Casca 2: God of Death (7 page)

The images faded from his brain, and in the welcome blankness his soul knew peace.

Casca slept.

The longships moved their dragon heads out to the open sea, out beyond the sheltering walls of the fjord, riding up and over the small breakers. The crew chanted in time as they worked the great oars. Not until the ships were in the clear, and the wind blew from landward, would the great red and white striped sails be raised.

Behind, on the rocky beach, Glam and those who stayed watched the ships reach white water.

These were ships designed for the deep water. There were no rowers' benches. Instead, there was a wide ramp on either side from which the rowers would work standing up, twenty men to a side, forty oars worked by half of the eighty men assigned, for there were two watches. Each ship carried a complement of one hundred men. Those not now at the oars either stood on the foredeck looking forward toward the immense sea and thinking of the unknown destination toward which the ship was carrying them or looked back at the receding shore and the figures of their families and friends growing ever tinier. It was mostly the younger men who looked back, thinking of the security of homes left behind, momentarily knowing uneasiness and the quick taste of fear; but the fear soon passed as the greater excitement of the sea reached out to claim them.

Casca stood with the steersman and watched his men as they strove to drive the hundred-and-twenty foot ship forward. The feel of the ocean breeze was clean and fresh in his face. The slapping of the oars set their rhythm against the slapping of the waves. Then they were clear and in the open sea. The entrance to the fjord was behind, and so was their past.
Now for the future.

On Casca's ship the ship master shouted: "Set sails!" and as if on cue, as if an echo, across the water from the other ship came the same cry: "Set sails!"

The cloth filled with the wind, red and white stripes brave against the sky. The oars were banked and stowed away against a future need. The wind was with them and drove them forward toward their unknown destination somewhere out on the rim of the world. The sea was open, but a few ice floes were still drifting their uncaring way with the currents.

On the third day they sighted and passed the Orkney Islands to the south of them. To the north was a small group of rocky land masses. Once clear of the Orkneys, they began to bear to the southwest, passing the fabled Isles of the Hebrides. Britain lay unseen in the distance, behind a bank of fog protecting the last of the Druids. Only in Britannia did the Druids hold supreme positions as they had for so many centuries on the mainland when the Celtic tribes had migrated and settled so much of Gaul and Germania.

Onward, ever onward, the dragon ships sailed. Fishlines were always cast out, and brought a welcome respite from salted and pickled pork and beef. Those not on watch or with no duty to perform spent most of their time in the leather bags they had brought for sleeping. These were well-oiled with the renderings from seal and the long-toothed walrus. Water could only seep in at the fastenings. Every small detail had been accounted for, every possible problem anticipated. But what of the impossible problems? They would be sailing past the regions of known waters out into the unknown where all men knew that monsters slept in the deep and would attack even ships of their size and drag them into the murky depths. They had not prepared for monsters....

Olaf at twenty, already over two hundred pounds of muscle, proved himself every bit as capable as his father in the handling of men. Several times in the early days of the voyage he had to prove himself to the others. His quick fists and thumping feet settled all arguments rapidly. Casca would allow no use of blades at sea, but he understood the youthful
vigor and temper of men and how they must try each other, so he had no objection to this kind of combat. The process gave his men confidence in each other's capabilities, and what anger there might be in a fracas soon passed with the leagues. They all had a greater foe to contend with ... the ocean.

Two weeks passed, the wind always carrying them farther and farther southwest. The ice was left behind, and they saw no sight of land, only the endless reaches of the sea.

One by one the dominant Vikings began to make themselves known.

Commanding the other dragon ship was Vlad the Dark. His constant companion was
Holdbod the Berserker, a giant of a man with red, flowing mustaches reaching below his chin and a beard that Poseidon might have envied as it flowed with the sea wind. Holdbod had come to the Hold of Casca when forced to leave his own country because of a blood feud. There in his own country he had killed by himself eleven men, all with large families. With the number of blood relatives thus seeking revenge, Holdbod had considered it prudent to flee; while he did consider himself to be one of the best fighters in the world, he was by no means a fool. In the Hold of Casca he had been accepted with the understanding that if he ever let his terrible temper get the best of him there, Casca would personally tear his arms off and stuff them down his throat. After he had seen Casca in action without the use of weapons, Holdbod believed him and gave him due respect. Holdbod was an excellent man with a blade. Only Vlad came close to him in ability in that respect, and the two seeming opposites perhaps found that between them they made a more complete man, for each had something that the other lacked. Casca was satisfied that the choice of the two to command the other dragon ship was a good one. As for his own ship, the Lida, Olaf was second in command.

The empty sea stretched before them. For four weeks they saw no sight of land though land there may have been over one of the distant horizons for twice they saw birds they knew nested on shore. But how far these might have flown they had no way of telling.

One day flowed into another.

And then the unchanging pattern was abruptly broken.

On this particular afternoon Casca sat alone, watching the signs of approaching weather. The clouds were growing dark on the horizon. The swells were building. The ship rose to the crest of a wave, then plunged down into the trough. He watched the cycle repeat itself several times. With each rise and plunge of the ship it was obvious the waves were increasing in height. But the ship rode well. Corio had built superbly and both dragon ships responded like well-trained horses to their masters' hands. Up to now the voyage had been uneventful, and the two ships had no difficulty in keeping in formation. By day, of course, there was no problem. They had solved the problem of becoming separated in the night at the very beginning of the voyage by running strong lines between the two ships before dark.

But this evening Casca could smell the coming storm, and his foresight was shared by several of the crew members who had made their livelihood from the waters of their homelands. The storm struck
just before midnight, racing out of the north, still with the feel of the ice from the place where it was born. It drove the ships forward. All hands took cover except for those needed to man the tiller and bail out with leather buckets the sea water that rushed over the decks. Dark clouds rolled in the sky, boiling and ominous in the flashes of lightning. The thunder as much as the wind seemed about to tear the sails apart with the ferocity of its booming reverberations. It was no momentary storm. For three days and three nights nothing was dry aboard ship. Few of the crew had the strength to eat. Nearly all of the supplies were spoiled from the water, and what drinking water that was left tasted strongly of sea salt.

The wind finally abated. The storm had not been one of the killer storms that could tear a vessel apart, but it had been violent enough to damage the two ships. They needed to be beached and careened for fresh caulking and refurbishing. Also, the expedition had – at most – food for another four days only. Then all would be gone.

The morning after the storm was bright and clear. The wind was gentle as a maiden's whisper. All but the two men kept at each long-oared tiller were sleeping the sleep of the exhausted when the cry of Land! jerked them back into awareness. They turned their salt-encrusted faces out to where the lookouts were pointing. There on the horizon, rising dark from the sea, was a land mass.

Casca gave the order to take down the sails and ship oars.

Closer the rocky coast came until pine trees like those they had left at home were clearly visible. But there was no apparent harbor. For a time the two ships searched their way around the coast until Casca pointed out a likely landing at a spot whose smooth beaches indicated calm water. There were forests nearby, so game could probably be found. The dragon ships inched their way in against the tide, bit by bit, the men putting in a backbreaking day of labor on the oars. But finally the job was done and the anchors let down. They had been five weeks at sea without a landfall, but Casca would not let a single man go ashore until weapons were cleaned and ready for action. Blades were shiny, axes sharp, and the bowmen took from waterproof bags made of seal bladders the strings for their deadly bows. Quickly they strung their weapons and refletched such arrows as needed. At last all was to Casca's liking.

He sent a party to
reconnoiter the landing site. The men piled into the coracles of animal hides, made their way to shore, beached the coracles, and then their horned and furred figures disappeared into the forest. Casca thought they were taking their own sweet time, and he was about at the point of doing something about it when they finally reappeared on the sandy beach and waved to the others to come ashore. So another party was launched from each ship, and this time Casca himself went ashore. The unexpected feel of the unmoving land beneath his feet gave him a quick sense of nausea, but the queasiness soon passed when he saw that his men were carrying a good-sized buck deer that one of the bowmen had shot.

Olaf, the leader of that particular party, fairly beamed.

"Lord, it is a rich land. There is food a-plenty, and more deer than in the forests at home. Also large birds. There are signs that there are plenty of bears. We shall not starve in this land, wherever it is."

"What of men?" Casca asked. "Did you find any signs of men in this place?"

Olaf nodded in the negative, his horned head bobbing. "No, my lord, there was no sign. But we have not seen much of the land. It appears that this is no small island but a large land going on for leagues. I climbed a tall tree on the highest hill and looked as far as I could see. There was naught but great valleys and forests."

"Good," grunted Casca in his familiar manner. "Then here we shall work on our ships and make them ready for sea again. But I still want scouting parties out night and
day, and a particularly careful watch at night. We shall not be taken by surprise by anyone. If there are people here, then we will be prepared for them. One thing I learned in the legion was to always prepare an armed camp before doing anything else. Get the men ashore except for a skeleton crew on each ship. First we will build here a fort from which we can be secure. Then – and then only – will we fix the ships."

Olaf saluted as he had seen his father do, thumping his hand to his chest.
"Aye, lord. So it shall be." Turning, he gave the orders necessary to carry out Casca's will. The Vikings set to work. Axes that carve a man can also cut trees; by nightfall they had built a small, tight camp and were secure. Four more deer were roasting over the fires, sending the rich smell of the cooking venison into the air. Many of the men could not wait and wolfed down large chunks of the almost raw, smoking meat, wiping the deer grease on their beards and mustaches.

But their weapons were always close at hand...

On the following days they expanded the camp, dug trenches about it, and implanted sharp stakes, points out, in the trenches. They added two small watchtowers. Then – and only then – did they beach the ships and proceed with the work of making them seaworthy again. They caulked and sealed every leaking seam, packing and tamping in the punk. They scraped off the barnacles that had accumulated; the ships would be faster when they returned to the sea. They went over every inch of the hulls and the insides of the ships. Corio had built well; there was only minor repair work to be done – and plenty of timber available for it. They worked in relays. While some labored on the ships others hunted and fished. The game was abundant; the waters incredibly rich. The men scouted ever farther inland. Still they found no sight of any salt sea. There were only great rivers and great valleys. They turned their hands to reprovisioning the ships. Meat was packed and salted down, or hung in thin strips to dry in the smoke of their fires and then packed carefully. Birds of many kinds added to the food store. Fresh water was everywhere. It would have been an ideal place to live if they had women and children, but having none they began to tire of this pleasant land. The urge to sail was upon them. Their confidence restored by the weeks of good food and weather, they looked forward to the time when Casca would give the orders that put them to sea again.

That time seemed long in coming.

During the long days and quiet nights of the voyage south Casca had ample time to think. Often his thoughts had been of Rome. He was out of touch with the Empire, for his years in the Hold on the fjord had not brought him much information until he had acquired the services of Corio the shipbuilder who was also fortunately an educated man. From Corio, Casca learned what had transpired in the Empire since he had crossed the Rhine those long years ago. How long had it been? he had thought. Fifty-one years ... a lifetime for most men.... During those years another stream of so-called "Caesars" had sat on the eagle throne, each having his day and then passing on, leaving the seat of power to yet others. Septimus Severus had sought to restore order after the civil war in which he took the power from the degenerate Commodus, son of Marcus Aurelius. But Septimus Severus had remade the old fatal mistake of giving power to two brothers who hated each other. He had left instructions that after him his two sons would rule jointly, one in the east, the other in the west, from Rome. The result was the old and time-tried result: the elder brother murdered the younger. The year 235 saw the first professional soldier become emperor. When the army took control after killing the emperor Alexander, it installed Maximin. The killing of Alexander had seemed a necessity. He was a coward and a weak ruler, but what the army considered his greatest betrayal of Rome was his buying peace with the Rhineland Germans. To top it all, the peace fiasco had come on the heels of a miserable and disastrous campaign in Persia wherein the defeat was the direct responsibility not only of Alexander's cowardice, but also of his mother's meddling. It was too much for the professional soldiers to bear. They killed Alexander and made Maximin emperor. But they had reckoned without the senate of Rome. That August body thrust Italy into rebellion. The senators won, and they in turn had Maximin killed. Rome saw five emperors within six years. According to Corio the current emperor was one named Philip from the Arabian colonies who had so far been successful in beating off three attacks from Decius who aspired to the purple.