The Red Oath Read online

  The Red Oath

  Jerry Autieri

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Author’s Note

  Newsletter

  Also by Jerry Autieri

  1

  Yngvar stood in the shadows of the eastern wall. The slave-soldiers drilled behind the regular troops in the courtyard. Their dirty tunics denoted their status. These scraggy-bearded men owned these tunics, sandals, and a belt. Anything else was provided as-needed. Even a comb was denied them. Yngvar wondered who were the real barbarians, him or these Byzantines. A man whose life would be spent in battle should at least be granted a comb.

  The air was cool but not nearly enough for Yngvar. The scent of sea salt floated over the fortress walls. He longed for the open sea again. His last sea voyage had been unkind, but had not diminished his lust for waves and a deck rolling underfoot. He glanced skyward to the patch of clear blue overhead. It was framed by the four walls of Pozzallo’s fortress. It formed the frame from which Yngvar viewed the world. He was the frog and Pozzallo the well. Alive but unhappy. Free but confined.

  “Lord, how much longer should we linger here?”

  Alasdair stood at his side, also pressed into the cool shadow. His voice was a low whisper.

  Yngvar shrugged. “I know you will not listen, but you must stop calling me lord. Even when we are alone.”

  “I cannot change,” Alasdair said. “It does not sit well with me to call you otherwise.”

  “Never a plainer fact.” Yngvar returned to watching his former companions drill. Their commander shouted at the slave-warriors. Now the Greek words were clear in his ears, whereas months ago they had been gibberish.

  “Forward,” the commander shouted, raising his rod. The soldiers lurched ahead with javelins readied to throw. A small man with big eyes had not kept step. The commander rapped his shoulders with the rod. “Care to join us this morning? I’ll break your legs if you’re not going to use them. Get in line!”

  “I don’t miss that life,” Yngvar said, watching the small man rejoin his rank while they reset for another pass.

  “Commander Staurakius didn’t say how long we should wait outside?” Alasdair tried his question from a new angle. Yngvar smiled at his persistence.

  “He’ll send for us when he’s ready. That’s the problem with learning his language. Now he has to set us outside when he has secrets to discuss.” Yngvar’s smile widened, then he turned to Alasdair. “Why don’t you ask Valgerd? She tells you everything. Or are you busy discussing other things when you disappear with her?”

  Alasdair’s smooth, bright face shaded red. He began to brush unseen dust from the front of his gray shirt.

  Yngvar chuckled and leaned against the wall. After saving Commander Staurakius’s life in the battle with Prince Kalim’s army, both he and Alasdair were awarded freedom though still retained in the Byzantine army. The commander had sought to integrate him and Alasdair into the regular troops, but their fighting style could not adapt. Instead, the commander assigned them as personal bodyguards and servants. He even awarded them round wood shields and Frankish-made longswords. The swords drew envious stares from soldiers who understood their value.

  More than a few cursed them and said their assignments were undeserved, especially since everyone tacitly understood he and Alasdair had deserted the army. Only fate had returned them to Pozzallo. Yngvar did not even have the interest to snort at these men. He had to only remind them they had fled while he had fought beside the commander. “Spoils to the victor,” he would say, and thereby end further complaint. Yet some still harbored ill feelings.

  So he and Alasdair waited in shadow while awaiting word from the commander. No sense in aggravating men who resented their easy assignment while they drilled in armor that covered them like a turtle’s shell. The heat inside such armor must be unbearable.

  Even though Yngvar guessed it must now be late autumn, the temperature had not cooled by much. The natives of this land celebrated the better weather. But Yngvar thought Sicily must be set next to the furnaces of Muspelheim. This place would never become cool enough for him.

  He waited on his lord, Commander Staurakius, and folded his strong arms as he leaned against the wall. Alasdair fiddled with his baldric. He straightened the wooden cross he wore atop his chest. Its twine necklace had twisted together.

  Yngvar expected another morning waiting for the Arab attack that must follow upon their victory earlier in the summer. Yngvar waved a black fly from his face as he watched the troops, slaves and regulars, drill in preparation for this attack. Though their armor gleamed and weapons flashed, there were far fewer of them now than in the summer. They were brave men, he thought. He had much to say of the Byzantines and their ways, but he could not condemn them as warriors.

  “Sails!”

  A bell rang, drawing attention to the southern wall and main gate. The soldiers stumbled in their drills as they looked toward the shout. Their commanders cursed them to keep at it, even as they also glanced up to the walls.

  “Yngvar, Alasdair!” a dark figure called from above the gatehouse. “Get up here. Are these your people?”

  “Our people?”

  He and Alasdair glanced at each other, then leapt out of the wall’s shadow. The soldier atop the gatehouse waved at them as they stepped into daylight. They wove among the drilling soldiers, heads turning in surprise as they sped past. Yngvar gained the tower door and rushed up the wooden stairs. No one occupied the tower rooms, such had been the loss of men since the summer campaign. He reached the trapdoor with Alasdair fast behind him. He slapped it open. The soldier manning the wall pulled him up by his forearm.

  “Look, there.” The guard extended his firm, bronze-colored arm toward the sea and pointed at three ships heading for the small bay that the fortress overlooked. “One square sail followed by Arab sails. Northmen and Arabs? Are they allied against us?”

  Yngvar and Alasdair both leaned over the wall to strain against the glare from the rolling waves. Two Arab ships with their triangular sails and triple masts chased one lower, sleeker vessel with a full, square sail and oars plying the water with frantic speed. Bright foam broke over its prow as it flew like a spear over the waves.

  Yngvar’s stomach burned. His limbs trembled.

  “By Odin’s one eye,” he said in a whispered rush. “I have dreamed of this moment since I washed ashore. But I cannot believe what I see.”

  Alasdair’s palms beat anxiously against the stone lip of the wall.

  “Lord, I think I can see Thorfast’s white hair from here. And if that giant man is not Bjorn, then he could be his brother.”

  “Your eyesight is a legend,” Yngvar said. “To me it is all a blur. But the cut of that sail, the sweep of that prow, and the speed which drives that ship—it is mine. It can be nothing else.”

  “What are you two talking about? Is that a Norse ship?” The guard atop the wall pulled Yngvar back. His
dark face glowed with unspoiled youth. A mere recruit. “Are they allies? Should we close the gates to them?”

  Yngvar’s expression must have been fiercer than he felt. For the recruit backed away with his hand over his chest.

  “That is my ship. Open the gate,” Yngvar said while flipping the peace strap from the hilt of his longsword. “The Arabs are giving chase. We must help my men.”

  Before he heard the answer from the recruit, he was already tramping back down the stairs with Alasdair following. The boards thumped and shook under his booted feet.

  “Strange that he should call on us,” Alasdair said. “But let us praise God for it.”

  “Not everyone hates us,” Yngvar said as he gained the door to the courtyard. “And the commander relies on us to see his word carried out. The lad probably thinks we’re his seconds. Let’s not change that idea.”

  Back in the courtyard the drills continued. Yet as Yngvar dashed to the gates, nearly every head turned to him. He heard blurs of questions and rough orders shouted. Yet he paid no attention. The doors were opened for light and circulation, but the grate was set. He pounded his fist on the rough iron bars. The recruit leaned over the wall, hand cupped to his mouth, and called down to the winch room. The grate began to shudder and lift.

  Yngvar dropped to the packed dirt, then shimmied under the gap. His sword caught but popped through. He wished for his shield, but it remained racked in the fortress.

  “Lord, what exactly are we doing?” Alasdair glided beneath the gap. The grate continued to groan and rattle open even as Yngvar sped down the path toward the dock.

  “We’re going to reunite the Wolves,” he shouted. “Let our enemies weep for their short lives. I still cannot believe this is true.”

  “Nor can I,” Alasdair said, his voice trembling in time with his running. “But we’re two men on foot.”

  “Not for long.”

  Yngvar smiled as he clomped across the dock. A Byzantine warship, one of three that still remained at Pozzallo, sat at the end of the dock. The crew were all crowded to the sides to watch the chase at sea. It seemed they were preparing to cast off but had stopped.

  Beyond the Byzantines, the other sails were plain to see. The large square sail of Yngvar’s ship blocked the two Arab ships. But they seemed closer than they should. Perhaps it was the angle of view. Once Yngvar had a deck under him he could better judge the Arab threat.

  He bounded up the plank to land on the deck of the Byzantine ship. He began ordering men as if he were the captain. One sailor in a simple brown vest and a white beard hovered over the ties to the dock.

  “Cast off,” he said. “We need to flank the Arabs to give the Norse ship space to escape. Don’t stare at me! Can’t you see them coming? Hurry!”

  Alasdair kicked the plank onto the deck. Its thud echoed over the water.

  The captain, a man known as One-Eye who inexplicably still had both eyes, stalked over to Yngvar.

  “You don’t shout orders on my ship,” he said. He was thin but strong, bent by the sun and wind. The sea had shaped him, and Yngvar instinctively liked him.

  “Commander Staurakius will be along soon. But do you want to be the one who let Arabs crash into our docks and take out our ships? I’ll give the orders if you’re too slow for the task.”

  One-Eye glared at him with his two sea-green eyes. Deep lines marked his face, scars of both sword and time. His bushy brows furrowed and then he smiled.

  “If the commander wishes it, let’s give the Arabs hell. If only we didn’t have our third ship in dry dock.”

  Yngvar clapped One-Eye’s shoulder. “We don’t need more ships when you have me and Alasdair aboard. Now hurry, man!”

  Yngvar had learned how to curse and bluster in Greek as well as his commanders. In fact, it was what he knew best in that language. The more artful speech of the commander and his advisors was still a trick. But warriors did not require delicate talk.

  “Lord, you are more confident in us than I am.”

  “The gods are watching,” Yngvar said, pushing through the sailors who now broke up to the commands of their captain. He set against the prow and watched his ship drawing near. “The gods have not driven us together just to see us all drown in shallow water. They demand entertainment from their champions. And we will give it to them.”

  “Still, a prayer cannot go wrong.”

  “Then pray to Odin, for if he is not roaring with delight then all of us will surely die this day.”

  One-Eye had a bloodthirsty reputation and Yngvar counted himself lucky to have selected his ship. The captain and his crew, while professional sailors for the Byzantine Navy, were as rapacious as any Norsemen gone a-viking. To Yngvar, he felt more at home with these men than the fortress soldiers.

  Their ships were not the huge Byzantine dromons with multiple decks and scores of oars. The ships at Pozzallo were small patrol ships with thirty oars and two sails. They were high-sided and sturdy ships, to be sure. But what they lacked in fighting power they supplied in speed.

  And speed was what Yngvar desired now.

  Yngvar did not know much of the Arab ships, other than they were smaller than the monster ship in which he had left Licata. The ships were smaller and more agile, but no match for the lithe speed of a Norse ship. Still, something seemed amiss to his veteran’s eye.

  With the wind filling its sails and the oars beating at reckless speed, Yngvar’s ship should have held an easy lead. Yet the Arabs were close behind.

  “They’re bailing, lord.”

  Alasdair pointed to where Yngvar spotted men rising and ducking behind the rails, draining buckets of water into the waves. A half-dozen men bailed. He looked along the wake and found debris bobbing and spinning on the surface. More than just debris, he also found crates and sea chests sinking as water replaced the air inside.

  “They’re lightening the ship,” Yngvar said. “They’re sinking.”

  He cursed at the Arabs, then turned to curse at the Byzantines. The Arabs were too fast and Byzantines too slow. He pointed to the drummer at the head of the prow as he prepared to set the pace for the oarsmen.

  “Make it fast. There’s no time.”

  One-Eye glared at Yngvar, but mirrored the order. The men on the benches groaned. The drummer started a steady, quick beat. One mallet struck as he raised the other high, then brought it down again. The drum’s deep echo reached across the waves as the rowers matched its pace.

  Yngvar stood in the prow and drew his sword. He had no place among the crew, and so simply raised his weapon high and called for Arab blood. The rowers joined him.

  The crew on the nearest Arab ship concentrated on the way forward. But a lookout called them to the danger approaching from starboard. Arab sailors began to peer out over their ship’s high sides toward the Byzantines.

  “Ram them!” One-Eye shouted. “Through the hull! Send them to the sharks!”

  This patrol ship had an iron-headed ram set in its prow. To Yngvar, it seemed insufficient against the bulkier Arab ships. It also seemed an afterthought to this ship’s construction. Yet One-Eye’s crew cheered the order. They should know their own ship, he thought. Byzantines seemed to enjoy ramming their targets rather than boarding them. It seemed a waste to not capture an enemy ship, but nothing in these lands conformed to his expectations. Why should ship combat be different?

  “Lord, we best not stand here if we are to ram them.”

  Yngvar grunted his agreement. They both pulled back to the center mast and braced against it.

  His heart raced, both from the thrill of ramming an enemy at sea and at the promise of a fight. To his mind, the Byzantine ship had not built enough speed to deliver a finishing blow in a single ram. His sword would still taste blood, and he relished the thought of facing his hated foemen.

  The Arab ship had broken off pursuit of Yngvar’s ship. One-Eye shot unerringly for the heart of the Arab’s vessel. The Arabs attempted a turn sharper than their ship could manage. It fou
ght against the waves, its wide bulk useless against the endless sea.

  Yngvar threw his arm around the heavy mast. The rough, cold wood pressed against his side. He wished for armor and a shield. His fury would have to serve as both in today’s battle.

  “Brace!” One-Eye shouted.

  The Byzantine ship slammed directly into the hull of the Arab ship. The jolt and crack of wood filled Yngvar’s stomach with cold water. He feared what every sailor did—a breached hull and a swift journey to the sea floor.

  One-Eye howled like a madman. Broken strakes and snapped rigging flew into the air, sending splinters cascading over the deck. A hunk of white wood slid to a halt against Yngvar’s foot as he braced against the mast. Sailors on both sides of the collision screamed from fear and joy.

  Yngvar watched his ship speed away toward the shadows of Pozzallo. The other Arab ship remained in pursuit, either oblivious or uncaring of the fate of its companion ship.

  When the shuddering and grinding stopped, both Arab and Byzantine remained stunned like two fighters who had just clubbed each other. Decking cracked and rigging snapped. Waves slammed against the hulls of both ships. Arabs close to the impact had fallen into the water. Their struggles echoed and gurgled out as they sank under the waves.

  Then both sides awakened to their condition. The ships were interlocked, the Byzantine ship speared deep into the Arab hull. Water flooded into the gap.

  One-Eye raised a dark spear and screamed.

  “Kill the fuckers!”

  Yngvar raised his sword as well and roared.

  “Death to Prince Kalim!”