The Caldera Read online

  “Well, nobody else did. So thanks again.”

  Thorn nodded in acknowledgment. “That throw was neatly executed,” he said. “Been practicing that, have you?”

  Hal answered before his friend could, rubbing the center of his back with his right hand. “He certainly has,” he said in heartfelt tones. “He’s been hurling me all over the field behind Mam’s place. I haven’t got a square centimeter that isn’t bruised.”

  Thorn made a little moue of surprise. “Is that so?” he said. “I never saw you.”

  Stig picked up his jacket and draped it around his shoulders. Now that the contest was over and the shadows were lengthening, there was a chill in the air.

  “We practiced at night,” he said. “Thought it might not be a good idea to let people see it in advance.”

  Thorn rubbed the side of his nose and regarded the young warrior with new respect.

  “That’s smart. It seems you’re learning that the Maktig isn’t just the strongest and fastest. There are brains involved as well.”

  Stig looked bashful at the words. “Well, it was Hal’s idea. Not mine.”

  Thorn grinned. “That figures,” he said. Then he clapped Stig on the shoulder. “Being Maktig also means having smart friends.” The three of them laughed as they began to walk toward the fence enclosing the wrestling ground.

  “Well,” said Hal, “I’d better get down to the beach to tell the crew the good news.”

  “They didn’t want to watch?” Stig said, smiling. “They thought I’d lose, didn’t they?” Now that he’d won, he could afford to smile.

  Hal hesitated awkwardly. “It’s not that. They had work to do. Heron needs repainting where that fishing boat hit us last week, so I thought they might as well repaint the entire hull.”

  “And aside from that, they didn’t think I’d win, did they?” Stig persisted.

  Hal allowed himself a small grin. “No. They didn’t. But they’ll be glad to hear they were wrong.”

  “Will you come by my house later?” Stig asked. “We should celebrate.”

  Hal gave a disappointed shrug. “We’ll celebrate tomorrow. I have to appear before the Navigators Guild this evening. They want to discuss our last voyage.”

  Stig’s cheerful look faded. “Should I come along? After all, I’m your first mate.” But Hal was already shaking his head.

  “Best if you keep clear of it,” he said. “If things turn nasty, I don’t want you involved.”

  “Nasty? Why should things turn nasty?” Stig asked.

  Hal made an indefinite gesture with his hands. “There are some old-fashioned thinkers in the guild. They think I should have kept better notes on the voyage. Or any notes at all, come to that,” he added. He grinned as he said it, but Stig noticed that the grin didn’t reach his eyes.

  “Don’t concern yourself about it, Stig,” Thorn interjected. “I’m going with him, and if necessary I’ll straighten out some of those fuddy-duddies.” He brandished the heavy, polished wooden hook on the end of his right arm. “I’ll crack a few skulls if I have to.”

  Hal put a hand on Thorn’s forearm, restraining the threatening hook. “I’m sure it won’t be necessary.”

  Thorn grunted. “More’s the pity,” he replied.

  chaptertwo

  Heron was beached on the sand beside the main harbor. The crew had run her up the beach on rollers at high tide, then left her clear of the water as the tide receded. She was propped on either side with timbers to keep her on a level keel.

  The previous week, she had been moored alongside the mole in her usual privileged position, astern of Oberjarl Erak’s Wolfwind, when a fishing trawler in the harbor had dragged her anchor and drifted. The prow of the trawler smashed into Heron’s starboard side at an angle, pushing in and splintering two of the top planks along a section about three meters long.

  Arndt, the trawlerman, was appalled at the damage his craft had caused to the smart little ship and had apologized profusely. Hal, after his initial anger, dismissed the matter and accepted the apologies. These things happened, he knew, when the weather was bad. Anchors could not be expected to be one hundred percent effective. They could drag, ships could come adrift and collide with others.

  The damage was superficial, and the shattered planks were well above the waterline.

  Arndt offered to pay for repairs to the smaller ship. “Take her into Anders’s shipyard,” he had said. “I’ll pay all the bills.”

  But Hal had shaken his head. “I’ll repair her myself,” he said. “You can pay for the materials.”

  He was an accomplished shipwright. In fact, he had virtually built the Heron by himself, converting her from a half-sized wolfship that had been in the process of being built for a retired raider who had unexpectedly died of a heart attack. Much as Hal respected Anders’s workmanship, he wouldn’t trust his precious ship to anyone else. Accordingly, he had cut out the damaged section of the hull and assembled two new planks in place of the smashed ones. The joinery where new met old was so fine that an observer had to peer closely to see where the timbers met. The only giveaway was the fresh, unpainted timber among the seasoned, painted planks that formed the hull. Once the repair was smoothed and painted and calked, it would be virtually invisible. He also used the opportunity to repaint the entire hull, a project that had been on his mind for some weeks. Heron had done a lot of hard traveling in the past year, and the wind and salt and sun had peeled away sections of the blue paint that covered her hull. He decided to replace the light blue color with a dark sea green.

  “It’ll be more suitable if we’re going somewhere we don’t want to be too obvious,” he told Stig, and his first mate nodded agreement. There had been several occasions like that in the years they voyaged together.

  With Stig occupied in preparations for the Maktig contest, and Hal having agreed to help him train and prepare, the young skirl had summoned the rest of the crew and delegated the job of painting to them. Ingvar, Edvin, Jesper and Stefan all turned to and began repainting the ship, beaching her so they could scrape the barnacles and marine growth from her hull below the waterline.

  Lydia lent a hand as well, taking on the task of retouching the finer-detailed parts of the ship—the oarlocks and tiller and the decorative scrollwork on the bow and sternpost. These she painted with gold leaf, an extravagance that Hal secretly derided. But he knew she meant to help, so he said nothing about the expense.

  “After all,” she had told him, “Arndt is paying, so we might as well let him spend his money on us.”

  Hal had to admit that when she had finished, the result was very pleasing to the eye. And he discovered that she had paid for the gold leaf herself. It was a gesture she wanted to make—to him and the rest of the brotherband—and the green color was a wise choice, he thought. It looked good, and seeing it now, he realized how dowdy Heron had become. But as well as looking good, the color had a more important function. He narrowed his eyes as he looked at his ship, trying to see her as she would appear on a dark, moonless night. She would be all but invisible, he thought, with the color merging into the gray-green of the sea itself.

  Some might have thought that an all-black color scheme would be more effective. But Hal, aside from the fact that he refused to sail a black ship, knew that an all-black hull would appear as a solid mass and be more visible against the lighter tones of the sea.

  Jesper glanced up from his work as Hal and Thorn approached. Wiping the excess paint from his brush, he rose from his stooped position under the hull and called a greeting.

  “Hal! Thorn! How did Stig get on?”

  As he called out, the others stopped their painting as well and turned to watch the new arrivals coming down the sand toward them. In answer to the question, Hal joined his hands together and flourished them above his shoulder in a winner’s gesture. The crew were silent for a few seconds, then b
egan to cheer.

  “He won?” Edvin said, an incredulous note in his voice. “He beat that overgrown lump Oren?”

  “Beat him solidly,” Hal said with a broad smile as they came within comfortable speaking distance.

  “How did he manage it?” Ingvar asked, and the crew gathered round their skirl and their battle master to get the full details of the bout. When Hal mentioned Stig’s counter to the bear hug, with his right arm held rigidly under Oren’s chin, Stefan gave a snort of admiration.

  “Who taught him that trick?” he asked. They had all seen Oren over the past few weeks of competition, and his bear hug had been shown to be an almost unbeatable tactic.

  “Who do you think?” Hal replied, grinning, as he gestured with his thumb at the shaggy-haired old sea wolf beside him. There was a chorus of praise for Thorn from the others. None of them, in retrospect, was surprised. Thorn had been Maktig three years in a row when he was younger—a feat unequaled by anyone before or since.

  “What about Ulf and Wulf?” Jesper asked, with a grin. At the mention of the twins, smiles broke out across the faces of the crew.

  “I haven’t heard yet,” Hal replied. “I imagine today’s result will be the same as they’ve been so far.”

  Contestants for the title of Maktig were nominated by their skirls or brotherband leaders. The nominations were based on their proven ability in combat. Each nomination was assessed by a panel of judges, and if the nominee was found to have sufficient potential to win the title, he was approved as a contestant.

  But there was another path to the title of Maktig. Anyone could nominate as a qualifier, and compete in a separate set of events with others of the same ilk. The qualifiers took part in the same events as those in the main competition: long-distance running, short-distance sprinting, mock combat with sword or ax, spear throwing, wrestling, and ax throwing. At the end of the qualifying competition, the winner—if the judges considered he had shown exceptional ability—was allowed to challenge the winner of the main event in those same disciplines. It wasn’t often that a qualifier was permitted to challenge. And it was even rarer that he managed to win the overall contest, but it had happened.

  Ulf and Wulf had nominated themselves in this part of the contest—or at least, Ulf had nominated himself first, whereupon Wulf had immediately followed suit.

  “If he’s going to try out, then I will,” Wulf had said. “After all, everyone knows we’re equal in all things—except that I’m a bit more equal than he is.”

  And therein lay a problem for the judges and organizers. The twins were equally matched in all physical aspects. Which meant that when they competed against each other, the result was always a dead heat.

  Even in contests such as mock combat, the twins usually fought each other to an exhausted standstill. They had that uncanny knack, often shared by identical twins, of knowing what the other was thinking and planning. So when they fought against each other, each one always knew what his sibling was about to do, and was ready with an effective counter. When they competed against the other qualifiers, they were far more skillful and had eliminated all of the others in rapid succession. But to the chagrin of the judges who assessed their contests, neither could manage an ascendancy over his twin.

  They had already fought two mock combats with blunted swords and wooden shields, and each had come to an inconclusive and exhausted end, after hours of swinging, hacking, blocking and ducking. They were currently engaged in a third, and hopefully decisive, combat. If no winner emerged, the contest would be rescheduled in two days’ time, and the crew all planned to watch. They were fascinated by the strange bond between the twins. Ulf and Wulf would spend all day arguing and disputing with each other. They would argue that black was white and day was night. But if anyone else sought to argue with either of them, he would find himself confronting both.

  Now the other Herons wanted to see if there would be a conclusive end to their combat. Most of them doubted it—although Jesper, as was his wont, had begun accepting wagers.

  • • • • •

  “Time!” called the senior judge, and the two brothers stepped back a pace. Their chests heaved with the effort of swinging and blocking, advancing and retreating, thrusting and feinting. The long wooden swords seemed to weigh twice as much as when they had commenced, forty minutes previously. The shields hung on their arms like blocks of stone.

  They glared at each other as the three judges conferred.

  “I make it eight points for Wulf,” said one judge.

  Per, the senior judge, interrupted. “Which one is he?” The twins were, after all, identical.

  Woten, the judge who had spoken, gestured to the red scarf tied around Wulf’s waist. “Red,” he said briefly.

  Per frowned. “Are you sure?”

  His colleague shrugged. “Doesn’t really matter what his name is, so long as Luda”—he jerked a thumb at his fellow judge—“has been scoring for the blue fighter.” As Luda nodded to confirm that they hadn’t been scoring for the same fighter, he continued. “Two arm strikes. Three body thrusts. Three leg strikes.”

  Wulf grinned triumphantly at his brother.

  Per looked at the second judge, who was frowning unhappily.

  “Um . . . I make it the same for Ulf—the blue fighter,” Luda said.

  Wulf’s grin faded and he scowled at his brother instead. Ulf shrugged disarmingly. He had seen how his brother had assumed that he had won, so another draw was almost as good as a victory for Ulf.

  The senior judge uttered a low groan. This was the way things had been going for two weeks, and they were no closer to finding a winner.

  “We can schedule another bout,” said the second judge. “Maybe we’ll get a winner then.”

  But the senior judge scowled at him, then at the two contestants. “Why should it turn out any different? They’ve fought three times already with no result.”

  Woten, the first judge, nodded wearily. “We might as well let them settle it with berg-blad-trasa,” he said.

  For a few moments, nobody spoke, then Per replied thoughtfully, “Why not?”

  Woten hastily made a negative gesture. “I was joking!” he protested.

  But the second judge held up a hand to silence him. “It’s actually not such a bad idea,” he said. “Let’s face it, either one is as good as the other. If we keep them competing, we may never get a result. We’ll let them play a round of berg-blad-trasa. At least that way, we’ll get a challenger. And since they’re equally matched, it won’t really matter which one it is.”

  The three judges all looked at one another. Per looked worried.

  “Can we really settle a Maktig event with a children’s game?” he asked doubtfully.

  “Why not?” Luda muttered. “At least it will save us more hours of watching these two draw every contest.”

  “Besides, berg-blad-trasa is a traditional contest among Skandians,” said Woten. “It has been part of our culture for hundreds of years.”

  Even he didn’t sound as if he completely believed it himself. But slowly, all three men nodded. Then the senior judge beckoned Ulf and Wulf to come closer. The twins set down their practice swords and shields and moved to stand before the three judges.

  “Are you familiar with berg-blad-trasa?” Per asked.

  The twins exchanged a look, then Ulf answered.

  “You mean rock-blade-cloth?” he said, and the judge nodded. That was the common-tongue name for the old game. Ulf smiled comfortably. “I know it. I’ve never been beaten at it.”

  The senior judge smiled contentedly. It seemed that they had found a way to decide the winner. At the same time, he thought it would be better if they didn’t make it too public.

  “Neither have I,” Wulf said hurriedly, which should have warned the judges. But they were so intent on breaking this stalemate that they didn’t consider
the ramifications of the two answers.

  “Very well, we’ll reconvene at the obstacle course tomorrow afternoon at the fourth hour.” The obstacle course, which was used to train brotherband contestants, was generally unoccupied at this time of year as it didn’t feature in the Maktig contest. It would be a suitably discreet venue for the rather unusual competition the judges had decided upon. As the two contestants turned away, he stopped them. “And don’t say anything about this to anyone. Clear?”

  “Clear,” said Wulf.

  “As crystal,” said Ulf.

  chapterthree

  The executive committee of the Navigators Guild was meeting in Oberjarl Erak’s great hall, in a small annex to the side of the main hall itself.

  They were all older men than Hal, who had been admitted to the guild only two years previously and was the youngest member. Erak, as Oberjarl and as a distinguished navigator in his own right, was present to oversee the meeting.

  The six members of the committee were seated around a rectangular pine table, three on either side, with Erak at the head. There was an empty chair at the foot of the table for Hal. The members looked up as Thorn swung the door open—none too gently—and ushered Hal inside. One committeeman, Gerdt Smolensson, frowned at the sight of the shaggy-haired, one-armed warrior, who had taken a position standing behind Hal’s chair.

  “You’re not a member of the guild, Thorn. What are you doing here?”

  Thorn regarded the speaker for several seconds. He had expected that, if there were to be trouble, it would come from this man. Gerdt was notoriously arrogant and somewhat overconscious of his position on the guild committee.

  “I’m here to observe on Hal’s behalf and to make sure my friend is treated fairly and with the respect due to a member of the guild,” he said.

  “You have no authority here. You have no right to be here at all,” Gerdt protested in a spiteful tone.

  Thorn locked gazes with him. “As a former Maktig, three times over, I claim the right,” he said in an even tone. Then he added: “I claim it three times over if necessary.”