02 The Invaders (30 page)

S
tig counted silently as the Limmatan fighters filed past him to board the
Heron
. As the last one climbed over the gunwale, he turned to Jonas.

“I counted twenty-four,” Stig said, a note of accusation in his voice. They had expected to carry twenty men on each trip. With any more, the
Heron
would be seriously overloaded. But Jonas nodded.

“We’ve had four more men make their way out of the town over the past few days. Barat wanted them along. He said the more men we had, the better chance we’d stand.”

Stig grunted a grudging acknowledgment. It made sense. But if he’d known about it sooner, he might have been able to compensate by unloading some of the ballast stones the
Heron
carried below her decks. Now there wasn’t time to do that.

“I don’t suppose anybody thought it might be a good idea to let us know?”

Jonas spread his hands apologetically. “I’m sorry, Stig. It didn’t occur to me that it’d make any difference.”

Stig pursed his lips. There was no sense in being annoyed with
Jonas. He was a farmer and he had no knowledge of ships. Barat, of course, was another matter entirely. He was a trader and had been around ships all his life. His family even owned several.

“Well, I’ll have to lighten the ship as much as possible,” Stig said. “And there’s only one way I can think of doing it.” He called up to the ship, floating a few meters off the beach. “Stefan! Edvin! Come ashore!”

The two crew members’ faces appeared over the ship’s side, peering down at him curiously.

“What’s the problem?” Stefan asked, and Stig made a peremptory gesture with his thumb for them to climb down.

“We’re overloaded. You’ll have to stay behind.”

“But who’s going to lower and raise the sail?” Edvin asked. As he said it, Ulf and Wulf joined their shipmates at the railing.

“The twins will have to do it,” Stig replied. He’d decided on this because the twins were the stronger of the four crew on board. One of them alone should be able to raise and lower the sail—or he could get help from the passengers if necessary. After all, it was only a matter of hauling on a rope.

“Ulf, you take over raising the sail.”

“I’m Wulf,” said the twin he’d indicated.

Stig set his jaw angrily. Then he said, very deliberately, “Then Wulf, you look after raising the sail. Ulf can take care of trimming.”

“I’m happy to raise the sail if you want me to,” said the twin he now knew as Ulf. Stig took a deep breath. He was beginning to wonder how Hal managed to keep his temper with these two. Then he realized that, quite often, he didn’t.

“I don’t care who does what, so long as both jobs get done. All right?”

The twins shrugged. “All right,” they chorused. Then Ulf added, “So you do want me to raise the sail?”

“YES!” Stig exploded. “You raise the sail. And you, the other one, whoever the blazes you are, you trim the sail.”

“I’m Wulf,” Wulf said.

“And I don’t care!” Stig told him. “Just do as I ask!”

“All right,” Wulf said, rolling his eyes to indicate how contrary Stig was being. He and his twin withdrew and moved to their stations. Stefan and Edvin, who had watched the exchange with some amusement, climbed over the rail and dropped to the shallow water.

“You’re leaving yourself short-handed,” Edvin said to Stig.

The tall boy nodded grimly. “I know it. I have no other choice, do I?”

Edvin considered the point, then shrugged. “I suppose not. But if the wind dies, you’ll only have two people to man the oars.”

“The wind has blown steadily offshore every night for weeks,” Stig told him. “Why should it drop tonight?”

“I don’t know,” Edvin admitted. “Maybe because you’ll need it tonight.”

Stig glared at him for several seconds. Edvin met his gaze, but he had the grace to look apologetic for raising the matter.

Finally, Stig said firmly, “The wind is not going to drop tonight. All right?”

“Fine,” Edvin agreed. “Whatever you say.”

“Good.” Stig noticed a slim figure moving toward him and he
looked away from Edvin. “Hullo, Lydia,” he said. “Come to see us off?”

In truth, Lydia had been planning to talk her way on board for the trip. She was frustrated with the lack of activity, sitting quietly by waiting for the attack to start. She wanted to be doing something, and she felt she might have a chance of convincing Stig. But the discussion she’d just overheard convinced her otherwise.

“Just came to wish you good luck,” she said.

Stig smiled. “We’ll be fine,” he said, gesturing to the ship. “Nothing to it. Sail in, drop them off. Sail out again.”

“I meant, good luck finding Hal,” she said, and the smile faded as Stig thought about the night ahead of him.

“Yeah. Of course. Don’t worry. We’ll pick him up, all right.” He felt a twinge of concern for his friend. And, oddly, he felt a slight stab of jealousy as well. Lydia hadn’t been concerned about his well-being, he thought. She was worried about Hal.

Then he pushed the unworthy feeling aside. Hal was in a far more dangerous situation than he would be. Why should he feel jealous because Lydia was more concerned about him? Yet he did, and he was angry at himself for feeling that way.

“Better be going,” he said abruptly, to conceal his confusion. Sensing that she had offended him somehow, Lydia made a tentative gesture toward him. But he’d already turned away and swung himself lightly up and over the ship’s rail, picking his way aft through the crowded Limmatans.

Instead, she joined Edvin and Stefan to help shove the ship off. Ingvar, who had been hovering nearby, moved down the beach to help them, and the
Heron
slid backward into deeper water. Stig
worked the tiller, rowing the stern around until the ship was facing the open sea.

“Starboard sail,” he called, and one of the twins heaved the yard and sail up, while his brother hauled it in tight against the wind. As the ship gathered way, Stig held her in a smooth curve out from the beach. The
Heron
moved quickly into the night, a dark shadow on an equally dark sea, until the only sign of her was the occasional white flash of the waves at her bow.

Jesper flattened himself against the rough boards of the gate, scarcely daring to breathe as he heard the measured tramp of the sentry passing overhead.

Under the overhang of the gate portal as he was, there was no way he could be seen by the sentry, unless the man leaned way out, over the top of the palisade, and peered back inward. There was no reason to think the man would do so—unless Jesper made a noise.

He no longer felt the cold. Adrenaline was surging through his system, dispelling any sensation of discomfort. He waited till the footsteps receded. He knew from his observation that he had three minutes before the sentry returned. He laid the oil bladder carefully in the sand at the base of the gate, reached into his pocket for a small auger Hal had given him and stretched as high as possible to begin drilling a hole in the gate.

Hal thinks of everything, he thought. Left to his own devices, Jesper would never have thought to bring the auger and the small spike that Hal had provided. He would have gone to all the trouble and effort of making his way to the gate unseen, then realized that there was nothing from which he could hang the oil bladder.

He worked the auger round and round. It was an awkward action, reaching high above his head, and the wood was hardened with the drying effect of years of salt and wind, which had shrunk its fibers, binding them more tightly together, making them harder to penetrate. But he persisted.

The footsteps were returning and he froze once more, allowing them to pass before he continued drilling. At last, he decided that the hole was deep enough and he took the spike from his pocket and rammed it into the hole. It was a few millimeters smaller than the drill, so there was no need to hammer it in. He grinned mirthlessly. There was no way he could have hammered it in anyway, not without being heard. For that reason, he had angled the drill downward as he bored the hole. As a result, when he forced the spike into position, it sloped slightly upward. When he hung the oilskin on it, the angle would keep it firmly in the hole. He worked the spike in now as far as he could, feeling it hit solid wood as he reached the end of the hole he’d drilled.

He hung the oil bladder over the spike, arranging it so it lay flat against the wood of the gate. He released his grip carefully, making sure that the spike would hold firm. Then he stopped once more as the footsteps approached, then receded.

There was one more refinement that had occurred to him. The gate obviously hadn’t been used in weeks, and a certain amount of rubbish and detritus had gathered near the foot of the wall, including several dead branches and strings of dried weed. Jesper gathered a few quickly, scuttling out from the cover of the gateway recess to retrieve them, and piled them roughly at the foot of the gate, beneath the point where the oil bladder hung. When Hal pierced it,
the oil would gush down, drenching the gate. But a large amount would simply run off into the sand. This way, the oil running off the gate would soak into the dried pile of kindling he’d just collected. It would catch fire as well, and when it burned, it would help the flames spread to the hard timbers.

“Every little bit helps,” Jesper muttered, eyeing his handiwork. Then he crouched as he heard the footsteps again. They passed without pausing, as they had since he’d been by the gate. Once he was sure the way was clear, he crept silently on hands and knees away from the wall. There was a deep undulation in the sand five meters away and that was his first objective. He reached it and lay facedown, unmoving in its shadow, until the footsteps passed again in the opposite direction. Then he moved off again, heading for his next stop—a tussock of rough grass to his right.

As he belly crawled across the cool sand, he sensed a change. Something was different. Something wasn’t the way it had been. He reached the scant cover of the tussock and lay there, concentrating. He frowned as he sought to determine what it was that he’d sensed.

Then it came to him. The wind had dropped.

chapter
twenty - eight

T
he trip to the Limmatans’ drop-off point had gone without a hitch. Stig brought the
Heron
on a long, curving course into the bay, then back to the beach where the first party of troops had spent the day.

Barat had been watching for their arrival. As the bow of the ship grated gently against the sand, he waded thigh deep into the water to greet them.

“You’re late,” he said. “I expected you an hour ago.”

Gracious as ever, Stig thought. He made a vague gesture at the night around them.

“The wind isn’t as strong as last night,” he said. “We couldn’t manage the same speed.” Then he couldn’t stop himself adding, with an acid tone to his voice, “Plus we were carrying a heavier load, which nobody mentioned to us.”

“Hmmmph. Well, better late than never, I suppose,” Barat replied as his men began to disembark and form up in a loose circle on the beach, awaiting further orders. Ulf and Wulf stood by the bulwarks in the bow, helping any who were uncertain of their
movements. Not all the Limmatans were accustomed to moving about on board ship.

Stig brought forward an armful of water skins and a few sacks of food—bread and dried meat for the most part—and handed them down to Jonas. Then he dropped over the rail to the beach.

“This should keep you going,” he said. He looked at Barat. “Remember, stay out of sight tomorrow, then attack the day after, two hours after noon.”

They’d added the extra day to the schedule when it was realized that Hal would probably be exhausted when they picked him up. They had set the time for the attack as mid-afternoon, which would place the sun in the eyes of the defenders as the
Heron
attacked the two towers.

Barat snorted. “Still don’t know why we don’t attack at dawn. That’s the traditional time.”

Stig took a deep breath, controlling his annoyance with an effort. This had all been discussed. But of course, Barat was choosing to conveniently forget that fact. Stig was beginning to realize that the Limmatan leader simply liked argument for its own sake. He’d fit in well with Ulf and Wulf, he thought.

“That’s why we’re leaving it till mid-afternoon,” he answered in measured tones. “Dawn attacks are traditional, which means people expect them. That’s why garrisons usually stand to just before dawn. They’re on their toes. By mid-afternoon, they’re more interested in sleeping off their lunch. We discussed this,” he added pointedly.

Barat shook his head. “Doesn’t mean I agree.” Then, he gave away the reason behind his petulance, glancing up at the boat. “Is Lydia with you?”

Stig shook his head. He’d seen Lydia loitering by the ship when they were loading and guessed what she had in mind. “Couldn’t fit her in. She wanted to come but we were already overloaded.”

Barat regarded him uncertainly. He wasn’t sure if Stig meant that Lydia had wanted to see him, Barat, or that she had wanted to accompany Stig. He hesitated, not sure what to say next.