Free Raven of the Waves by Michael Cadnum Page B

Trygg’s—Trygg, the man who could count the wrinkles on a whale.
    Landwaster came up slowly. Gunnar called out, asking what was wrong, and the answer came back, a voice in the wind, that nothing indeed was wrong, and why were Crane and Raven so far off course?
    It had taken them a day and a night to find them, said Egil from Landwaster , his voice tiny in the wind, but sharp too, hoarse with the cold.
    Men laughed and groaned. Even Torsten smiled, and it had been a long time since the berserker had shown happiness.
    â€œThank you for rescuing us!” called Opir.
    A shearwater played across the waves. It was a land bird that flew well over water, and usually alone. Njord showed Lidsmod how to read the horizon, what clouds were sea clouds, which might be land mist. Lidsmod could smell it. They all could.
    No one spoke. Every movement was tense, deliberate. The golden time, the day they had lived for during the long winter, might be taken from them by the immortals at this last moment.
    Njord squinted. “Almost a sad sight,” he said ironically. “I wish we could keep sailing to the edge of the world.”
    â€œNo gold at the edge of the earth,” said Opir. “Only giants to squash crazy helmsmen.” His voice was higher pitched than usual.
    Gorm smiled, panting openmouthed like a wolf.
    Eirik sang a song softly, mostly to himself. It was about a magic ring that made its wearer invisible. It was about a traveler who, while invisible, could steal gold from sleeping dragons.
    Gorm thought of gold and fire: let a Westland dweller or two try to stop me from gathering the treasures. Let them try, he thought. He looked forward to killing as much as he looked forward to gold.
    Lidsmod wished he could be more sure of what lay ahead. He was certain a strong spear king would challenge them, and that Opir would call out a joke or mime the king in an insulting way, or that Gorm would hurl a spear into the air and kill the king’s son or brother, and all the men of Raven would be slaughtered. Lidsmod hoped the sailing would continue for a while. He did not want to walk on unknown land just yet—foreign, dangerous soil.
    The land seemed to back up, recede, and melt away. Even with the sail up and full of the steady wind, the ship made hard progress.
    It always took a long time to reach just-sighted land, Lidsmod had heard. Perhaps it was a trick of the eye, or of the mind. But it seemed this coast was actually departing from them.
    Gunnar stepped back to the helm, where Njord and Lidsmod manned the steering oar. Gunnar had explained all winter that he had passing familiarity with this foreign coast from sealing expeditions; he knew it, but not well. “We’re more south than we wanted to be,” Gunnar said.
    â€œI remember this river,” said Njord, “from summer voyages in my youth. We never went ashore, or bothered sailing up such water.” No seafaring man took serious interest in river currents—dull, earth-colored waters.
    Gunnar had hoped to strike the shore a day’s sail north of here and work his way along it. That’s how men navigated, by roughly guessing at their destination and hitting deliberately wide of it so they could follow the current and the winds down. But it didn’t matter, Lidsmod believed. A river meant towns, and towns meant treasure.
    The men did an inventory of weapons. Only now were shields unstowed and displayed along the side of the ship. Some men preferred an ax to a spear. But of all the weapons, the swords were most prized. Each had a special history. Each sword was an heirloom and had a name and a legend.
    There were many famous swords on Raven . Torsten the berserker slipped Gramr —Fierce—from its sheath, and let it take the sun for a moment. Ulf held Langhvass —Long and Sharp—into the wind, admiring the steel that had belonged to generations of his father’s fathers, ever since a dwarf had forged it,