Vandrad the Viking | Page 7

such odds could hardly fail to prove in the long run,
they told more slowly in a sea-fight. Till the men who manned the
bulwarks were thinned, the sides were practically equal, and at first
many of the Orkney Vikings were perforce mere spectators.
Gradually, as the men in front were thinned, they poured in from the
other ships, fresh men always being pitted against tired, and keen
swords meeting hacked.
Liot laid his own ship alongside Estein's, Osmund attacked Thorkel's,
and the other vessels forced their bows forward wherever they saw an
opening. The Norwegians manned their bulwarks shield to shield, and
fought with the courage of despair. Twice Liot, backed by his boldest
men, tried by a headlong rush to force himself on board, and twice he

was beaten back. A third time he charged, and selecting a place where
the defenders seemed thinnest, struck down a couple of men with two
swinging blows of his axe, and sprang on to the deck. Three or four
men had already followed him, a cry of victory rose from the Orkney
Vikings, and for a moment the fate of the battle seemed decided, when
a huge stone hurtled through the air, and falling on Liot's shield forced
it down on his helmet and him to his knees. It was the work of Ulf,
captain of the forecastle; and roaring like a bull, the old Viking
followed his stone. Estein sprang from the poop and clove one man to
the shoulders. Another fell to Ulf's sword. The half- stunned Liot was
seized by one of his followers, and bundled back on board his ship; and
for the time the day was saved.
"After them! after them, Ulf!" shouted Estein, and twenty bold
Norwegians followed their leader in the wake of Liot's retreating
boarding party. Their foes gave way right and left, the gangways round
the sides were cleared, and, despite the threats of Liot, his men began to
spring from forecastle and quarter-deck into the ships behind.
"Forward, king's men! forward, men of Estein!" roared Ulf.
"Wait for me, Liot!" cried Estein, charging the poop with his red shield
before him." A bairn is after thee!"
Helgi, who had kept at his shoulder throughout, seized his arm.
"They are giving way on Thorkel's ship. Osmund is on board. If we
return not, the ship is cleared."
With a gesture of despair Estein turned.
"Back, men, back! Thorkel needs all his friends, I fear," he cried; and to
Helgi he said, "The day is lost. We can but sell our lives dearly now."
They came back too late. Already Thorkel's men were pouring on board
Estein's ship, with Osmund of the Hooknose at their heels. Thorkel
himself lay stark across the bulwarks, his face to his foes, and a great
spear-head standing out of his back.

It was now but a question of time. With a single ship, surrounded on all
sides, and weary with storm and battle, there could be only one fate for
Estein's diminished band. Nevertheless, they stood their ground as
stoutly and cheerfully as if the fray were just beginning. Finding that all
efforts to board were useless, the Orkney Vikings confined themselves
for some time to keeping up an incessant fire of darts and stones. One
by one the defenders dropped at their posts, and at last, when widening
gaps appeared in the line of shields, Liot and Osmund boarded together,
each from his own side.
"Back to the poop, Helgi!" Estein cried. "To the poop, men! we cannot
hold the gangways. One tired man cannot fight with five fresh."
Last of all his men, he stepped from the gangway that ran round the
low and open waist of the ship, up to the decked poop, his red shield
stuck with darts like a pincushion with pins.
In the forecastle, old Ulf still held his own, backed by some half-dozen
stout survivors out of all those who had gone into battle with him in the
morning.
"My hour is come at last, Thorolf," he said to the upland giant, who
seemed to be disengaging something from his coat of ring-mail. "I shall
have tales of a merry fight to tell to Odin tonight. But before I fall I
shall slay me one of those two Vikings. Wilt thou follow me, Thorolf,
to the gangways, and then to Valhalla?"
With a violent wrench the giant drew a spearhead from his side, and his
blood spurted over Ulf, as he swayed on his feet.
"I go before," he said, and fell on the deck with a clatter of steel.
"There died a brave man! Now, comrades, after him to Odin!"
And with that the forecastle captain sprang down on the gangway, and
knocking men off into the waist in his impetuous