Brotherband 4: Slaves of Socorro (25 page)

‘Oh . . .’ Gilan said. ‘I’m sorry, Wulf. Or is it Ulf?’

‘Yes,’ they both replied, delighted to have a new victim.

Gilan looked to Hal for assistance.

The skirl shrugged. ‘Don’t ask me. You brought this on yourself.’

Then Ulf, or possibly Wulf, went back on the offensive. ‘So this Ikbar was a demigod. What does a demigod
do
exactly?’

‘Not a lot,’ Gilan said. ‘That’s probably why he was only a
demi
god.’

‘Yes,’ said Ulf/Wulf. ‘If he actually did stuff, they’d make him a full-time god, not a semi-demi-deity.’

Gilan’s eyes darted from one to the other. Yet in spite of the Ranger Corps’ reputation for keen-eyed observation, he couldn’t tell the identity of the one who was talking. And he had a suspicion that they’d shifted seats when he’d glanced away for a second. He realised that the rest of the crew were watching with expressions of tolerant sympathy on their faces.

Before he could say anything, one of the twins – and by now he had no idea which one it was – asked a further question.

‘Maybe he was thin. Was he thin?’ He directed the query to Gilan, who shrugged.

‘I’m not sure. Why do you ask?’

‘Because it’s called the Narrows of Ikbar. Maybe if he was thin, that’s why they called it that. Because he was narrow as well.’

‘Aaaahm . . .’ Gilan began, then stopped. He looked at Hal, who was just too slow wiping the amused look from his face.

Gilan raised an eyebrow. ‘Do you put up with this all the time?’

Hal pursed his lips, pretended to consider the question, then shook his head. ‘No. I have a foolproof way of dealing with them,’ he said.

‘And that is?’

‘I have Ingvar throw one of them overboard,’ Hal said, smiling sweetly.

Gilan looked from one to the other. ‘Which one?’

Hal shrugged. ‘Doesn’t really matter. It usually shuts them both up. You might like to try it. Or, for a change, you could throw them both over the side.’

Gilan shook his head wearily. ‘What a truly excellent idea.’

I
t was midafternoon when
Heron
ghosted into the little cove that Hal had selected two days earlier. As they came under the lee of the high cliffs on either side of the bay, the breeze was masked and the sail shivered and flapped loosely.

‘Down sail,’ Hal ordered. ‘Out oars.’

Stig, Ingvar, Thorn and Stefan had their oars ready in the oarlocks, and as Jesper and the twins brought the sail down and stowed it, they began to pull on the oars in a steady rhythm, sending the ship sliding into the cove, creating a perfect V at her bow in the sheltered water. The bow wave spread slowly across the inlet and rippled gently against the rocks at the base of the cliffs.

‘Jesper,’ Hal said, pointing to the bow. Jesper nodded and moved swiftly forward to take up a position as lookout.

‘All clear,’ he called, his voice echoing in the confines of the narrow bay.

Hal turned to Gilan and Lydia, who were standing at his side, watching events.

‘No rocks or reefs marked on the charts,’ he said. ‘But it never hurts to make sure.’

The bay was some two hundred metres long, and ended in a narrow, sandy beach. As Jesper called his reports from the bow, it became evident that the sand continued out into the bay, forming a clear bottom. Beyond the beach was a sparsely wooded patch of level ground, which quickly gave way to steep, rocky slopes leading up to the U-shaped ridge that surrounded the bay on three sides. Hal eyed the trees and nodded in satisfaction. There weren’t many of them, but there would be enough to provide him with the two new spars he’d need to re-rig
Heron
. And the widely dispersed trees had an advantage. If there were enemies in the immediate neighbourhood, there would be no thick cover to conceal them in the event of a surprise attack. He scanned the hills surrounding the bay and saw no sign of movement or danger.

‘We’ll beach her,’ he said quietly, and the rowers on the benches nodded. If there had been any sign of danger, they would have anchored well out in the bay. But a shore camp would allow them to have a proper cooking fire and camp site. They’d eat and rest well this coming night.

Sitting atop her inverted image,
Heron
slipped quietly down the bay. When they were twenty metres from the shore, Hal called to them to cease rowing and the ship slid smoothly onto the beach, her bow grating in the coarse sand. As she came to a halt, her bow fixed in the sand, her stern swung slowly to the right. Then the keel grated lengthwise against the sand and she stopped completely, heeling over to starboard.

Jesper jumped down over the bow and ran up the beach with the sand anchor, driving its metal flukes deep into the yielding sand to hold the ship fast. He stopped, wiped his hands on his trousers and looked around.

‘Nobody home,’ he called, his voice echoing faintly off the rocks. The oarsmen drew in their oars and stowed them along the line of the ship, with a series of rattles and bumps that sounded unnaturally loud. Then, once again, there was silence in the cove.

‘Set up camp,’ Hal ordered and the crew busied themselves unloading the wooden frames and canvas cover they used for a tent on land, as well as a shelter on board their ship.

‘May as well make the most of that,’ Hal told them. ‘I’ll be cutting it up for a sail before long.’

Gilan could see that each member of the crew had an assigned task when it came to making camp. Edvin was assembling stones for a cook fire, and laying out his pans and implements. Jesper and Stefan were busy clearing a space for the sleeping tent while Ulf and Wulf lugged blankets and bedding ashore. Ingvar was loaded with the wooden frames and canvas that would form the tent, placing them beside the cleared space while Stig prepared to supervise the building of the tent.

Only Thorn and Lydia seemed to have no assigned tasks, but he noticed they were constantly scanning the ridge above them, their eyes always moving and their hands close to their weapons – an axe in Thorn’s case and the quiver of atlatl darts in Lydia’s.

‘Anything I can do?’ Gilan asked Hal.

The young skirl thought briefly. ‘You might take Thorn and Lydia and scout the ridge,’ he said. ‘Make sure there are no locals up there waiting to surprise us.’

Gilan nodded and made his way to the bow, dropping over the side onto the wet sand and trudging to where the one-armed warrior and the slim girl were standing, still scanning the ridge line.

‘Let me know if you see anything that frightens you, princess,’ said Thorn, grinning at the girl. ‘I’ll go and chase it away with my axe.’

‘What makes you think you could get halfway up that slope without keeling over, old man?’ the girl replied crisply. Gilan had the impression he was listening to the latest instalment of a long-standing dialogue. Thorn’s soft chuckle at her pithy reply, and her deep frown at the shabby old warrior, confirmed his thoughts.

‘Hal wants us to check that ridge,’ he said.

They both looked at him and nodded. They had been expecting such an order and they turned and set out up the beach. There was a narrow path that ran up the hill and they headed for it. Gilan unslung his bow from his shoulder and moved his cloak so that he had access to the arrows in his quiver. He noticed that Lydia had withdrawn one of the long darts from her own quiver, fitted the atlatl to the notch in the end and held it ready to throw. Thorn simply rested his axe over his left shoulder.

Sailors, once on land, were notoriously unfit, Gilan knew. But as he led the way up the steep, narrow path, sending showers of pebbles rattling down the hill, he noticed that these two were exceptions to that rule. Neither of them was breathing hard when they reached the top of the ridge. He might have expected that in Lydia. She was slim and wiry and looked to be in excellent condition. The much bulkier Skandian surprised him, however. He realised that the bulk was pretty well all muscle, with little excess weight being carried in the form of fat.

They paused as they crested the ridge, Lydia and Thorn content to let Gilan lead the way. Before them stretched a panorama of rocks, dusty, uneven ground and low-lying scrub, spreading out in all directions. The sun beat down on them and the rocks shimmered with the heat they had stored for the past eight hours. After the deep shade of the bay, the heat here was oppressive. Gilan shaded his eyes and peered around on all sides. There was no sign of anyone – enemy or otherwise. Although to the south, where Socorro lay, a thin haze of smoke was evident, rising on the hot air, then being stirred by the breeze. Gilan gestured to the northern headland, on the opposite side of the bay.

‘Let’s make our way round there and take a look,’ he said. The others nodded assent and they set off, their boots raising small puffs of dust from the parched ground as they moved around the ridge to explore the far side of the inlet.

On the beach, Hal contented himself that the camp was being put together with the usual dispatch. Then he set off for the trees beyond the beach, calling to Ingvar as he went.

‘Ingvar! Come with me, please!’

The big boy had completed the heavy lifting that went with setting up the sleeping tent. He picked his way over to where Hal was waiting, then fell in step with him as they walked towards the trees.

‘What are we looking for, Hal?’

Hal looked sidelong at his friend. ‘We?’ he asked, smiling gently to make sure Ingvar took no offence.

The huge boy acknowledged the joke. ‘All right. What are
you
looking for?’

‘We need a couple of new spars,’ Hal told him. ‘I want to disguise the ship and rig her with a square sail.’

Ingvar thrust out his bottom lip. ‘That should do it, all right. I take it I’m along to carry these spars of yours back to camp. I am the beast of burden for this crew, after all.’

‘And invaluable you are in that role,’ Hal said.

Ingvar gave a soft snort of derision. Then, joking aside, he said, ‘Will green timber be all right for spars? Won’t you want seasoned wood?’

‘I’d prefer it, of course,’ said Hal, his eyes scanning the trees around them. ‘But new timber should be all right. I only need it for a few days and we’re not going to be hitting any heavy weather. That one,’ he added, pointing to a straight sapling some ten centimetres in diameter and five metres tall.

They made their way to the sapling and Hal shook it experimentally, then hit the trunk with the back end of the axe, listening to hear how the wood rang. Ingvar watched with some interest.

‘Why do you do that?’

Hal shrugged. ‘I’m not really sure. It’s something Anders always does. But I think if there are flaws in the wood, it won’t ring true. It’ll sound sort of . . . rattly.’

‘Have you ever heard it do that?’ Ingvar asked. He had great respect for Hal’s technical ability.

‘Once or twice,’ Hal said.

‘And how did it sound?’

Hal paused, not sure how to explain it. Finally, he settled for: ‘Sort of rattly.’

Ingvar raised his eyebrows. ‘I suppose it’s my fault for asking,’ he said. ‘Do you want me to cut it down for you?’

Hal shook his head, his eyes intent on the tree. There was something about preparing wood for a ship. He knew Ingvar would cut down the sapling in half the time he’d take, but he liked to do it by himself. It made him feel totally in tune with the process, totally involved.

He made his first cut into the sapling and the entire trunk quivered under the impact. Then he cut again, placing the axe blade exactly, so that it deepened the first cut. Then he came at it from the opposite angle, with an overhand cut, and a large wedge of wood flew free from the tree. He made four more cuts, the axe biting deeply into the wood, and the small tree lurched and staggered. He leaned against it, signalling to Ingvar to join him.

‘Shove it,’ he said and the huge boy added his strength to Hal’s so that the sapling quickly keeled over with a rending, cracking noise. It lay parallel to the ground, joined to the stump by a few remaining strands and fibres of wood. Hal measured the distance and placed one more cut into the point where the tree joined the stump. The tree fell free, thudding softly onto the grass.

Hal straddled the tree and moved quickly along its length, deftly trimming the side branches and foliage until the sapling was reduced to a bare pole, five metres long.