Gemini Thunder by Chris Page Read Free Book Online Page B

anaesthetize it against the pain that the forty deep pica head pecks would inflict.
    Starting with those magnificent eyes.
Chapter 3
    The striking reindeer skin drums of ninety Viking long ships thundered out the rhythm of the dipping oars as the vessels headed out to the open Northern Sea. Clearing the jagged headland, each vessel hoisted its brightly coloured headsail, which instantly filled with the following wind. With the striking drums fading to those watching on land, the twin propulsion of one hundred threshing oars per ship and a full headsail each soon had the entire fleet over the horizon.
    Standing in full view of his fleet on the forward platform of his command and leading long ship, Guthrum kept his double-handled sword raised for all to see until the land had disappeared astern. At a given signal from his navigator in the early hours of the second morning, the fleet would split into three groups of thirty ships, each with three thousand fighting men. The first group, again led by Olaf Tryggvason, the red-haired commander of the ill-fated Lyme Regis raid, would, as before, pick up the Atlantic currents to take them south to repeat the landing in Lyme Bay. It was thought that the Celts would not be expecting another landing there. Having left guards on his ships, Tryggvason would then strike inland in a northerly direction for the town of Glastonbury as fast as he could, taking horses for his men and slaughtering anyone who got in his way. At Glastonbury he was to remove all opposition, dig in, and wait for instructions from Guthrum.
    The central group, led by Guthrum, would set their course to come around the seaborne side of the island of Wight and make landfall at Hengisbury before striking inland for the town of Salisbury, and the third group, under the command of Ove Thorsten, an old and grizzled regional chieftain and veteran of many campaigns, would land at Bognor Regis and head for the Wessex capital town of Winchester.
    The Viking were beginning to learn from Lyme Regis and other small raids. Uncoordinated attacks with little or no long-term plan didn’t provide much, other than a chance to pillage and rape before being driven out by superior forces or returning home voluntarily with very limited booty. Whilst that may have briefly satisfied some of the younger warriors’ bloodlust, it did little or nothing for the greater spread of their civilization beyond the boundaries of their cold and inhospitable lands. What they did know about Britain was that it was very well adapted for raising beasts and had a climate far more favourable than their own for growing grain and other edible plants.
    They had a number of old parchment Roman maps of Britain, captured on other raids, that included some quite good details of Wessex and the straight roads that had been built across the region for Roman marching legions. These old maps also showed that the three inland cities chosen were in the central heartlands of their targeted region with indications that each town had a castle where the enemy was likely to have its soldiers. Although a seafaring race, the Viking were also expert at converting their prowess as fighters to land battles. Having quickly overcome resistance to their sea raid, they would jump on local horseback and raise further havoc inland before returning to their long ships. That would have probably been the case had Twilight not intervened in the first Lyme Regis raid.
    This time Guthrum did have a long-term strategy. Once Wessex was in their hands and consolidated as Viking territory, they would bring over families from their Northern territories to colonize this beguilingly green and fertile land. Then they would look further north in Britain at East Anglia, Mercia, and Northumbria and even further, perhaps, to Ireland.
    But first, it was a three-pronged attack on Wessex.
    Scores needed settling.
    Desmond Kingdom Biwater sat cross-legged on the grass-covered floor just inside the willow gates of