02 The Invaders (44 page)

“Knew I should have run that race against Tursgud,” he said. During their training period, Hal had selected Jesper ahead of Stig for a footrace. It had rankled Stig and, although he had acceded to Hal’s decision, he had always believed his friend had made a mistake.

Jesper glared at him. “Is that so?” he said, and clapped on the pace, drawing level with Stig, then ahead of him. Stig accelerated as well, but Jesper continued to pull away, widening the gap between them. Watching Jesper’s back draw farther away, Stig muttered to himself.

“Or not.”

The smell of burned wood reached them before they came in sight of the shattered gate. But then they rounded a final corner and there it was. Through the gap, they could see the trim shape of the
Heron
drawn up on the beach. The incoming tide had crept up past her bow and she was beginning to lift and stir restlessly on the wavelets as they ran in. Stefan, who had been left behind to tend to Ingvar, had put out a beach anchor in their absence.

The crew poured through the gate onto the beach in a ragged
procession. Jesper paused halfway down the beach to retrieve the anchor, hefting it with him as he grinned triumphantly at Stig, several meters behind.

“You were saying about Tursgud?” he said.

Stig contrived to shrug, then reached for the anchor. “Let me have that. You’re too delicate for such a load.”

They shared the weight between them. As he reached the ship, Hal assessed the rapidly rising water around the ship’s prow. Thankfully, they wouldn’t need Ingvar’s massive strength to shove off.

“Get aboard!” he yelled. “Stig, Jesper, shove us off!”

He ran aft to the tiller. The
Heron
slid smoothly into deeper water as Stig and Jesper shoved against the bow. As she began to move freely, they leapt for the bulwark. Willing hands heaved them aboard.

“Stig! Stefan! Starboard sail up!” Hal ordered.

The ropes shrieked through the wooden blocks as Stig and Stefan heaved, sending the starboard yardarm and sail soaring up the mast, to fall into place with a dull clunk. The ship began to turn head into the wind and Hal let it go for a few seconds, then worked the tiller back and forth to bring her farther around.

As Ulf and Wulf brought the sail in, the wind caught it and
Heron
turned faster. Thorn, without being told, leaned on the fin and shoved it down. Hal felt the positive response as the ship held course more firmly. He brought the
Heron
round until the wind was astern. Ulf and Wulf let the sail right out to run before the wind and
Heron
began to move faster and faster. The chuckle of waves against her bow and down her hull grew louder and more rapid.
Then she was cutting a white wake through the water as she headed for the harbor mouth to intercept
Raven
.

Thorn joined Hal at the steering platform. They cast anxious gazes ahead, looking for the first sight of
Raven
or
Wolfwind
.

“D’you think we’re in time?” Hal asked. There was a note of desperation in his voice. They had been so close to catching Zavac. So close to retrieving the Andomal. So close to being able to return home.

Thorn shrugged. One thing he had learned over the years was not to prejudge a situation. If they were in time, so be it. If not, they’d have a long chase after the
Raven
.

The setting sun was dropping close to the horizon now, and they peered ahead into its glare, shading their eyes. So far, they could see nothing.

Svengal and his crew had rounded the bottom end of the harbor and were halfway back along the western quay before the
Raven
, raised by the incoming tide, finally drifted free of the mud bank.

As they ran past her, several of his men had yelled abuse and threats.

“Save your breath,” Svengal told his crew. “You’ll need it for running.”

Now he glanced back over his shoulder as he saw the
Raven
begin to move again.
Wolfwind
was only a hundred meters away. If
Raven
had a clear run out of the harbor, they would have no chance of intercepting her. But she had to pick her way carefully through the moored fishing boats and punts, and after his mistake with the
mud bank, Zavac wasn’t taking any further chances. He was moving slowly and deliberately.

Then the Skandians were clambering aboard
Wolfwind
and there was an urgent rattle of oars as the crew ran them out through the oarlocks. Svengal had only ten men with him—the rest of his crew were still chasing down stray Magyarans in Limmat’s back streets. But ten should be enough. They could hold Zavac and his men until Thorn and the Herons arrived to help.

They’d still be outnumbered by the pirates, he thought. But then a savage grin lit his face. Being outnumbered didn’t worry him. They were Skandians, after all.

He heaved on the tiller as the men began to row, five oars a side. There was a narrow creek through the marshes where they’d left
Wolfwind
, leading to the open sea. Glancing toward the harbor, he could see
Raven
’s tall mast, seeming to glide over the intervening sand and mud banks of the marshes. She was picking up speed as she came to the clearer waters of the harbor, but they had a lead over her.

It was going to be close, he thought. No time for fancy maneuvering—just cut her off, run alongside and board her. They’d have one chance. Once
Raven
reached the open sea, she’d outdistance them easily.

But
Wolfwind
, lightened as she was for her passage through the marshes, was responding more willingly than he’d expected. The men bent to their oars without any need for him to urge them, and the hull, drawing only twenty or thirty centimeters of water, flew down the creek and out into the open sea.

He glanced over his shoulder again.
Raven
was almost to the
harbor mouth now and she’d hit full speed as well. The relative positions of the two ships remained constant and he realized they were holding their own with her. But his men would be the first to tire in this race, he knew.

Hurry up, Thorn, Svengal thought. We’re going to need you.

chapter
forty - one

A
s the
Raven
cleared the harbor mouth, Zavac pounded the tiller triumphantly. They were clear!

Then he felt a start of surprise as he saw another ship emerging from the marshes. He hadn’t noticed it because, without its tall mast,
Wolfwind
was almost indistinguishable among the sand islands and scrubby trees of the marshes.

But now she was in clear water, a white bow wave at her prow. She looked like an overgrown rowing skiff, he thought. But she was moving fast through the water, and he could see the horned helmets of her crew.

Skandians.

His eyes narrowed as he studied her more closely and his spirits began to lift after the initial shock of seeing her. He counted the oars—five a side. So she had only ten men aboard her, while he had more than forty.

He could fight her, of course. But there was no need. And he had no wish to tangle with Skandians, even ten of them. Instead, he would bear away to port and leave her in his wake. The Skandian
ship could never maintain the killing pace
Raven
was setting at the moment, not with only ten men rowing. He glanced at the sun, where it seemed to balance on the rim of the horizon, huge and red. In half an hour it would be full dark and he could make his escape. He leaned against the tiller, preparing to angle the ship to port, away from the speeding wolfship. The longer he could evade her, the more he could drag the race out, and the more tired the Skandian oarsmen would become.

And the farther behind the Skandian ship would fall. A smile began to spread over his face.

“Sail! Sail on the port bow.”

Zavac’s smile vanished in a flash. He swung round to where his lookout was pointing. It was that cursed ship with the strange triangular sail. She was running before the wind, spray sheeting up to either side as her bow cut through the water. She was farther out to sea and moving faster than he was. He could see that she would easily cut him off if he held to this course.

There was only one course open to him. Head back to starboard, back toward the wolfship.

And ram her.

Svengal saw the black ship turn back toward him. He’d felt a moment of triumph as
Heron
had appeared round the headland, speeding to cut the pirates off. Now it faded as he saw what Zavac had in mind.
Wolfwind
was the only obstacle between the
Raven
and freedom and he could see the pace of her oar strokes increasing as she headed straight for him.

“Pull!” he yelled at his crew. “Pull for your lives!”

If he turned away, the
Raven
would easily overtake
Wolfwind
and run her down. His only chance was to wait until the last moment, then cut across the
Raven
’s bow. If he could evade that first attempt at ramming, they’d survive. Zavac wouldn’t turn back for a second run, not with
Heron
speeding down on her. His men strained and heaved, gasping with the effort. Svengal leaned forward, frowning as he measured angles, speeds and distance, and saw they were going to pass clear. They would avoid that deadly ram by a few meters.

But that was enough. They’d won!

Then he realized that the
Raven
had increased her pace.

“There they are!”

It was Stig who screamed out the first sighting of the two ships. Hal craned down to peer under the sail and saw them.

Raven
was heading away from
Wolfwind
, her oars whipping the water to foam down her flanks. But as they saw her, she obviously sighted them, and after a few seconds, she swung away, heading back to starboard.

Now
Raven
and
Wolfwind
were on a collision course as Svengal tried desperately to cut across
Raven
’s bow. Thorn was beside Hal at the steering platform and they watched anxiously as the two ships drew closer and closer.

“She’s going to make it!” Hal screamed. But Thorn’s long experience told him otherwise.

“
Raven
is foxing,” he said quietly. Hal’s triumph turned to horror as he saw that Thorn was right.
Raven
had begun to move faster and her ram was heading like an arrow toward
Wolfwind
’s fragile side.

At the last moment, seeing the collision was inevitable, Svengal played his final, desperate card.

As the
Raven
’s bow bore down on them, he screamed an order to his men.

“Everyone to port! To port! Now!”

It seemed an insane order. The black ship was bearing down on their port side and every instinct was to escape to starboard. But Svengal knew if they did that, the hull would heel, exposing its lower reaches to the ram.

This way, the weight of the crew moving to port heeled the ship toward the
Raven
, so that when the ram smashed and splintered into their ship, it did so much higher on the hull.

The terrible, smashing impact threw Svengal from his feet and he sprawled on the deck, staring at the massive rent that the ram had torn in his ship. Vaguely, he could hear the triumphant shouts of the pirate crew, and the cries of several of his men who had been injured in the collision. But he regained his feet and yelled orders at his uninjured men.

“Fend her off! Get oars and fend her off!”

Seawater was pouring into the ship around the edges of the ram. It was an iron-shod beam that projected two meters ahead of the
Raven
’s bow below the waterline, and it had punched a thirty-centimeter-square hole in
Wolfwind
’s side. For the moment, it was still firmly embedded in the wolfship and, to a large extent, was plugging the hole. But when the
Raven
’s crew backed water and withdrew, the sea would gush in and Svengal and his men would have only minutes to save their ship.

Four of his men had oars now and they were trying to shove
Wolfwind
free of the ram. But the ships were jammed tight together and their efforts were having little effect. Then Svengal heard an order from the stern of the
Raven
, and her crew began to back water, withdrawing and leaving the
Wolfwind
to wallow with a huge gap in her bulwarks and hull. Now the sea rushed in in earnest and Svengal heard Zavac’s mocking laughter as the
Raven
turned away and headed west.