Read Online The Lord of Vik-Lo: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 3) by James L. Nelson - Free Book Online Page A

work the ship through the next cresting sea. “It is much smaller by far. They are Danes there, and they are not over friendly, as you would expect from Danes, but they should give us leave to stay and give us help if we give them tribute enough!”
      “Very well!” Thorgrim shouted. He wanted to be shed of Ireland, to sail north and make the crossing to England and beyond. But that was not to be, not yet. They were being blown south, and nothing would stop that unless the ship went down to a sea-wrapped death and they had worked hard to ensure that would not happen.
      “Very well!” Thorgrim said again, and he knew that now he was trying to convince himself. “Vík-ló it will be!”

Chapter Six
     
     
     
     
     
     
    [Odin] commanded that all the dead be burned on a pyre along with their possessions. He said each man would come to Valhalla with those thing he had on the pyre with him…
                                                                             Ynglingasaga
     
     
     
     
     
    The funeral for Fasti Magnisson and his men was an odd affair, a compromise based on logistics and practicality and tempered by Grimarr Giant’s baser impulses. Greed, in particular.
      After searching Sea Rider fore and aft for any sign of the Fearna treasure, and finding none, they checked to see if the ship itself had suffered damage in the fight with Lorcan mac Fáeláin’s curachs. Seeing that the ship was in no danger of sinking , Eagle’s Wing took her in tow. It was a long pull to the banks of the River Leitrim, the mouth of which served as a harbor for Vík-ló, just as the Liffey did for Dubh-linn, just as other rivers did for other settlements on that long coast, all but devoid of natural harbors.
      They were still underway as the wind started getting up and the seas building, driven by the storm rolling in from the northeast. Sea Rider would not be towed without someone to steer her. Grimarr ordered a half dozen men to go aboard and work the ship, and he had to all but beat them to get them to obey. No one much cared to man that death ship, her decks piled with bodies, the bilges awash with blood.
      The following seas made the steering more difficult, but the wind blowing on shore allowed them to ship oars and set Eagle Wing ’s sail with a reef in the foot. They came into the river and ran the ships up on the muddy shore, securing them with a multitude of heavy lines just as the first real punch of the storm hit. They piled the dead aboard Sea Rider amidships and covered them with the ship’s sail. They could think of nothing better to do with them.
      For a day and a half Grimarr and his men remained huddled in Grimarr’s hall, the others in their small homes, fires burning in the hearth against the early Autumn cold. Vík-ló was Dubh-linn writ small, a Norse longphort a quarter the size of its northern fellow. It lay on the low ground near the mouth of the Leitrim, the land sloping gently upward from the water’s edge. High rolling hills, some miles inland, surrounded the place like some great earthwork made by giants long before and long since abandoned, left to grow grassy and humped. The hills were home to the Irish and the spirits of the land, and the Northmen did not care to meet either, so they did not venture far from their settlement.
      Vík-ló boasted around two dozen houses of various sizes, most partially taken up by their occupants’ businesses; blacksmith shops, woodworkers, butcher’s shops. Plank roads ran in various directions, the wattle and daub buildings pressed close alongside, each with its small, wattle-fenced yard.
      The entire settlement was surrounded by an earthen wall with a palisade that topped it in various places. No one thought that those defensive works would keep anyone out for long, not if they made a determined attack and did so in force. Happily, no one had ever done so. The Irish,