Viking Voices (21 page)

I explain that the objective of my battle strategy will be to draw Bardr into a battle away from the fort; since he is just too well defended while he stays in there. I will seek to fight him on the open sea and for that purpose I propose to divide our fleet. We will use the full fleet which numbers eighty longships, and all the boats are brim full of men this time, we could have used more boats if they had been available. The Danir mercenaries that have joined us have ensured a larger, stronger force than we have ever had before. This time we must succeed and take the fort, if only by the weight of our numbers.

Ragnald will stay out of sight in a bay south of the fort with the main fleet, and I will sail a small number of boats well away from the land, passing the castle out of sight and then returning to it from the north, a group of just twelve boats that will look vulnerable and might tempt Bardr into pursuing them. We think he can raise around thirty boats, enough to take our twelve reasonably easily if he will engage with us. He is very likely to react if he believes that he does so from a position of strength. Once the Vannin Danir are pursuing us we will move past their castle to join up with Ragnald's main fleet, and then we will then have eighty boats in all. The pursuing boats will then find themselves suddenly heavily outnumbered but too far from home to retreat safely, and with the wind carrying them towards our battle fleet. The battle will then take place on the sea with hand-to-hand fighting as the boats join together but with the odds heavily stacked in our favour by our greater numbers.

My comrades all feel it is a brilliant plan but there are several ways in which it might fail. The first flaw might be that Bardr may be cleverer than I expect and not pursue the twelve boats. Bardr may appreciate that his great strength is his position inside the castle and simply stay there, but I think this unlikely. He is just not that intelligent and the temptation of taking a small group of boats will be too much for him. When it comes to a trial of strength between his greed and his brains his greed is certain to be the stronger.

There is no immediate downside to us if he stays in his castle, I will certainly be safe then, but it just becomes a non-event and we will not have achieved our goal and we will be back at the beginning, needing a new plan to entice him out. It is likely to be a lengthy siege which is never a favoured tactic among Vikings. We like our battles short, bloody and decisive.

Alternatively he may simply turn back once Ragnald's main fleet appears and this is quite possible, even probable if he sees it early enough. We must therefore allow his boats to get close to us, we are the bait and we must be a tempting bait. We have to trust in our timing and also that of Ragnald, he has to be exactly where we have agreed that he should be, to react when he needs to react. The timing and location are so critical that I want to go with him until I can see him beach his boats; I need to know precisely where he will be.

More problematic still, but much less critical, is timing the arrival of our Lochlain comrades from the north. It is more difficult to co-ordinate, but has fewer personal dangers for me. If they come too soon they will find the castle heavily defended which will be painful and possibly fatal for them. If they come too late we will already probably be there and they will play no part in the battle, a waste of resources but not disastrous as we have sufficient numbers without them. Our timing has been calculated to make the latter more likely, unless the fighting is prolonged. That can only occur if Bardr has more ships and more men than we expect, or that they are better fighters than our men. That would make them extraordinarily good warriors!

I send the boat immediately to summon Sihtric and Guthfrith, with instructions to sail straight into the small harbour beside the fortress. If the timing of their arrival is right, they might arrive to find it either undefended or very lightly defended. They should then be able to walk straight into the open gates of the castle and then hold it for us. The boat sent to summon them will leave a full day before the other boats.

I do not give any serious thought to the possibility of Bardr's defeating our fleet, numbers always count in a battle and the Danir mercenaries who are with us, though ill-disciplined, are all well-equipped and savage fighters. I know we will prevail if we can get Bardr away from the fort and committed to a sea battle.

At the last minute I decide to reduce the number of boats in my group to just six, now we will certainly appear vulnerable and the bait is therefore far more tempting, but if Bardr and his men can catch us we will be genuinely vulnerable. In fact, very few of us would be likely to survive long enough for Ragnald to rescue us.

Not surprisingly Ragnald is very enthusiastic about the plan, he see that it has every likelihood of success and there is no significant personal risk to himself. I have noticed that he always likes to fight within the middle of his large group of personal guards now. Despite his reputation for reckless courage he has changed since the battle for Fortriu, from the old Ragnald who was always issuing challenges to single combat. He now keeps away from the centre of the battle, and likes to have the odds stacked heavily in his favour. No doubt he will survive many future battles, surrounded by his huskarls, even though he may often be seen at the centre of the fighting he will be well protected. I suppose he is either becoming wiser as he grows older, or he is now listening to Thora's ideas to preserve him and keep him in greater safety.

In contrast, I seem to be increasingly likely to be at risk, right at the forefront of every action. Of course, I am taking the greater leadership role now; since I am still trying to get Ragnald to make me a Jarl but there must be time to reconsider my strategy in the future. For the first time it occurs to me that a family man with two small dependent children should not be taking such extreme risks.

There are already two fleets. One is leaving the Dee which I command, and another leaving the Ripam on the same tides which Ragnald will command, and together we will combine into a mighty fighting force which would frighten any one. Ottar and his family made a big mistake when they created an enemy out of Ragnald and his Lochlain community and Bardr is about to suffer the devastating retribution. This is a far bigger army than is required to crush any likely resistance in Vannin.

I am fortunate enough to get an extra day at home while Ragnald leaves for the Ripam as he will lead the army he has gathered there. I can wait here since I lead the group leaving from the Wirral.

We leave late on the following afternoon and the first evening at sea is uneventful. It continues through the night and in the morning we arrive off the beach of the same bay where we once sought to build our colony. From a distance it looks like our old neighbours have maintained the lands we cleared and I imagine they must have profited greatly from our efforts and will be thriving. I hope so and I wish them well. They were good people, for a while our neighbours and our friends, and they may soon be so again.

It is the dawn of the second day of our new adventure, and as the light develops I can see the Ripam fleet appear ahead of us, a great mass of sail on the surface of the water. They are passing through very turbulent waters off the south west of Vannin. A small uninhabited island juts out across the tidal flow and this produces an area of disturbed, turbulent water over which we must now pass.

I must now split the Dee fleet, the main group heading east to join Ragnald's boats inside the bay. I will stay with the small group of six boats which has set off to go west, rowing strongly far out to sea where they will be less likely to be seen. The main fleet have a shorter journey and stay well south of Bardr's fort, landing on the beach of a cove, to await our return passage which is designed to bring him and his boats out to chase us in a few hours time.

It takes more than two hours to row a sufficiently great distance to position ourselves well out to sea and to the north west of the fortress. We will be able to set sail as we approach the stronghold with the wind behind us, and it will be at the point where we raise the sails that we will become clearly visible to the defenders. Judging that position will be vital. Too soon and they will be onto us before we reach Ragnald, too late and we may be past and they may simply not follow us.

As we continue onwards, again rowing hard, we appear at first to have the entire ocean to ourselves, no other boats are visible, but we do have the company of a large friendly grey dolphin that comes out of the harbour to meet us. We take it as an omen of good fortune, maybe even Thor himself in disguise has come to look at us and wish us good fortune.

My men have already been rowing for hours now and are exhausted, so although we are just a little further away that I had ideally intended I raise the sails a bit early to give them respite. They will give us more speed anyway and should carry us past the enemy's harbour before he has enough time to react; I swell with pride as the six black ravens of Woden billow in the breeze above us, creating a bit of black magic as they carry us towards the castle.

The plan works, and it works well, too well, and certainly too soon. The boats from Vannin are coming out to attack us earlier than I had anticipated. They must have seen us much earlier than I had anticipated and I wonder if they had been watching the large dolphin when it came to greet us. That dolphin may yet prove to be less friendly than he had seemed. Thor is the most fickle of gods and he may have turned against us for failing to make sufficient sacrifices to him. Now he may be present in the form of that dolphin not to wish us well but to watch and to laugh at our deaths. The gods are very temperamental and have little respect for mortals and may turn against you at the slightest perceived slight.

Or maybe the Norns have another fate planned for us! We must have the courage to face this danger and, if necessary, to meet our death with our swords in our hands so the Valkyrie will recognise us as worthy of a place in the feasting hall of Valhalla.

We need to turn a little further to windward so as to avoid coming too close to our pursuers, but following this direction also slows our movement through the water slightly. The danger of them catching us before we reach Ragnald and his fleet is now clearly far greater than I had predicted, and we are getting much too close for comfort. Everyone in the six boats is fully aware of how close we are to Bardr's much larger and very threatening fleet, he has sent out all of his thirty boats, and I can feel the anxiety and even smell the fear in the air.

I am sure that he will remember my role in his father's ransom and that will probably mean a long slow and immensely painful death for me if I am taken alive. Perhaps they might even inflict the ritual death of the blood eagle on me, where the victim's back is cut open, and the lungs pulled out and spread across his back while he is still alive. A very slow, terrifying and very painful death is the inevitable result. Ottar's men were certainly known to inflict the blood eagle on their enemies in the past.

I hope that Ragnald has his men observing what is happening so he will react more quickly and come to save us. No sign of that yet though, and the threat is still very close, I can see the warriors on the chasing boats leaning over their shields to peer at us. They look to be very enthusiastic for the fight. No doubt they expect it to be fought on terms that greatly advantage them. I find it difficult to stay on my feet as the boat plunges around in the sea, and cannot speak. My fear is too intense. The knot in my stomach has tightened so much that I am in physical pain. I must stay calm and in control as every decision taken here is life enhancing or life threatening.

The wind direction has veered and is helping us as it is now nearly behind us and the chasers are still having to row into both the wind and the swell to get nearer to us. The gap is starting to open slightly as we are moving away from them but we must turn again to stay further off the undulating and rocky coast, this manoeuvre takes us further from our enemy but again we lose the best use of the breeze and slow down. This piece of sailing is also starting to feel dangerous, too close to the rocks and in a strong swell and with a fluky wind that keeps changing. All of our warriors are standing, silently and nervously staring over the shield rack on the side of the boat to observe the progress of our enemy behind us.

They can see that we are now heading for a narrow gap between the main island and the small islet, an area of sea that we know is just about navigable but very shallow and covered in rocks. We can see it in the middle distance; still some way off but quite distinct. Our pursuers will certainly also know this area very well and they must be confident that we will need to slow considerably to get through that strait. Taking it at speed under full sail is a very hazardous action. I hope it will make them content to wait until we reach it as I know that Ragnald's fleet is waiting for them just out of sight and will strike at them long before we get there.

The ideal speed for our strategy is one that leaves us just ahead of our enemy, close enough to make them always believe they can catch us, and we appear to have achieved that perfectly. Unfortunately it is not reassuring for us in these few ships and still very frightening now, as the chasers can now also turn to raise their sails and gain speed, following an identical track through the water behind us. They are not far behind us and the gap is no longer widening. They are even close enough to try to throw a few spears at us though these are still falling well short of our boats.

We have already succeeded in our task now, as we are near the headland which hides the cove where our own great fleet are hidden. They should appear very soon now. In fact, they should be appearing now! Where are they? Where are they? Where are they? Don't they know our lives are at stake if their timing is wrong?

My task should be complete, as we have drawn Bardr's army into the jaws of the trap, but still there is no sign of our main fleet to close those jaws. I am still in danger, though we are beyond the point where we should have been rescued. I can almost hear and feel the rough beating wings of the blood eagle as though it is following me in hot pursuit; my black raven is still flapping hard and so just managing to carry me beyond its reach.