Blood Eye(115)

A spear splashed nearby and Floki yanked my hair and pointed to a low tooth of rock that broke through the water.





'Cynethryth, can you make that?' I asked, not knowing if I could get there myself. She nodded, her hair slick against her skull and the whites of her eyes gleaming.





'Let's hope Rán is asleep,' I gurgled. Cynethryth was helping me more than I was helping her, but the tiny island was getting closer. Slowly.





We hauled ourselves up through slippery kelp on to the rock and lay there exhausted as the surf beat and sucked at the island. I saw blood mixing with water on Cynethryth's legs and arms where barnacles had ripped her skin, then I looked back to the shore, a white jagged line of breaking surf. The beach itself was cloaked in darkness.





'At least they can't see us,' I said, taking Cynethryth's hand again. The Wessexmen's shouts carried to us across the water but got no louder, which meant they were staying put.





'If those swine row out here with bows we'll have to think of something else,' Floki said. He had left his helmet on the beach and now he was casually loosening his braids and squeezing water from his black hair whilst Cynethryth and I shivered in the dark.





'After what you did to them, Floki, they won't be too quick to follow us,' I said, hoping it was true.





'I was good, wasn't I?' he said with a boyish smile. It was the first time I had seen that smile.





'You made them piss in their breeches.' I slapped the wet mail at his shoulder. Cynethryth was shaking now. 'You're cold,' I said, putting a hand on her back. 'Can I?' She nodded and so I rubbed her back roughly and then her arms, trying to put some warmth back into her limbs.





'We need to get back to dry land,' Floki said, 'before sunrise.' He was right, because with the dawn the Wessexmen would see us and then they would come in boats. Besides which, it was quite likely that come high tide our little island would sink beneath the sea and we would be carried off or drowned.





So we gathered our strength. When we were ready we slid off the tooth of rock back into the cold sea. We half swam, half waded a little way towards the shore and then, keeping the sound of the breaking surf on our right, followed the silhouetted coastline until we had rounded a small bluff and could no longer hear the Wessexmen or see their torches. Then we dragged ourselves through the foam and on to the shingle and headed up the salt marsh to the higher ground where we hoped to find shelter.





'There?' Cynethryth asked, pointing to a dune covered with marram grass which reminded me of Penda's spiky hair.





'Good enough,' Floki said. We climbed the dune and found its most sheltered side where, with shivering hands, we dug a hollow. There was still a breeze but we were happy for it because it would dry out our clothes and there we waited in the dark, cold and wet and hungry and wretched, but alive.





'He's drying out, too,' Floki said, nodding at a cormorant a spear's length from our hiding place. The huge black bird sat watching us from amongst the marram and I had not even seen it. 'We'll stay here and get some sleep. Then we'll see what tomorrow brings.' Then Floki stood and drew his sword so that the sea air would dry it. 'I'll wake you in a few hours, Raven,' he said, stealing off.





'Where are you going?' I hissed, drawing my own sword and laying it in the grass beside me.





'I'm going to keep an eye on those English turds,' he said.





And on Sigurd's hoard, I thought.





When the sun rose I was still wet, for I had slept in my mail in case the English found us. Cynethryth lay with her head on my thigh and I was glad when she stirred awake, because the muscle in my leg felt as dead as a rock.





'Where's your friend?' she asked, sitting up and checking the scabs on her legs.





'I don't know,' I said, standing. Black Floki had not woken me for my watch in the night. I climbed to the top of the dune to look east towards the Wessexmen's camp. But another group of low mounds obscured the salt marsh beach and so I ran back down and grabbed my sword and Cynethryth's hand. 'Come on,' I said, pulling her across the dune.





There was no sign of the English. Their tents were still there but their horses were not. The dead were gone too. Serpent still lay at her mooring.





'Thank Óðin they didn't burn her,' I said, breathing deeply and drinking in the sight of Sigurd's dragon lolling on the calm sea.





'But that likely means they'll be back,' Cynethryth said. 'They will have gone back to Ealdred's hall to raise a levy.' She was right. The English knew two men could not handle a ship like Serpent and they would come with spears to finish us.





'Raven!' a voice called up to me. 'It's a beautiful morning, isn't it?' I looked down to see Floki dragging an iron-bound chest across the shingle towards Serpent. 'Are you going to help me or not?'