Falcon Warrior

Chapter Two

Chapter TwoThey saw the mountains the next day, seemingly floating above the horizon, white with snow, as serrated as a broken saw and taller than any they had seen in Alba.

'So Greenland has white mountains,' Bradan said.

'Green and white land, then.' Melcorka watched the Norse flotilla tighten around them as they sailed closer to this new land. Erik waved to them until Frakkok snapped something to him and he turned rapidly away. 'Erik is scared of her.'

'I've never seen a scared Norseman before,' Bradan said.

'Nor have I.' Melcorka watched the young Norseman as he made minute adjustments to the sail. 'Nor have I,' she repeated thoughtfully.

They pushed on toward Greenland with the sea calm and the wind light. Patches of mist drifted across the sea, dissipating, reforming, altering Melcorka's perception, so she was unsure of distances and objects until a faint sun burned the sea clear, revealing Greenland.

The mountains were in the background, how far away Melcorka could not tell; white and sharply serrated, they rose as a backdrop to a land that was otherwise drab brown with patches of lovat-green and as many rocks as any island in the Outer Hebrides.

'I can't see much green here,' Bradan said.

'There are no green men, then.' Melcorka sat at the tiller, steering to make the best of the fluky wind. 'That is a pity. I was quite looking forward to seeing a green man.'

They sailed up a small inlet, with tumbled, lichen-stained rocks on both sides and clear water speckled with floating ice beneath their hull, until they came to the inlet's head, where the ground levelled out. There was brown moorland scattered with rocks, looking very similar to the landscape of North West Alba, a handful of scrubby trees and a scattered settlement backed by square fields. A score of cattle grazed in the fields, watched by a few young boys, while men in baggy trousers worked at digging out the moorland to create more arable land.

'It is very peaceful, this Greenland.' Bradan looked around. 'These men are not carrying swords, and their spears are all piled at the end of the fields, a two-minute run away. It's also a bit far for raiding Vikings to sail, or even Caterans.'

'It is peaceful,' Melcorka agreed. 'But there is smoke coming over that ridge there.'

'I can't see it.'

'Nor can I. Smell the air.' Melcorka said. 'And look at the ridge. Everywhere else is clear while it is hazy. There is smoke there.'

The Norse fleet sailed in as if they knew the place intimately and drew up on a shallow shingle beach a few yards below the settlement. Within a few moments, the men splashed into the water as they began to unload the livestock. There was the sound of lowing cattle and neighing horses, laughing men and the high-pitched screech of excited children. Some women greeted the men with hugs; others were more passionate while a few watched with disappointment or anticipation. Erik stood alone and slightly forlorn as Frakkok snapped rapid orders.

'They've been here before,' Melcorka said. 'This is a return visit.' She steered Catriona toward the beach, close to the Norse vessels but not alongside them. 'I still don't trust these people,' she said, as Bradan looked questioningly at her.

'Aye.' Bradan nodded. 'It's sensible to keep some distance until we're sure.'

They crunched onto the pebbly beach, where small wavelets softly splashed and the sound of seabirds competed with the lowing of cattle. A man lifted a hand in quiet greeting to them before helping unload the larger Norse ships. Melcorka stepped ashore and staggered. After weeks at sea, the land seemed to sway underneath her.

'Come along, you two.' With nobody apparently willing to greet him, Erik strode toward them, hand outstretched in welcome and sword at his hip. 'I'll show you around our little settlement of Frakkoksfjord.'

'That would be kind of you.' Bradan placed a hand on Melcorka's shoulder before she opened her mouth to refuse. 'We'd like to see this place. I thought Tir nan Og was over the sea, not this Greenland.'

Erik's laugh sounded genuine. 'Do you like the name? My namesake Erik the Red called it Greenland to encourage settlers here.'

'I like the name,' Bradan said.

'Are you burning the heather to make new fields?' Melcorka was more direct than Bradan.

Erik frowned. 'Not to my knowledge…' He looked around.

'There is fire over there.' Melcorka pointed to the ridge on the north. She touched the hilt of Defender and immediately felt the heightening of her senses. 'And somebody is shouting.'

'I'll have a look.' Erik said. 'If you will excuse me?' He strode toward the ridge.

Melcorka watched him curiously.

'He seems friendly enough,' Bradan said. 'He's invited us to his settlement and showed no hostility at all.'

'Not yet,' Melcorka said. 'He's too polite for a Norseman.'

Erik was three hundred paces away and moving fast. Melcorka did not see why he hesitated and looked back over his shoulder. 'Skraelings!' His voice was louder than Melcorka had expected. 'The Skraelings are attacking us!'

'What in the name of God is a Skraeling?' Bradan lifted the rowan-wood staff that was the only weapon he carried.

'I don't know,' Melcorka said, 'but I think we're about to find out.'

Erik's words were spread from man to man and woman to woman, so that nearly all the adults in the settlement grabbed a weapon and rushed to join him. While warriors carried sword, spear or axe, slaves and women hefted staffs or even brooms.

'We are guests here,' Bradan reminded. 'We must follow the rules of hospitality.'

'I know.' Melcorka was already hurrying after Erik. 'Our hosts' fight is our fight, his enemies are our enemies and his friends are our friends. Whoever these Skraelings are, by tradition, they are now our enemies.'

'I am no fighting man,' Bradan reminded her.

'And I am no lover of the Norse,' Melcorka said. 'Yet I will join them in this fight. Stay behind if you must, Bradan. I will think no worse of you.'

'I know that.' Bradan matched her step for step as she hurried to the ridge.

Of the hundred or so people in Frakkoksfjord, nearly all surged forward. Only when she neared the summit of the ridge did Melcorka unsheathe Defender and, as always, the surge of power made her tingle and gasp. She savoured that feeling for only a second.

'Come on, Skraelings!' Melcorka shouted. 'Come on and die!'

From the crest of the ridge, they viewed an undulating, slowly rising plain of heather and scrub, scattered with rectangular, stone-built houses in the manner of the Norse and with small fields that the Norse had newly hacked from the surrounding ground.

Three of the houses were on fire, with smoke belching from the rough thatch and orange flames flickering from the small, square windows. Three people lay on the ground, with others running toward them, screaming in fear. Melcorka remembered the villages in Scotland that had been attacked by the Norse, and she wondered how these people liked being on the receiving end for a change. Only then did she look at the attackers. They were unlike anything that she had seen before.

Dressed in a mixture of furs, they were smallish in stature, with bulky bodies and tanned faces with slitted eyes. They moved fast and fired arrows from small bows, or carried long spears with barbed points.

'This is not your fight!' Erik said quickly. 'You are our guest.'

'In my culture,' Melcorka said calmly, 'guests adopt the enemies of their hosts. Your enemies are now my enemies.' She felt the smile stretch across her face. 'Come, Norseman – let's kill these Skraelings together!'

Erik's smile matched that of Melcorka. 'I wondered if you could use that sword,' he said. 'Come, then.' He advanced without another word, stepping sideways to ensure that both had sufficient space in which to fight.

Melcorka counted over two hundred Skraelings. They advanced in a semi-circle that outflanked the ragged ranks of the Norse and fired a constant stream of arrows as they moved. To Melcorka's right, a man yelled as an arrow sliced into his face. He grabbed at the shaft and shouted again as another slammed into his arm. Staggering, he dropped his sword, and more arrows landed on him, thudding into his chest and kidneys. He screamed again and fell, writhing on the ground.

Melcorka spared him one glance and looked toward the Skraelings. 'Do you have a strategy, Erik?'

'I haven't had time,' Erik said.

'So we just kill as many of them as we can,' Melcorka said.

'That sounds like a good plan,' Erik agreed.

'So be it.' Melcorka hefted her sword and faced the oncoming Skraelings.

Feeling the power and skill of Defender's previous owners surging through her, Melcorka ran toward the centre of the Skraeling ranks. She saw the first arrow whistling toward her and sliced it from the air, watching the two halves fall harmlessly to the ground.

A Skraeling fitted another arrow to his bow but before he could draw, Melcorka reached him. She swung Defender in a short arc that ended with the blade hacking at the man's neck. Propelled by jets of blood, the Skraeling's head sprang up, only to fall, bounce on the ground and roll over and over until it ended up in a shallow indentation.

Deflecting another arrow that zipped toward her, Melcorka hacked downward at the next Skraeling, neatly removing his arm, altered the angle of her blade to chop at another man's legs and then stepped over the screaming casualties to charge into a group of archers, scattering them left and right before her blood-smeared blade.

'Odin! Odin owns you! Odin!' The Norse battle-cry erupted around her as the Norsemen charged forward to roll up the left flank of the Skraelings. There were a few moments of frantic chopping with swords and thrusting with spears, and then the Skraelings broke and ran. There was no attempt at defence; one minute they were there and the next they were gone, fleeing northward with the more forward of the Norse pursuing them and a few arrows chasing them in their retreat.

Melcorka watched, frowning. 'These Skraelings were no warriors,' she said. 'They ran the minute we attacked them.'

'Thank you for your help.' Erik was panting as he cleaned blood from the blade of his sword.

'It was my duty as a guest.' Melcorka glanced around. Bradan was safe, leaning on his staff as he surveyed the scene of the one-sided skirmish.

Erik nodded. 'You fight well.'

'Who are these people?' Melcorka gestured to the bodies of the men she had killed. The Norse were busily engaged in disposing of the wounded with neither compassion nor relish. They killed each man quickly.

'Skraelings.' Erik shrugged. 'They sometimes come from the north and attack our farms. Sometimes we kill them, sometimes they kill us, but I've never known them to come in such numbers before.'

'Maybe they have a reason.' Bradan put his staff across the writhing body of the nearest still-living Skraeling, defending him from a squat and ugly Norseman. 'Rather than kill all these men who are no longer a threat to you, we could ask why they attacked the settlement.'

'Why do we care?' Erik seemed surprised at the idea. 'If they come, they come. If they don't, then they don't. What does it matter?'

'If there is a reason,' Bradan said patiently, 'you and the Skraelings might work out a way of living in peace together.'

'Why?' Erik asked. 'We are Norsemen. We are used to war.'

'There are only a handful of you,' Melcorka explained patiently. 'If you lose a few people with each encounter, soon there will not be enough of you remaining to defend yourselves against a larger number of attackers.'

Erik shrugged. 'We could do that. Bring him back to Frakkoksfjord and we'll ask him. We can kill him later.'

His callousness did not surprise Melcorka. 'Or you could let him live and send him back to his people as proof that you are peace-loving Norsemen.' She tried to keep the irony out of her voice.

'Why?' Erik sounded genuinely surprised.

'For the same reason. So that your people will not be killed as they care for their animals.' Bradan indicated the dead Norse farmers. 'There is more to being a leader than possessing a bloody sword.'

Erik shrugged again. 'Bring him to Frakkoksfjord then, although Fate decides who lives and dies, not you and I.'

Melcorka threw Bradan a 'told-you-so' look and ensured the Norse were relatively gentle with their prisoner as they carried him back to the settlement.

Frakkok looked surprised when the Norsemen brought back a live Skraeling. 'What do you intend doing with that? First, you take in strays from the sea, and now you keep Skraelings alive.' She poked at the wounded man with her foot. 'Burn it.'

Erik nodded. 'We will, Mother. After we have asked it why the Skraelings attacked the settlement.'

'It would be better to ask where the Skraeling village is, so you can destroy it and grab their lands.'

Erik glanced from Bradan to Frakkok and back. 'I'll do that,' he said.

'No.' Frakkok's voice was soft and sinister. 'I'll do that.' Lifting the wounded Skraeling by the hair, she snapped an order that saw two men run forward and rip off the man's clothes. Melcorka watched dispassionately; she had no love for cruelty but had seen too much to worry unduly about it.

Stripped of his furs, the Skraeling was stocky, with shining, tawny skin and a bleeding sword-s***h across his ribs. Bradan reached into the small pack he carried over his shoulder, took out a pad of moss and pressed it against the wound. 'That will stop the bleeding,' he said, 'and make sure the devil does not get in to poison you.'

'Bring fire,' Frakkok said quietly. She watched as the Norsemen made a small fire within a circle of boulders. They piled up driftwood and brought smouldering rushes over. Within a few moments, flames were licking knee-high. The Skraeling coughed as smoke curled around his face. He did not look scared as Frakkok ordered him to be brought closer, although it was evident that she intended something unpleasant.

'Why did you attack us?' Frakkok asked bluntly. 'If you tell me, I will have you killed quickly. If you don't, I will straddle you across the fire and ask again as you burn.'

The Skraeling looked at the fire and then at Frakkok. He decided that she was in earnest. 'The Ice King,' he said.

'The Ice King,' Bradan repeated. 'Who or what is the Ice King?'

'He rules the North,' the Skraeling said. 'He's guarded by fierce animals and cannibals from the other world.'

'I see.' Bradan glanced at Melcorka. 'Why do we always end up with monsters?'

She shook her head. 'That seems to be our fate.'

'It is not a fate I like.' Bradan grunted and spoke to the Skraeling again. 'Did the Ice King order you to attack the Norse?'

The Skraeling looked at the fire again. Now, it was larger, with flames that leapt waist-high. 'Will you let me live?'

'I have no intention of killing you,' Bradan said. 'I hope that Frakkok will show the same mercy if you help us.' He turned to face Frakkok. 'Will you allow this man to live?'

Frakkok grunted. 'He may live,' she said. 'I won't kill him.'

'There you are, Master Skraeling. You have your life,' Bradan said.

The Skraeling stepped back slightly from the fire. 'The Ice King did not order us to attack the strangers. The Ice King is pushing on our hunting territories. We need the land where the pale strangers are.'

'What is this Ice King like?' Frakkok seemed to be interested at last.

'I don't know,' the Skraeling said. 'Nobody has ever seen him. We only know that he lives in the North with his animals and foreign man-eaters.'

'You have told us all that you know, then?' Frakkok asked.

The Skraeling nodded.

'He has fulfilled his part,' Bradan said. 'Now you must keep yours.'

'Why in Odin's name would I do that?' Frakkok sounded surprised. She raised her voice. 'Throw him in the fire!'

'You gave your word!' Bradan stepped forward.

Frakkok turned aside and walked away. Three Norsemen grabbed hold of the Skraeling, lifted him high and dumped him in the middle of the fire. Sparks and fragments of burning wood sputtered past the containing boulders and sizzled on the coarse grass.

'No! Let the man live!' Bradan stepped forward, to see half a dozen Norsemen slide their swords free of their scabbards.

Melcorka put a hand on Bradan's arm. 'No, Bradan. This is not our concern. We don't know how this settlement works.'

'I told that man he would live!' Bradan shivered as the Skraeling began to scream.

'Frakkok decided otherwise,' Melcorka said. 'And she rules this settlement. Frakkok has more power in her village than Erik has.' She had to raise her voice above the shrieks of the Skraeling. The Norsemen were prodding at him with their swords, keeping him inside the flames.

Melcorka watched for a moment. 'Killing one's enemies is one thing,' she said. 'But torture is something I dislike.' Drawing Defender, she thrust it through the Skraeling's heart. When the Norsemen voiced their anger at this end to their entertainment, she faced them, sword in hand and they backed off.

'Don't you wish to fight me?' Melcorka challenged. 'Come on now! There are scores of you, and I am a lone woman.'

They withdrew, shouting, with their swords pointing at her. Not a single man stepped forward.

'Come on, Bradan.' Melcorka said. 'There are no warriors here.' Returning Defender to her scabbard, she turned her back and stalked back to the settlement. The behaviour of the Norse worried her; she had never in her life met Norsemen who were afraid to fight, whatever the odds. Something was wrong with these men.