Andrew Offutt - The Sign of the Moonbow

“Go with the goddess,” Cathbadh said. “Danu be thy light.”

The two departed his company in likenesses other than their own.

Soon, Samaire came to Cormac, and he smiled and called her dairlin’ girl.

But at the same time Cormac went to Samaire in her room, and she smiled and held forth her arms.

On the morning of the morrow, Wulfhere made brag of how he’d had no wish to be selfish, and so had toiled in the gardens of no less than four delightful and delighted maids of Daneira, all of whom he swore fainted in bliss; Brian but grinned and was silent, except to say quietly that he had been… less industrious in the numbers of garden plots, but had plowed more than once in two several Daneiran gardens, and therein sown his seed.

Cormac and Samaire said naught, for. each supposed to have spent the night with the other. And it was many a day ere they knew privacy again, and learned that each had received the other that night though neither had gone, whereupon realization came upon them that they had been tricked to no fell purpose by a great mage and two loving Daneirans, no boy and no girl. After a while they laughed on the matter, and wished Sinshi well, for she, unlike Samaire Ceannselaigh, had surely taken no precautions against get.

Chapter Seven:

Thulsa Doom

Wulfhere ruddered Quester around the Isle of Danu with great care-and skill seldom surpassed. Aboard were two men of Daneira, filled with wonder and going constantly from port to starboard, from stem to prow, ever looking; neither had been asea before. At last the Dane spotted that which they sought: the wolf’s head ship of the Norsemen.

Ashore, the woods trailed off into a short but deep strand that sloped gently to the water. On the sparkling pale sand of that beach, the ship from Norge had been drawn up to the edge of the trees. She’d been turned partially crosswise, for there was little more than sixty feet of depth to the beach betwixt trees and surf, and the Norse vessel was little more than ten feet shorter.

Quester hove in cautiously, without sail.

Those aboard saw no sign of men who might have been left to guard the scarlet vessel; there was naught here but sea and sand and woods and the ship, left whilst those who had plied her so far went ashore-to their deaths.

Taking Quester well into the shallows until it was nudging the beach, Cormac swung off, with Wulfhere and Brian. They moved up the strand, treading wet sand. Aboard the ship from Eirrin waited Bas and Samaire and Thulsa Doom, with the two from Daneira. They watched the trio of weapon-men move warily up glittering sand to the beached vessel. The beach twinkled as if strewn with gems, in the sunlight that struck white fire from helms and mail.

“Oh-what a beautiful ship!”

Wulfhere nodded. “Aye. None build ships better than those Norse fugitives from Hel’s domain, Cormac.”

Eyesight was sufficient to confirm the beauty of the knorr ; only a few moments’ examination was necessary to ensure that it was unguarded and in perfect condition, a long curving sweep of seafaring beauty with a scarlet hull the height of Cormac’s shoulders. Her name was branded along her side; Odin’s Eye . The god of the northlands had but one, for he had given up the other in trade for great wisdom. The snarling wolf-heads of Odin’s Eye were in place at bow and stern, which meant they had been reset after the beaching, for they were removed ere a ship of the cold lands came in to shore, lest the spirits of the land be alarmed by the fearsome gaping wolf-mouths and resist the landing. None had; it was well inland that these men of Norge had met their weird.

“Be it likely that all the Norsemen went inland, and left none behind to mind this beauty?” Brian asked.

Wulfhere and Cormac, their eyes as if bedazzled and ensorceled by the vessel, nodded: “Aye,” the Gael said. “Such is their way, often. See you any sign of habitation on this isle? They saw none, either. But-it’s sure we want to be that no reavers remain.”

The two who’d sailed so long together, a-reaving, looked at each other.

“We must have her,” Cormac said. “Aye.”

They shouted then, above the liquid slapping of the surf. All three men clashed the flats of their blades on their bucklers to draw any who might have been left behind by Thorleif and Snorri, and who might now have fared into the forest.

“An any come,” Brian asked, “shall we tell them of the welcoming they’ll be receiving of those man-hungry maids of Daneira, and bid them go inland… provided they leave all arms here?-And armour as well?”

“No sensible man would agree to such a mad bargain,” Wulfhere said. “They’d show us refusal by attacking at once.” He thrust two knobby-knuckled fingers up into his beard. “I bathed not high enough! Umm… such seeming madness, I mean; I be sore tempted to remain and return to Daneira, myself.”

Cormac had shaken his head. “No, Brian. Armed or no, such wolves would soon eat the gentle lambs of Daneira, alive or dead. An any come in reply to our noise, it’s but one way there is to ensure the safety of Daneira.”

Beyond the ship, the trees rustled their tops in a breeze off the sea. Brian looked at Cormac, with his lip caught between his teeth.

“Aye, proper death-dealing,” Wulfhere rumbled, quietly for once.

“Murder,” Cormac said.

“We’d slay out of hand?”

“Oh, they’d make attack,” Cormac said. “But-aye. Daneira must be protected, and making sweet overtures to reavers is the fool’s way. Slay a few to protect a few hundred? Aye! An that goes against your feelings, Brian, lay you back. I and Wulfhere can handle any who come. And he’ll only begrudge ye those you account for, I-love-to-light.”

“Unnecessary chatter. None comes,” the Dane said.

Cormac sheathed his sword and rested a hand on Odin’s Eye by the slit that allowed an oar’s slim blade to be slid down into the round hole for its sweep. He gazed at the line of trees, from which no one emerged. The only sounds were of surf and treetops that seemed to rustle in a whisper.

“None comes,” he agreed. “Twoscore Norsemen fared here, on Odin’s Eye , and all found death here. Four by my hand, and the rest died of Cathbadh’s sorcery. As for yourself, Wulfhere, ye high-horned dreamer… remain then. It’s not a month ye’d last, in such an unexciting place.”

“Even a month,” Wulfhere said thoughtfully, and a smile twitched his beard. “I’d be the most popular man on the island, with the girls. And what fun to come back a year hence and see all the little redheaded offspring of Dane and Danu!” He grinned broadly, gazing inland.

Cormac shrugged. “Stay then, red bear of Loch-linn. It seems there be no Norse, as ye said, and it’s for Eirrin’s shores I am-with this ship.”

“Salvage.”

“Conquest!”

“Ye’d tow two craft, ye greedy Eirrisher?”

“Nay. The Daneirans want no ship. Nevertheless, it’s Amber Rowan we’ll be leaving with them, and all under the deck of Odin’s Eye . A Briton-built ship is best being pulled apart for whatever use the Daneirans have…”

He turned to hand-signal Quester . Immediately the two of Daneira swung over the side and came hurrying up the beach, with their staves.

“Your great Cathbadh slew all who fared here on this knorr,” the Gael told them. “The craft itself we take with us. All aboard her is yours. And that ship-the poor one made by the Britons, who learned naught of shipbuilding or much else in five centuries of Roman rule-it too is yours, for firewood or a clambering toy for Daneira’s children. Is it a good seafaring craft, Wulfhere?”