Return of the Ravens (Ulfrik Ormsson's Saga Book 6) (29 page)

Then Ulfrik was hurtling away. The sensation felt like when he fell from the tower, nothing but air flowing past him and arms flailing at his side. He crashed into something hard that slammed him the other way. The back of his head cracked against metal and snapped forward. He heard Grimnr cursing, his deafening shouts in his ear. Then he was smothered beneath iron and flesh, face in the dirt and hot blood streaming from behind his ears and into his mouth.

He flattened out, all his breath escaping, and when he thought the crush finished, the body atop him slammed down again and no more air refilled his lungs. His nose clogged with dirt and his vision turned red then brown.

Another thump and he saw no more. Strangely, even beneath the welter of bodies crushing him, the last sound he heard was the shrieking of the crows above.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Konal stood in the prow as three ships blockaded further progress up the Seine. He leaned over the side, waving his hazel branch as if it were a wing to take flight. None of the crew on any ship answered him, but he saw the bowmen gathering at the front of their ships.

"We're only one ship," he protested to them. "Shields are still on the rails, you fools."

He continued to wave while his crew of twenty men sat on their benches, oars shipped. Glancing back at them, two rows of ten white-eyed men stared at him. He swallowed, then renewed waving the hazel.

The scent of battle still clung to the land. He had received Einar's summons the same day he received Mangus the Stone's so-called suggestion to ensure Ulfrik's failure. He was to send all available men forward to Eyrafell as a rearguard for their escape. Unable to avoid the obligation, he was forced to send all his men and use those left behind to form his crew. Now his own fortress of Konalsvik was manned by five men and all the boys old enough to hold a sword.

"I think they're moving," said one of the men leaning over the opposite rail. "Oars in the water."

"All right, that's good," Konal said. "Remember, I have an important job here. I'm no traitor to Hrolf, and you men have nothing to fear. Just stay with the ship and be ready to leave when I return."

A few men nodded, but most looked toward the shore. Konal followed their gaze, seeing white tents billowing amid slipshod buildings. Closer to them, parties of men picked through the corpses littering the field, and flocks of crows randomly screamed into the air when they came too close to their feast. Konal shuddered, glad to have left his fighting days in the distant past.

One of the three ships pulled ahead, its oars paddling in a slow rhythm as the Seine's muddy brown current carried it forward. Konal raised the hazel branch high, a sign for peace recognized by Northmen everywhere, yet despite this archers crowded the rails of the approaching ship and all shields had been cleared from the racks. He understood their skittishness after a surprise attack, but he was only one ship.

"Tie onto us," shouted one man from the lead ship. He was the hovedsmann, a man with an iron gray beard and deeps lines in his weathered face, and he commanded his crew with a flick of his hand. Ropes flung out to Konal's ship, and he waved his own crew to grab them. Tying onto the ship was essentially surrender, but he had no chance against this river patrol of three longships. His crew knew it, and he heard grumbling behind him.

The hovedsmann stood with spear and shield ready, centered at the rail of his own ship. "Send your leader over to us. You have my word he will be treated with respect if his intentions are peaceful. Leave your weapons on your ship."

The two other ships spread out to either side, their archers standing ready but without arrows on the string. Konal felt himself trembling, having never surrendered to an enemy before. He took a deep breath, unbuckled the baldric carrying his sword, and handed it to a crewman. "Do as they ask and we will be safe."

He reached for the pouch at his side, and panicked when he grabbed nothing. In all his worry, he had forgotten he had left the gems hidden back home. He had grown accustomed to their weight at his side, and to touching the pouch whenever he grew worried. The hovedsmann watched him under hooded eyes, and noted how he had reacted when missing his pouch. Konal stepped onto the rail and jumped to the opposite ship where two crewmen assisted him to the deck.

Surrounded by spearmen, he tried to appear unconcerned for their gleaming blades. Behind the stern faces of the spearmen he saw their sister ship glide past, headed to cut off retreat or discover if Konal had hid other ships around the bend downriver. He smiled at the hovedsmann. "I have important news for your leader, Grimnr the Mountain. I must speak with him right away."

The hovedsmann tilted his head back and studied him. His eyes roved over the white and pink scars swirling through Konal's face and neck. Despite the long years of living with his disfigurement, he never adjusted to the reactions of others when first meeting him. He tried to remain impassive, but felt his nostrils flare and he wished he had drunk more.

"Right after the ambush attack? Seems it's a little late for useful news." The hovedsmann leaned in, sniffing. "Are you drunk?"

"Only enough to get me through betraying my people." Konal rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. "I need to speak with Grimnr. I leave you my ship and crew as hostages to my peaceful intentions. Tie my hands if you will. Just get me to him this moment."

They put Konal on another ship while they arranged to guide the captured ship to dock. The new crew surrounded him with four men, and upon reaching dock these same guards escorted him ashore. The camp smelled like an open latrine, and Konal put a finger beneath his nose, causing one of his captors to laugh. "It's why I prefer river patrol," said another. "Only Paris smells worse."

Guiding him into the camp, he found men laid out as if napping in the sun, yet the flies dancing on their faces showed they were dead. No sword had cut that pile of bodies, but disease had laid them out. As they wended between dirty, weathered tents, he came to a long hall shaped like a hull. A side door hung open with a man squatting beside it, wrapped in his cape and spear leaning against a support beam. Thatch on the roof had fallen away and revealed the wooden slats beneath. If this was Grimnr's hall, the reality of his glory was far less bright than rumor had made it appear.

They kept him waiting outside the main doors while two went inside. Konal watched the crows screaming and shrieking at the western edge of the camp, thick black clouds of them flitting from one feast to the next. Grimnr exploded from the doorway like he expected to find a naked woman to ravish. Instead, his wide, predatory eyes dulled when he set them on Konal's scarred face. The man was taller than Einar, but not as muscular. Both of his eyes were blackened and three stitches held together the flesh of his left cheek.

"Important news for me? Who are you?"

"Konal Ketilsson, jarl of Konalsvik." He raised his head with pride, though his whisper-thin voice did not carry the power he had hoped. Still, Grimnr leaned back in surprise.

"Then you should've been with Einar for yesterday's attack, but you look too hale for that scrum. His head was supposed to nailed right here." Grimnr stuck a thick finger at the frame of his doorway. "But the coward ran. Right after he knocked me out with my own man and flattened my head with the haft of his ax. I guess he's leaving the real fight for later. Why would he do that?"

"I can't say. He tells me nothing of his plans, only that my men were to guard Eyrafell for his retreat."

"But you're here, and he's there by now. Bit of a problem for you, isn't it?" The men gathering around him laughed, but Grimnr's own smile turned to a wince when it pulled the stitches on his cheek.

"My hope is you will welcome me here once you have my news."'

Grimnr nodded at his four guards and they parted, then he guided Konal toward the cleared field before his hall. "Let me hear what you've got to say before I share it with the others. We'll be fine over here."

Once they had distanced themselves, Grimnr faced him and stood with his hand resting on a dagger hilt at his waist. Konal had no weapons and fists would never prevail over this brute. He gladdened at not having to face him across a shield wall.

"There is a spy in your ranks."

Grimnr growled and shook his head. "Eskil and his men were all hanged weeks ago. You're late with that."

"No, Hrolf has sent another. If he sees me speaking with you, he will have already begun to flee."

"We're not going to a quiet, private place so you can pull a hidden weapon. Say what you have come to say or I'm adding your corpse to the pile."

Konal licked his thin lips and glanced over his shoulders, worried Ulfrik might appear at any moment. "His name is Ulfrik Ormsson, but you will know him as Ulfar the White. He was thought long dead, but had only been a captive. Hrolf sent him to free the boy hostage you keep."

He watched the lines on Grimnr's face grow taut as his lips disappeared into a snarl. The stitches on his cheek pulled apart and blood began to seep. Though Grimnr remained still, Konal felt a massive presence pressing down on him. It was as if the air between them was heating up. His jaw worked side to side and his eyes narrowed. "I don't believe you."

"I'm sure if you think back on what he has done, you will realize he has been working toward getting close to your hostage." Konal's raspy voice shook with both fear of Grimnr's simmering temper and fear of failing to convince him. "If you have not heard the legend of Ulfrik Ormsson, then I will warn you he is a clever man. He outwitted the Franks for years and has been a scourge to them since he arrived back when Paris was besieged. And the gods love him. He was thrown from a fucking tower and lived to bring his love of misery back to my hall. Tell me the gods do not favor him. Don't fret for being taken in by his deceit."

"Your words mean nothing." Grimnr's hand tightened on the grip of his dagger and Konal dropped his eyes to it.

"Gutting me won't change the truth. You are mad with yourself for being played a fool. I know. I stood in your boots once. But don't take my word for it. Find him, then tell him you've captured his son in yesterday's battle. His name is Hakon and is the very image of his father. He serves Einar now and would have fought at his side. Make Ulfrik believe he has confessed to you. Do whatever you must, but reveal Ulfar the White as Ulfrik Ormsson. Then do what I could not. Kill him."

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Ulfrik sat up from the cold earth floor of the tent, and his head began to spin. A boxy woman in the dark robes and habit of a Christian nun worked at a table by the tent flap, golden morning light shining behind her. She saw him rise and snapped a stream of accented Frankish he did not understand. He slipped back down and touched his head, working around to the back where he felt a hot, painful lump. A terrible stench suddenly registered, and at his left was a chamber pot filled with vomit that had not been emptied. From the sour taste in his mouth he guessed he had filled the pot but did not remember.

The nun knelt beside him, a cool cloth in one hand and with her free hand she lifted his head. She spoke too quickly for him to understand, so she slowed down though not without a huff and frown first. "Can't you stay still? Let me clean your head. Lift it, please."

She smelled like lilacs and her soft touch relaxed Ulfrik. She was at least his age, if not older, but no woman had touched him so lovingly since he had left Gytha in Iceland. He sucked his breath as the cloth padded the back of his head and she giggled.

"Stay. Rest. You go back today."

"Where am I?"

"Not remember? I told you yesterday. Big man and you banged heads. Broke his face and broke your head. He crushed you until you sleep. No?"

Ulfrik shook his head. "Maybe. It's hard to remember. I'm getting too old. Where is this tent?"

"Count Amand's fortress. The injured come here after the battle. Stay away from the sick men out there." The nun swiped her hand vaguely behind her and wrinkled her nose. "I go now. But this tent, you are last one in it. We need space so you go after rest."

After the nun exited, Ulfrik sat up again and braced himself for the dizziness that assailed him. The tent appeared to wobble but after a dozen heartbeats it settled. He was on a sheet laid out on the floor, one of four that had been placed in a square. Piles of bloodied rags were stuffed into a corner and rust stains on the sheets indicated his tent mates had suffered far worse injuries. A distant scream alerted him to the world beyond his tent. He heard men and women outside, saw shadows of passing figures glide across his tent wall. Moans and laughter mingled and Ulfrik guessed scores of injured surrounded him. Einar had done his job well.

Still in his mail shirt, he felt as if a dozen hands pushed down on his shoulders as he struggled to his feet. His dizziness lingered for a moment and vanished. A pile of weapons were stacked beneath the table where bowls and bandages along with knives and tongs sat prepared for surgery. Selecting his own weapon from the pile, he strapped it on, found a jug of ale on the table, guzzled from it, and exited the tent.