’s body, pitched by the waves, threw itself again and again at their hull.

We ploughed through the surf, heaved up by the breakers and slammed back down again. The steerboard raked across the sand, sending a shudder down the spine of the Drakkar. I thought we might founder, but then we passed into the open water. The wind swept us out to sea.

I looked back at that estuary, as it faded away in the mist, and it seemed to me that years from now, perhaps centuries into the future, people might come to this place and feel the savagery still hanging in the air. It would remain here like a shadow brought to life, howling in their dreams, the echo of our pounded shields calling through the silence of their sleep.

Then I saw the Danes clear the mouth of the estuary, their sail bellied out with the wind and heading right towards us.

I knew then that they would follow Olaf and me off the end of the earth rather than give up the chase. We had killed one of their own. Now they would make us pay.

As long as the wind kept up, we stood a chance of outrunning them, but only if we went with the wind, wherever it took us.

The land drowned in the sea. Deep swells moved against the hull. Our ship sailed on into gathering darkness. The Danes were still visible in the distance, now falling behind, now gaining, their curved prow riding up on the crests of the waves.

There was no moon, only the black cloak of the night sky, flecked with countless silver droplets like the sea spray on our clothes.

Olaf manned the steerboard, his gaze fixed beyond the bow. ‘If there is a fog,’ he said, ‘we can come about and tack to the east. Then we might lose them, if they do not decide to do the same thing.’

‘Your wound,’ I said. ‘Are you in pain?’

He shook his head. ‘I have no feeling at all in my shoulder.’

While he stood there at the tiller, I cut away his blood-soaked shirt and looked at where the arrow had gone into his shoulder blade. The flesh was mounded up around the splintered arrow shaft.

‘I am going to try and pull it out,’ I said. Setting my left hand on his shoulder, I gripped the shaft with my right hand and tugged at it hard.

Olaf groaned and struggled to stay on his feet.

The arrow would not come out, nor could it be pushed through, since it was lodged in bone. The point would have to be cut away, and such a thing could not be done on the deck of this pitching boat.

‘No luck?’ he gasped.

I patted him on the head. ‘No, but I have seen much worse than this in men who lived to tell about it.’

He tried to smile. His face was covered in sweat.

‘Rest,’ I said. ‘I can manage the tiller.’

‘I will tell you when I need to rest,’ he replied stubbornly.

So I sat down beside him on my whale bone seat, put my face in my hands and felt the warmth of my fingertips against my closed eyelids. Exhaustion clouded my mind. When I thought back on the day, I could not recall when the pounding of the shields had ceased. I could still hear it and felt the black self still inside me, drifting in the river of my blood.

I could not get into my head the fact that Cabal was gone. I kept thinking that I saw him from the corner of my eye. I seemed to hear fragments of his voice. Along with the rest of the Varangians who knew him, I had convinced myself that Cabal was only partly of this earth, and the sufferings of mortal men would not be his. I had not believed that he would ever die.

It seemed to me as if the gods had abandoned us, not only ours but the Christian god as well. They had started this fight and then left us to slaughter each other, while they remained distant and beyond harm, unlike the once-untouchable Cabal.

As the hours went by, the truth began to sink in, I flinched in sudden, uncontrollable shudders. I stared out at the black waves, which looked to me like an endless, glinting plain of thunderstone. Our movement on the water seemed to carve a path through time itself, away from my old friend and all the years we spent together.

The wind blew hard that night, as the Danes pursued us out along the whale-road’s trackless path.