Runestone (9 page)

With mixed feelings, he thought sometimes of Ingrid, her blue eyes, angelic features, and soft body. Usually it was at night, when he pulled his robe up around his ears against the night’s chill. How that body could warm a man’s bed, he would think. He wondered sometimes if she ever thought about him, and knew that he would come for her. He tried to forget her reputation, and the fact that when she left her husband to go with Nils, there would be unpleasant talk. Well, let them talk, damn them all. He would make his own decisions. He had promised to help the unfortunate girl and was determined to do so. He would then drift off to sleep to dream of the warm kisses that held so much promise.

It was early on the third morning above the Talking Waters that they first sighted evidence of human habitation. There had been a suggestion of smoke in the distance to the south on the first day. However, it thinned and disappeared so rapidly that Nils decided he had seen only the mists rising from the damp of the forest as the sun warmed the day.

They proceeded slowly, seldom using the sail. The country was much as they had seen before, beautiful, wild, and with no sign of human life. Nils mentioned this to Odin. The Skraeling looked directly at him for a moment, the one dark eye staring, questioning.

“But they are watching,” he said quietly.

He pulled his cloak around him and turned away, to join Svenson at the rail.

“Wait,” Nils started to call out. Then he checked the impulse. He would not go calling after the Skraeling in an undignified manner. Anyway, Odin would tell him what he wished to, and when. Nils rankled a bit at the situation, but decided there was nothing he could do.

It remained this way, an uneasy standoff between the two, with Nils still feeling that the Skraeling knew more than he was telling. It doubly bothered him that Odin, too, seemed concerned. Today, he decided, he would have it out, and find what the Skraeling knew. If they were being watched, by whom?

He was on the point of facing Odin with his demands when there was a cry from a lookout in the bow. Nils looked where the man was pointing. There, in a grassy meadow above the beach, stood three mounds, rounded and smooth, all alike and in a row. At first Nils thought this an unusual rock formation, but quickly realized that they were manmade. Huts of some sort? No, they seemed too small. He turned to Odin, who was staring hard.

“Odin, what—?” he began, but the Skraeling interrupted.

“Boats.”

“Boats?”

“Yes. Made of skins.”

He offered no further explanation.

Helge now ordered the ship to swing in to shore, and quickly selected a dozen men for a landing party.

Nils was scanning the terrain for other signs of life, but all seemed quiet. He studied the boats again as the ship drew nearer. They appeared quite similar in shape and size, rounded, and flat on the bottom, and a dull gray-brown in color.

It proved possible to bring the ship close enough to shore to use a plank. The heavily armed men trotted down the plank after Helge, and spread out to approach the boats. Even at the time, Nils felt a trifle uneasy at the warlike way Landsverk had deployed his party.

There was a flash of motion at the boats. A man scrambled
out from under one of the upturned vessels and sprinted away.

“Shoot him!” shouted Helge.

A swarm of arrows buzzed after the fleeing savage, and he fell, face forward, and lay still.
Why
, Nils thought,
why would he have the man killed?

There was more activity at the boats. Men came swarming out, perhaps two or three from under each boat, where they had been hiding, and a short but decisive skirmish ensued. The savages were cut down quickly, by arrows, then by swords and axes, before they had time to ready their own bows. It appeared to Nils that they had been completely unprepared for an instant attack at first contact, unready to do battle. Helge Landsverk was in the thick of the fight, savagely wielding a battle-ax.

One survivor, who had crept out under the far side of a boat, now jumped and fled. There was a shout, and men fitted arrows to bowstrings as the Skraeling ran, dodging and zigzaging across the meadow.

“Let him go!” laughed Landsverk. “He can tell the others what sort of men the Norsemen are.”

The landing party picked up some of the stone weapons of the Skraelings, and a bow or two as curiosities. Helge ordered one of the boats carried aboard while he methodically destroyed the others with his battle-ax. He came back up the plank, his face shining with excitement and his eyes glittering.

“A fine engagement,” he chortled. “Seven enemy dead, a boat that we can use, two more destroyed, and only a few scratches to us,”

“Helge, is this wise?” Nils blurted.

“What? Of course. We have established our reputation as conquerors.”

Nils’s heart sank. A phrase from a generation ago, used as a prayer in the north of Britain, flashed through his memory.

“
Lord, save us from the fury of the Northmen
.”

It was retold as a matter of historical interest now, a memory of a savage time. But, somehow, for Helge Landsverk, it had become a thing of the present. He saw himself as a leader of raiding and pillaging. This was no exploring expedition,
setting up contacts for trade, Nils now realized. Landsverk was leading a raiding party.

But for what purpose? The old Norse raids along the coast and the isles netted plunder. Property, gold, foodstuffs. What could the plunder of these savage Skraelings yield? There was only one conclusion. It was the killing itself that appealed to Helge Landsverk.

Nils watched his friend as they drew in the plank and cast off. Helge paced up and down the
Norsemaiden
like a caged animal, his excitement not satisfied. What would he do next, Nils wondered. Was he really going mad?

He looked around for Odin. The Skraeling was standing at the rail, numbly staring at the, carnage. Nils went to stand beside him. Contrary to his usual habit, Odin spoke first.

“This is very bad,” he said quietly.

“Are these your people?”

The Skraeling looked up in surprise.

“No.”

He seemed puzzled for a moment, and then a light seemed to dawn in the dark eye.

“Oh. No, not bad for them, Thorsson. Bad for
us
,”

The council was short and decisive at the village. The survivor related how his companions had been hacked to pieces, and the elders looked from one to the other around the circle.

“We still do not understand their purpose,” one said.

“True, but they are vicious and cruel,” another pointed out. “Blackbird saw one cut off the hand of his own warrior.”

“The hand?” inquired the scout, who had been out of touch with the village.

“Yes, Blackbird saw them bury it.”

There was much shaking of heads.

“It makes no difference what they want, now,” Crow Wing observed. “They are too dangerous to ignore.”

There were nods of agreement.

“Then we are all agreed?” asked the chief elder.

There was no dissenting vote, only more nods of approval.

“So be it,” announced the elder, knocking the dottle from his pipe. “They must be killed.”

T
hey traveled some distance upstream after the skirmish, and then stopped for the night. Helge spotted a good landing site and wished to allow time to relax after the fray.

There was much amusement as the sailors attempted to learn the use of the captured boat. A thrust of the paddle had a tendency to result in a spinning motion of the craft, without any marked progress. Laughing, cavorting, intentionally falling into the water in mock helplessness, they were ready to abandon the boat and destroy it like the others.

“Odin!” someone shouted. “Here, Skraeling! Show us how to row the damned thing!”

Odin glanced at Nils as if for approval, then took a paddle and stepped into the boat. Without words, he dipped his paddle and took a curved, semicircular stroke, counteracting the spin of the vessel. He continued to stroke, demonstrating his skill, utilizing the momentum of the spin itself to change direction. His performance was so impressive that a half-mocking cheer rose from the onlookers. Nils was startled at the agility of the man.

Now those who had failed before must try again. Like children with a new toy, they cavorted and played until darkness prevented further activity. Some of the Norsemen were becoming quite proficient in handling the new craft.

Odin, as soon as attention turned from him, seemed to withdraw again, and became hardly noticeable outside the circle of firelight on the shore. Finally the camp quieted, with everyone exhausted from the excitement of the day. Nils rolled in his blankets, but lay awake for a long time. He was still quite disturbed over Helge’s actions. This was not the purpose of the expedition, as he understood it, the killing of
Skraelings. It made no sense at all. Even if plunder was the purpose, what did Skraelings have to plunder? Some dried meat, a few vegetables, some skin boats that were slow and hard to steer? He would talk to Helge in the morning. Maybe his friend could explain to him why this was
not
madness.

He turned to thoughts of the sensuous Ingrid. He lay there cold and frustrated until finally he fell asleep, to dream of wide blue eyes and a sad, alluring smile as she pleaded for his help.

He woke with a sudden start. Someone was touching his shoulder and urgently speaking in his ear.

“Wake up, Thorsson,” Odin hissed. ’They come!”

“What?” he mumbled. “Who?…”

He was confused, his mind fogged by sleep. He fought to clear his head.

The world was gray with the dim light of the false dawn. He looked first to the ship. She rocked gently on the water, her mast and proud dragon’s head outlined against the gray of the sky. He turned to look at the sleeping forms of his companions, scattered around the now dead fire. Odin was still trying to get his attention.

“Thorsson,” he pleaded, “wake up. They come!”

Nils sat up.

“Who comes?”

“The Skraelings!”

Odin had hardly spoken the word when there was a yell of alarm from a sentry, a cry that was choked off short. It was growing lighter, and as he scrambled to his feet Nils saw others doing the same, grasping for weapons, fumbling sleep out of their eyes. He heard the twanging of bowstrings and the soft buzz of arrows around him. Not until then did he begin to notice dark forms moving at the edge of the clearing, crouching close to the ground, encircling the camp of the Norsemen. Now the quiet of the dawn burst into sound. The shrieks of the wounded and dying mingled with the war cries of the attackers and the yells of the defenders.

Nils felt something pluck at his right ear, but ignored it as he grasped his sword and turned to face the rush of the Skraelings. Most of those closing in seemed to be wielding battle-axes, of the stone type carried by the men killed at the
boats. One rushed at him with weapon upraised. He thrust upward into the man’s soft underbelly, and jerked his sword free to swing at another who came at him from the right.

“Push them back!” Landsverk was shouting. “Attack!”

Nils was too busy defending to think of attacking. He stepped backward to avoid a swinging ax, and tripped over something to fall flat. The ax whistled through space occupied by his head a moment ago, and someone else struck the warrior down from behind. The dying Skraeling fell almost directly on top of him, and he struggled to free himself, pinioned by the weight of the man’s body. The smell of the other’s sweat was in his nostrils. He kicked free and scrambled to his feet, sword ready.

But now, suddenly, it was quiet. A few of the wounded Skraelings were dragging themselves away. Some lay dead, but the main force of the attackers had withdrawn, as suddenly as they came.

“They will be back,” said Odin solemnly.

Nils wondered where Odin had been during the fight. It would have been quite risky for him. Either side might take him for an enemy, especially the Norsemen. Nils did not question Odin’s bravery, but was a bit concerned as to where his allegiance lay. However, if the man had wished, the opportunity would never have been better to slip away during the battle. And he was still here.

“They will attack again?” Nils asked.

“Yes,” Odin nodded.

Helge seemed inclined to pursue the retreating Skraelings, but soon gave it up. There were dead and wounded to care for.

“We will bury the dead,” Landsverk announced.

Nils approached and drew him aside.

“Helge,” he began cautiously, “Odin says they will attack again. Should we not bring the dead aboard ship and move on?”

Helge whirled on him, furious.

“Thorsson, I will not base my decisions on the advice of a one-eyed savage.”

He turned and stalked away. In a short while, however,
Nils was pleased to see that his friend’s judgment had not entirely departed.

“Everyone on board,” Helge shouted, changing orders. “Bring the dead and wounded.”

They were in the midst of this task when a lookout pointed upstream.

“Look!” he called. “Boats!”