Foxmask (28 page)

“Oh—but you didn't finish! What about Asgrim, and the boys—why is he keeping them there, and how—?”

The door rattled and opened, admitting Breccan and Colm. The latter shot a glance at Creidhe, then retreated to the fireside, milk pail in one hand and egg basket in the other. Creidhe supposed he was still young enough to find the presence of a woman at close quarters disturbing; the others, by dint of age or discipline, seemed to have no trouble with it. The cowshed would probably be a blessing for Colm, judging by the way he was looking at her under his lashes like a bashful suitor.

“As I said,” Niall folded his arms casually, “we do have a few days, and with the restriction on outdoor activities, plenty of time to talk. And you need more food and more sleep. Let us come at this slowly. There is layer upon layer here, and not all are so easily unfolded. Ah, four eggs today. The hens must have seen you coming.”

“I'm going back,” declared Sam, testing his weight on the heavily bandaged ankle and wincing in pain. The injury was taking a long time to heal; maybe something was broken after all. “I'm going if I have to crawl there. This is just ridiculous. I want my boat, I want to see Creidhe, and I want to get home. Since the Ruler's not here, I needn't ask permission, need I? Or is it you I'm supposed to ask, since you seem to have set yourself up as leader in
his absence?” He glowered at Thorvald and hobbled another step along the shore. The two of them were alone; on the higher ground by the shelter, the men were engaged in mock battle under Hogni's supervision. Thorvald had moved them on from one-to-one bouts, and now they rehearsed the possible flows of a real skirmish, eight men attacking, eight defending, the rest observing. By midsummer they would be ready; he would make sure of it.

“Leader?” Thorvald lifted his brows. “Hardly, I'm what they call an incomer, after all. I merely share what little knowledge I have. You've seen what they're like, Sam. They'd have been sitting targets in this battle. The least I can do is give them a bit of help.”

“Mmm. You lap it up, though, don't you? Being treated like you're someone special, the hero that'll see them through and solve all their problems? I don't know about you, Thorvald, I really don't.”

“Anyway,” Thorvald said, finding himself more than a little rattled, though Sam's comments were nonsense, of course, “you know you can't walk more than six or seven steps on that foot without falling in a heap. You know you'd never make it over to Blood Bay, especially not with a load of wood on your back. I presume that was the plan, since there's a certain question of boat-mending to be addressed. You know I can't go back yet. These men depend on me. Without my help they stand to be beaten yet again: beaten, maimed, killed and sent back into despair until this enemy wipes out every last one of them. You expect me to let that happen when I can do something to prevent it? Try to look past your own concerns, Sam. This is far bigger than you and me and the
Sea Dove
.” It was so big, in fact, that it had begun to consume his thoughts, night and day. In the Light Isles, the closest he had come to influencing men, to making decisions of any importance, was in joining the debate when invited to councils with his mother. His contributions, while always received with respect, had been at best peripheral. It had never been possible to believe himself essential to any discussion, to any endeavor. He had never been part of a venture in which life and death hung in the balance; he had never had men depending on him. This was vital. He could almost believe he had been sent to do this.

Sam set his jaw obstinately. He had given up the attempt to walk and stood leaning on the length of driftwood he used for support. “What about Creidhe?” he challenged. “Forgotten her, have you, in your quest to impress this father of yours?”

Sudden anger seized Thorvald. He lifted his hand as if to deliver a blow, and lowered it at the look in Sam's eyes. “Hold your tongue!” he snapped. Then he made himself draw a deep breath. A leader does not lose control so
easily, and he was a leader here, for all his denials. In that, Sam had been quite correct. The men turned to Thorvald increasingly for guidance and encouragement, and he saw a flowering in them, both of skills and of hope. “Creidhe came here by her own choice,” he said, forcing his voice calm. “You know that. There is no reason why she should not wait for us a little longer. Provided we sail before the autumn storms, we can reach home safely. A passage across to the Northern Isles, I think, then a cautious trip down to Hrossey. There'll be plenty of time.” Creidhe could wait. His mother could wait. This was a quest, a challenge bold and real.

“You'll do what you want, of course,” Sam muttered. “Don't you always? But you won't make me do it, not this time. I have a bad feeling, and it's got to do with Asgrim, and this whole hunt business, and Creidhe as well. Soon as this leg's fit for it, I'm off back over there, and if you're not ready by the time the
Sea Dove
is, we're going home without you.”

Thorvald smiled thinly. “That'll be cozy, just the two of you.” It hurt somewhat that Sam did not support him, that Sam could not comprehend the magnitude of what he was doing here, the huge significance of it. Win this summer's battle, retrieve Foxmask at last, and he would deliver the long-sought peace and freedom that Asgrim craved for his tribe. Surely no boat, no girl was more important than that?

“Blind, are you?” growled Sam, turning away. Thorvald had no idea what he meant, and no inclination to ask. The injury, the forced inaction, had turned Sam rather odd; his sunny, equable disposition had been replaced by ill temper and restless brooding. Well, that was Sam's problem, not his. Asgrim would be back again soon, his latest trip merely to check outposts and call in a few more men to swell the number Thorvald was training at the camp. He must ensure that when the Ruler returned, they had something to show him.

As their trust in Thorvald had grown, the men had begun to talk more openly, and he had learned enough about the nature of the coming battle, and the terrain on which it must be fought, to narrow his strategies to those appropriate to such challenging conditions. What was the size of the enemy forces? Big: they came from everywhere, appearing and vanishing at will. Last summer they had accounted for many of Asgrim's men before the broken remnant of the islanders' army had raced the Fool's Tide back to Council Fjord. So, this tribe had numbers, and they were well armed, resourceful and clever. They had the advantage of knowing the territory. The timing of the hunt? Two days if they were lucky; the boats would stand off the Isle of Clouds overnight, for the ground was treacherous even in full light, and
there were presences. Not a man among them wanted his foot on that shore in darkness. Two days, and then home again, whatever the result; fail to cross over while the strange midsummer calm lulled the roiling currents of the Fool's Tide, and the sea would have them if the enemy did not. The terrain? A beast of a place, full of sudden, sheer drops, holes, cracks and caves. Not much cover, and the enemy knew every bit of it like the back of his hand. There were birds everywhere, the ground in some areas slick with their droppings, the air full of their screams and pecking beaks. They'd have young to protect; it was an additional hazard. Anything else he should know? Well, there was the mist, the drenching rain, the chill; there were the hands under the water, and the voices . . .

It was a kind of warfare in which organized formations, the wedge, the swine's head, were entirely inappropriate. He could have made use of Wolfskins. Fear of the enemy seemed a primary barrier to success here, and a small force of elite professionals would have served him well, not least those fanatical followers of Thor with their total disregard for self-preservation. It was interesting, Thorvald mused, to recall that Creidhe's father had once been such a fighter; indeed, although Eyvind was now more arbiter and family man than soldier, folk throughout the Light Isles still referred to him as “The Wolfskin,” as if there had only ever been one. Well, there were no such warriors here; even the best of Asgrim's men still viewed the coming conflict either with trepidation or with a certain blank-eyed acceptance. Thorvald was working hard to change that. He had made it his task to get to know each man better, and to give each man a sense of purpose. It was starting to work. Einar had become a friend, and Skolli an ally. Wieland was more ready to share his own ideas than before, though he was still unnaturally somber.

Skapti had been a challenge. It had been necessary to set up a situation in which the second of the big guards, whom the men feared still more than his brother, Hogni, could be commended for his expertise, his own particular skills, and convinced that he was vital to the endeavor. Hogni himself had been helpful. Skapti, he told Thorvald quietly, had a deft touch for knife-throwing. There wasn't much call for such a skill here; brute force and minimal scruples were what Asgrim wanted from his guards. But Skapti was an artist with the knives.

Thorvald gave the men an afternoon off work and had them set up a competition, in which games of various kinds featured: wrestling, running, jumping and climbing, a race to haul up boats, escaping from bonds, and to crown the contest, the hurling of knives into a target. This was a wooden door on which was sketched the outline of a man, with his heart done in red
clay. There were five points for the head, ten for the heart and one for a hit anywhere else on the body. With each round, Thorvald moved the target farther back.

In the final turn, only four throwers managed to hit the wooden man at all, two in the leg and one in the arm. Skapti's huge hands wielded his knives with delicate precision. He landed his missiles in a neat triangle, each of them piercing the small red heart. Thorvald congratulated him warmly and offered him a drink, and then another. By the end of the evening, he had persuaded the big warrior that the hunt's success would depend on Skapti's ability to teach the men all the tricks he knew, not just knives, but every kind of fighting in his considerable repertoire. If both Hogni and Skapti worked with him, Thorvald said, they'd have a first-rate band of warriors by midsummer.

Some of the men had glanced at Thorvald sideways; Skapti's history had little in it to commend him as a teacher, and they were thinking, no doubt, of the beatings that might ensue if they did not come up to standard. Thorvald ignored the looks.

“We need you, Skapti,” he'd said at the end, with simple truth, for without this most formidable of warriors as an ally, the men must continue to work under the shadow of Asgrim's harsh authority. “Will you help us? Will you be part of this?”

Skapti, curiously hesitant, had spoken with unusual restraint. “You sure?” he queried, small eyes intent on Thorvald's. “Sure it's me you want and not some other fellow?”

“I am sure, Skapti. I trust you. Indeed, I don't think I can manage without you. What do you say?”

Skapti's ferocious grin, his crushing hand clasping Thorvald's, had been all the reply necessary. And Thorvald's confidence in him appeared well founded, for now. Both Hogni and Skapti delighted in their new roles as tutors in warcraft. All Thorvald needed was time. He just hoped there would be enough time.

Skapti and Hogni carried out their duties with little need for words. They knew their trade; had it not been so, Thorvald would not have trusted this to them. They had the men's respect already for their size and strength, a respect that would always be touched with fear, for these two had long been the instruments of Asgrim's rough justice, and there was no forgetting that.

Asgrim had a habit of staying a while, barking a sharp order or two, stalking about the encampment watching the men's endeavors and making them fumble with nervousness, then heading off again for two days, three,
sometimes longer. He always took Skapti or Hogni with him, sometimes both. Of recent times, Hogni and Skapti had drawn straws to determine who would stay and who would go, and it was the loser who walked away at Asgrim's side, though they did not tell the Ruler so. Thorvald had put Hogni in charge of the daily mock-battle sessions, while Skapti had been given responsibility for ensuring each man, fishermen included, came up to a certain basic level of skill in both armed and unarmed combat. There were rewards for improvement: a better knife, a warmer blanket, the privilege of leading the after-supper singing, if singing it could be called. Thorvald had dredged from his memory a store of old sagas of heroic warriors and seductive women, fierce hill-trolls and menacing ice-giants, and passed them on as best he could. He encouraged the composing of more, and a certain element of competition arose, with Orm being the champion so far.

The Ruler's absences became more frequent, and lasted longer. It was whispered that he was trying to arrange a truce with the Unspoken. When in camp, he observed in silence, eyes narrowed, lips tight. He made no attempt to curb Thorvald's endeavors, nor did he praise them. At one point he suggested that Thorvald might as well make use of his hut while he was away; no need to waste a good bed. That seemed in itself indicative of a certain recognition. But Thorvald said he would prefer to sleep alongside the men, and he meant it.

Even the fishermen were actively involved now. Today they were using the newly made shields to fend off the blows of the opposing team, trying to advance by sheer, stubborn persistence beyond a certain line marked out by a pair of iron posts driven into the hard earth. The defending team had thrusting spears. There were no practice weapons: those were a luxury this army could not afford, being poor in both wood and iron. Watching the press of bodies, hearing the shouting and the thud of spear point on shield, Thorvald only hoped Hogni would stop them before they really injured each other. Each man must play his part in the hunt: a couple would guard the boats when they got there, and the rest move out across the Isle of Clouds. Using every farmer, every fisherman, he could muster a fighting force of twenty-seven men. He'd send Hogni and Skapti in with a group each, and Einar would lead the rest, with Orm or Wieland by his side. Each of them had shown certain qualities suggestive of leadership. If they kept their nerve, the chances of overrunning the enemy were better than good. Finding Fox-mask and taking him alive would be his own task.