Talbot Mundy

“ Conops turned the arrow-engine, following the boat, and went through ostentatious pantomime of taking aim; but Olaf Sigurdsen jumped ashore and they poled the boat out again into the stream, driving the pole into the mud presently to serve as an anchor against the tide.
Then Sigurdsen came up over the bow and, battle-ax on hip, stood, realizing how he had deceived himself. Tros' wounded Britons sprawled along the deck below the bulwark, most of them with hardly strength enough to grin at him, some almost in the grip of death, all bleeding through blood-stiffened bandages. ”

“ Three jumped overboard and swam for it.
"Back to your arrow-engine, Orwic! Shoot the next man who leaves his bench! Row or Lud rot you! One! Two! One! Two! Easy, starboard. Port ahead. Now, all together, back her!"
He swung the bireme's stern toward the longship's kedge-warp, and sent Conops overside to bend another warp to it, making that fast to the bireme's stern. Then—down-stream now—he bullied them all to rowing until the kedge came up and the bireme swayed like a pendulum in mid-stream, mud boiling all around her.
"Watch those three Northmen, Orwic! Shoot if they try to cast off!" ”

“ One of the wounded Britons called to Tros, interpreting his words:
"He bids you fight him for the longship! Beat him, says he, and he surrenders to you—he and his men and his women. If he beats you, he takes the longship and you must help him sail it home! But if each should kill the other, then his men- and women-folk are at Caswallon's mercy! Those are his terms. You must fight him, Tros!"
But it irked Tros to be told he must do anything. He could have shot that Northman down, and though the wounded Britons would have mocked him for a coward, he was strong-willed ”

“ Then he studied the wounded, some of whom by using all their strength could hardly keep their heads above the bulwark; there was not one man among them fit for fighting; whoever could carry his weight had gone with Orwic to the battle in the woods.
"Men of Lunden," Tros said, for he knew they liked that better than if he had called them Britons, "we will burn both ships under us rather than let Northmen have them! But I think those Northmen have a bellyfull. Let your heads appear and reappear, as if there were a host of you crouching below the bulwark." ”

“ The wounded Britons cheered him when the armor fell on deck, for they despised a man who did not bare his naked breast to an assailant. Then, pulling off his shirt, Tros flexed his huge muscles so that the hairy skin moved in waves and the Britons cheered again, he keeping his eyes on Sigurdsen and speaking through the corner of his mouth to Conops:
"Now, no dog's work! Keep your knife to yourself! If you so much as lift a hand to help me I'll turn from the fighting to skewer you to the deck! You understand? ”

“ They paddled the boat toward the bireme, but Tros bade them halt when they were half a dozen boat's length distant. He had heard that Northmen were colossal liars, although he had only heard that from their enemies, the Britons. He knew they were plunderers by profession; he doubted it was in them to keep faith if they should learn that only wounded men were on the bireme and that the longship lay defenseless. He summoned Conops, posted him at the loaded arrow-engine. ”

“ His eyes were on the farther riverbank, where now a hundred of Caswallon's men were working like beavers to build the raft, and he was calculating just how long they would require to finish it and to pole it across the river. He decided they would never be able to move such a clumsy platform fast enough through the water to overtake the Northmen, although if the bireme and the longship were attacked they might arrive in time to save both, and if they were successful they would claim the longship as their lawful plunder. ”

“ They were Celts, hereditary gentlemen, much given to reflection and to arguing all sides of everything, deeply versed in chivalry and legend, and despising the notion of attacking one man in overwhelming numbers. ”

“ Tros watched the far bank, trying to imagine what he himself would do if he were a Northman hemmed in by determined enemies and cut off from his ship. Those Northmen doubtless had a leader wise in war, chosen to lead raids because of previous successes. ”

“ The tide slackened and began to change; the bireme made slow progress; it was a long time before Tros made out the mast of another longship between the trees ahead of him. But long before that he could hear and see trees falling, as the Britons felled them in the Northmen's path. Orwic kept up a running comment:
"That's a good joke! They have burned Borsten's village; his father was a Northman! They'll have thought to scare Caswallon and force terms from him. Threats only make him fight! ”