Chapter 5

Eve, daughter of Patrick, allowed her man-slave Boroth to take over the deck operation of the raiding vessel because he seemed well-suited to the tasks of discipline and instilling good order. She took the opportunity to boost her naked blade skills with the newly joined sword mercenary from warmer climes. His name was Reynaldo and his only professed interest was in collecting gold coins. He was a deadly wielder of blades with either hand and he was wickedly skilled in dirty fighting of every category imaginable. She suspected that he had left the Southern regions because of his penchant for contracting assassination for hire.

Eve had offered her favor to the mature but still handsome man thinking he would be further tied to her in pursuit of her feminine attributes, but was met with cold response and an equally cold shoulder. It prompted her to think that he might be inclined in other directions but she noted he had taken up no friendship of a base kind with any of the young males on board the small ship. She hated to admit it was probably just his dedicated focus on earning riches that drove him to his risky actions. Eve planned to test her theory further after their first contact with the land people when she had some female slaves to serve as props to her desire to gauge his masculine prowess.

They sighted land on the eighth day and lay in close to the shoreline looking for likely places to conduct a raid. The first two inlets with any sign of civilization were notably silent and devoid of any sign of life either human or animal. Curiosity drove Eve to land a small party to investigate the second little coastline village and she discovered that whoever had lived there recently decided to head inland to get away from the raiding parties making life difficult so close to the sea.

The men were already grumbling because this was not a good start to the voyage at all. When they arrived at the third little village and found a similar situation, Eve decided to lead an expedition up the coastal river inland to see how far the inland centers were separated from the coastline and why they had all decided to move back from the fishing areas of the protected inlets.

She took only three of the crew with her and left Boroth in charge with strict instructions to not risk the ship or the crew by making a landing before her return. The men with her were happy to be on solid ground and she could tell they were all thirsting for action. The oldest one was the son of Hagar the archer. He unfortunately had no skill with the bow and relied mostly on his brute force and ability to throw sharp pointed daggers. She was annoyed with the way he frequently stared at her almost naked bottom whenever she bent to her tasks onboard the ship. Still, he was obedient and never questioned an order. The other two were brothers, Gunnar and Garth, son of Garth. They were not twins but looked almost identical right down to their bearded faces. They were good trackers and fast runners and she set them to flanking their movement inland to make sure they were not walking into an ambush.

It was obvious that the countryside in this region had a lot of recent rainfall because the ground was soft and mushy in the low spots. Her leather boots were stained with mud and she tried to avoid the hidden soggy holes that seemed to hide with cunning stealth.

The two of them paused by the side a small river swollen by the run-off from the hills straight ahead. The scouts came back in from opposite directions to report no contact at all and no fires or smoke sighted in any direction. She decided to make their way back to the ship because she felt a bit uncomfortable being so separated from the rest of the crew and the base of the raiding party.

A shout from Gunnar drew their attention and they crossed the shallow river to find him looking a wide trail of many footsteps in the soft terrain. It looked like a large band of humans had recently passed this spot and they were heading for the shoreline. Right away, Eve did not like the look of it. It looked suspiciously like a war party responding to a sighting of their ship anchored just off the beach.

"Mistress, we best be heading back to the ship to warn them of this band so they don't get caught off-guard."

They took up a fast pace that was almost a run to get to the ship before the response party. It looked like the group would outnumber the ship's crew by at least a two to one margin. The main thing she was worried about was that Boroth might have disregarded her instructions and let some of the men land on the beach making them more vulnerable to a surprise attack. She also was wary of the land people because they were likely to have a number of archers with them capable of reaching the closely moored ship with volleys of barbed arrows. It was a weakness that they tried to overcome by making their raid mostly at night when the use of bows was unlikely.

They came up over the rise near the white chalk cliff to find the trail of black smoke rising was coming actually from their ship where the cursed villagers had used fire arrows to set the deck ablaze. The crew was using sea-water to put out the fire and the men were rowing hard to move out of range. There was no breeze at the moment but she knew that would always change as they moved into the late afternoon and the winds would start coming in from the North as regular as clockwork.

At least half of the men with the response party were archers and they organized well into volleys taking a toll on the exposed crew until they made it out of range. Just as she had feared there were a half-dozen of the crew captured on the beach kneeling stark naked waiting for swift justice from the land people. They began to lop off their heads with little ceremony and no opportunity for the men to plead their case. Gunnar and the other two were incensed but they all knew they were outnumbered at least ten to one and there was not chance at all to even the score. That would have to come later when the land people least expected it.

They backed away from the scene and ran parallel to the shoreline in hot pursuit of the slowly moving ship as it tracked to the South along the coast. For some reason, the villagers seemed content with just taking the heads as proof of their victory over the dreaded Norsemen. She could see them drifting back inland to the safety of their newly established town far removed from the dangers from the sea.

Eve and the crew members broke out into the clear just in front of the fleeing ship and jumped up and down on the cliff to attract Boroth and the rest of the crew's attention. They were spotted and the ship drew in close to the shore making it a very short swim for them to reach the lines tossed over the side.