The waves rushed over him filling his mouth with brine, trying to force air from his lungs, plunging him down into the dark and then raising him again, his grip locked in the lines of the broken piece of mast to which he clung.
His stomach and lungs emptied themselves repeatedly, spewing out salt water and bile. White storms of froth whipped up by the raging winds lashed his face and eyes until they were almost swollen shut.
The two Viking longships were long since out of sight, the storm pushing them on: To what? Home or death? Their crews tried frantically to keep their ships from being dragged under the waves as the dragon-headed prows plunged into each succeeding watery mountain and rose again to face the next series of rising and falling mountains and valleys.
Casca groaned as the rope lines wrapped around his arms threatened to pull them from the sockets. Opening his mouth to catch a quick breath, he was dragged under again and again. The night seemed endless; but, as things must, it too came to an end when, with the grey light of the false dawn, the storm passed. The waters calmed into long rising swells and hollows and almost as quickly as the winds came they left.
With the easing of the storm, Casca pulled himself lengthwise onto the broken mast, legs and arms dangling in the water, unmindful of the daring, darting little fish that surfaced to take timid nibbles at toes and fingers and dart away to safety.
He slept.
By midday the sun had burned away the last remnants of the storm, the waves were now gentle steady swells, following the tides. A familiar sound broke through to Casca’s subconscious, drawing him out of the dark of his mind back into reality. The sound kept pounding at him until he opened his salt-encrusted eyes, red-rimmed and sore. The sound of oars slapping the water in unison came to him, now punctuated by the distant cursing of the oarsmaster. From its apparent lack of a ramming beam on the prow, Casca assumed it was a trading ship. As it neared, Casca tried to yell, though to no avail as his throat was too swollen to get any appreciable amount of noise out. The sound issuing from his cracked and swollen lips resembled more of a squeak than a yell.
It didn’t matter. The oarsmen were shipping their tools and laying them on the sides, already regretting the future fact of the amount of labor it would take to get the ship under way again after stopping. The vessel’s master, a tough-looking, barrel-chested, bowlegged Sicilian from Syracuse, had spotted Casca in the water and ordered the oars to stop their incessant slapping.
A line was tossed to him as the merchant ship wallowed in the swells. After several attempts, the ship and mast piece got their timing together and Casca freed himself from the safety line he had used through the night and grabbed the line from the ship. The wet hawser slipped between his hands, taking off chunks of skin from his swollen fingers, but a knot in the line was held as it tried to pass through, jerking him from the mast, back into the waves and then up again. Casca spit water while the captain and crew looked on laughed.
“Listen, you water dog, if you want out of the drink, you better hold on. I can’t hang around here all day waiting for you to get on board. The Saxons have been raiding these waters for the last two years, so either climb that line and get your ass on board, or I’ll cut you loose and you can make it to Britannia on your own; it’s only twelve leagues to the port.”
The thought of spending another night in the drink gave Casca the impetus needed to drag himself to the side of the ship where waiting hands hauled him on board. “None too gently,” he thought. The captain laughed as the men tossed Casca on the deck minus a goodly portion of skin. His laughter stilled when he saw the short sword and scars.
“Well man, are you a citizen?” Then clearing his throat: “You’re carrying a soldier’s blade, so I presume you have done some. Who are you and how did you end up here?”
Casca paused, giving himself time to think. Did he say the Saxons were raiding? Pulling himself erect, he faced the ship’s master.
“Yes, sir, to both questions, and as to how I got here, it’s simple enough. I was hired on as guard on a grain ship out of Messillia when a Saxon raider overtook us and we had to go off course to get away; then the storm hit and I don’t know where the Hades we are, or if the ship went down or survived. I was washed overboard and spent the night hanging to the damned mast.”
The captain nodded. The story made sense. Still, it was too bad the man was freeborn, he would have brought a good price in the slave markets.
Lucanus Ortius put his hands on his hips as he addressed his new guest: “Well, you’re in luck. We are only two days from the port of Dubrae. I’ll put you ashore there. There’s always plenty of work in Britannia for one who knows the way of the sword. And from the looks of those cuts on your hide, you have had plenty of intimacy with one, though that large one on your chest looks as if it should have done you in. But, no matter, you are welcome to my hospitality for the next two days. Find yourself a niche in the crew’s section. They will have some dry clothes for you and a hammock. Then come and see me after you have fed and rested. Now, I have to get back to running this overaged scow and get her under way.
Signaling the Hortator, the man began to beat on the skin drumhead. “Prepare to row, set your oars.” The mixed complement of freedmen and slaves did as they were ordered with an understandable amount of grumbling.
Casca felt a twinge as they set the oar blades into the sea and began to pull in time with the beat of the drum. How long ago had it been when he slaved under the oarsmaster’s lash on the war
Casca fed on pickled pork and thin wine and hit the sack, sleeping until the first light of the next day. Upon arising he felt refreshed. The Latin chatter of the ship’s crew brought memories and left him feeling somewhat nostalgic. The crew was friendly enough though distant; the stranger had an aura to him that said move carefully around him and don’t come up on his back unexpected.
Climbing out of the hatch, Casca went to the side of the single-banked ship and emptied his bladder into the coastal waters of Britannia. Land was already in sight through the low bank of clouds and fog that was hugging the water by the coastline. The wind was with them now and the bow was slicing clean through the waves. With a sense of smugness, he compared the wallowing trader of Rome with his own sleek ships and found the Roman version a poor second.
Already thoughts and memories of the last years were fading into the recesses of his mind. “Change, always change, but still the same.. just different faces.”
Making his way along the deck to where Lucanus Ortius stood by the tiller, he ran his eyes over the vessel. The condition of a ship and attitude of a crew and slaves could tell a man a lot about the master. Clean, neat ropes curled, no garbage on this deck. The crew looked healthy and that they did a little bitching-even the slaves-said this was a good ship. The master demanded performance, but appeared well-liked.
Spying Casca, the captain motioned for him to join him on the upper deck where the dark sailor from the Aegean guided the ship through the rocky coastal waters.
Ortius Stood, a wine cup in his hand, the wind from behind whipping his leg wrappings, a turban of red linen protecting his balding pate from the elements.
Welcome aboard the Naida. I can see you got your sea legs and from the way your hide’s been burned by the sun, you have spent a long time in the eastern regions of the empire, right?”
“Aye, Captain. I was on a trader out of Pireaus for the last few years and this trip was the first for me to these waters.”
The captain nodded, pleased his deduction was correct, “Your name, man?”
Casca caught his balance as the ship crested some white water, “Longinus, Casca Longinus.”
Lucanus Ortius prided himself on being a judge of men. “From the looks of you, Master Longinus, I would say you have been around a bit; those cut marks on your hide look to be enough for five or six men to have died from.”
Sea spray whipped over the deck, freshening Casca’ s face. ‘Aye, Captain, I have been carved up a bit, but they are not as bad as they look. Dull blades don’t cut deep, just gouge out a lot of meat, and I still have some to spare.
Ortius liked the look of the man before him, a strong looking rascal and one you could not easily scare.
“Good enough. As a courtesy to a castaway, you will be my guest. Just don’t start any trouble and we’ll make port tomorrow. We lost some way in the night and the damned winds have shifted again; my oarsmen could barely keep their own against it and we couldn’t set sails until just before dawn. Now, I have duties to attend to, make yourself comfortable and perhaps we’ll talk later. I used to have some shipmates who worked out of Pireaus, perhaps you’ll know them.” The bandy-legged barrelchested little Sicilian laughed at the memory. “Remind me to tell you about the whorehouse in the south of the village where a Greek whore tried to castrate me for short changing her.”
Casca laughed; the scar running from his left eye to his cheek seemed to tingle.
The day turned bright and clear as they tacked first to port and starboard working against the cross angles of the wind as the sea miles dropped steadily behind. Casca spent the rest of the day cleaning his weapons, wiping the salt from his blade and honing down the edge of his double-edged dagger he kept in his leggings. During his years in the north countries, he had grown used to having them on and continued to wear them. -
He looked out seaward back across the distance he had come on the Viking longship, wending its way to the safety of the Keep at Helsfjord. “Another part of my life gone… Wassail, Olaf Glamson, take my ships home, and if your father lives, tell him I still walk this earth-though I believe he would ‘know it anyway, that great ugly bear of a man. The wheel of life turned again.”
In the flickering waters, for a moment, he saw the face of Liu Shao Tze, the sage from the lands of far Khitai, who had taught him the way of open-hand fighting. Automatically, he turned his head to face the East. “Khitai, perhaps it’s time for me to see the lands beyond the Indus.”
“Sail off the starboard,” the lookouts cried.
Instantly, every head turned to see what vessel was approaching. Unable to make her out, the captain cried up to the lookout perched on top of the single mast, “Can you make her out?”
“Aye, Captain. I will wager my bonus she’s a Saxon; the cut of her sails tell me that and the wind is with her. She’ll be on us in less than an hour.”
The captain spit, “Saxons, damn them all to the bowels of the darkest pit in hades. One more day and we would have made port. Keep your eye on her and tell me if she changes her course. All hands on deck, prepare for boarders!”
The crew rushed to the weapons rack taking out their personal preferences from pikes to axes. Several had bows but not enough; with enough archers, they probably would be able to keep the raider at a distance until nightfall and lose them in the fogs that always came to the coast of this land when the dark settled.
“A good crew, no panic,” thought Casca as he watched the look of grim determination set in on the faces of the crew and slaves alike.
The slaves too took up weapons, Ortius having made all his slaves a bargain: “Serve me for three years and you will be given your letter of manumission.” This bargain had been to his benefit in the past and was one of the reasons that he had so little trouble from his slaves’ part, they knew the captain would keep his word and it would still be better to be an oar slave than to be taken by those long-haired bearded devils called Saxons. It was said they ate the hearts of their prisoners and sacrificed them to their terrible gods.
Casca moved to the side of the captain. “Sir, have you ever fought the Saxons before?”
Ortius looked Casca in the face and saw a change that sent a shiver over him. “No, but I have talked to those that have and they are wild animals. This day we win, or die.”
Casca grunted, fingering his sword hilt. “I’ve fought them several times. They are poor archers, but when it comes to close quarters, they are the best axe men on the face of the earth. Most carry two or more throwing axes which they can throw in unison to keep their enemies undercover for a moment while they rush and throw themselves like a pack of dogs onto their opponents, using a combination of axes and lances. The bastards are tough, Captain. But I have beaten them before and have no intention of losing this time either.”
The Saxon ship was in sight now, closing fast. The faces of her wild crew became rapidly discernable, wild men with long flowing hair blowing to the front from the wind behind, their mustaches and beards giving them an even wilder look under the horned helmets and conical steel caps. Across the water, battle cries could be heard as they worked themselves into a killer frenzy.
Ortius ordered the cooking fire extinguished and all hands to stand by to repel boarders. The fat trader was no match for the swift raider. But Ortius was no coward and donned a breastplate of antique armor he had picked up in Bithynia. Casca recalled when it had been the newest style among the wealthy young nobles of the Eques, the Cavalry.
Casca placed himself, watching carefully for the spot where the two vessels would join and the raiders would toss their grappling hooks to tie them together in an umbilical cord of death.
As they neared the raider, Casca thought one wild looking bastard looked vaguely familiar but underneath all that hair it was difficult to tell. As the Romans said, “All barbarians look alike.”
All thoughts of the past months fled. The basic soldier in Casca came to the fore. As his pulse rate increased, he took short sharp breaths, pumping oxygen into his system automatically. He began to call out orders, commanding the sailors nearest the side to get ready and duck on his order.
Ortius looked at him and, seeing a man who knew his business, said nothing, just nodding in agreement for the others to follow Casca’s lead. The captain knew ships, but this was different. In Casca, he recognized a professional and in this instant he made the decision to turn the order of the battle over to this stranger from the sea.
“Do as the soldier orders,” he bellowed, loud enough for the Saxons less than a hundred yards away to hear.
The sailors huddled together instinctively, and Casca roared at them to separate to make smaller targets for the wave of axes that would come.
The Saxon ship began to close alongside the trader. Their leader stood in the bow, a massively built man with blond-grey flowing hair and mustache, axe held high. With his downward stroke, the Saxons rose to throw. Casca waiting for this moment, cried out to the sailors to fall flat on their faces; the sheer force of his order made most of them hit the deck like they had been pole-axed. Those too late to obey, had their skulls and chests laid open by the wave of thrown axes that raced across the small distance separating the two ships. As the axes were thrown, so were the grappling hooks and before the death cry of the stricken sailors could really begin, the Saxons were hauling the two ships side by side, the wood giving a strange muffled shriek as they dragged together. The Saxons crowded at the side, standing on the railing, ready to leap aboard the trader.
In their eagerness, two fell into the water between the ships and were mashed into a protoplasmic red jelly when the waves brought them back together again, leaving only a red stain on each ship to show that here had been two men who were no more.
“Up and at them!” The command stirred the defenders and they rose in time to catch the Saxons at their most vulnerable point when they were attempting the crossing from their ship to the trader. Normally the barrage of thrown axes would have given them the necessary seconds to make an uncontested assault, but now they faced desperate men with pikes in their hands and murder in their hearts.
The Saxons were stopped. But only for a moment. Then the leader of the enemy ship threw himself across the gap, landing on board. He began striking down sailors left and right, caving in skulls and chests, as he cleared an area through which the rest of his band eagerly followed.
The seamen were no match in close combat for the ferocity of the German pirates and were easily being forced back. More and more Saxons rushed into the bridgehead created by their leader, Skoldbjom, who was slicing down all who opposed him, bellowing for Thor to give him strength to kill all who dared to stand in front of his axe, which was red and dripping with the lifeblood of the sailors. His whirling attack came to a sudden stop as his axe was knocked back with enough force that it left his arm and hand tingling.
Casca pushed him back using a combination of sword and dagger; thrust, jab, strike high, then low. Casca dodged a blow to the head that would have split him to the chest and whirled low to the deck pivoting in a tight circle, slicing the hamstring muscles of a Saxon who came close. Then, raising himself under the guard of the leader, they locked, the Saxon’s axe barring Casca’s Gladius Iberius, while his other hand held the dagger away from his stomach where it was only millimeters away from opening him up like a gutted fish.
They broke away and locked again, two strong men face to face; again they broke, then whirled around each other like madmen, striking, parrying, sparks leaping when their blades met. The force of their combat brought the rest of the fighting to a stand-still. The protagonists from the two ships separated, keeping a wary eye on each other while the two in the center of the deck met again and again like charging bulls. They grappled, faces touching.
The Saxon spoke between clenched teeth, “Who are you? I have seen you before.”
They broke again and Casca made a deep lunging attack that changed in midstroke to a swipe to the gut, leaving a thin line of red across the Saxon’s muscled belly.
“I am the man who is going to kill you, barbarian. I am Casca, the Roman.”
The Saxon stumbled back, nearly falling over a pile of ropes. “Casca from Helsfjord, the Walker?” Terror slipped into his voice and for the first time courage began to slip away from him. “You’re dead. You sailed to the ends of the earth.”
Casca struck a blow that numbed his own arm to the shoulder and knocked the horned helmet off the Saxon’s head.
“I’m back.”
The Saxon countered, forcing Casca back. They separated, each gasping trying to catch his breath.
“You must be over sixty. My father, Hegsten, fought you at the field of Runes over thirty years ago.
Remembrance flashed. “Yes, Saxon dog and whore, I only chopped the left arm off the sire, I am going to kill the pup.”
Casca sliced down in a long stroke that forced the axe up high to counter; as the steel from the blade and the axe met, Casca gave a strange sliding movement obliquely that turned his opponent half around unable to use his free hand. Then Casca’s dagger slid to the hilt between the striated muscles of the abdomen, sinking deep within, the point of the blade puncturing the great artery running along the spine, letting the Saxon’s lifeblood flow into his abdominal cavity.
Pulling the Saxon to him and holding his opponent like a lover, Casca plunged the blade deeper into him, moving the hilt from side to side, severing organs. The death glaze was already creeping over the Saxon’s eyes, fogging them.
Through blood-flecked lips he whispered, “You are he. The Walker.”
He died shuddering, his last act to raise his head back, throat cords standing out from the strain, then drew his last breath. “Odin.” The name of his god echoed across the water.
Casca raised his body, grunting with the strain and tossed the carcass over the side. The raiders were still, silent, shocked. Their leader had fallen.
Sensing this was the moment, Casca cried out to the crew, “Kill! Kill!” He rushed the stunned barbarians like a whirlwind, his blade and dagger doing bloody work. The crew hesitated but a moment and then followed cheering.
The Saxons broke. Their leader dead, their courage left them. They fled back to their ship across lines, leaping the span separating the two ships. Several fell into the waters, but none gave them aid.
The trader crew cut the lines of the grappling hooks mooring them together and the ships parted, Ortius’ crew cheering.
The Saxons backed water to get away from what they had thought to be easy’ pickings, instead proving to be a shark; several of which were already tugging at the bodies in the water, taking the living along with the dead.
Ortius quickly resumed command. “Back to your post and oars, you miserable sea lice. Clear the Saxon scum from my decks and send them to their brothers to feed the hungry ones below.”
The battle was over.
Casca, as usual, after a fight, felt drained, his limbs trembling, not only from physical exhaustion, but from the emotional release as well. Breathing deeply, he gulped down air. “It is over.”
Ortius slapped him on the back. “By Poseidon’s green sea beard! It was a lucky day when we found you bobbing like a cork. You have made a friend this day, Casca Longinus, and never let it be said that Ortius, the ship’s master, forgets a debt. When we make port I am going to buy the ten best whores in town and see if they can kill you. By Jupiter’s brass balls man, I never saw such fight in all my life!”