Casca - God Of Death Part 2

THREE.

The men watching Casca's fort that morning so soon after Lida's death might have thought twice about attacking it had they known of the black grief gripping Casca, or had they known of his prowess with blade and axe. Might have thought twice, but perhaps not. They were not ordinary men.

They stood in the cold, the icy wind whipping their beards and mustaches. Big men. Outcasts. The thieves and murderers of a dozen different tribes. Their bodies were clad in furs, and they had the feral look of wolves; wolves they resembled so much in temper and taste that no man, woman, or child was safe from them. Their weapons were ready to drink the blood of any and all they could reach. These men-wolves reveled in their b.e.s.t.i.a.lity. Now, as they watched the small fort lying below in the valley, they thought it easy pickings. They had watched long, and knew there were no more than forty men in the Hold. The others, as was the custom of this land, were on their farms with their families waiting for the spring thaw to set the fjord free from the ice, for then they could set sail to fish and trade-and occasionally raid an enemy land.

These men-beasts had been careful to avoid any of the farmhouses. They took no chances of being spotted, of the warning being given so that the villagers could rally to the fort below.

Their leader watched. Big. Singularly repulsive. His teeth were black and worn-down almost to the gums. He suffered constantly from toothache and had been known to bash in the skull of his nearest comrade just for being too close when the worst aching came. His beard was black, streaked with gray. He was not tall for one of his race, but he made up for it in width; his shoulders and hips were almost the same size, and his legs were like tree stumps in their fur wrappings. A hide of bearskin served to keep out the worst of the icy wind, but it failed to cover all the matted, dirty hair and skin beneath.

The reason he had been cast out from his own tribe was that he was so cruel even his own kin could not tolerate him. He had been driven from their camps for killing all the members of his family in a black rage, even the children of his own body. Malgak the Killer, he was named, and he was so in truth. No man had ever stood before his axe and lived to speak of it. This well-used chunk of iron weighed over fifteen pounds, yet its owner handled it as a child would a toy.

Malgak turned from watching the fort and grunted to his men to move back to the rude shelters they had set up. No fires for cooking. They would eat cold meat, most of it raw. Like wolves, they had developed a taste for blood ... and not only that of animals.... With the night they would take the Hold. Two hundred and eleven of them should be more than enough to settle with these farmers and fishermen.

Malgak crawled on his knees into the small skin tent he called home and looked at the slender form of the young girl he had taken captive a week before when they burned out her home and put her family to the sword. Her face was dirty and frightened. She whimpered when he entered and drew back against the tent wall, trying to make herself as small as possible. Her hair had once been blonde and her skin fair, but now she was merely a dirty child, bruised, with matted hair and sores.

Malgak stripped his breeches off and threw her under him, taking the fourteen-year-old girl as he would an animal. He thrust, grunted, and sweated over her, slapping her in a futile attempt to get some response. It did not take him long to finish. He looked at her then, thinking of the women they would have when they took the fort tonight. He no longer needed this one, so he took her small head in his hands and snapped her neck as one would snap the neck of a chicken. Throwing the carca.s.s out the flap of skin that served as a door, he immediately dismissed her from his mind, as though she were nothing.

Satisfying his hunger on a piece of raw horseflesh, he thought again of the fort below and grinned, his black stumps worrying over the tough flesh. They had butchered the last of their horses and pack animals two days before. Their food would be gone tomorrow. But no matter. They would have their fill before dawn.

The rest of his hairy band slept as best they could, wrapped in their fur robes and skins, curling up in knots to get warmth from each other's bodies, in the process exchanging an unknown quant.i.ty of lice and fleas. They, too, dreamed of the women and food in the fort. The only clean things about them were their weapons. These showed no signs of mistreatment or rust. They were clean, sparkling, sharp, ready for use. Earlier they had cut down fifty tall pines and trimmed the branches off short, leaving just enough to use as hand and foot grips. These would be their scaling ladders. With fifty of them there would be no way the forty defenders of the small fort below could keep them from scaling the walls and getting inside.

Between the midnight hour and the dawn, when men sleep the deepest and the sentries eyes are fogged from looking out into the dark, Malgak gathered his men, his human vermin, and they slipped silently close to the wails, first walking, then crawling, the snow and ice sliding inside their furs and leaving cold, clean spots unseen beneath the rags they wore.

Inside the fort, Casca could not sleep. The image of Lida kept returning to haunt him. . . Lida as she was when she was young and beautiful. That was how he saw her, even to the end when she quietly wasted away and fell into the sleep of no return. To him she would always be young.

He checked his sentries, giving an encouraging word and a slap on the back to those who looked too drowsy. He walked the ramparts. The cold wind coming in from the sea had the taste of salt to it and chilled his skin into a red glow. It felt good.

Casca wore only a light cloak and trousers of flax, dyed blue. There was no need for armor this night, only for sword and dagger. His sword hung from a shoulder belt on his right side, in the Roman manner. The dagger was in the wide black leather stomach belt that fastened in the back with straps. He looked out on the darkened countryside. Old habits die hard, he thought. Even though there had been no sign of trouble for months, he scanned the blackness, using his eyes as he had been taught; turning his head slightly off-center, he searched the shadows with his side vision, knowing that he would be able to see better with such peripheral sight.

Nothing.

He leaned between the stone crenellations and looked down, letting his eyes sweep the rocky, snow-covered ground and keeping his ears alert for any unusual sound.

What the Hades!?

A m.u.f.fled thump, barely audible, seemed to flow vaguely out of the dark, and then Casca definitely heard an involuntary;, whispered curse. Someone is out there. . . . Casca slowly, now more carefully, focused his eyes on every shadow and saw movement. Here one movement, there another. Finally he made out definite figures. Oh, s.h.i.+t. There's a bunch of them out there. And it looks like they're carrying something to scale the walls with. Probably trimmed trees.... How many? Now that he had spotted the first, his eyes seemed to sharpen tenfold and the figures became clearer. From his height they looked in the dim light and ground fog more like the trolls out of Norse legend than men. He came to a quick decision: Too many of them to meet on the walls. We'd be spread too thin to cover every approach.

Casca cursed himself for his carelessness. He had been sunk so deep in self-pity that he had forgotten that others needed his care and attention. Guilt slapped him. He was responsible for this.

Turning swiftly, and half-running, he reached the first of his watch. VIad the Dark stood as silent as his name, spear relaxed in his grip, but the man's physical att.i.tude spoke of his instant ability to turn into action. Whispering in Viad's ear, Casca sent him to circle the walls and also to send a runner to the sleeping quarters and quietly rouse the men. They were to put those unable to fight down into the dungeons where they were to bar themselves in until the fight was over. The women and children were to be especially quiet this night. There must be no sound from anyone. They had but minutes before the invaders would begin climbing the walls. They must hurry.

As Casca was securing his people, Malgak and his scabby force had reached the walls. Frost from their breaths made small wispy clouds rise from each bearded face. No sound reached them from the top of the walls to indicate they had been seen. Malgak grinned his black-stuped leer, pleased that they had reached the wall without being noticed. It was better luck than he had counted on. Those toads behind the walls and on the ramparts must be asleep. He motioned silently to his men.

The logs were put into position and raised. The invaders tried to maintain that silence that pervaded all in this night. Even the cold breeze from the sea seemed to add to the crisp sense of silence. They began to climb. Those with swords went first, carrying their blades between their teeth. These were followed by the others with s.h.i.+elds and weapons in scabbards or slung by thongs and belts from their backs and waists. Fortune was smiling upon them.

Casca had no time to return to his rooms and don his armor. As he was, he would fight. His men silently went to the positions a.s.signed them and lay quiet, waiting for their lord's word to fight. Until then, silence was the rule. The torches lighting the way down the halls were extinguished. Only in the main room of the Hold were the fires and torches kept burning. The rest of the stone fort was wrapped in cold dark. Glam was in charge of the men in the feast room. Casca had taken Glam's son and Vlad with him, along with Holdbed the Berserker, as a reserve force to the hall leading to the feasting room where Glam and the others waited with swords drawn and battleaxes held ready. Antic.i.p.ation brought cold drops of sweat to more than one young Viking's brow. Many would soon be experiencing their first true battle. They had practiced often enough, spearing and striking with blunted swords and axes, but there they had stopped short of killing. There would be no stopping this night.

In the hall leading to the sanctuary, the way had been lined with piles of fresh straw to keep the deep chill from giving a man's feet frostbite. A door opened on both ends, leading to the hall and further down to the feasting room. The invaders would have to come this way to reach them. Even the entrance to the dungeons and storage rooms below were in this room. The women and children and the old men could not be reached until the invaders had disposed of those in this room.

They waited.

The only sounds were the soft breathing of the men and the thin rasp of metal against metal. Most of Casca's men had on their helmets, conical steel caps with horns of oxen or wings of birds attached according to the owner's taste. Only a few had any kind of armor to cover the chest. Most wore only tunics of tlax or leather, but each had his s.h.i.+eld, a round thing of stretched hide with a round steel boss in the center. A dozen archers lined the walkway leading to the upper chambers, bows strung, steel-tipped arrows at the ready.

The first invader on the ramparts was a wiry, quick Marcomanni, one of the fierce German tribes. He held his weapon low and ready for the fight. Making no sound, no alarm, like wraiths in the night, his a.s.sociates in death joined him until the ramparts were covered. Malgak was the last to climb. He was no fool. If they were to be caught on the logs climbing, he would be sure that the brunt of the defenders' killing fell on someone other than himself. Not a coward, he still valued his own fleainfested hide more than those of his men.

But the lack of opposition puzzled him.

"Where the s.h.i.+t are they? Surely they must have sentries posted somewhere on the walls."

The word sent to him by others of his band was that there was indeed no sign of life on the walls, that the ramparts had been completely deserted.

Malgak chewed on his mustache, killing one of its inhabitants, a particularly large flea. He spat it out, along with a few of his own hairs. His face took on a slightly confused look. Warily, he slowly scanned all of the fort in sight . . . the courtyard beneath, the storerooms by the main building.

No sign of life. No sound of alarm.

"I like this not," Malgak muttered. "But no matter. We know their numbers. They must be here someplace." Still, he was a little uncertain. He pa.s.sed the word that there might be a trap and then motioned for his men to leave the wall. They raced down the stone steps. One man hit a patch of slick ice, slipped, and fell to the courtyard below with a dull thump that was accented by his back cracking.

Even this brought no response from the Hold's defenders . . . wherever they were.

The invaders swarmed into the courtyard, ready for bloodletting. Surely, here the defenders must fight . .. but, again, nothing....

VIad the Dark slipped back from the doorway where he had watched the advance of the invaders. He whispered in Casca's ear. Casca nodded and, in low tones, told him to deliver a message to Glam, waiting in the feasting room. VIad disappeared. The shadows seemed to swallow him as he went to do his master's bidding.

Glam grunted in amus.e.m.e.nt as he received Casca's instructions.

Casca had his men spread a container of liquid over the straw floor from end to end.

Laughter reached the ears of the silent invaders. Malgak listened to the boisterous, loud laughter coming from the interior. He could make out slurred speech and boasting. He grinned his death's-head leer. "So, that's it. The b.a.s.t.a.r.ds are drunk. That's why the walls are deserted." He hoped the defenders had not consumed too much of their master's cellar. He and his men thirsted. They had had no more than a few barrels of thin beer for the last two weeks, beer they had gotten when they burned the girl's home.

He gave the order to attack.

Weapon ready, the Marcomanni led the way into the hall leading to the source of the laughter. The rest followed, crowded shoulder to shoulder in the narrow pa.s.sage. They moved step by step. Slowly. Closer and closer. A single torch lighted the way down the hall. They smiled to themselves. They would have no problem in disposing of the drunken household. It would be easy.

Swearing under his breath, Malgak moved to the front alongside the Marcomanni. He grunted a command. The invaders prepared to rush inside the room. From here Malgak could make out at least four men slumped over tables in drunken stupor, and another two laughing over their cups while they tore at chunks of beef and washed it down with great mugs of mead. Raising his fifteen-pound axe above his head, Malgak readied himself.

Shouting his tribal battlecry, he rushed into the room followed by the packed body of his men. The apparently sleeping defenders all too quickly awoke and raced to the back of the room. The two drinking did likewise and ran to the walls. Malgak and his men stopped in the center of the room in surprise. Their fur-clad bodies sweating from the night's labors and their eyes wild, they looked like brute animals. They stood thus for only a moment, and then a flight of arrows from the walls reached out for them, striking into unprotected throats and stomachs. The archers' orders were no fancy shooting, just aim for the largest part of the body and put as many out of commission as possible. Feathered barbs pinned a dozen of the invaders before the fact that they were in a trap registered in their minds.

Glam and ten men raced from the entranceway nearest the door through which Malgak and his wolves had entered. Another twenty formed a line in front of the stairs where the invaders would have to come at them a few men at a time. Glam struck out with his great two-handed sword at the nearest of the invaders who were still trying to get into the chamber with their comrades. Three fell with one thrust as Glam made a great sweeping slice that startled the ones behind and froze them in their tracks for a moment. A moment was all Glam needed. With the aid of two Vikings he swung the hall door of stout oak shut in the faces of the invaders, locking them out of the room. When this happened, at the other end Olaf, Glam's son, slammed that door from the outside, locking at least half of Malgak's men packed into the dark and narrow confines of the hall. The invaders beat at the doors with sword and axe. Their first sense that all was not well was quickly conh'rme~and true panic set in-when a flickering light dropped from above. The grinning Casca had lit a lamp of seal oil and tossed it burning onto the straw they had recently soaked with oil. Fire raced under the feet of the invaders. Crying, they alternately tried to stamp out the growing flames, and cursed when they burned their feet and tried to avoid it. To no avail. Smoke filled the hall. Choking, tear-starting smoke filled their lungs, taking the place of life-giving air. Casca grinned once more and disappeared through the small doorway and joined Olaf, VIad, and Hoidbod. Swiftly they moved through the pa.s.sageway to the feasting room where the archers were doing such deadly work. The cries for help from those choking to death in the hall reached deaf ears. None could save them. The flames licked up and set fire to leggings, and then bodies. Many beat their own comrades to death with axes and swords trying to escape the choking smoke and body-searing flames. Smoke works fast. Casca had time to look over the situation below from where he and his men had come out of the pa.s.sageway. The crying stopped, and the stench of burning hair and flesh reached them. In the hall almost a hundred bodies were piled on top of each other, mouths black, noses groping for air that would never come, those on the bottom charred from the flames, their dead fingers empty of weapons they had dropped when they covered their mouths and tried to expel the thick, oily smoke that filled their lungs and took them to their own individual h.e.l.ls.

Glam held off the invaders with sword and s.h.i.+eld until the screaming stopped from behind the door. The archers on the stairs kept their missiles flying and provided cover to take most of Malgak's men off him until his ch.o.r.e had been completed. They also gave the cover necessary for a short rush from the warriors in front to let Glam back in their ranks with the loss of only two men. These were overrun and chopped to pieces by the enraged outcasts. The invaders' disdain for the bow as a coward's and woman's weapon proved costly to them as the slender shafts searched out the tender spots of their bodies and buried themselves up to half their lengths in the fur-clad figures. Less than two minutes had pa.s.sed since Malgak had entered the room, and already half of his men were either wounded or dead behind the oak doors. Screaming in frustrated pa.s.sion, he and his horde rushed the defenders on the stairs, trying to tear them from the steps and break through so they could butcher those cowards with the deadly flying barbs.

Casca joined the others, coolly giving orders. He formed his men in sections, one section to fight and then step back, their places to be taken by the next rank. That way, no one had to fight too long before given a break. This was the Roman manner when the legion formed a square. The invaders could only come at them four or five men at a time while those behind, in their rage, helped hinder the effective-ness of their comrades facing Casca's men on the stairs by packing in too close and restricting their ability to move and fight. Indeed, many of their men were already dead, being held up by the press of the men behind them.

Malgak sliced with his great axe and downed two of the defenders, leaving one trailing his intestines behind him as he fell to the floor. The dead Viking was quickly dismembered and pieces of his body tossed back up the stairs to let the others know the fate that awaited them if they lost. Smoke sliding in under the oak door lay in a cloud over the interior, the gleam from the fireplace casting a red glow over the men locked in the death struggle. Even with Malgak's urging and threats the outcasts could make no progress on the stairs. They had twice almost reached the door leading off from the stairway to the dungeons below, but had been driven back by fierce counterattacks from the young warriors.

The invaders took shelter behind s.h.i.+elds and overturned tables and benches, anything that could keep those feathered barbs from their faces and stomachs. They kicked and cursed any latecomers who tried to share their shelters. In desperation Malgak opened the oak door, letting clouds of smoke fill the room as he and some of his men entered the hall of death, rus.h.i.+ng inside and stepping on the bodies of the dead. Anything to get away from the deadly barbs.

Casca advanced down to the first steps, dodging a thrown boarspear, knocking it, glancing, off his s.h.i.+eld. As he came down he stepped over the bodies of his own slain. The sight of the young faces stilled in death brought a building black rage on him. A hot flash rose from his stomach to his face. His features darkened. Those bright young men... to die at the hands of......

Glam knocked away another spear thrown at Casca and stood close. "What now?" he asked, his old eyes bright with the l.u.s.t for battle. "That was good, barbecuing the devils in the hall, but what now? They still outnumber us by two to one. They can't get up to us, and we can't get behind them."

Casca grunted and pointed with his short sword to the oak doorway. "There," he said to Glam, "their leader, the one with the black teeth." Casca took a deep breath and bellowed, his words echoing around the stone walls: "You in there! The ugly one with no teeth!"

Malgak peeked around the corner, taking a good look at the one who had insulted him, though insults meant nothing to him. He was beyond any sense of honor or pride. He had only the feral instincts of a backstabber to guide him.

"What do you want?" he answered.

Casca laughed, his facial scar turning white. "I want you, little man. I want to feed you to my hogs while you're still alive."

Malgak took a closer look at his antagonist, noting the muscles, the scars. The man was obviously a fighter to be reckoned with. He said nothing.

Casca continued, "Come out to meet me man to man, s.h.i.+t bucket. If you win, my men will let you and your vermin escape back to the cesspools you came from. If you lose, I will still spare your men. Have we an agreement?"

Malgak's face wrinkled as he thought out the offer. Well, s.h.i.+t, what choice do I have? If we stay boxed up here, those archers will pick us off one at a time. But, if I can kill their leader, perhaps his men will lose heart. Either way, it looks as if I have to face him. Malgak began to psych himself up. After all, he had never lost a fight, and from the number of scars on the hide of his adversary he must not have done so well in the fights he had had to get carved up so much. Maybe he's not as tough as I first thought.... He made up his mind and called out: "Who is it I speak to?"

"Casca," came the reply. "Lord of the Hold. Will you come out and fight, or do I have to burn you out as I did those inside whom you now visit?"

Maigak raised his foot off the face of the man on whom he was standing. The sight of the blackened and charred corpse grinning up at him made up his mind for him.

"Very well, Lord Casca. I agree. If I lose; my men go free. That's all I really care about. If I win, your men must give us food to continue our journey. That's all we really wanted anyway, a little something to eat." Malgak was lying in his teeth, and Casca knew it.

Malgak called the Marcomanni to him and said softly, "I will try to get the one called Casca close to the doorway. When I do, you and the others rush out and kill him. Once he's down, those on the stairs will be without their leader, and we will probably be able to overpower them."

The Marcomanni smiled in agreement. "It will be done." He turned and quickly spread the word that when the leader of the defenders came close they were to rush out on him. Their lives depended on it.

Malgak called out, "Casca, I agree. Tell your men to stop shooting and I will step out."

Casca gave the word and told the outlaws hiding behind the furniture to join their comrades in the hallway, that he could have none behind him. Malgak ordered them to obey, and they quickly rushed into the open doorway, casting fearful glances behind them, expecting to feel arrows in their backs as they ran, which was only natural, as that was what they would have done if the tables had been turned.

Malgak stepped forward; round s.h.i.+eld on his left arm, his fifteenpound battleaxe swinging from a leather thong on his right wrist. The axe was singlebladed, with a stabbing spike on the top. Malgak's face was wreathed in a grimy, wrinkled smile. "I am here," he said.

Casca stepped out. The sight of the wretch gave rise to renewed anger in him. The dirty smile and the black-stumped teeth seemed an obscenity after the clean faces of his own young men.

"Good enough," he said, adjusting the feel of the round, buckler type s.h.i.+eld he was using, one smaller than that used by Holdbod. "Come on, ugly one, and I'll give you a lesson." He stepped into the center of the hall and a.s.sumed the gladiator position of the Gallic school, s.h.i.+eld held low and to the front, body turned to present a small target, sword held low to the side with the point slightly up, his left foot leading.

Malgak came closer, swinging his axe in his hand. "That's very pretty," he said sarcastically. "You look like a dancer."

"It will be the last dance you ever see, Casca rejoined, and struck, first with sword, then s.h.i.+eld, then one after another. The whirlwind attack of Casca sent Malgak reeling back in astonishment, frantically trying to cover himself. He had never been a.s.saulted like this before-but then he had never faced one before who had won the wooden sword in the arenas of Imperial Rome, a trained professional gladiator, as Casca had been. Malgak leaped backward over an overturned table to get some s.p.a.ce between himself and this madman. Glancing over his shoulder, he tried to see where his men were, how far he would have to move to gain the safety of their numbers or have them come to his aid. Too far...

Taking a deep breath, he came back at Casca, the great axe smas.h.i.+ng against the lighter buckler. Then the axe whirled again, and Casca was forced back under the weight of the blow. Casca and Malgak locked together, face to face, bodies straining. The sour smell of Malgak's breath seemed to have a carrion stench to it; the raw meat he had eaten was rotting between his teeth. Malgak struck Casca to the ground with a smas.h.i.+ng blow from his s.h.i.+eld and raised the axe to split his skull. Casca quickly hooked his foot behind the knee of Malgak, and with his other foot striking the front of Malgak's ankle while the one behind came forward, he threw the childkiller back and down. Now Casca rose, his gladius Iberius-the famed Roman short sword-flas.h.i.+ng as he struck and chopped, trying to beat down the s.h.i.+eld guard. But Malgak regained his feet. Dammit The son-of-a-b.i.t.c.h may be ugly, but he is as strong as any I have met. They closed again, sword against axe, s.h.i.+eld against buckler. They whirled and fought, sparks leaping from the blades. They cursed and sweated. The red glow of the fire gave each a demonic appearance. They neared the door, and the Marcomanni rushed out to stab Casca in the back. He was aided in this effort by two other men who fell quickly to well-placed arrows. A shout from Glam warned Casca, and he twisted his body around and fairly leaped into the air, turning into a tumbler's type roll and landing back on his feet. The Marcomanni stood there, an embarra.s.sed look on his face. He still looked that way when Casca threw the sword straight into his stomach where it exited about six inches out of his back, severing the spinal cord.

Malgak screamed in glee. His man was defenseless now without his sword. Malgak rushed. Casca knelt, taking his arm out of the buckler. As Malgak raced to him he held the buckler like the discus throwers of Greece and let fly from the kneeling position. The round steel buckler spun through the air and smashed edgewise on Malgak's right s.h.i.+n, breaking the leg clean, leaving a three-inch-deep gash through which bone splinters were clearly visible. But even as Malgak fell he tried to cut Casca down by lunging forward.

Casca was not there.

Malgak pulled himself to his good knee, black teeth showing as he sucked air in. He shouted at Casca: "Come to me! I can't come to you. Come to me, and let me give you a kiss." He brandished the axe.

"As you wish it," Casca said and moved closer, circling as Malgak did the same, keeping his weapon facing Casca. Fingers spread, bent slightly over from the waist, Casca moved forward. Malgak swung a blow that would have split his target in two, but again Casca was not there. Malgak tried to raise the axe again and could not. Pain from his leg was beginning to blur his vision. Casca seemed to come from nowhere; the smas.h.i.+ng blow of his fist into Malgak's face sent the outcast to the floor, the axe falling from his hand, the s.h.i.+eld flying across the room. Casca picked up the fallen axe of Malgak and stood over him, holding the weapon close by the head, the long shaft with the leather thong dangling. He grabbed Malgak by his long, greasy hair and twisted the ugly face up to where he could get a good look at him. Cruelty and animal b.e.s.t.i.a.lity was all he saw.

Dark, deep hate settled on Casca. His breath came short and rapid. His heart pounded. His face flushed with anger. He said in judgment: "You and your beasts dare to come here and kill my people, the people of Lida? I know you. I have seen your kind everywhere, from Persia to Britanma. You are killers for no reason but pleasure, so I will not deny you the pleasure of your own death being too slow, but it will still be more merciful than you would have shown us.

Jerking the head, he snapped a sharp kick with his toe into the solar plexus of Malgak The black-toothed mouth gaped open trying to breathe.

"Here," said Casca, "here is your axe, barbarian. Then you should have it with you always."

With that, Casca drove the leather-thonged end of the axe down into the open mouth. Malgak choked as the handle was forced past his esophagus. His thoracic muscles moved in spasmodic involuntary actions trying to do the impossible and regurgitate the wooden shaft back up out of his throat. Casca pushed deeper, holding the axe in and twisting. Malgak's face turned as black as his teeth, and he died without the death rattle.

The handle of the axe was so snug that not even his death breath could escape. He died eyes wide, unbelieving.

His men witnessed the death of their leader and slammed the oak door shut, bolting it from the inside. They wanted no more.

Casca rose from the body of Malgak and turned to where Glam had come near him.

"Get him and his filth out of Lida's home," he said.

Weary, drained emotionally fromm the fight, he walked up the stairs, not noticing the looks given him by his young warriors. Old Glam was right; the Lord of the Keep was not as other men, he was more.

Glam carried out his lord's orders. Taking a page from the scene that had transpired earlier, Glam had more containers of oil thrown into the hallway from the upper ramp. To help the fire along he had more armfuls of straw thrown in. It was soon over. When the first gray light of the new day rose, the warriors of Casca carried the bodies of the raiders to the beach where they were taken out in small boats and dumped in the sea to feed the crabs. That some of the raiders might not be quite dead hindered their labors not at all; they just made more bubbles. The next day the young men and warriors from the countryside showed up ready for action. They had found the body of the young child whom Malgak had used so badly and had come ready for battle. Glam ordered the household cleansed and their dead buried. He ordered that none should speak of this day unless the lord first brought up the subject. All was as before. The warmer days were coming.

FOUR.

Each day the indicators of the coming spring became more p.r.o.nounced, and work on the expedition quickened. The young warriors sharpened their weapons, honing the edges ever finer. Old Cono, the s.h.i.+pbuilder whom Casca had brought to his keep, fussed over the two longs.h.i.+ps that they would take. Like an old hen over her chicks, Corio clucked and scolded, testing every line and seam in the s.h.i.+ps he had built for Casca. The s.h.i.+ps them-selves were a blending of the Roman galleys, less the ram, and the long, shallow draft vessels the local inhabitants used for fis.h.i.+ng and commerce. The local vessels used no sails. When Casca had first come to this rockbound coast, he had been quick to realize the value of the sea lanes. The man who could use them more efficiently would prosper, and so would his people. Making use of his many years as a slave on the Roman war galleys, Casca set about to exploit the sea's potential. He bought old Corio the s.h.i.+p builder from a Tedesci chieftain inland who had no use for a s.h.i.+pbuilder. Between the two of them, Casca and Gono, they had designed this mixture of galley and sailing s.h.i.+p. Their new vessel could slide through the waves as light as a sea nymph.

The way the new design came about was unusual.

Casca had spent many hours on the coast watching his favorite animals at play, the flas.h.i.+ng and twisting sea otters. He had noticed how they turned and twisted their bodies to slide more easily through the rough waters. He had remarked to Corio that if a s.h.i.+p could do the same, it would have a much better chance for survival in rough seas. Corio, then not so old, thought on the problem for weeks. Finally he had the answer. He made use of an ingenious system of interlocking planks that, even when they moved and twisted, still remained water tight. They built the vessel. It worked. They named it the Lida. Sure enough, on her maiden voyage, the Lida slipped like one of the sea otters she was modeled after between the rough ocean troughs and rose swiftly over the peaks of the waves, answering her master's desires quickly and with a feeling of expectancy. Indeed, thought Casca, s.h.i.+ps seem to be more alive than anything else man has created. The wind, humming through the Lida's rigging, appeared to agree with him.

Although Casca's years as an oar slave certainly did not qualify him as a master mariner, they had given him a feeling for what was right in the way a s.h.i.+p moved through different waters. He could tell if there was something wrong in the basic design simply by the way the s.h.i.+p felt and sounded. This instinct, coupled with Corio's years of experience as a s.h.i.+pwright, enabled them to build what would be the prototype of all the Viking long-s.h.i.+ps that wreaked such havoc in the civilized world three hundred years later.

Now, of the three s.h.i.+ps built and lying at anchor, the two largest were being made ready for sea. Corio was as rigid in his demands as a Roman decurion. Everything must be as near perfect as he could make it. After all, he knew these young men who would be going out into the unknown waters with the Lord Casca. He had seen them grow up. He had played with them and taught them seamans.h.i.+p. They were like family, and he would send no members of his family out on the deep without making sure that all was in order.

When Casca looked out on the combination of his young men, the s.h.i.+ps, and the sea, his pulse quickened in spite of himself. You'd think that after all these years it would take more than going to sea to excite me, he thought. But perhaps that is what keeps me from going mad. And thank whatever powers that be that women still can make my blood boil; the thrill has never grown old for me. The little b.i.t.c.h of a scullery maid was the best thing for me. Put my mind in order and finally got my s.h.i.+t together. So . ... now... In two weeks we sail. The ice is breaking up outside the jlord, and soon the sea will be clear. When it is, we sail. Two weeks...

His thoughts turned back to the auburn-haired girl, and he felt a stirring in his groin-and a feeling of being watched. Turning, he looked to the archers' aperture just to his rear and on the second level near where his rooms were. Sure enough, the maid stood there, smiling, her face bright and s.h.i.+ning. Since she had become the lord's woman she now had a favored position in the household and took proper advantage of it to see that her appearance was at its best. Casca chuckled and breathed deep, enjoying the feeling in his chest as the muscles stretched and tightened. Well, why not? There's nothing wrong with a nooner. It'll wake up my appet.i.te.

As he headedup to her, he thought, I'll have to do something for her before I leave . . . to reward her and to make sure that the other women of the Hold don't get on her a.s.s after I'm gone. Women are so much d.a.m.n meaner than men. I'll give her a dowry. That will guarantee a good husband. Pleased with himself, he continued up to where the girl was already in his bed.