The Dog and the Wolf by Poul Anderson Page B

days ago. Once she had clawed her way around the peninsula, there was no possibility of making any port; she could only keep sea room, running before the wind, full-reefed sail as vital as the oars. When the fury dwindled, his vessel—seams sprung, spars and strakes strained, barely afloat because the crew spent their last flagging forces bailing her—must needs crawl to the nearest land. They grounded her at high tide, and after taking turns sleeping like liches, set about repairs.
    Maeloch refrained from adding that he had not simply chanced on the haven. He had never before been so far east, but some of his followers had, and all had heard about the Islands of Crows. That name had come on people’s lips in the past hundred years, after the Romans withdrew a presence which had always been slight. Pirates and barbarians—seaborne robbers—soon discovered this was a handy place to lie over. With curses and a rope’s end Maeloch had forced his men to gasp at the oars and the buckets till they found a secluded bay. He hoped to refit and set forth before anybody noticed them.
    So much for that,
he
thought harshly. The island folk were a few herders, farmers, fishers. They had no choice but to stay in the good graces of their visitors, furnish food, labor, women … and information. Doubtless a fellow ranging the woods up above had spied the camp and scuttled off to tell. Doubtless he got a reward.
    “Scoti come far,” Maeloch ventured. In truth it was surprising to find them here. They harried the western shores of Britannia and, in the past, Gallia. Eastern domains were the booty of rovers from across the German Sea.
    Subne tossed his head. “Our chief goes where he will.”
    “He do, he do.” Maeloch nodded and smiled. “We poor men. Soon go home.”
    To his vast relief, Subne accepted that. Had the warriors searched
Osprey
they would have found hidden stores of fine wares, gold, silver, glass, fabric, gifts with which to proceed in Hivernia should necessity arise to shed his guise of a simple wanderer.
    He was not yet free, though. “You will be coming with us,” Subne ordered. “Himself wants to know more.”
    Maeloch stamped on a spark of dismay. “I glad,” he replied. Turning to Usun, he said in swift Ysan: “They’d ha me call on their leader. If I refused, we’d get the lot o’ them down on us. Float the ship when ye can and stand by. Be I nay back by nightfall, start off. Ye should still have a fair wind for Britannia, where ye can finish refitting. … Nay a word out o’ ye! Our mission is for the Nine and the King.”
    Stark-faced, the mate grunted assent. Maeloch strode from him. “We go,” he cried cheerily. The Scoti looked nonplussed. Belike they’d expected the whole crew to accompany him. But Maeloch’s action changed their minds for them. Their moods were as fickle as a riptide. Also, he knew, they made a practice of taking hostages to bind an alliance or a surrender. To them, he was the pledge for his men.
    He wondered if his spirit could find its way back to Ys, for the Ferrying out to Sena.
    Game trails, now and then paths trodden by livestock, wound south from the brooklet, through woods and across meadows, down into glens and aloft onto hills, but generally upward. The warriors moved with the ease of those accustomed to wilderness. Maeloch’s rolling gait, his awkwardness in underbrush or fords, slowed them. They bore with it. Warmth rose as morning advanced until sweat was pungent in his tunic.
    After maybe an hour the party reached a cliff and started down a ravine that was a watercourse to the sizeable bay underneath. There men lounged around smoky fires. Below the height were several shelters of brushwood, turf, and stones. Some appeared to be years old. This must be a favored harbor for sea rovers.
    Two galleys of the deckless Germanic kind lay drawn up on the beach, their masts unstepped. Leather currachs surrounded one. The other was by herself, three hundred feet away.