Free Dubh-Linn: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 2) by James L. Nelson Page A

Thorgrim loved all his children, but he and Harald had been a-viking for nearly a year now, and that changed things. Thorgrim might have been indifferent about his own life, indifferent about the lives of all the men with whom he sailed, but he was not indifferent about Harald. He was not ready to leave Harald alone in the world. The boy was growing up. But he was not grown.
      It was that attitude, the need to help Harald to manhood, which led to Thorgrim’s sitting on the grass and enduring his son’s painful ministrations. Stitching wounds was a skill that every warrior needed to possess, and practice was not so easily come by, because no one was going to ask a man to stitch him up who was unpracticed in the art. So Thorgrim insisted that Harald get some practice on the two wounds he had earned in the fight. Harald agreed, but with no enthusiasm. Indeed, he showed more trepidation, his hands literally trembling, than Thorgrim had ever seen him display before battle.
      “All right…there.” Harald pulled out his knife and cut the bitter end of the sinew. “Done.”
      “Good job, son,” Thorgrim said, with all the enthusiasm he could muster. Thorgrim could have done a better job if he had done it himself, and it likely would have been less painful, but he was nonetheless proud of his boy, even if he could not bring himself to say more. It was just the evening, and the foul mood was setting in on him. He called it the black mood, and men knew to keep clear of him when he was wrapped up in it. It did not come every night, but often enough, and generally in the wake of fighting. It did not always lead to wolf dreams, but it did that often enough as well. In the black mood, Thorgrim was not just unfit company, he was dangerous company. The black mood had earned him the name of Night Wolf.
      Starri glanced over. “That’s quite a scar you’ll get from that, Thorgrim,” he observed. Starri was looking better than he had after the battle. Once he had composed himself, choked down his grief at being still alive, he and his fellows had gone down to the water and plunged in, washing the blood and madness from them. They had combed their hair and pulled on tunics and looked as much like normal humans as they ever could.
      A few of the berserkers had died, as Starri said, but most had not. Nordwall the Short had come away with a few vicious wounds, but nothing likely to end his life. The rest were in much the same condition. It was a wonder to Thorgrim how anyone could go into battle with such utter disregard for their lives and come out with no more than a few scratches. Perhaps that was the trick.
      Thorgrim pushed himself to a sitting position and then stood. The pain in his wound was excruciating and he feared he had ripped it open again, but looking down he could see that, inelegant as Harald’s work was, it was at least sound. Thorgrim grabbed up his tunic, which was crumpled on the grass, and pulled it over his head, the loose garment happily not requiring a great range of motion to slip on. Harald stood as well, unsure whether or not to help. He offered an arm, withdrew it.
      “Forgive me, Harald, I think I’ll walk a pace,” Thorgrim said. Harald nodded. The boy knew what he meant. As the sun plunged beyond the horizon, it would come that time of the evening when Thorgrim would not be fit company for men.
      Soon the leaders of the various longships would gather again to discuss what was to be done next. They had encountered far more armed men than they had anticipated, and now those men were entrenched in the ringfort that encircled Cloyne. Did the Vikings have men enough to take the fort? Was it worth the effort and the carnage? Or should they just take to their ships and fall on another, less prepared town? All crucial questions, and Thorgrim did not care the worth of a rat’s ass about any of it.
      He moved off across the field with the evening dark spreading over the hills, past the clumps