Free Casca 2: God of Death by Barry Sadler Page A

men assigned, for there were two watches. Each ship carried a complement of one hundred men. Those not now at the oars either stood on the foredeck looking forward toward the immense sea and thinking of the unknown destination toward which the ship was carrying them or looked back at the receding shore and the figures of their families and friends growing ever tinier. It was mostly the younger men who looked back, thinking of the security of homes left behind, momentarily knowing uneasiness and the quick taste of fear; but the fear soon passed as the greater excitement of the sea reached out to claim them.
    Casca stood with the steersman and watched his men as they strove to drive the hundred-and-twenty foot ship forward. The feel of the ocean breeze was clean and fresh in his face. The slapping of the oars set their rhythm against the slapping of the waves. Then they were clear and in the open sea. The entrance to the fjord was behind, and so was their past. Now for the future.
    On Casca's ship the ship master shouted: "Set sails!" and as if on cue, as if an echo, across the water from the other ship came the same cry: "Set sails!"
    The cloth filled with the wind, red and white stripes brave against the sky. The oars were banked and stowed away against a future need. The wind was with them and drove them forward toward their unknown destination somewhere out on the rim of the world. The sea was open, but a few ice floes were still drifting their uncaring way with the currents.
    On the third day they sighted and passed the Orkney Islands to the south of them. To the north was a small group of rocky land masses. Once clear of the Orkneys, they began to bear to the southwest, passing the fabled Isles of the Hebrides. Britain lay unseen in the distance, behind a bank of fog protecting the last of the Druids. Only in Britannia did the Druids hold supreme positions as they had for so many centuries on the mainland when the Celtic tribes had migrated and settled so much of Gaul and Germania.
    Onward, ever onward, the dragon ships sailed. Fishlines were always cast out, and brought a welcome respite from salted and pickled pork and beef. Those not on watch or with no duty to perform spent most of their time in the leather bags they had brought for sleeping. These were well-oiled with the renderings from seal and the long-toothed walrus. Water could only seep in at the fastenings. Every small detail had been accounted for, every possible problem anticipated. But what of the impossible problems? They would be sailing past the regions of known waters out into the unknown where all men knew that monsters slept in the deep and would attack even ships of their size and drag them into the murky depths. They had not prepared for monsters....
    Olaf at twenty, already over two hundred pounds of muscle, proved himself every bit as capable as his father in the handling of men. Several times in the early days of the voyage he had to prove himself to the others. His quick fists and thumping feet settled all arguments rapidly. Casca would allow no use of blades at sea, but he understood the youthful vigor and temper of men and how they must try each other, so he had no objection to this kind of combat. The process gave his men confidence in each other's capabilities, and what anger there might be in a fracas soon passed with the leagues. They all had a greater foe to contend with ... the ocean.
    Two weeks passed, the wind always carrying them farther and farther southwest. The ice was left behind, and they saw no sight of land, only the endless reaches of the sea.
    One by one the dominant Vikings began to make themselves known.
    Commanding the other dragon ship was Vlad the Dark. His constant companion was Holdbod the Berserker, a giant of a man with red, flowing mustaches reaching below his chin and a beard that Poseidon might have envied as it flowed with the sea wind. Holdbod had come to the Hold of Casca when forced to leave his own country