“So, what now?”
The three would-be rescuers were huddled behind a low outcrop of rocks looking across a shallow bay towards the settlement. The brief journey from their landing place to here had been uneventful, not counting the curses that exploded from Hakon when he stepped into a rabbit hole.
Given that the flat landscape didn’t provide a great deal of hiding places should they have got themselves into a pickle, Sarah was grateful that they didn’t see anyone else. They had been lucky so far with the moon lighting the way for them and promptly hiding behind a cloud as soon as they came within view of the settlement.
From behind their dubious vantage point it soon became apparent that any kind of rescue would be difficult, not that they were expecting it to be easy. All of the warriors were sitting around a large fire enjoying some hot food (Sarah’s tummy rumbled in response to the lovely smells wafting in their direction) and from the sound of it, plenty of ale. The children were nowhere to be seen.
“They must have moved them, perhaps they are in one of the buildings” said Leif hopefully.
Unspoken was the dread that they had lost track of the children, as Sarah tentatively reached for her amulet, “Well, maybe I could do my thing and locate them?” she suggested, not looking at the boys. Hakon and Leif went still, Sarah held her breath, the pause seemed to go on forever.
“Suppose you’d better than,” said Hakon eventually, his voice betraying his unease.
Sarah settled herself onto the ground, closed her eyes and breathing deeply felt the now familiar sensation of the ground falling away. Directing her thoughts towards Harald, it didn’t take long to find out what they needed to know. Within a few minutes she was back on firm ground. Her eyes opened. Neither Hakon nor Leif had moved away from their positions watching the warrior camp, their backs to her like a silent wall of mistrust.
“The children are still in the camp, they have been moved to one of the buildings” said Sarah sighing.
“Which one? Are there guards?” asked Hakon, still not looking at her.
“It’s the one on the far side but one,” said Sarah pointing. “There is one guard, unfortunately it is the beserker and he is inside the building”. Hakon muttered several swear words that made Sarah blush.
“We need to know what is going on, where they’re being taken and such. Only then we can make a plan to rescue them,” said Leif.
Hakon looked at Sarah, “No, it wouldn’t help,” she said, “I can only do it for a few minutes at a time. It would be pretty hit and miss”.
Hakon glanced at the camp, “They will be settling down for the night soon, I will go down to the camp and find the children, they might be able to tell us something”.
“Not the best plan I’ve ever heard you come up with” said Leif shaking his head.
“No, I think it’s a good plan to wait until most of them have gone to sleep but we should all go, splitting up is always a bad move” said Sarah, thinking about the movies. Bad things happen when people split up and she had no intention of being the ‘red shirt’ in this scene.
“Sarah’s right, we need to stick together” Leif chimed in.
“Okay, so here’s the plan,” said Hakon, trying to keep control of the situation. “We will have some food and wait until that lot of carrion feeders have nodded off, then we will head down there and have a nosy around and if there is a chance we can rescue the children now we will take it”.
Leif nodded in agreement and Sarah rummaged in her pack for the oatcakes and berries which was to be their dinner.
“I don’t know about you two, but I’m knackered and hungry” said Sarah.
“What’s knackered?” said Leif stumbling over the foreign word.
“Worn out, it means I’m really, really worn out. To be honest I’m glad we have stopped for a moment, I couldn’t rescue a dormouse at the moment.” To Sarah it seemed that the over use of her ‘gift’ equalled a certain amount of tiredness.
“Wakey, wakey” said a voice in her ear.
“Go away, too tired, more sleep” Sarah mumbled trying to brush away the insistent voice in her ear.
“Time for us to make a move,” said the voice. Opening her eyes, she saw it was Leif was crouching beside her. Sitting bolt upright she realised she must have nodded off. A red-faced Sarah grinned at the boys.
“Told you I was knackered”.
As soon as Sarah had rubbed the sleep from her eyes the trio silently made their way down towards the settlement. The warriors had mostly fallen asleep where they had been sitting around the fire, with the exception of the two who were obviously on watch. Each had stationed themselves at either end of the little bay, both facing landward.
Hakon had decided to take them on a roundabout route using the forest at the back of the settlement as cover. Retracing their steps they headed inland to the tree line and then doubled back towards the settlement. Travelling in near darkness amongst the trees was not easy and Sarah was beginning to get annoyed at the random tree branches that seemed to have it in for her, not to mention the tree roots that kept trying to trip her up.
She was sure that the whole settlement would hear them coming given the racket she was making. As they got closer to the settlement it seemed that Hakon too was worried about the noise she was making because he took them out of the forest to its edge.
“The deep shadow from the trees should be enough to hide us from prying eyes and the walking should be easier for you Sarah,” was his only explanation.
Eventually they came to the end of their shadowy cover. The tree line had ended at the edge of a track way leading towards the small hamlet and now there was nothing but open land to traverse until they got to the relative cover of the settlement where the trio huddled together by the track.
“Right. Keep low and keep up, if you hear anything at all go flat to the ground,” Hakon whispered.
Watching him with his sword tightly clenched in one hand, Sarah could only guess that for Hakon, who was in training to be a warrior, this skulking around in the shadows didn’t sit well. After all, wasn’t it the Viking way to go charging in, all gung-ho? Hakon led the way with Sarah in the middle and Leif bringing up the rear. Hunched over, they jogged in a diagonal line towards the hamlet. Every now and again Hakon would stop abruptly and drop down to a crouch and with a finger to his lips he would listen. Each time Sarah’s ears would strain to hear anything, but the only sounds she heard were the normal sounds of the night. After a while, he would set off again. Sarah shook her head, boys!
Eventually they reached the edge of the settlement and skirting around a flourishing vegetable garden Hakon indicated that Sarah should lead them to the building that the children were being held in. With clammy hands, Sarah went ahead trying to keep to the shadows.
There were two main dwellings one at either end of the little bay and in between an assortment of other wooden buildings facing out to sea, used for storage and workshops. The one that the children were being held in was next to the house at the far right of the bay. The warriors camp was on the foreshore fifty or so paces away from where the children were being held.
Sarah, Hakon and Leif positioned themselves at the rear of the row of buildings, darting between them into the shadows. Their objective was in sight and as Sarah took a breath about to make another dash across the gap to the next building a hand grabbed her and yanked her back. Letting out a little squeak of surprise just before another hand clamped over her mouth and turning her head Sarah quickly realised that it was only Hakon, who let go of her arm and pointed.
Just ahead of them a warrior stumbled out from between two buildings. He must have heard Sarah’s squeak, as he was peering intently in their direction. Sarah and the boys stood absolutely still, hardly daring to breathe. Beside her Hakon stood as tense as a coiled spring, but it was Leif who had a calm restraining hand on his brother. If they drew attention to themselves now, all would be lost.
After what seemed l
ike hours the warrior turned and walked off a short distance and Sarah let out her breath. She felt Hakon relax and then almost immediately tense up...the warrior had stopped again. Sarah’s heart jumped into her throat but then she heard a sound not unlike water being poured from a height.
She clamped a hand over her own mouth to keep the hysterical giggle, that threatened to surface, from coming out. Even warriors needed to pee. When he had finished, he turned back towards them still peering intently in their direction but with a shrug he continued around the other side of the buildings away from Sarah and the boys.
Sarah’s legs turned to jelly as she slid awkwardly down the rough wood exterior of the building whose shadows had kept them from being discovered. Silently she thanked the moon for staying behind a cloud. Her heart was thundering in her ears and it took a little while to realise that the boys had also slid to the ground beside her.
Hakon had his head back against the wood, his eyes closed and Leif had his head in his hands. Leif looked up and meeting Sarah’s eyes, he grinned. Hakon opened his eyes, his usual scowl replaced by a manic grin. The smiles were infectious and Sarah found herself grinning like a madman, she decided that they really were quite insane.
The building in which the children were being held was only a very short distance away and once there, by some unspoken agreement, they began to look for a way in or at least a way to talk with the children. Sarah put her ear to the wooden planks; she could hear the soft snores of the children. As she walked around the outside of the building she found that the snores were louder in one spot than in others. Using her fingers she searched for a hole or gap that could be widened.
Just as she was about to give up she found what she was looking for, a loose plank lower to the ground. Someone had replaced some rotten timbers near to the ground but had not done the best of jobs. She was about to pry the timber out when Hakon and Leif arrived. Sarah left them to pull the plank away whilst she kept an anxious watch.
The boys managed to pull a small section away with a noise loud enough to wake the dead. They froze, ears straining to hear, barely breathing, ready to run. With a silent sigh of relief Sarah realised that no one had heard. Looking at the gap she was dismayed to see that it was just large enough for a hand. Getting down on her hands and knees she peered through the gap and found by sheer luck Harald was the child nearest to her. Sarah gave him a gentle poke, almost instantly Harald sat up, rubbed his eyes and looked around in confusion.
“Harald, it’s me, Sarah” she said as quietly as she could. Harald still looked confused but then his eyes found the gap and Sarah’s smiling face.
“Where’s your guard?”
“Outside”.
Sarah quickly told Hakon and Leif, who then took up watch positions.
“I’ve got Hakon and Leif with me, we’ve been following you, it’s okay we’re going to get you lot out of here and back home soon” she reassured Harald.
“I knew you would come”.
“Quick, tell me what you know”
“Rolf overheard them talking that we are going to be sold to a merchant and that he was going to take us east to be sold to the Arabs. Most of the warriors are leaving in the morning; they are just hired swords from Kurland. The guy with the snake arms and the bear warrior are the ones in charge.”
“Thank you Harald, can you get Rolf for me, quietly though eh?” Sarah gave his arm a quick squeeze as he silently crept over to where Rolf was sleeping. When Rolf saw Sarah his eyes were as wide as saucers and he came close to the gap.
“We’re going to be moved tomorrow. There’s a trading harbour not far from here. ‘Snake arms’ and the bear are going to take us to the merchant who is waiting there for us. I think there are other Dane children there too,” said Rolf without any preamble.
“What makes you say that?”
“I heard ‘snake arms’ say that once he hands us over to the merchant that would make twenty-one children and a nice profit for them. I think he was meant to hold on to us and some other children until we could be ransomed but the profit is greater and it’s an easier path to sell us.” Rolf quickly looked over his shoulder and flung himself down onto the dirt floor, his back covering the gap. Sarah moves away and once more found herself holding her breath. Eventually, a small hand emerges from the gap and she hunkers back down.
“What was that?”
“The guard came in,” said Rolf a little breathlessly; he had also been holding his breath.
“Jiggers, okay, I think I know which harbour you’ll be taken to but why are the warriors leaving?”
“The Kurs are not welcome in the area, and ‘snake arms’ can only risk them being here for a short time. The people who live here are kin I think or something like that...either way, they know him well. He boasted that he didn’t need guards for a bunch of children, the bear would be enough. The harbour is only half a day’s walk away and then we would be the merchant’s problem.”
Rolf sounded most put out that someone would not consider him enough of a problem, the need for guards irrelevant. But for Sarah this was good news, it may just make their job easier.
“It must be almost sunrise and I need to tell all of this to Hakon and Leif...tell the others that we are here and to be ready. We will come up with a plan, somehow, just be ready.” Sarah gave Rolf’s hand a quick squeeze and standing up cautiously beckoned to Hakon and Leif.
Chapter Thirteen