Ballista leaned down and fussed Mord’s dog. ‘They may not have the numbers.’ He spoke reassuringly, for all those standing about to hear. ‘And they do not have the time. They know Oslac and your father will be here soon.’
Was that true? Ballista did not know. Neither Oslac nor Morcar had any love for him. Oslac had looked like he wanted to kill him outside the feast, when he saw him with Kadlin. But surely Oslac would not sacrifice this many of their people out of personal animosity. And Morcar was with their father. He would have to be seen to do the right thing.
The sun was still not up. The colour had leached out of the morning. The westerly breeze had shifted the clouds, bringing a trail of white smudges against the blue sky overhead. It was going to be a fine day.
The call of a horn. The deep echo of a drum. The whole of Norvasund was filling with ships — sixty, seventy, still more. Soon it was as if a man could walk dry-shod from shore to shore.
‘Allfather!’ someone muttered in the hush.
As the sun rose, it picked out innumerable standards above the fleet. The bull with silver horns of the Brondings of Abalos, the double-headed beast of the Geats of Solfell, the gold-on-black lion of the Wylfings of Hindafell, the killer and the slain of the Dauciones; each banner repeated again and again. The islands and eastern Scadinavia must have been stripped of fighting men.
In the centre, shielded on all sides by his vassals, flew the enormous black standard with the wolf Fenris picked out in silver, the sign of Unferth, the man who would be Amber Lord of the North.
Ballista’s eyes flicked here and there, trying to count the ships, estimate their size, calculate the numbers. At least three thousand men, most likely yet more; perhaps as many as four thousand. There had not been an armada like this on the Suebian Sea in his lifetime, not since Starkad and Isangrim defeated the Goths. If only there had been time to build artillery. The slaughter it would have brought down in these confined waters on those close-packed ships.
Achilles, hold your hands over us … Allfather, turn your baleful grey eye on them … Different prayers rose in divergent tongues. Even the toughened men of the hearth-troop were shaken.
‘A lot of the fuckers,’ Maximus said. ‘Makes them hard to miss.’
Men laughed, some immoderately because of the tension.
‘The Hibernian is right.’ Ballista pitched his voice to carry, tried to make it exude confidence. ‘Every missile will find a home. They cannot all fight at once. They will get in the way of each other. Their ships will foul each other. And they will burn. Light the fires!’
Fuck, this is not good, Ballista thought. One thousand men against four times that number, with only a few stakes and a flimsy barricade to even the odds. Even if they survived the first onslaught, Oslac and Morcar would have to get here soon. But Ballista still wondered whether they would come at all. The former had reason to hate him, and the latter had sacrificed as many before. Ballista looked at his own white draco writhing above his head. How many men would Unferth send up here to avenge his son? Would this be the end? A stand with forty men on this windy little hill?
Across the water, the sound of the horn rang out again. The drum beat a different rhythm. Slowly the enemy fleet opened up, like the carapace of some massive water insect. The ships flying the standards with the killer and the slain man nosed into the eastern bank. The small figures of Dauciones warriors could be seen jumping ashore. Ballista reckoned there to be about a thousand of them. Castricius and Diocles would have much to do to hold out. Further away down the inlet, ten longships carrying the bull with silver horns of Abalos — half the Bronding contingent — moved to the nearer bank. These warriors would have a longer march to come to the base of the headland where Ballista stood.
As the warriors disembarked on either shore, the rest of the fleet advanced in two divisions. First came twenty longships of the Geats, the double-headed beast of Solfell fluttering above each of them. They were in line abreast filling the water, rowing straight for the sea barrage. Behind them were another twenty vessels. These flew the rampant lion of Hindafell. In two ranks, these Wylfings were angling towards the palisade at the foot of the hill held by Wada the Short and Grim the Heathobard.
Ballista looked for the largest battle standard with the silver wolf on black. Unferth himself with ten longships remained further out as a reserve. Briefly, and with no real hope, Ballista scanned beyond, towards the two tiny islands and the mouth of Norvasund. As he expected, the sun shone on empty water. There was no realistic chance of any relief for at least another day, maybe more, as the beacons had not tracked the approach of the enemy.
The enemy had come down the Little Belt from the north. They must have slipped through the Sound between Hedinsey and Scadinavia the night before last and spent the previous day lying up somewhere on the west coast of Scadinavia. It had been a dark night when they made their passage through the Sound, but it was strange they had not been seen by any of Morcar’s watchers on Hedinsey. A dreadful foreboding gripped Ballista. Even Morcar could not have added such a greater betrayal to his earlier treacheries.
Ballista pushed his fears to one side. Long ago, at the siege of Novae, his old commander Gallus had taught him that an essential aspect of command was to ignore what cannot be altered. There was more than enough to worry about here in Norvasund today.
The Geat longships were picking up speed, their oars rising and falling, white water curling from their prows. As they came into range, volleys of bright fletched arrows shot out from the five guardships and fell on and around them like swarms of wasps. Some oars swung dead in their wake, but their speed did not slacken.
Ballista stared at the deceptive surface about twenty paces from the barrage where the stakes were hidden. Surely they were there? Now; it must be now. With a wonderful suddenness, a Geat ship juddered to a stop. Another veered sideways. Even from such a distance Ballista could see the planks torn from its side, men thrown into the water. Over near the far bank, a third crashed to a halt, then a fourth. Three others banked down hard, the water creaming as their oars fought the water to bring them to a standstill.
As the rest closed with the barrier, Ballista saw what they intended. At full speed, just before impact, their crews scrambled towards the stern. For four or five, it did no good. They ran bow on into the oaks or tangled in the untrimmed branches. The raised prows of the others slid up over the floating trunks. The warriors piled forward. For a couple the momentum was not enough. They slid backwards. Three more stuck fast. Men jumped out on to the treacherous, shifting barrage. As they hauled at the ships, from both banks arrows sliced among them.
Three of the Geat ships scraped over the obstacle. Ballista’s five longships were alongside in moments, men pouring over the gunnels. One of the Geats held out for a time, but when surrounded by four vessels its end was inevitable.
With fire arrows from Castricius’s men on the far bank arcing down at them, the remaining Geat longboats attempted to pick up men from the wrecked vessels and pull back some way down Norvasund.
There was no time to celebrate. The boats of the Wylfings had reached the palisade on the nearer shore. They ran into a storm of missiles. Using the rising ground, Wada’s three hundred men shot and threw everything to hand without cease. The plunging shafts and stones swept the decks. Flames blossomed briefly, before they were stamped out. The frontage allowed only ten longships to come prow on to the wooden defences. The bravest Wylfings hurled themselves at the rampart. Some got over; most were hurled back into their boats or down into the shallows. Those who made it inside were surrounded and hacked apart. Soon, those in charge had had enough. The boats backed water. Missiles flew back and forth, smoke trails coiled through the air, men still suffered and died, but it could bring no decisive result.