02 The Invaders Page 2

  “Never know when it might come in handy,” he’d said.

  Now Hal and the others appreciated his foresight. They cut and trimmed saplings from the forest to make wall and roof frames, then stretched the canvas tightly over the top to make a snug roof. The walls were lower than their original tent’s but the pitched roof gave them ample headroom inside. Mud-daubed, woven sidewalls did a reasonable job keeping out the worst of the weather, although invariably there were chinks that let in the keening wind when it hit full power. But they were young and a few drafts weren’t enough to dampen their spirits.

  Thorn chose to sleep on the boat. With the others quartered in their tent, he had plenty of room to himself. The others respected his desire for privacy. He had spent many years alone and he had become accustomed to keeping his own company. Besides, even though he liked the Heron crew, they were teenage boys, with the usual tendencies of that breed to squabble, talk loudly and tell jokes they thought were brand-new, unaware that generations of boys before them had told the very same tales.

  Once their sleeping quarters were organized, Hal, assisted by the ever-helpful Ingvar, built a small shelter to use as a workshop. Then he and Ingvar and Stig went into the forest to select a sapling to replace the broken yardarm. After several hours, Hal found one to his liking and gestured to Stig.

  “Cut it down.”

  Ingvar carried the sapling back to the camp, where they stripped off the bark and left the sapling to dry for a few days, removing the surface sap. Then Hal cut and trimmed it to shape and they attached the port sail. Only then did Hal feel a sense of relief. Being ashore with a half-crippled ship had been preying on his mind, he realized. Now the Heron was fully ready for sea in case of any emergency.

  He set up a roster for camp chores, with each boy taking a turn at cooking. This didn’t last long. After successive meals prepared by Stig, Ulf and Wulf, Edvin had put his foot down.

  “I didn’t come on this quest to die of food poisoning,” he said acerbically. “I’ll do the cooking from now on.”

  And since he had already demonstrated some skill in this area, the others were glad to leave the task to him. In turn, Hal relieved him of other camp duties, such as wood and water gathering. After a few days, Edvin sought Hal out with a further request.

  “We’ve got plenty of dried foods and provisions,” he said. “But we could use fresh meat and fish.”

  The bay was teeming with fish, and Stig and Stefan were both keen anglers. They undertook to keep a steady supply of bream and flounder coming. Hal and Jesper went into the woods in search of small game. Once again, Ingvar went along as Hal’s faithful shadow. Unfortunately, he was a good bit noisier than a shadow, blundering through and into the trees, stepping carelessly on deadfalls. So while the two hunters saw plenty of evidence of small game—rabbits, hares and game birds—they saw none of the actual creatures themselves. Eventually, Hal had to put his hand on the huge boy’s arm and stop him.

  “I’m sorry, Ingvar, but you’re making too much noise.”

  “I’m not doing it on purpose,” Ingvar said.

  The young skirl nodded. “I know. But you’re scaring all the game away. I want you to sit here and wait for us, all right?”

  Ingvar was disappointed. Since he had joined Hal’s crew, he had felt a new sense of worth and purpose. In his short life before this, nobody had ever looked to him to contribute, or expected much of him. But as a member of the Heron brotherband, he had participated in their success and their victory over the other teams. Hal had been the first person to expect anything of Ingvar and Ingvar hated to feel that he was letting his skirl down—although, deep down, he knew Hal was right. He was too clumsy and noisy to help with the hunting. But now that all the heavy work of building was finished, he had nothing to do.

  “All right, Hal. If you say so.” He lowered himself to the ground, leaning back against the bole of a tree. Hal saw the disappointment on his face.

  “Ingvar, don’t worry. I’ve got a job in mind for you. And you’ll be the only one who can do it. Just be patient.”

  Leaving Ingvar a little mollified, Hal and Jesper continued farther into the woods. Almost immediately, Ingvar’s absence bore fruit. They hadn’t gone fifty meters before they saw a plump rabbit, nibbling at the moss on the base of a fallen log on the far side of a large clearing.

  Jesper put his hand on Hal’s arm and pointed. Carefully, Hal unslung his crossbow. Putting his foot in the stirrup, he drew the heavy cord back with both hands until the retaining latch clicked into place.

  The rabbit looked up warily at the sound and both boys froze. The fat little animal’s nose quivered as it tested the air, and its long ears swiveled back and forth, searching for any further foreign sound. By sheer chance, they had come upon it from a downwind direction. They waited, holding their breaths, until the animal satisfied itself that it was safe to continue grazing.

  Hal slowly raised the crossbow to his shoulder. He flipped up the rear sight. They were less than twenty meters from the rabbit, so it would be a flat shot, with no elevation necessary. He set the bottom mark on the sight against the foresight pin, let out his breath, took in half a breath and held it.

  Then squeezed the release.

  There was the usual ugly crack as the bow’s limbs snapped forward and the bolt streaked away across the clearing.

  “I got him!” Hal said triumphantly. He dashed across the clearing, Jesper following a little more slowly.

  “You certainly did,” Jesper said dryly as he caught up with the triumphant shooter. “The question is, where is he?”

  The heavy, iron-tipped crossbow bolt, designed to penetrate chain mail, had totally demolished the rabbit. The crossbow might be a useful weapon in a battle. But for hunting small game, it was sadly deficient.

  “Maybe we should build some snares,” Jesper said.

  chapter two

  Jesper and Stefan were arguing. Again. The weather was miserable, with the wind blowing constantly and regular showers of rain slanting in from the sea. There had even been occasional flurries of snow. As a result, the crew tended to

  stay inside their tent, lying on their bedrolls and staring at the canvas ceiling above them. It was inevitable that arguments would break out—simply as a way of passing the time. The twins, Ulf and Wulf, bickered as a matter of course, but now the malaise had spread to the others—and Jesper and Stefan seemed to find plenty of reasons to disagree.

  Thorn and Stig could hear their raised voices as they trudged into the camp, back from a patrol of the woods behind the beach. As an old warrior, Thorn was never comfortable with his back to the sea and the ship beached unless he knew there was no potential enemy nearby. He looked around, searching for Hal. But he and Ingvar were busy in the tent workshop he had set up some distance away. They were building something, Thorn knew. But he had no idea what it was.

  “I know you took it!” Stefan was saying. “Why don’t you just admit it and give it back?”

  “Oh, you know, do you? And how do you know that?” Jesper’s voice challenged him.

  “Because everyone knows you’re a th—” Stefan stopped himself just in time.

  “A ‘th…’?” Jesper said, his voice even more furious. “What do you mean, a ‘th…’? Were you perhaps going to say thief?”

  “I didn’t say that,” Stefan said, now sullen and wary.

  “Oh, for Gorlog’s sake!” Stig muttered. He pushed the canvas screen aside and stepped into the tent.

  Ulf, Wulf and Edvin were lying on their bedrolls. Stefan and Jesper faced each other in the center of the tent. Both were red faced and angry.

  “Will you two shut it?” Stig said wearily. “You’ve been picking away at each other for days. What is it now?”

  “Jesper stole my whetstone!” Stefan said.

  Instantly, Jesper shot back. “You say!”

  “Yes, I do! I know you took it. You… take things. Everyone knows that.”

  Too late, Stig realized tha
t he hadn’t stopped the argument. He’d merely taken it back to its starting point. “Look, let it—”

  “Maybe I do take things sometimes,” Jesper shouted over him, leaning closer to Stefan. “It’s a challenge. But I always give them back!”

  “Well, give back my whetstone!”

  “I would, if I’d taken it. But I didn’t! There’s no challenge taking your things. You’re always leaving them lying around.”

  “That’s true,” Ulf said, and instantly Wulf was into the argument as well.

  “You should talk! Your kit is always scattered all over my sleeping space!” In fact, the previous day, he had found one of Ulf’s socks lying beside his bedroll. Since it was an excellent sock, he had appropriated it but, in his eyes, that didn’t alter the fact that it was infringing on his space.

  “Maybe if you didn’t take up more space than you should, that wouldn’t happen!” Ulf cut back.

  Then Stefan went back on the attack.

  “Well, I didn’t leave my whetstone ‘lying around,’ as you put it. So you must have taken it.”

  “Why me? Why not someone else?” Jesper shouted. “Why not Ulf, or Wulf?”

  “Are you saying I took it?” Wulf said. He had a fleeting moment of guilt. Maybe Jesper had seen him slip Ulf’s sock into his pack.

  Jesper shook his head, exasperated. “No! I just was making a point that—”

  “Well, I didn’t!” Wulf said.

  Of course, Ulf took that as his cue. “You probably did. It’s just the sort of thing you’d do. Then you’d blame it on Jesper.”

  “Who blamed it on Jesper?” his twin yelled. “I never blamed it on Jesper!”

  “No, but you stood by and let Stefan blame him, instead of owning up.”

  Stig looked around the tent at the angry faces. He met Edvin’s steady gaze. Edvin leaned back on his pillow, closing his eyes.

  “I give up,” Stig said. “You’re all barking mad.”

  Outside the tent, Thorn shook his head.

  “I couldn’t agree more,” he said. He turned to trudge through the wet grass toward Hal’s workshop. As he went, the angry voices from the tent followed him, accusation meeting counteraccusation.

  “Boys,” he muttered to himself. “Thank Lorgan I was never one!”

  Hal and Ingvar were bent over a timber construction on the makeshift workbench Hal had built. It was a complex-looking arrangement, and Thorn, eyeing it, couldn’t define any possible function for it. Hal looked up as he heard the old warrior approach.

  “What are you making there?” Thorn asked.

  Hal shrugged and flipped a length of canvas over the contraption to cover it from view.

  “Just a couple of ideas,” he said vaguely, gesturing round the inside of the shelter. Among the offcuts and stray lengths of timber was a strange open-topped box with a slot cut into its bottom and a flat-cut piece, rather like a broad, blunt blade, inserted into it. Once again, Thorn could divine no function for it and obviously Hal wasn’t ready to discuss his ideas yet. Putting that aside, Thorn got back to the matter in hand.

  “Well, while you’re busy putting whatever that is together, you might be interested to know that your crew is falling apart.”

  “The crew?” Hal replied, frowning. “What’s wrong with them?”

  “They’re bored. They’ve got nothing to occupy them. And they’re starting to fight among themselves. Stefan has accused Jesper of taking his whetstone.”

  Hal shrugged. “Is that all? Well, that’s not too serious. I suppose it’s only natural that they’re a bit bored. Once we get back to sea, things will be all right again,” he said carelessly.

  Thorn shook his head. “It is serious, Hal. Has it occurred to you that Zavac has a crew of over fifty men—all of them pirates and hardened fighters? While you’ve got a crew of boys who are spending their time squabbling over totally unimportant matters?”

  Zavac was the pirate who had stolen the Andomal from under their noses. For a moment, Hal said nothing. Perhaps Thorn had a point, he thought. Thorn continued relentlessly.

  “When you were doing your brotherband training, you built up a real spirit among this crew. You brought them all together into a disciplined force with a common purpose. They were a brotherband. Now they’re deteriorating into a bunch of bored children. If you let that go any further, pity help you when you catch up with Zavac. If you don’t whip them into shape, you’ll get them all killed.”

  “Maybe so… ,” Hal said, reluctantly facing the truth.

  “That’s if you ever catch up with Zavac! When you put to sea again, all that teamwork, all that sense of acting like a crew will have been eroded. You could well get them all killed in the first heavy seas you face. You know a wolfship is no place for petty jealousies or disputes. They’ve got to work together!”

  “What do you want me to do?” Hal asked, and Thorn snorted.

  “I want you to start acting like the skirl!” he said. “Take charge! That’s what skirls do! Get your crew back into shape instead of wasting all your time here with these…” He gestured angrily at the unidentified items in the workshop. “Whatever they are!”

  Hal colored slightly. “I’m not wasting my time. I’m working on a couple of ideas that will help us when we come up against the Raven,” he said. The Raven was Zavac’s ship.

  Thorn rolled his eyes. “That’s all very well. But they won’t be much use to you without a crew! Get them off their backsides and get them doing something useful! Then you can come back to your contraptions.”

  “If you say so—” Hal began, but Thorn held up his wooden hook to stop him.

  “Not if I say so. If you say so! It has to come from you. Let them know you’re still the skirl.”

  “Are you sure it’s as bad as you’re making out?” Hal asked.

  Thorn eyed him balefully for a few seconds before answering.

  “Let me put it this way,” he said. “Yesterday, Ulf and Wulf were arguing over their sleeping spaces.”

  Hal made a dismissive gesture. “Well, that’s nothing. Ulf and Wulf are always arguing. It’s what they do best.”

  “I’m not finished. The others have started taking sides in the argument,” Thorn said. Hal’s eyes opened wider at the words.

  “That is a problem,” he agreed. “We’d better go and sort this out. Come on, Ingvar.”

  Setting his tools back into their places in a rack behind the workbench, he strode out of the workshop, the immense Ingvar following behind him like a trained bear.

  Thorn nodded in satisfaction. “And high time too,” he said to himself.

  chapter three

  Well, no wonder I couldn’t see it!” Stefan was shouting as Hal entered the hut. “My space is too far from the entrance. It’s dark and it’s stuffy. It’s all right for you! You get plenty of fresh air and light where you are!”

  Jesper spread his hands, defeated by the lack of logic in Stefan’s argument.

  “Is that my fault?” he asked. Before Jesper could reply, Ulf interjected, taking a pace toward Stefan.

  “You should complain! I’m right by the entrance. It’s cold and it’s drafty and last night someone trod on me when he went to the privy!”

  “I suppose you think that was me,” Wulf said, always ready to take offense when his brother spoke.

  Ulf glared at him. “It probably was. It’s the sort of thing you’d do.”

  “Except I didn’t get up to go to the privy last night! So roll that up in your blanket and throw it in the creek!”

  “Boys,” Hal began, striving for a reasonable tone, “just calm down a…”

  But his voice was drowned out by an outburst of squabbling from Ulf, Wulf, Stefan and Jesper. The twins continued to debate whether or not Wulf had gone to the privy; Ulf maintaining that, even if he hadn’t, he wouldn’t put it past his brother to get up simply to tread on him. Stefan and Jesper, meanwhile, had launched into a dispute over the inadequacies of Stefan’s sleeping space, hard up agains
t the rear wall of the hut. Hal, realizing that his voice would never carry over their heated words, turned to Ingvar and gestured for him to step forward.

  “Shut them up, will you, Ingvar?”

  The huge boy nodded. Hal knew from their brotherband training period that Ingvar’s massive chest could produce a deafening volume of sound. He stepped away as he saw the large boy draw in a deep breath.

  “QUIET!” Ingvar boomed. “QUIET, THE LOT OF YOU!”

  Silence filled the hut as the four arguing boys were stunned by the sudden roar. They all turned and, for the first time, noticed Hal. Taking advantage of the sudden silence, he spoke before they could recover their wits and resume fighting.

  “What in Gorlog’s name is going on here? Are you all crazy? What are you arguing about?”

  “My bed space is no good,” Stefan said. “It’s dark and it’s too close to the back of the tent. It’s stuffy. And the smell of everyone’s dead socks gathers back there.”

  “You should try it by the entrance where I am!” Ulf said. “It’s freezing!”

  Hal looked at him, frowning. He had the space directly opposite Ulf’s and he liked the fact that it provided plenty of fresh air. If it got a little drafty, it was a simple matter to pull the blankets up and huddle down under them. Hal quite enjoyed that, as a matter of fact.

  “We drew lots for the sleeping spaces,” he pointed out, striving to keep a reasonable tone.

  Ulf shrugged petulantly. “Well, if I’d known I was going to be so close to the door, I would have drawn a different one.”

  Hal gave up trying to be reasonable. He glared at Ulf.

  “Do you realize how abysmally stupid that statement is?” he demanded.

  Ulf stepped back a half pace, disconcerted by the anger in Hal’s voice. Hal was their skirl. The crew had elected him unanimously to that position and he had proved himself more than worthy of it. He had earned their respect and their loyalty. During brotherband training, he had shown an ability to outthink and outplan and outwit their opponents. He was an expert helmsman and navigator—qualities held in high esteem by all Skandians. Plus he had another indefinable quality—an air of natural authority and leadership. All of those things combined to earn Ulf’s respect and deference. As a result, when Hal became angry, as he was now, Ulf tended to back down. If Hal was a natural leader, Ulf was a natural follower.