Crowbone by Robert Low Read Free Book Online

cargo ships with a good wind at their back could always outrun us, Hrodfolc thought, leaving us rowing in their wake.
    Not this time. This time, there would be blood and booty.
    ‘Fast, fast,’ he bellowed, the boom of his voice in his head bursting tooth-pain in him. The riches called to him and he could see them, taste them – wool and grain and skins. Casks filled with salt fish, or beer, or cheeses; boxes stuffed with bone, buckles, boots, pepper. Perhaps even gold and silver. Honey, or some other lick of sweetness after a long winter. His mouth watered.
    ‘Fast,’ he called and his men grunted and pulled, wild-haired, mad-bearded, their weapons handy to grab up when they left off the oars and flung them inboard.
    Hrodfolc eyed the fat ship, focusing the pain on them, the ones on the ship. He would rend them. He would tear them …
    They streaked up to the side of the slow-rocking cargo ship and saw pale faces, four, maybe six and that widened Hrodfolc’s brown smile. The oars backed water furiously, then clattered inboard a breath or two before the long, sleek boat kissed the side of the
knarr
, a gentle dunt. Men hurled up lines to lash themselves to the side; others grabbed up weapons and scrambled to climb up the thwarts of their higher-sided victim, Hrodfolc snarling ahead of the pack with an axe in either fist.
    It was a surprise to them all, then, when a line of shields suddenly rose up and slapped together like a closing door. It was shock when a great, bearded axe on a long shaft arced out from under them, making Hrodfolc shy away sideways, though he was not the target of it. The axe chunked over the thwarts, the powerful arms wielding it snugging the snake-boat to the
knarr
like a lover cinching the willing waist of his girl into an embrace.
    Crowbone saw the gaping, snaggle-toothed mouth of the man who led these Frisian raiders, his face a great rune of terror at the sight of the shields and ring-mailed, spear-armed men who stood behind them, scowling from under the rims of horse-plumed helmets.
    Crowbone hurled his own spear and it took the man in the middle of his twisted tooth, which flew out of his mouth as he fell backwards, spraying blood and head-gleet all over his own men. He hurled his second spear with his left hand and it went through the thigh of another Frisian, pinning the man to the deck of the snake-boat – his screeches were as high as a gull’s.
    Yet more spears flicked and the men on the snake-boat screamed and flapped like fox-stalked chickens. A few grabbed up oars and tried to push their boat away, but Murrough’s long axe and a grip like a steel band held them. There were splashes as men hurled themselves into the sea rather than wait to die, for the Oathsworn were pillars of iron with big round shields, spears which they hurled and blades which they followed up with, crashing to the rocking deck of the snake-boat. The Frisian raiders had cheap wool the colour of mud and charcoal, spears with rusted heads and little wood axes.
    Some did not even have that and Drosbo took a half-pace backwards as a raider with a knife, fear-maddened to fighting like a desperate rat in a barrel, hurled himself forward, screaming, slashing. The knife scored down the ringmail with little hisses of sound and Drosbo let him do it for the time it took him to grin and the Frisian to realise it was doing no good.
    Just at the point the Frisian thought of aiming for the face, Drosbo brought his sword down in a cutting stroke that took the man in the join between neck and shoulder, a great, wet-sounding chop that popped the blade out of the man’s armpit and the whole arm, knife and all, into the sea.
    Then Drosbo booted him in the chest, hard enough to pitch the shrieking raider into the slow-shifting, crow-black water in a whirl of blood.
    There was a moment of crouching caution, then Murrough gave a coughing grunt, like a new-woken bear, and offered a final spit on the whole affair as he worked his