The spear was too heavy for Jak, and despite his agility and fighter's eye, he managed only to heave it the distance, where it flattened out and slid into the shingle. Every one of the Vikings succeeded in hitting the target. J.B. hit it two throws out of five.
Ryan shook his head when it was his turn. "No. Too simple. Thought this was supposed to be a real test."
"Bold words, outlander," sneered one of the young men, his lips peeling back off jaggedly broken teeth in a savage grin.
"Well said, Erik Stonebiter," one of the watchers called.
"Stonebiter?" Ryan questioned.
"When I was a skraeling— a child — I saw our karl throw his knife into the air and catch it between his teeth. I had no blade, so I tried the trick with a large stone. And I caught it. Sadly it snapped off most of my fine teeth."
The tale, clearly often told, brought bellows of laughter from all the listeners. Jak was one of them, still smarting at his own failure with the ash-spear. "Catch knife teeth! Who?"
"My father, Jak Snowhead. It was something he did when heavy in drink. Once he missed and it pierced his cheek. After that he ceased doing it."
"I'll do it," Jak said.
"No," Ryan called, knowing something of the albino teenager's stubborn pride. Knowing, too, that it would on occasion push him way beyond the bounds of good sense.
"Easy," Jak insisted, filling his hand with one of the throwing-knives with the leaf-shaped blades that he kept concealed among his clothing. The point and edges were honed to a whispering sharpness.
"Show us," Erik Stonebiter said. "Show us, young outlander."
"Jak, you'll..." But Ryan closed his mouth when the boy stared at him with his blazing ruby eyes.
"Watch," the lad hissed.
The sun couldn't break through the roiling banks of fog that hung over the lake, but there was still light enough to dance off the glittering blade as Jak sent it spinning high into the air.
The young Viking had time to begin speaking. "No. Not so high. Only a turn or two and..."
Then it was falling from its frozen zenith, revolving more slowly.
Jak's eyes were fixed on it, like a rabbit before a cobra. His lean body was tense and poised, his mouth slightly open.
"Merciful heavens!" Doc whispered just behind Ryan.
As the blade landed, Jak lowered his head in a sharp dipping movement, going down to his knees in the sand. Everyone saw it — the knife, held by its bone hilt, visible between Jak's teeth.
"Dark night," J.B. said with an almost reverential awe. "That is about the damnedest thing that I ever saw."
There was a moment of silence, then the morning was riven by the cheers and whoops of the Norsemen. Jorund Thoraldson himself clapped the white-headed boy across his scrawny shoulders. "By the sockets of Baldur! That was something for the harpers to sing of during the winter nights."
"Snow-head, steel-dart, high-flung, bird-threatened, bone-caught," one of the watchers chanted, using the old Viking poetic form of a kenning.
"Lip-cut," Ryan finished, pointing to a small pearl of blood that perched in the corner of the boy's mouth.
When the hubbub had ceased, the baron turned once more to Ryan. "Now, Outlander One-Eye. There is some business not completed. The throwing of a spear, I think."
"Sure. Move that target back another ten paces. No. Fifteen paces. Yeah. Better."
"You'd never reach that with a spear," a young Norseman told him.
But Ryan was thinking again of the harpooners of New England and the skill with which they threw the long irons.
"Show me your best man first," he replied. "I'll match or beat him."
There was muttering among the warriors, and finally a barrel-chested fellow was pushed forward. His shirt stretched tight over his shoulders and seemed to have been deliberately made two sizes too small for his bulk.
"Bjarni Earthmover!" Erik Stonebiter shouted. "Throw your best for Markland and for Odin, brother. Shame us not."
The butt end of Bjarni's spear was studded with iron, and an intricate pattern of woven leather thongs crisscrossed its length. He smiled at Ryan, who nodded and stood politely out of his way.
With a studied slowness Bjarni measured out his run, eyeing the distant target. He then looked up at the sky, his lips moving as he offered a prayer to one of the Norse gods.
The spear seemed to whistle in the air. Ryan saw the effort put into the throw and guessed that the distance of about 130 feet was close to his limit. The point thudded home right at the very bottom of the sheaf of straw, to a cheer from the watching men.
"Not bad," Ryan admitted loudly. "It would have certainly clipped the man's toenails for him."
The stout warrior looked at Ryan as though he were about to say something, but he hesitated, then gestured to him to take his best shot.
Ryan hefted his own spear, finding the point of balance, then checked his run-up, making sure there were none of the soft patches that had so nearly brought Doc to disaster. He glanced along the beach, wondering for the first time whether he'd been overconfident about this. The sheaf seemed a very long way off, barely visible in the fog.
"Want it brought near again, outlander?" Bjarni asked with a sly grin.
"No."
Arm back, straight, to give the fullest possible power to the weapon; eye on the target, measuring and estimating; the run, not too far, and then the explosive burst of energy. Ryan felt his muscles strain for the final whip of the wrist that would yield extra yardage on the cast. The butt of the spear grazed the side of his head as he released it.
"Thor's hammer!" Bjarni gasped, his head cocked back to watch the flight of the metal-tipped staff.
For a moment Ryan thought that he might actually have overthrown the target. Then the iron point dipped and the spear thunked home about nine inches from the top of the sheaf, roughly in the center. Had it been a man, the spear would have hit dead center through his chest.
"Ace on the line, partner," J.B. said approvingly.
The next event was mock sword-fighting, using blunted weapons. The three outlanders managed to acquit themselves fairly well. Jak was outstanding, with his sinuous agility, strength of hand and quickness of eye. Both J.B. and Ryan took numbing blows from the more skillful and experienced Norsemen, though both men held back a little. If the fights had been for real, they both knew that the results would have been different.
Jak won the ax-throwing with almost laughable ease. The target was the top of a large beer keg that looked as if it had been around the ville for a hundred years. Rough circles had been painted on the keg, and it was set up twenty paces down the beach.
Ryan noticed that the fog was showing no signs of clearing. In fact, as the morning wore on, it seemed to be growing thicker, swirling in off the water and encircling the huts like some huge, amorphous beast that was scenting its prey.
As he looked around, waiting his turn to throw, he saw that Krysty and Mildred had left the other women and moved closer to watch the contest. Krysty, dimly seen in the veiling mist, made the unmistakable hand signal to him that warned of some imminent danger. But Ryan couldn't get close enough to talk to her, and the cloud of fog thickened and took her from his sight.
He managed to pass on the warning to J.B., Jak and Doc, but it wasn't much use without a little more specific information. All of them were on their guard anyway.
The Armorer put his three casts with the short-hafted ax within the inner rings. Ryan did the same with two of his, though his third throw slipped in his hand and it barely chipped the top edge of the target.