He caught that grim thought on thehoof.Fen had been right about fear and its power to distort themind, and Cai wasn’t immune.Cedric was waiting in a doorway,watching him for his cue.Curtly Cai gestured him to be about hisbusiness, and strode off to find his own.
The bell rang softly, its tonguemuffled up in a sack.The strangled note of it lent a dreadfultension to the night, pulsing out across Fara’s dark, huddledbuildings.Only a few lanterns shone from windows on the landwardside, casting a fitful light on Cai’s path as he made his way tothe cliffs, one man then the next running out at the signal to joinhim.
The sea bells…How Cai had madethem ring that first night, screaming out the monastery’swhereabouts to any ship not yet come in to land!And even thesecond time, how they had left all their lights burning, a gestureof defiance before they had joined the attack… Not this time.Notthis time.More men poured in from their posts around thebuildings, and Cai fell back, making room so they could run withhim in the shadows.Only the monks of Fara would hear this bell,would see these lights.From the seaward side, Fara would be only acluster of ruins, the burnt-out husks from the last raid.There wasjust an outside chance that the blanket of night would shield them,and the fleet pass by.
Fen stepped out to meet them in theplace where the track turned to a narrow defile at the top of thecliffs.His hair had grown long enough to drift in the night wind.Cai had faced him half a year ago in this very place—had for oneinstant met those eyes, which took fire into themselves when therewas none, and kindled fires in Cai that would burn him to ashbefore they died.He took up a stance of soldierly respect in frontof Cai—a deputy to his commander—and one look at him told Cai thetruth.“They are coming.”
“Yes.Only two ships, thankthe gods, but putting in hard and straight for us.”
Cai drew a breath.He looked at Fen,one eyebrow on the rise.They shared the silent thought.Only two?That was the difference between an immediate wipeout and a decentfight.Two might almost be enjoyable.
He saw the same idea flashinground the brethren waiting behind Fen, drawn up in orderly fashion,their skirts hitched into their girdles, weapons ready.“Gentlemenof God,” Cai called to them.“Eachvikingrship bears about twenty men, and none ofthem are passengers.We are thirty.We can do it, but not a manhere is to relax.I want stealth, brutality and a most unchristianattitude from all of you.Is that understood?”
It wasn’t the time for a battle cheer.Cai saw it coming and hushed it, grinning.“Later.When we’rebearing down on them like skirt-wearing demons from Abbot Aelfric’shell.Now get into your places, and wait for Fen’s signal andmine.”
The raiders would make landfall in thebay below the cliffs.Cai knew that from bitter experience.It wasthe natural place, the beach sloping smoothly there, offering easyanchorage, a fast run in to shore.On a dark night like this, onlythe thinnest waning moon to light their way, the broad white sandswould gleam temptingly, and there beyond them Fara’s great rock—adesirable stronghold, inhabited or not.
Cai signalled his division of the menoff to the left.Fen was crouched at the top of a whinstoneoutcrop.He had already directed the brethren under his command totheir hiding places among the dunes to the right.The bay might bewide and hard to control, but it could be used as a trap, with menpositioned correctly in places leading up to the defile.Timingwould be crucial.Fen knew more about that than Cai did—he and Caihad agreed, just the night before in a brief interval of theirloving, that he would give the sign.
Cai clambered up the rock and kneltbeside him, taking care not to break the skyline.“Do you seethem?”
“Yes.”Fen gave him an odd,amused sidelong glance.“How do you not?”
Cai looked again, this time followingthe set of Fen’s shoulders and head.A cold thrill seized him, amix of nausea and excitement.It was like learning to see thepassage of a serpent through water, a creature he’d been taught wasonly mythical.And, as Fen said, now he’d got the trick of it, howcould he not?Two great vessels, their lines like water, likebillowing sails.They forged a path along the troughs of the waves,the diagonal drift of the tide.Their uplifted prows bore bestialheads—one a square-mouthed dragon, gaping, crudely hewn, the next aspiral of surpassing beauty with a swan’s head at its centre.Theirtimbers fanned out from these delicate points to broad, sturdyhulls.Cai had never seen his enemy, not until he was face-to-face,breath to breath, locked in bloody combat.He had never really seenthe ships.“They’re beautiful.”
But Fen had turned away.He hadslumped down against the rock.His fist was clenched tight aroundthe hilt of hisBlóðkraftrsword, his knuckles white and stark.
“What is it?”Caiwhispered, ducking down beside him.“Is your beltloose?”
“No.The first boat—does ithave a wolf’s-head prow?”
“No.A dragon, I thought.”Cai risked another glance.“I don’t know, though.A godless heathenbeast of some kind—I can’t tell.”
“It’s a wolf.The sailbears the signs of the Torleik.”
“Is it...Do you think they’vecome for you at last?To rescue you?”
Fen shook his head.“Not in that kindof battle array.And the second boat, the beakeddragon…”
“I thought that one was aswan.”
Fen chuckled painfully.“That onebelongs to the Volsung.Vicious bastards who pirate with us in thesummer, then steal our damn cattle all winter.This is a raid, nota rescue.”
“Fen—what are you going todo?”
Their gazes locked.“I never thoughtI’d see that sail again.”
Cai put a hand on his shoulder.“Fen.”
He struggled out from underCai’s grasp and crouched a few yards away, hunched up, hairconcealing his face.And in that moment Cai’s world, from church todunes, from turf to cloud-shadowed sky, fractured and began tocrack apart.He had asked.He hadn’t understood how a loyal Viking,with ideas of brotherhood higher and nobler than any Cai hadattained about God, could change sides to fight alongside a foreignmonk.Even if they were lovers—even if they had lain in thefragrant barn last night and sworn to one another blood faith tillthey died, even if Fen had done that while he was coaxing one lastcome from Cai’s exhausted flesh, and Cai had given it back to himin the teeth of ecstasy.Yes, yes, yes.Still Cai had asked him.Where will you be?Which side?And Fen had answered, and Cai had believed.
But Fen couldn’t fight the Torleik.Ofcourse he bloody couldn’t.Cai lurched to his feet and almost fellat the rip of sick vertigo through him.Fen’s back was stillturned, his head down.He looked scarcely human—an outcrop of thedunes or the rock.Cai would remember him that way.He wouldn’tthink of him anymore as a living creature, the wolf from the seawho had become his companion, so dear to him he would wake with thebastard’s name on his lips, fall asleep saying it instead of hisprayers.Cai would never think of him again at all.
He had a war to win.All round thebay, like fox cubs in holes, his men were waiting.They were menhe’d trained and put there himself, and just now they were waitingfor a signal that was never going to come, not from the lump ofdune sand or stone wrapped up in its cassock and rocking, the onlyliving thing about it its bright hair.Cai turned his back.Hewanted to spit out the terrible snake-venom taste from his mouth,but he was afraid to find out that he could never rid himself ofit.He controlled his breathing, the heave in his lungs that wantedto burst into sobs or retching.
He mustn’t break the skyline.He hadrehearsed all this—his own track down from the defile to the placewhere he would be able to see Fen, ready and waiting in hisappointed foxhole.Only the smallest change was needed.He made onelast check of his sword belt with cold, steady hands.Then he ransilently down the track.Instead of turning right he ducked intothe dune grass at his left, found Fen’s empty place and slippedinto it.He was the son of Broccus, the scion of a race that hadbeen dealing with barbarian invaders for seven hundred years.Goths, Vandals, Huns—fireside tales around the hillfort’s hearth,of noble Roman emperors beating back the alien hordes.Even as achild, Cai had believed maybe one word in ten.Maybe one in ahundred now.But one in a hundred was better than nothing, now thathe was left with nothing, and he could assess the moment to strikeas well as any other man.He had to believe that.
Here came the boats.He leanedforwards, crouched in readiness.God, they were beautiful—finebeyond the craftsmanship of any western shore dweller, Saxon orRoman.The plain, strapping ugliness of the men who poured out ofthem was almost a relief.They were huge for the most part, jerkingCai back into his flesh in visceral fear of them.There were ahandful like Fen, lean and graceful as they saw to their anchorageand leapt over the prow, but for the most part they were the men oftheir legend, hairy great axe-swingers, thick manes drawn intoplaits or horses’ tails, bulky shoulders straining leatherjerkins.
