02 The Invaders Read online

  “Well, I… er…”

  Hal stopped him with a dismissive gesture and turned to the others.

  “Anyone else got a problem with his bed space?” he demanded.

  The others exchanged looks. Stig was the first to speak.

  “I’m fine,” he said.

  Edvin, Wulf and Jesper all mumbled agreement. From behind him, Hal heard Ingvar’s deep rumble.

  “I’m happy where I am.”

  “And so am I,” Hal said, turning his gaze on Ulf and Stefan. “So that leaves just you two, correct?”

  Both boys looked uncomfortable, realizing that they were very much in the minority. Stefan shrugged awkwardly.

  “Well, as I said, my space is kind of dark and—”

  “No need for a speech,” Hal told him sharply. “Just yes or no will do fine. Do you have a problem with your bed space?”

  Stefan looked around the tent, as did Ulf. Neither of them saw any support or sympathy from their companions.

  “Um… yes. I guess so,” Stefan said finally.

  Hal switched his gaze to Ulf. “And you? You’re not happy either, is that right?”

  “Er… yes. I suppose so.”

  “Good,” said Hal. “In that case, you two can swap.”

  There was a moment of silence. The other boys turned away to hide their smiles. Stefan and Ulf stared at Hal, not completely sure that they’d heard him.

  “What?” Stefan said finally.

  “Swap spaces. You take Ulf’s. He takes yours. Do it now.”

  “But… ,” Ulf began. In truth, he was relatively content with his space by the entrance. He had simply been complaining for the sake of having something to say. And Stefan felt much the same. His spot at the rear of the hut was warm and cozy. It might get stuffy occasionally, but that was a small matter in this cold weather.

  Both boys realized how foolish they would appear if they changed their minds now. Still they hesitated.

  “I can have Ingvar do it for you if you like,” Hal prompted, and that was enough to stir them into activity. They knew that if Ingvar moved their belongings, he would drop and scatter things through the hut. They changed places, moving their bedrolls and small piles of possessions and spare clothes to their new positions.

  As Stefan laid out his bedroll, a gust of icy wind shook the hut. The canvas flap by the entrance did little to stop it. He looked reluctantly back to his former cozy spot at the rear, where Ulf was now spreading his own bedroll. He sighed. He supposed he should feel resentment toward Hal but he was honest enough to admit that it was all his own fault. Like Ulf, he had only been complaining because it was one of the few activities available to them. Hal had done nothing more than call his bluff.

  Hal watched, standing with his arms folded over his chest, as the two boys changed places. The others lay on their bedrolls, propped up on their elbows and watching with wide grins. They admired the way Hal had cut the ground from under the two complaining crew members. Their smiles faded when the changeover was complete and Hal’s voice cracked out a new command.

  “All right, everyone! Off your backsides and outside! Right away!”

  They rose uncertainly. Jesper frowned as he looked out through the entry and turned back toward his bedroll.

  “It’s raining,” he said. “Why do we have to go outside?”

  He felt an iron grip on his left arm and looked round to see Stig’s face a few centimeters from his own.

  “Because your skirl says so!” Stig told him, grinning fiercely. “Now, move!”

  Then Jesper was propelled through the canvas curtain and sent staggering on the wet grass outside. He stood disconsolately, waiting for the others to join him. One by one, they straggled out of the hut.

  Stig was the last to leave. He paused by Hal’s side as he went.

  “Nice to have you back in charge,” he said.

  Hal nodded apologetically. “Sorry I’ve let things slip. Form them up out there, will you?”

  Stig nodded, still grinning, and followed the others out into the open. Hal waited a few seconds, took a deep breath, then went out to join them.

  He saw Thorn was off to one side, sitting on a log. The ragged old sea wolf nodded discreet approval. Obviously, he had heard everything that went on inside the hut.

  The other members of the crew were lined up in a semicircle, waiting for him. Stig was at the right-hand end of the line. Hal stepped forward and looked keenly along the line of faces, taking particular note of Ulf and Stefan. He was pleased to see no trace of continuing resentment in their expressions. To be truthful, they both had a grudging admiration for the way Hal had handled their complaints. Jesper, he noted, looked a little sulky, possibly because of his rough handling from Stig. Hal shrugged mentally. Jesper often looked sulky. The other boys were waiting expectantly to hear what he had to say.

  “We’ve lost our edge,” Hal told them, and he saw a few of them look at him curiously. “We spent three months in brotherband training getting fit, learning weapon craft and seamanship. Best of all, we learned to function as a brotherband—to work together as a team and help one another. Now that seems to have evaporated. We’ve become strangers again.”

  The boys exchanged glances and he could see their reluctant agreement with what he had said. Edvin took a half pace forward.

  “We’re bored,” he said. “It’s as simple as that. There’s nothing to do here but lie around all day.”

  Several of the others mumbled agreement. Hal hid his delighted smile. He could have cheerfully hugged Edvin for stating the problem for him.

  “That’s right,” he said. “And that’s going to change. Starting tomorrow, we’re going back into training.”

  There was a mixed reaction to that. Stig, Edvin and Stefan nodded instant approval. The twins considered it for a few seconds and then nodded too. Jesper, predictably, was the one to raise an objection.

  “Training? What sort of training?”

  Hal met his gaze steadily until Jesper dropped his eyes. “The sort of training we did in brotherband. Weapon skills. Fitness training. Seamanship. Sail handling.”

  “But we’ve done that. Why do it again?”

  Hal stepped closer to Jesper to make his point.

  “We did it for three months. Three months! Do you think we know it all after such a short period? And we’re looking to confront the Raven and its crew of fifty pirates. They’re warriors who’ve spent all their lives fighting and killing. Do you think three months’ training has prepared us to face them? Because I don’t. And I want to get the Andomal back when we catch up with them, not get killed in the attempt.” He turned toward Thorn, still sitting on the fallen log.

  “Thorn!” he called. “Will you take on the position of trainer?”

  The shaggy figure stood slowly from the log and walked across to join them.

  “With pleasure,” he said when he was closer.

  Stig raised a hand to get Hal’s attention. “Hal, you said we’d practice seamanship and sail handling. How can we do that while these storms keep blowing?”

  Hal nodded his appreciation of the question. “We’ll set up a mast onshore here and rig the sails and yardarms to it. We’ll make it so that Ingvar can turn it according to the wind, and we’ll work on our sail handling and trimming skills. If there’s calm weather, we’ll put to sea, or do training in the bay.”

  Stig thought about the answer, his head tilted to one side. “Good idea,” he said.

  Hal grinned. “I thought so.” Then, as another hand was raised, he turned a little wearily back to Jesper. “Yes, Jesper. What is it now?”

  “Well, no offense,” he began, and Hal had a moment to reflect that whenever people began with “no offense” they invariably went on to be extremely offensive. “But what qualifies Thorn to train us? I mean… he’s Thorn, after all. No offense,” he repeated.

  Thorn smiled at him but the smile never reached his eyes.

  Hal turned to him. “Thorn, would you like to s
how Jesper how qualified you are?”

  Thorn appeared to think about the question. Then he moved with blinding speed, covering the ground between himself and Jesper.

  Jesper, a former thief, was accustomed to moving quickly when threatened. But he never had time to register that Thorn was moving. The old sea wolf’s left hand closed on Jesper’s collar in an iron grip and he hoisted the boy off his feet, holding him suspended, his feet dangling clear of the ground.

  Then he gathered himself and hurled Jesper away like a sack of potatoes. The boy flew several meters through the air, hit the ground and lost his footing, crashing over on his back. As he lay winded, he looked up into Thorn’s bearded face, a face wreathed in a fierce smile.

  “How’s that for qualifications?”

  Jesper nodded several times, and waved weakly in reply.

  “Tha’s pretty good,” he gasped breathlessly. “Pretty good indeed.”

  chapter four

  There was only the faintest glow of light touching the tops of the trees on the eastern headland when Thorn woke the boys the following morning.

  Perhaps woke is a little misleading. It implies a certain amount of care and consideration. The old sea wolf erupted into the hut, bellowing at the top of his voice and jerking blankets from cowering, whining forms. He carried a long baton made from a trimmed hickory branch and he beat noisily on the frames of the hut to punctuate his cries.

  “Up! Up! Up!” he roared. “There’s perfectly good daylight going to waste and we only get one chance at it before it’s gone! On your feet and get dressed. Up! Up! Up!”

  “What daylight?” Stig grumbled, bleary-eyed. “I don’t see any daylight.”

  “There’s plenty of it in the Eastern Steppes,” Thorn told him. Of course, far to the east, the sun would have risen hours ago. Then he smiled evilly at Stig. “And if you don’t get moving, I’ll have you seeing stars.”

  He slammed the hickory baton down on the ground a few centimeters from Stig’s head. Startled, the muscular boy sprang up from his bedroll and began fumbling for his breeches. Still half asleep, he managed to trip and fall as he pulled them on. Around him other members of the crew were having the same problem. Thorn surveyed them, shaking his head in disgust.

  “What a bunch of doddering old biddies you are!” His eye fell on Hal, who was on hands and knees, searching for his clothes, unaware that they were hidden under the blankets that Thorn had dragged off him. He yawned, then the yawn turned into a yelp as Thorn gave him a none-too-gentle rap on the behind with the hickory baton.

  “And you’re the skirl!” Thorn said scornfully. “You should be leading the way, not blundering round on your hands and knees like a dozy old badger! Up! Up! Up!”

  Within a few minutes, the Herons were standing in a ragged line outside the tent, some of them still fastening their pants and jackets, all of them tousle-haired and shivering in the cold, dim morning. The faint glow on the treetops was now a much more defined red. Stefan looked back enviously at his warm bed. In spite of Ulf’s predictions that he’d freeze in his drafty new spot, he’d slept soundly and blissfully, until Thorn’s insane yelling and banging had startled him awake.

  Thorn, infuriatingly jovial and depressingly wide-awake, surveyed the sniffing, shuffling group.

  “Gorlog’s bleached and broken bones but you’re a sorry lot!” he boomed. “You’d strike fear into any pirate’s heart—once he stopped laughing. Now, let’s get warmed up! Jump! Jump and clap your hands over your head. Come on!”

  Reluctantly, they began to jump in place, slapping their hands together over their heads as they did so. Thorn strode down the line behind them, exhorting them to greater efforts with a stream of abuse and judicially placed whacks with the hickory baton.

  Stig, next in line to Hal, muttered out of the corner of his mouth as he leapt in the air and clapped his hands.

  “I think I preferred him when he was an old drunk. This rehabilitated Thorn is a bit hard to… OW!”

  The exclamation was wrung out of him as Thorn, who had approached without Stig’s being aware of it, put a little extra venom into a whack across his behind. Stung by the blow, Stig leapt somewhat higher than he had planned to, and Thorn chuckled.

  “That’s the way, Stiggy boy! Higher and harder! Show the others how to do it!”

  Stig bit back an angry retort and continued to leap and clap. As he did so, he realized that already he was warming up. The blood was flowing freely through his legs and arms and warming his extremities. And, as he breathed deeply with the exercise, the oxygen he was dragging into his lungs was driving the sleepiness away.

  Beside him, Hal grinned at him unsympathetically. People always find it amusing when they see a friend suffering, Stig thought.

  “Serves you right for talking… OW! OW!”

  Hal was sure that Thorn had moved away from behind them. Now he realized that the shabby old sea wolf had sneaked back, unnoticed. Not for the first time, he marveled at how quietly and quickly Thorn could move these days.

  “Should be setting a better example, skirl!” Thorn guffawed.

  Some of the other Herons laughed as well. Ruefully rubbing his stinging behind, Hal reflected on Thorn’s tactics. By punishing the skirl, he made sure that there could be no charges of favoritism leveled at him. And it definitely raised the spirits of the others to see Hal leap in shock—just as it had cheered him when it happened to Stig.

  Thorn moved down the line, pausing behind Ingvar. The huge boy was barely leaving the ground. His face was set in determined lines and he tried to hurl himself higher from the ground with each leap. It was his sheer size that was keeping him earthbound. But he was trying. Thorn watched him approvingly for several seconds, nodding to himself. There was a lot of value in Ingvar, he thought, shortsighted or not. Ingvar’s sense of loyalty to Hal meant he was always first to volunteer when there was a task to be done.

  “Don’t hit me, Thorn,” Ingvar said, some sixth sense warning him that Thorn was behind him. “I’m jumping as high as I can.”

  “I can see that, Ingvar,” Thorn said softly. He moved on, casually flicking the hickory baton at Ulf’s backside as he went.

  “Ow!” Ulf cried. “What did you do that for?” He’d been jumping and clapping his hands as high and hard as he could.

  “My mistake,” Thorn said. “I thought you were your brother.”

  “Oh. That’s all right then,” Ulf replied.

  Thorn frowned, wondering at the twisted logic in the statement. Finally, he rounded the end of the line of leaping, clapping boys and moved to stand before them.

  “That’s enough!” he yelled and, gratefully, they stopped their leaping and cavorting. A few of them leaned forward, resting their hands on their knees to breathe deeply. There were one or two coughs from the line of boys.

  “You really have let yourselves go, haven’t you?” Thorn chided them. There was no answer. The boys were embarrassed to realize that he was right. It had been several weeks now since they had been subjected to this sort of rigorous exercise, whereas during their brotherband training it had been a daily event. Even during the run down the coast in the Heron, they hadn’t had to row. They’d had a constant wind on the beam the whole time.

  “Very well,” Thorn continued. He pointed down the long, curving beach that ran along the edge of the bay. “It’s time for a run.”

  The boys looked in the direction he was pointing and groaned. The beach was almost two kilometers long.

  “Down and back,” he said. “Right to the far end. And you see that nice, firm sand along the water’s edge?”

  He waited until they looked and then nodded that yes, they could see it.

  “Well, we’re not going to run in that, are we? We’re going to run in that nasty, soft, dry sand above the high watermark. Much better for us.”

  “Us?” Stefan queried. “Are you coming too?”

  Thorn regarded him, a light of amusement in his eyes. “Well, now, what do you think?”r />
  Stefan shrugged resignedly. “I think you’re staying here.”

  “And who said you were slow on the uptake?” Thorn replied. Then he made a shooing gesture at them. “Off you go. And remember, no walking. I’ll be watching you all the way.”

  The boys turned and set off in a ragged group, Jesper quickly moving to the lead. As they straggled away, Thorn barked out a command.

  “Edvin! Not you! Back here!”

  Edvin dropped out of the group and walked back to where Thorn stood, his head tilted curiously.

  “Did I do something wrong?” he asked, eyeing Thorn’s hickory baton warily.

  Thorn shook his head. “Not at all. Get a fire started. Make tea and get some bacon and bread ready for them when they get back. They’ll need a good breakfast.”

  There was a warmth and a level of concern in his voice that belied his previous uncaring manner as he’d stalked along the line of leaping, clapping boys. Edvin, placing dry kindling in a pyramid stack in the fireplace, watched the old warrior shrewdly.

  “You’re not really as mean as you make out, are you?”

  Thorn eyed him coldly. “Oh yes, I am,” he replied. “And you’ll find out just how mean I can be if you tell anyone otherwise.”

  Sometime later, the Heron brotherband straggled back into the campsite. They had strung out during the run. Jesper was well in the lead when they returned and Thorn noticed that the boy was barely breathing hard. Ulf, Stefan and Wulf came in next, and finally Hal and Stig arrived, each one holding an arm of the lumbering Ingvar. Thorn pursed his lips. A shame, he thought. Ingvar was so big and powerful and he had enormous reserves of strength. It was his poor vision that was holding him back. It made him clumsy because he was constantly worried about losing his balance. He could see just enough to make him fearful.