All noise on the boats ceased, bar the creak of the mast. Everyone looked around, puzzled expressions on their faces. They rounded a headland and Car Cadell lay in front of them, set backa little from the shore on a craggy hillock. Dark rocks lay between it and the water’s edge.
“There’s no smoke,” said Aoife.
She stared at the coast of her father’s lands, frowning as they got closer to the fort and the first of the guard towers appeared. She watched it carefully but saw no sign of movement, no sign anyone had noticed their approach and sent a message. Perhaps a boy on foot ran through the woods? But no birds flew up, and the woods seemed silent and still.
Tormod must have noticed her focus, because he placed his hand on her waist and gave her a querying look.
“The guard towers are empty,” she said.
“Are you sure? You don’t think they are expecting us and lying in wait? That they are just hiding?”
“No.” She shook her head. “They are not there. There are no fires or anything.”
“Do you think your vision was true?”
Aoife stared at the fort, at the palisade, at its gates, at the surrounding land. Little by little, she began to see differences. Then, although she could see the scene in front of her, it was as if a second image had appeared in front of it. She closed her eyes, and the vision grew stronger. She could smell roasting meats, hear the clanks of cutlery and crockery. The meal began, but she could feel the tension in the room. Ula stood apart from her father. She saw her father stare at his wife, his eyes questioning. Ula and her daughters left the hall. Cadell stood, confused, and then chaos ensued.
Aoife pressed her fists against her eyes, but nothing could block out the vision of the short swords and axes pulled from beneath cloaks and tables, and used to slaughter first her father and then any man, woman or child who had gone to his defence.
There was a deathly silence and the vision was gone. Tormod’s arms were around her, holding her, his voice reassuring her. “What did you see?”
“They’re dead,” she said and opened her tear-filled eyes. “They’re all dead.”
“All of them? The whole fort?”
Aoife took a few deep breaths, aware of the scrutiny of the warriors around her. “No,” she whispered, “not all of them. Only the ones loyal to my father. And… my father.” She felt Tormod’s arms tighten around her in response to the news.
“Who did this?”
“I don’t know. My father’s men, some of them. They were sitting down to eat and then Ula and her daughters left the room. Then they used short swords and axes and…” She stopped and looked up at Tormod, then at his cousins and the other Norsemen surrounding them. Some of them were staring at her, but as she looked at them, really looked at them, it was with an expression of awe rather than fear.
“This may not be what happened,” she said. “At least not exactly. Sometimes it is an interpretation, rather than fact. Like the bear and the wolf and the hawk surrounded by the sound of thunder that haunts my dreams. So you might not want to take it all too literally.”
Tormod smiled at his cousins. “It seems my wife is a seer of sorts.” Then he squeezed her arms and laughed. “She has been seeing us in her visions for some time now.”
“If only you could fly like your namesake, Arne,” Ulf said. “As a hawk, you could fly above the fort and come back and tell us whether an army waits for us in there.”
Aoife smiled, relieved he had finally accepted her.
“What do we do in your dreams?” Björn asked with a grin. “I mean, if you are dreaming of me…” He stopped as Tormod frowned at him.
“The thunder is only the beginning of the storm,” she said.
All of them stared uneasily at the fort ahead of them.
Chapter Thirty-five
The sound of thelongships crunching against the shingle beach was loud in the eerie silence surrounding Car Cadell. Tormod and his men had waited and watched from just off shore for more than an hour, but the silence had remained unbroken. Aoife had stared at her former home all that time, not a single word passing her lips. The two ravens perched on the ship’s mast stared at the same place. It was the Lord Odin keeping watch over them, he was sure of it. It also reassured him of her loyalty. After all, who was he to second guess Odin?
“It is time to move,” he said. “There may be more trickery. Or survivors. Be alert.”
The warriors headed up towards the fort walls in three groups led by Ulf, Björn and Arne. Tormod remained on the shore with Aoife and the fourth group of warriors, all wary and ready to head quickly for any one scene where trouble might erupt. The gates in the wooden palisade that surrounded the fort and its farms lay wide open, although that was not unusual. More unusual was the lack of activity on the farms, the animals simply wandering.
It was Ulf’s group who approached the gates in the stone walls of the fort directly. When they reached them, they knocked. Any enemy would already be aware of their presence if they were watching. The sound echoed off the buildings and walls. There was no response and barely even a whisper of breeze. Ulf pushedthe high wooden gate. It swung easily inwards. The warriors positioned themselves, but nothing happened.
Ulf turned to Tormod, his face serious. “There has been a massacre,” he shouted. “I can smell blood, and there are rats, so many rats.”
Ulf and his men entered, but it was not long before they returned to the gate, ashen-faced. Ulf returned to the longships to speak to Tormod.
