The Black Dog’s swift-hauled keel plunged through a wave and sent spray fountaining to spatter down on the grimacing oarsmen and the crouching warriors between them.
Raith glanced back towards land, coast bobbing as Mother Sea lifted the Black Dog and dropped her, wondered if Skara was watching, thought of her eyes, those big green eyes that seemed to swallow him. Then he thought of Rakki, alone in the fight with no one to watch his back and he gripped the handle of his shield so tight his battered knuckles burned.
The High King’s ships were rushing up fast, he could see the painted shields: grey gate, boar’s head, four swords in a square. He could see the straining faces of the oarsmen at the rails. He could see bows full-drawn as a boat tipped, and arrows came flickering across the water.
Raith dropped behind his shield, felt a shaft click against its face and spin away over his shoulder. Another lodged in the rail beside him. The breath was getting hot in his throat and he shifted the peg with his tongue and bit down harder.
He heard bowstrings behind him, saw shafts looping the other way, caught by the wind, flitting down among the High King’s ships. He heard helmsmen of King Uthil’s fleet roaring for more speed. He heard the clashing of weapons on shields and rails and oars as men gathered their courage, making ready to kill, to die, and Raith heaved in another breath and did the same, knocking his axe tap, tap, tap against the rail in time to his pounding heart.
‘Pull to the left!’ roared Blue Jenner, picking out his target. Had to be a Lowlander ship – no prow-beast, just a carved whirl. Its crew were struggling to come about to meet the Black Dog prow to prow, helmsman straining desperate at his steering oar, but the wind was against him.
‘Heart of iron!’ came a roar. ‘Head of iron! Hand of iron!’
‘Your death comes!’ someone screamed, and others took up the shout, and Raith snarled it too but with the peg in his mouth it was only a slobbering growl. He felt his breath burning, burning, and hacked at the rail with his axe, woodchips flying.
More arrows whipped angry over the water, and a clamour of prayers and war-cries, the Black Dog ploughing on towards the Lowlander’s ship, the men at her rail bulge-eyed as they scrambled back and Raith could smell their fear, smell their blood, and he stood tall and gave a great howl.
Keel struck timber with a shattering, shuddering crash, oars ripped up, snapping, splintering, sliding about the Black Dog’s prow like spears. The timbers trembled, warriors tottered and clutched, the Lowlander ship was tipped by the impact, men tumbling from their sea-chests and an archer fell and shot his arrow high, high towards sinking Mother Sun.
Grapples snaked out across the churning gap, iron fingers clutching. One hooked a Lowlander under the arm and dragged him whooping into the water.
‘Heave!’ roared Jenner and the ships were dragged together, a skein of rope and tangled oar between them, and Raith bared his teeth and planted one boot on the rail.
A rock tumbled from the air, bonked onto the head of the man beside Raith and knocked him flat, mouth yawning, a great dent in his helmet and the bloody rim jammed down over his nose.
What are you waiting for?
He sprang, cleared the frothing water and fell in the midst of men, a spear raking his shield, near twisting it from his hand.
Raith chopped with his axe, snarling, chopped again, slavering, shoved a man over backwards, saw another with a red beard just raising an axe of his own. He’d a jackdaw wing on a thong around his neck, a charm to make him fast. Didn’t make him fast enough. An arrow stuck under his eye and he fumbled at the shaft.
Raith hit him in the head and ripped him off his feet. A wave struck the side of the ship, soaking friend and enemy. Sea-spray, blood-spray, men pushing, crushing, shoving, screaming. A stew of maddened faces. The swell lifted the back of the ship and Raith went with it, driving men back with his shield, snorting and howling, wolf voice, wolf heart.
All was a storm of splintering wood and clattering metal and broken voices that echoed in Raith’s head until his skull rang with it, split with it, burst with it. The deck was sea-slippery, blood-slippery. Men staggered as the boat heeled and clashed grating against another, its prow-beast so prickled with arrows it looked like a hedgehog.
A man thrust at him with a spear but panic had the Lowlanders and there was no heart in it. Raith was too fast, too eager, reeled around the stabbing point, his axe reeling after him in a shining circle and thudding into the man’s shoulder so hard it sent him tumbling over the rail and into the heaving sea.
Mercy is weakness, Mother Scaer used to make them say before she’d give them their bread. Mercy is failure.
Raith rammed his left arm up and over and the edge of his shield caught an oarsman in the mouth and knocked him staggering, coughing, choking on his own teeth.
He saw Blue Jenner clinging to the prow, boot up on the rail, pointing with his weathered sword. He shouted words but Raith was the great dog now, and if he’d ever known the tongue of men it was long ago in another place.
The ship clashed into another. A man in the water gave a bubbling scream as he was crushed between the hulls. Fire flared, glinting on the blades, fearful faces jerking towards it.
Father Yarvi’s southern weapon. A flaming pot tumbled in the air and smashed, fire blooming across a fat-bellied transport. Men toppled from the deck, burning, squealing, rigging turned to flaming lines, Mother Sea herself pooled with fire.
Raith felt Gorm’s hand on his shoulder. What are you waiting for?
He chopped a man down, stomped on him as he fell, hacked another across the back as he turned to run. He’d fought his way down the ship, a tall warrior ahead of him with gold glinting on his face-guard, bright ring-money on his arms catching the sinking sun.
Raith slunk up growling in a crouch, his slobber spattering the deck, men and the shadows of men dancing about them, lit by gaudy flames.
They sprang together, axe shrieking against sword, sword clattering from shield, a kick and a stumble and a blow gouging the deck as Raith rolled away.
He circled, wet lips quivering, feeling out his balance, weighing his axe, until he saw his shadow stretch across the deck towards the captain. Knew Mother Sun was low, knew she’d take his eyes, and when she did he darted forward.
He hooked the captain’s shield and ripped it down. He had the longer reach but Raith pressed close, butted him in the mouth just under his gilded face-guard.
He fell clutching at the rail, Raith’s axe thudded into wood and the captain’s fingers jumped spinning, sword tumbling over the side into the sea. Raith snarled, spraying pink drool, chopped low and caught the captain just below his flapping mail as he tried to stand. A crack as his knee snapped back the wrong way and he fell moaning onto his hands.
Raith felt Gorm’s slap sting his face. You are a killer!
He gnawed at the peg as he hacked, and hacked, and hacked, snorting and slavering until he could swing no more and he lurched against the ship’s rail, blood on his face, blood in his mouth.
Smoke rolled across the water, made Raith’s eyes leak and his throat burn.
Here, at least, the battle was done. Men dead. Men screaming. The water bobbed with floating bodies, nudging gently against the keel as the ship drifted. Raith’s knees wobbled and he slumped down on his arse in the shadow of the whirl-carved prow.
More of Uthil’s ships were cutting through the waves. Arrows flitting, grapples tumbling, men springing from one boat to another, men roaring and fighting and dying, black shadows in the fading light. Flames spread among the big trading ships and roared up into the dusk, oars a flaming tangle, giant torches on the water.
‘That was some fighting, lad.’ Someone set the captain’s gilded helm on Raith’s lap and gave it a pat. ‘You got no fear in you at all, do you?’
Took an effort for Raith to unlock his aching jaw, to push the spit-slick peg out of his mouth with his sore tongue.
Sometimes felt like all he had in him was fear. Of losing h
is place. Of being alone. Of the things he’d done. Of the things he might do.
Fighting was the one thing didn’t scare him.
Victory
The land was a black mystery when the ships began to plough ashore, the sky a dark blue cloth slashed with cloud and stabbed with stars. Out on the dark water, the scattered remnants of Grandmother Wexen’s fleet were still burning.
The crews began to jump down, to flounder laughing through the surf, eyes shining with triumph in the light of a hundred bonfires set upon the beach.
Skara watched them, desperate to know who was living, who was wounded, who was dead, burning to run into the sea herself to find out sooner.
‘There!’ said Sister Owd, pointing, and Skara saw the prow-beast of the Black Dog, her crew trotting up the shingle. She felt a heady rush of relief when she saw Blue Jenner’s smiling face, then the warrior beside him pulled off a gilded helmet and Raith grinned up towards her. Whether Mother Kyre would have considered it proper or not, Skara took off down the beach to meet them.
‘Victory, my queen!’ called Jenner, and Skara caught him, hugged him, seized his ears and pulled his head down so she could kiss him on his wispy pate.
‘I knew you wouldn’t let me down!’
Jenner was blushing red as he nodded sideways. ‘Thank this one. He killed a captain, man against man. Never saw braver fighting.’
Raith’s eyes were bright and wild and before Skara knew it she was hugging him too, her nose full of the sour-sweat smell of him, somehow anything but unpleasant. He jerked her into the air with easy strength, spun her about lightly as if she was made of straw, both of them laughing, drunk on victory.
‘We’ve got prizes for you,’ he said, upending a canvas bag, and a clinking mass of ring-money spilled onto the sand.
Sister Owd squatted to root through the gold and silver, round face dimpling as she grinned. ‘This will do Throvenland’s treasury no harm, my queen.’
Skara put her hand on her minister’s shoulder. ‘Now Throvenland has a treasury.’ With this she could start to feed her people, maybe even begin to rebuild what Bright Yilling had burned, and be a queen rather than a girl with a title made of smoke. She raised one brow at Raith.
‘I must confess I had no high hopes of you when you first sat beside me.’
‘I’d no high hopes of myself,’ he said.
Jenner grabbed him, scrubbing at his white hair. ‘Who could blame you? He’s an unhopeful-looking bastard!’
‘You’re one to talk, old man,’ said Raith, slapping Blue Jenner’s hand away.
‘You both have proved yourselves great fighters.’ Skara picked out two golden armrings and handed one to Jenner, thinking how proud her grandfather would have been to see her giving gifts to her warriors. ‘And loyal friends.’ She took Raith’s thick wrist and slipped the other around it then, hidden in the darkness between them, let her fingers trail onto the back of his hand. He turned it over so she touched his palm, her thumb brushing across it one way, then the other.
She looked up and his eyes were fixed on hers. As if there was nothing else to look at in the world. Mother Kyre would certainly not have considered that proper. No one would. Perhaps that was why it gave Skara such a breathless thrill to do it.
‘Steel was our answer!’ came a roar and she jerked her hand free, turned to see King Uthil striding up the beach, Father Yarvi smiling at his shoulder. All about men held their swords, their axes, their spears high in salute, blades notched from the day’s work catching the light of the bonfires and burning the colours of flame, so it seemed the Iron King and his companions stalked through a sea of fire.
‘Mother War stood with us!’ Grom-gil-Gorm loomed from the darkness in the dunes, a fresh wound added to his faceful of scars, his beard tangled with clotted blood. Rakki strode beside him with the king’s great shield, scored with new marks of its own, Soryorn on the other side with an armful of captured swords. Mother Scaer stalked after him, thin lips ever-moving as she crooned a prayer of thanks to the Mother of Crows.
The two great kings, the two famed warriors, the two old enemies met, and eyed each other over a guttering fire. All across the crowded beach the laughter and the cheering faded, and She Who Sings the Wind sang a keening tune and tore bright sparks swirling down the shingle and out to sea.
Then the Breaker of Swords puffed out his great chest, that chain made from the pommels of his fallen enemies flashing, and spoke in a voice of thunder.
‘I looked out to sea and I saw a ship speeding, fleet as a grey gull over the water, scattering the ships of the High King like starlings. Iron on the mast, in the hands of her warriors. Iron the eye of her merciless captain. Iron the slaughter she spread on the water. Corpses to sate even Mother Sea’s hunger.’
An iron whisper went through the warriors. Pride at their strength and the strength of their leaders. Pride at the songs they would pass to their sons, more precious to them than gold. Uthil let his mad eyes widen, let the sword slide through the crook of his arm until it rested on its point. His voice came as harsh as the grinding of a whetstone.
‘I looked back to land and I saw a host gather. Black was the banner the wind snapped above them. Black was the fury that fell on their foemen. Into the sea were the High King’s men driven. Thunder of steel as helms split and shields riven. Red was the tide that washed over their ruin. Corpses to sate even Mother War’s hunger.’
The two kings clasped hands over the fire and a mighty cheer went up, a din of metal as men smashed their notched weapons against their gouged shields, and thumped fists on the mailed shoulders of their comrades, and Skara clapped her hands and laughed along with them.
Blue Jenner raised his brows. ‘Acceptable verses, at short notice.’
‘No doubt the skalds can sharpen them later!’ Skara knew what it was to win a great victory, and it was a feeling to sing of. The High King was driven from the land of her forefathers, and her heart felt light for the first time since she fled the burning Forest …
Then she remembered that bland smile, speckled with her grandfather’s blood and shivered. ‘Was Bright Yilling among the dead?’ she called.
Grom-gil-Gorm turned his dark eyes upon her. ‘I saw no sign of that Death-worshipping dog, nor his Companions. It was a rabble we butchered on the beach, weak-armed and weak-led.’
‘Father Yarvi.’ A boy slipped past Skara, catching the minister by his coat. ‘A dove’s come.’
For some reason she felt a weight of cold worry in her stomach as Father Yarvi tucked his elf-metal staff into the crook of his arm and turned the scrap of paper towards the firelight. ‘Come from where?’
‘Down the coast, beyond Yaletoft.’
‘I had men watching the water …’ He trailed off as his eyes scanned the scrawled letters.
‘You have news?’ asked King Uthil.
Yarvi swallowed, a sudden gust fluttering the paper in his fingers. ‘The High King’s army has crossed the straits to the west,’ he muttered. ‘Ten thousand of his warriors stand on the soil of Throvenland and are already marching.’
‘What?’ asked Raith, mouth still smiling but his forehead wrinkled with confusion.
Not far away men were still dancing clumsily to the music of a pipe, laughing, drinking, celebrating, but around the two kings the faces had turned suddenly grim.
‘Are you sure?’ Skara’s voice had the pleading note of a pardoned prisoner who finds they are to die for some other crime.
‘I am sure.’ And Yarvi crumpled the paper in his hand and flung it in the fire.
Mother Scaer gave a bark of joyless laughter. ‘This was all a ruse! A flourish of Grandmother Wexen’s fingers to draw our eyes while she struck the true blow with her other hand.’
‘A trick,’ breathed Blue Jenner.
‘She sacrificed all those men?’ said Skara. ‘As a trick?’
‘For the greater good, my queen,’ whispered Sister Owd. Further down the beach a few fires spluttered out as a cold wave s
urged up the shingle.
‘She tossed away her leakiest ships. Her weakest fighters. Men she need no longer arm, or feed, or worry over.’ King Uthil gave an approving nod. ‘One must admire her ruthlessness.’
‘I thought Mother War had smiled on us.’ Gorm frowned towards the night sky. ‘It seems her favour fell elsewhere.’
As the news spread the music stuttered to a halt and the celebrations with it. Mother Scaer was scowling towards Yarvi. ‘You thought to outwit Grandmother Wexen, but she has outwitted you and all of us with you. Arrogant fool!’
‘I heard none of your wisdom!’ Father Yarvi snarled back, shadows black in the angry hollows of his face.
‘Stop!’ pleaded Skara, stepping between them. ‘We must be united, now more than ever!’
But a babble of voices had broken out. A clamour like the one she had heard outside her door the night the High King’s warriors came to Yaletoft.
‘Ten thousand men? That could be three times what we fought here!’
‘Twice as many as we have!’
‘There could be more flooding across the straits!’
‘Plainly the High King has found more ships.’
‘We must strike them now,’ snapped Uthil.
‘We must fall back,’ growled Gorm. ‘Draw them onto our ground.’
‘Stop,’ croaked Skara, but she could not seem to take a proper breath. Her heart was surging in her ears. Something clattered from the black sky and she gasped. Raith caught her by the arm and dragged her behind him, whipping free his dagger.
A bird, swooping from the night and onto Mother Scaer’s shoulder. A crow, folding its wings and staring unblinking with yellow eyes.
‘Bright Yilling has come!’ it shrieked. And suddenly Skara was back in the darkness, the mad light of fires outside the windows, the white hand reaching out to touch her face. She felt her guts churn and her knees tremble, had to clutch at Raith’s arm to stop herself from falling.