Once round the point, there was nothing but low-lying ground for several kilometers. Beyond, they could see the two watchtowers and the higher buildings of the town, rising above the marsh grasses and low bushes. A small creek ran into the marsh and Stig sculled them into it. Once they were among the drifting grass islands and tall reeds, they were virtually out of sight from the town. They had only occasional glimpses of the towers.
They followed winding, erratic channels through the marsh, diverging at times but always managing to return to their basic course. After an hour’s rowing, Lydia indicated to Stig to head for a low spit of sand, covered in stunted trees and marsh grass.
“We’d better leave the skiff here,” she said. “We’re getting close and the odds are that it might be seen if we take it any farther.”
They beached the boat and, at her suggestion, stood one of the oars upright in the sand.
“They won’t see it from the town,” Lydia said. “But it’ll mark the spot where the boat is for us.”
They crossed the sand spit and waded into the marsh water on the other side. It was waist deep, although Lydia warned them that there were occasional deeper pools. She led the way, probing ahead with a long branch Hal had cut for her.
They forged on, and gradually they could see more and more of the town. Aside from Lydia’s occasional curt directions, they didn’t speak. The effort of pushing through the water and the soft, oozing mud bottom of the marsh precluded idle chatter. Finally, Lydia signaled a halt and indicated a humpbacked island, covered in low vegetation and rising higher than the surrounding marshes.
“We’ll be able to see the harbor from there,” she said.
Hal shook his head admiringly. Even with his instinctive sense of direction, he knew he would have become hopelessly lost in this featureless tangle and the myriad twisting waterways.
“You certainly know your way around here,” he said, and she flashed him a quick smile.
“I’ve been hunting and fishing in these marshes since I was nine years old,” she said briefly.
They waded ashore, their clothes clinging soggily to them, and climbed to the low summit of the island, dropping to hands and knees as they approached the top. Before them, they could see the harbor of Limmat. Smoke still rose in several parts of the town, although the larger fires seemed to have been brought under control. The smell of burned wood was thick in their nostrils.
Hal scanned the harbor, noticing the smaller ship moored just inside the boom. He frowned. There was something familiar about her. Then he had it. She was the Sea Lion, one of Arndak’s small trading fleet that had gone missing from Hallasholm some months before. He had worked on her in the shipyard the previous year, when she had needed several planks replaced after an unfortunate encounter with a whale. He indicated the little ship to Stig and saw a look of recognition on the other boy’s face.
“So now we know what happened to the trading fleet,” Hal said, pointing farther down the harbor.
There, moored against the inner jetty, was a long, black shape that both of them recognized.
“The Raven,” Stig said.
Hal said nothing, staring at the evil-looking ship with a sudden hatred in his heart. After weeks of searching and hoping, here was their quarry, less than a kilometer away. Almost reluctantly, he dragged his eyes off her and studied the rest of the town.
The watchtowers on either side of the harbor entrance were the principal points of interest. They were simple timber platforms, each with a chest-high wooden balustrade on all four sides—probably pine planking, he thought—and a flat roof on top. A small enclosed room was in the center of the platform—the guardroom, he assumed. The towers were obviously designed as observation posts and as defensive sites from which arrows could be rained down on an attacker. Each of the platforms stood on a timber framework—four large uprights tied together by a latticework of smaller diagonal pieces. In the center of the support structure, a ladder ran from the platform to the ground.
He’d seen what he’d come for. Now he had to come up with a way for his small crew to take on and defeat the fifty-odd pirates who manned the black ship. Up until now, he’d avoided making any concrete plans. There didn’t seem to be any point until they found the Raven. But now the problem had to be addressed. And quickly. There was no telling how long she’d stay in the harbor. He edged back from the low crest on his elbows.
“Let’s get back,” he said. “We’ve got some thinking to do.”
They splashed their way back through the muddy water, Lydia leading the way once more. After half an hour, Hal saw the blade of the oar standing above the reeds on a nearby island and headed toward it. He glanced at Lydia approvingly. She was a handy person to have around, he thought. He never would have recognized that particular island again. They waded ashore, and while Stig heaved the skiff into the water, Hal retrieved the oar.
“Want me to row for a while?” he offered. But Stig shook his head.
“I’m fine. And I’m a faster rower than you. We’ll get back to the ship sooner.”
“You might,” said a voice behind them and they swung round, startled, as a dozen men rose from the rushes and reeds, moving quickly to surround them. “But right now, nobody’s going anywhere.”
chapter twenty - one
Hal and Stig had left their weapons at the ship, knowing they would be wading through the marshes. But they both wore saxe knives and as they whirled to face the speaker, their hands dropped instinctively to the hilts of the heavy knives.
“I wouldn’t do that,” the man warned, and his followers brandished weapons of their own. Some of them had swords. The others had a random collection of clubs, maces and short spears.
“Forget it, Stig,” Hal said softly. There was no point in fighting. They were too badly outnumbered. He rose from the crouch that he had fallen into, and moved his hand away from the saxe. Stig, looking angrily round the circle of men who faced them, came to the same decision a few seconds after his friend.
Hal studied the man who had spoken. He was a few years older than the two Heron shipmates, possibly twenty or twenty-one. He was average height but stocky, with shoulder-length dark hair and a broad face. He was clean shaven and at some stage his nose had been broken and badly reset, so that it was slightly offline, with a small bump in the middle. He was armed with a short-bladed sword and a small, round metal shield. He held the weapons easily, obviously accustomed to using them.
Most pirates were, Hal thought bitterly.
Which made the man’s next words a little confusing.
“Well, men,” he said, smiling briefly at his followers, “looks as if we’ve caught ourselves some pirates.”
Puzzled, Hal opened his mouth to reply. But Lydia beat him to it. She had been standing behind Hal and Stig when the men sprang their ambush. Now she shoved between the two friends and stepped forward to face their captor belligerently.
“Pirates my foot, Barat!” she snapped. “You always get the wrong end of the stick, don’t you? Now put your weapons away. All of you!” she added, glaring round the half circle of men facing them.
A few of them muttered expressions of surprise and amusement. The leader, the man she had called Barat, peered at her more closely. Like Stig and Hal, she was smeared with mud and dirty water from their passage through the marsh, and the late afternoon light was uncertain. Now his face lit up in recognition.
“Lydia? Is that you? It is! All covered in mud and muck, but it’s you sure enough!”
He sheathed his sword and leapt forward, laughing delightedly, to sweep her up in an embrace, holding her close. Stig’s lips narrowed. The two must be friends, maybe more than friends, he thought, with a twinge of resentment. But then Lydia wriggled uncomfortably and finally broke free. The other men gathered round, smiling and calling greetings to her. Several clapped her on the shoulder.
After a few moments, Barat glanced keenly at Hal and Stig.
“And who are these two?” he said. “
I’ve never seen them before.”
“They’re Skandians—friends of mine,” Lydia said.
“Skandians?” Barat’s face clouded with suspicion. In his eyes, Skandians were little better than pirates.
Stig sensed the change in attitude and flushed angrily. He took half a pace forward, his hand dropping involuntarily to his saxe knife again.
Hal laid a restraining hand on his forearm. “Take it easy, Stig,” he said quietly. After a second or two, he was relieved to see his friend’s shoulders slowly relax, and Stig’s hand moved away from the saxe knife’s hilt.
Barat had noticed the impulsive movement and he locked eyes with Stig. The dislike between the two was almost palpable.
“Yes. Take it easy, Stig,” he repeated.
Hal tightened his grip on his friend’s forearm. This time, Stig didn’t rise to the bait. He’s changed, Hal thought. The old Stig would have given in to his fiery temper and done something rash.
“Stop it, Barat,” Lydia said angrily. “They’re friends of mine and they rescued me. They probably saved my life, if the truth be told. Then they went out of their way to bring me back here.”
“Probably looking to see what they can get their hands on,” Barat said scornfully.
“We’re only looking for one thing,” Hal said evenly. “That’s the black pirate ship in your harbor. We’ve been after her for weeks. When Lydia told us she was here, we came to see for ourselves.”
“So I suppose you have no interest in the em—”
“Shut up, Barat!” one of his men shouted, cutting him off before he could say more. Barat flushed and turned to the man who had interrupted him.
“I just thought—”
“You didn’t think!” the man said. He was a little older than Barat, tall and heavily built. “You’re a good battle commander, but you’re always letting your tongue run away. It’s time you learned to shut up. If Lydia says these boys are friends, that’s good enough for me!”
A few of the others growled agreement and Barat subsided, but with bad grace.
“All right then. I was just saying…”
Lydia looked around the group and tried to relieve the tension in the air.
“So, Jonas, what are you all doing in the marshes?” She addressed the question to the man who had silenced Barat. He shrugged.
“Some of us got away when the pirates attacked. They caught us by surprise. You saw that smaller ship in the harbor?” He paused and when they nodded confirmation, he went on to describe the pirates’ stratagem of faking a pursuit so that the Limmatans would open the boom.
“Then the other two ships joined in and they overran the town. They killed most of the garrison in the watchtowers. Some of us managed to band together and fight our way out. But we were disorganized and fighting in ones and twos. We didn’t have a chance against them.”
“We were lucky to get away,” another man put in.
Hal looked at him. “How many of you got out?”
“Thirty-eight,” Jonas said. “We’ve made a camp in the marshes. The pirates can’t get to us here. We know the ground too well. Barat here got us organized after we got out, but there’s not enough of us to attack the pirates—particularly when they’re inside the palisade—so it’s a stalemate.”
Hal decided it was time to mend a few fences, so he addressed his next question to Barat.
“So you think they’re here to stay?” he asked. “How many of them are there?”
Barat nodded, sensing Hal’s peaceful overture, and responded in kind. “They’ll be here for a while, I’d say,” he said. “As to numbers, I’m not sure. Certainly more than us.”
“There’s at least fifty on the Raven,” Stig said thoughtfully. “Maybe a few less on the other big ship. And Sea Lion could carry fifteen to twenty.”
“Sea Lion?” Barat asked.
Hal gestured vaguely in the direction of the harbor. “The small ship. She was taken by the Raven sometime back. She’s a Skandian trader.”
“Not anymore,” Barat said heavily. “She’s a pirate now.”
“True,” Hal said. “So the question is, what do we do next? There’s thirty-eight of you and nine of us. They outnumber us, so we’ll have to surprise them somehow.”
“How?” Stig asked, and his friend grinned at him.
“That’s the big question,” he said. “When I figure it out, you’ll be the first to know.”
Barat looked at the two young sailors. He had the grace to look a little shamefaced.
“You mean, you’re planning to throw in with us?”
“We’ve got a common enemy,” Hal said. “Zavac stole something from us and I want it back. You want him out of your town. If we work together, we might both get what we want.”
Barat considered this statement for a few seconds. Then he nodded agreement. He held out his hand to Hal.
“That sounds good to me,” he said. They shook hands, then Barat offered his hand to Stig and the two of them shook as well, although there was still a noticeable reserve between them. Maybe it had something to do with the girl, Hal thought.
“We should get back to our ship while there’s still light,” he said, glancing to the west, where the sun was slipping ever closer to the ocean. “How are you placed for food in your camp?”
Barat pursed his lips. “We’re on pretty short commons,” he said. “There are fish and a few wild fowl in the marshes, but not enough to feed a large number. And we brought nothing with us. I’m afraid I can’t offer you anything.”
Hal shook his head. “That wasn’t what I was asking. We’ve got supplies on the ship. And more at our camp farther up the coast. If a couple of you come back to the ship with us, we’ll give you what we can spare. Then we’ll head back up the coast, collect the rest of our gear, and more food, and come back here. By then, I may have figured out a plan of action.”
Barat nodded gratefully. “I certainly won’t refuse.”
Quickly, he passed his orders to the rest of his men. He and two others would come back to the Heron and collect the supplies Hal had offered, while the rest returned to their camp in the marshes. Stig launched the skiff and set the oars in the oarlocks, and Barat and his two companions retrieved a similar craft from a hiding place in the reeds.
Hal looked at it, raising an eyebrow. “Where did that come from?”
The picture that Barat’s men had painted of their retreat from the town didn’t seem to include any time to stop and retrieve boats.
“A lot of our people leave skiffs moored in the marshes,” Lydia said. “They use them for fishing and wildfowling.” As Barat rowed the boat level with their own, she moved down the beach toward him. She went to speak, hesitated, then gathered her resolve and continued.
“I didn’t have a chance to ask you,” she said, her voice fearful. “Do you have any idea what happened to my grandfather? Did he get away?”
Barat’s face told them the answer, even before he spoke.
“He was killed, Lydia. I’m sorry. He tried to fight the pirates—you know what he was like.”
She nodded sadly. “I knew he would.”
“There were too many of them,” Barat continued. “And he was an old man, Lydia.” His face darkened with anger as he recalled the scene. “An old man. They didn’t have to kill him. They could have disarmed him. But they didn’t. They killed him.” He paused, looking at her. Her face was blank, showing no emotion.
“I couldn’t do anything to help him, Lyd. I tried, but I couldn’t get to him in time. Then more pirates arrived and I had to get away. There was nothing I could do, really.”
She touched his arm and gave him a wan smile. “I know,” she said. “He would never have surrendered to them. He didn’t realize he was old.”
Abruptly, she turned away, hiding the tears that sprang to her eyes as she remembered the old man who had looked after her for so long. When she turned back, she had regained control of herself. She walked to where Hal was holding their skiff
steady against the slight flow of the current through the marshes and stepped aboard, settling onto the seat at the bow.
“Let’s get back to the ship,” she said.
As Stig rowed the little boat around the headland, they could just make out the dark shape of the Heron on the beach. Hal nodded approvingly. Thorn hadn’t allowed the boys to light any fires. Stig’s smooth, powerful rowing took them across the bay in a few minutes. When they were fifty meters from the beached ship, Hal heard a soft challenge and answered.
“It’s Stig and Hal. We’ve got some people with us. Friends.”
They pulled into the shallows and he stepped out to guide the boat ashore. Barat and the other two Limmatans followed close behind them. As he hauled the skiff up the beach, Hal glanced around. To his surprise, he saw that the Herons were all fully armed. Their shields had been removed from the bulwarks of the ship and they were all wearing them. The starlight gleamed off ax heads and sword blades.
Thorn, he noticed, was wearing his battered old horned helmet, and had changed his day-to-day false arm, with the clamping hook, for the war club Hal had fashioned for him. He stepped forward now.
“You’re all right?” he said suspiciously.
Hal smiled at him. “We’re fine. These men are friends. Lydia knows them. They’re going to help us take the Raven.”
Thorn studied the three Limmatans intently. Very sensibly, they showed no sign of hostility. Finally, he grunted, reassured that Hal wasn’t speaking under duress.
“All right. Stand down, Herons.”
There was a slight clatter of weapons as the boys laid them down. Hal introduced Barat and his companions and explained where they had come from and their need for supplies. Edvin nodded and moved quickly to the ship to pack up the food. Barat’s two friends followed him. A few minutes later, they returned, carrying two heavy sacks.