The Invaders

  “Let’s hear what Hal has to say without interrupting all the—”

  “Who’s interrupting?” Stig said. Then, catching Thorn’s steely gaze, he subsided. “Oh… well, yes. I suppose I am.”

  “I suppose you are,” Thorn agreed. Stig shrugged several times, then made a rolling gesture with his hand.

  “Well, sorry. Carry on, Hal. I’ll try not to interrupt.”

  “That would be nice,” Hal said. He paused, to see if his friend had anything further to say. When he didn’t, Hal continued. “You see, water seeks its own level—”

  But Stig couldn’t help himself.

  “That’s what I’m saying! You cut a hole and it will seek its own level. It will come into the boat and sink it and we’ll all drown.” He paused and shook his head at Hal. “But your way of putting it is much more scientific.”

  “Stig,” said Thorn, “if you don’t shut up for five minutes, I’ll take you down to the beach and drown you right now. You won’t have to wait for the boat to sink.”

  Stig met Thorn’s eyes and saw a nasty glint there. He sensed that the old sea wolf wasn’t making an idle threat.

  “All right,” he said, with very bad grace. “I’ll shut up.”

  “If I could believe it—” Hal began. But Thorn cut in testily.

  “Don’t you start or I’ll drown the two of you! Get on with this crazy scheme of yours.”

  “Hah!” said Stig, feeling he was vindicated by Thorn’s words. Thorn swung a furious glance at him.

  “You’re trembling on the brink, boy. On the brink! Hal, go on.”

  “All right. Stig, you’re right, if I was just cutting a hole in the bottom of the boat, we would be in trouble.” He raised a hand to stop the words springing to Stig’s lips. “But I’m not doing that. I’m going to remove a section of plank next to the keel, and then I’m going to build a cofferdam around it.”

  Stig frowned. “A coffledam? What’s a coffledam?”

  “Cofferdam,” Hal corrected him. “It’s like a barrier against the water—a reinforced box structure around the gap in the planks, which extends up past the waterline. The water will come up into it as far as the waterline of the ship, then it’ll stop.”

  Stig frowned, not quite understanding. Thorn looked a little more convinced, but he wasn’t one hundred percent sure.

  “Why does the water stop?” Stig asked.

  “Because it’s reached its own level. It reaches the level of the water outside the hull and it doesn’t go any farther.”

  “Are you sure?” Thorn asked. It all sounded very theoretical. But in his experience, theories didn’t always work out in practice.

  “I’m sure,” Hal said, his entire manner positive. But they’d seen him be positive about things in the past and they both eyed him with some skepticism. He shrugged.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ve built a model to test it. I’ll show you tomorrow morning.”

  Thorn rose, groaning slightly as his knees creaked with the movement.

  “We’ll look in the morning then,” he agreed. “For now, let’s get to sleep.”

  The boys rose as well and he watched them balefully, seeing how easily they accomplished the movement.

  “One day your knees will creak,” he told them. Stig looked up at him and rolled his eyes.

  “If I don’t get drowned by my best friend in the meantime.”

  chapter twelve

  The model was a simple rectangular box, one and a half meters long, half a meter wide and open at the top.

  In the center of the bottom, Hal had cut a narrow rectangular hole. He had inserted another four-sided box into this, open at top and bottom, positioning it so that it rose up almost half as high as the larger box’s sides. Ingvar carried the wooden structure to the water’s edge. They had selected a sheltered rock pool for the experiment. At Hal’s gesture, Ingvar placed the large box into the water.

  Stig craned forward quickly, expecting to see water pouring up through the smaller box and flowing out into the larger one. He frowned in disappointment when he saw that nothing of the kind was happening. The large box floated serenely on the water’s surface. The water rose a centimeter or two inside the smaller box, then stopped.

  “The big box is drawing about two centimeters of water,” Hal told them. “And that’s as far as the water will come up through the smaller box. Load in some rocks, Ingvar.”

  There were plenty of large rocks on hand and Ingvar began loading them carefully into the box. It sank lower in the water as the extra weight was added, until the water had reached a mark Hal had made on the side.

  “Check it now,” he said.

  Thorn and Stig both waded forward in the knee-high water and peered into the narrow central box. The water had risen to a second mark Hal had made on the inside.

  “That mark corresponds to the mark on the outside of the hull,” Hal explained. “As the boat sinks lower, the water will rise inside—but only as far as it does on the outside.”

  “Fascinating,” Thorn said, shaking his head as he peered into the box. “I suppose it’s logical when you see it. But you knew this would happen, did you?”

  Hal hesitated, then decided truth was the best option.

  “I thought it might work like this but I couldn’t be sure.” He grinned at Stig. “After all, it does seem to be tempting fate to put a hole in the bottom of a boat. That’s why I thought I should test it.”

  “I didn’t think it’d work either,” Ingvar said. “But Hal seems to know about these things.”

  “Your faith in me is touching, Ingvar,” Hal said, and looked meaningfully at Stig.

  His friend shrugged, unabashed. “That’s because he never saw what happened to that cask on the kitchen wall,” he said. “But I have to admit you’re right this time. Now, tell me, what’s the point of doing this, clever as it may be?”

  “All right,” Hal said, suddenly all brisk and businesslike again. “Let’s assume we’re sailing, and the wind is coming from the side. We trim the sail in hard, and the boat tilts under the wind’s pressure, right?”

  Thorn and Stig nodded. Hal gestured to Ingvar and he pushed down on one side of the box, tilting it to represent a boat under sail.

  “Now, the harder we haul the sail in, the faster we go. But… the harder we haul in, the more the boat leans.”

  Ingvar pushed farther until the water was lapping the side of the box. A liter or two spilled into the box.

  “Eventually, we start taking water over the side, so we have to let the sail out. The boat comes more upright…” Ingvar allowed the box to resume a more upright position. “And we lose speed.”

  Hal looked at them for confirmation and they both nodded their understanding.

  “But, if we could keep the sail hauled in tight without having the boat lean so far, we’d get more speed.”

  As he spoke, he waded back to the edge of the rock pool and picked up a small plank that Ingvar had left there. He inserted the plank straight down into the narrow central box. It fitted snugly and he pushed it all the way down until the plank protruded below the bottom of the box.

  “Now as the wind tries to tilt the boat, there’s extra resistance from the board below the waterline. That extra resistance will stop the boat leaning so far. The end result is, we can keep the sail trimmed tighter and we’ll go faster.”

  “It’s like a big fin below the water,” Stig said. Initially skeptical, he had been won over by the demonstration. He looked up at his best friend, admiration in his eyes.

  “You’ve done it again,” he said. “First the sail, now this big, retractable fin. What do you think, Thorn?”

  “It certainly looks logical to me,” he said. “Sometimes when Wolfwind was leaning too far, Erak would make the crew sit on the windward rail to help keep it upright. This would have a similar effect. Just don’t make me watch when you cut a hole in the bottom of the Heron.”

  They began work on the modification that afternoon. Stig
supervised the rest of the crew as they emptied the ship of stores and the ballast rocks that lay below the deck. He grinned apologetically at Thorn.

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to find another place to sleep for a few nights,” he said.

  Thorn grunted. “I’ll pitch a tent under the trees. Anything to avoid bunking in with you lot. I can’t abide boy-smell.”

  Stig raised an eyebrow at that. “You’re not exactly a nosegay yourself, you know,” he said, but Thorn snorted derisively.

  “Here we go again… There’s nothing wrong with the way I smell,” he said. “I’ve got a mature smell, I have.”

  “So has cheese,” Stig told him.

  As Thorn couldn’t think of a crushing reply, he stalked off, leaving Stig grinning behind him.

  While the rest of the crew were emptying the ship, Hal took Ulf with him into the forest to select a suitable tree for the fin. They found a young fir tree with a trunk about fifty centimeters across. They cut it down, trimmed it, and set themselves to sawing off a section a meter and a half in length. When they had dragged that back to the camp, Hal would use his splitting wedges to progressively pare away the outer, curved edges, leaving a flat-sided rectangle of heartwood, fifteen centimeters thick. He would do the final trimming and shaping with an adze.

  By the time he and Ulf returned to the camp, dragging the heavy log behind them, the ship had been emptied. A rope was attached to the top of the mast. Ingvar and Wulf hauled on it while the others assisted by pushing to roll the hull over on its side, then propping it in that position, so that Hal had access to the bottom of the ship.

  Hal marked a section of plank alongside the keel and between two of the ship’s rib-like frames and, working quickly with his hand drill and saw, cut it out.

  “It’ll be a little off center,” he said. “But we can’t cut through the keel itself—it’s the backbone of the ship. Besides, this way I can fasten the inner box firmly to the keel to give it extra strength.”

  Thorn and Stig nodded wisely, as if they understood everything he was saying. Then he added extra nails to the cut ends of the plank, fastening them more securely to the two hull frames. The light had almost gone by the time he was finished and he rose from his crouched position and gestured for the props to be removed.

  “You can let her sit upright for now,” he said. “I’ll be working inside the hull for the next few days.”

  Gingerly, the crew loosened the rope and removed the props, allowing the Heron to roll upright once more. Hal dusted off his hands, satisfied with a good day’s work.

  “Now let’s see what Edvin has got ready for supper,” he said.

  Over the next few days, the rest of the crew returned to their combat training under Thorn’s direction, while Hal attended to the detail work of fitting the new fin. He split and shaped the fin itself, then constructed the waterproof box that it would slide up and down in. He assembled the box in place, fitting it into the hole he had cut and fastening it firmly to the keel on one side, and to the frames at its front and back. Its interior was lined with leather and sheepskin to hold the sliding fin tight, and to waterproof the box itself.

  Hal cast a critical eye over his dwindling supply of materials. When they had left Bearclaw Creek, he had taken all his tools, plus his supplies of timber, cordage, nails, canvas and iron from his workshop. Now he was running short.

  “I’m going to need to restock soon,” he muttered. He’d checked his maps and knew there was a trading port a day’s sail to the south. Once the weather moderated, they could take the Heron out to test the new fin, and he could pick up supplies. He was particularly short of the iron strips he needed to reinforce the points of the Mangler’s bolts and he needed to prepare a good supply of those. He’d already lost a third of his current supply during the practice sessions.

  He sighed. He could face that problem when the wind slackened, he thought.

  He straightened momentarily, easing the aching muscles in his back. Then he returned to his gluing and nailing, and caulking the new joins with scraps of oiled rope and wool. Finally, as the last light faded, he tapped one final piece of oiled wool caulking into place and sat back.

  “That should do it,” he said. “Tomorrow, we’ll see if it works.”

  Hal woke suddenly, later that night. He lay for a moment, wondering what had woken him, hearing the faint sounds of the other boys sleeping. Someone was snoring softly—probably Ingvar, he thought. Another of the boys was muttering incomprehensibly every so often. But it wasn’t these noises that had awoken him. He lifted the canvas flap at the entrance of the tent and looked out. The moon had set, so he knew it must be after midnight. Quietly, he rolled out of his blankets, pulled on his sheepskin vest and went outside.

  The wind had dropped.

  That was what had woken him. The wind, howling in from the southwest, had been a constant factor in their lives all the time they had been here in Shelter Bay. It tossed the treetops high on the headlands surrounding the bay, setting up a sound like surf on a beach.

  As he moved away from the tent, he realized that he could still hear the waves outside the bay, breaking on the protective headlands. It would take a while for the waves to dissipate, he knew, but the trees were still and, as he glanced up, he could see stars without the usual racing cloud wrack covering them. The sky was clear.

  “I think the worst of it is over.”

  Hal started at the sound. He turned to find Thorn a few meters behind him.

  “Why don’t you make a noise when you walk up behind someone?” he asked a little petulantly.

  “Just habit,” Thorn said, grinning. Then he looked up at the stars, brilliant in the blackness of the sky. “We could probably put to sea tomorrow,” he said. “I think the storm has blown itself out—at least for a few days.”

  Hal sniffed the air. He had no idea why. He’d seen older sailors do it, but he had no idea what they were smelling that would help them determine what the weather was going to do.

  “I think you may be right,” he said. He had no basis for knowing whether Thorn was right or not, except that he trusted the older man’s instincts. Thorn had spent many years at sea and he understood weather patterns. “I need some supplies. We’ll take Heron out tomorrow and head down the coast. I saw a town on the map, about a day’s sail to the south. Called Skegall.”

  Thorn nodded, then flapped his arms, slapping them against his body. He was wearing trousers and a woolen shirt, with no outer covering. Now that the cloud cover had gone, the temperature had dropped considerably.

  “It’s cold,” he muttered. “Couldn’t find my sheepskin vest. Have you seen it?”

  Hal hesitated. “When?” he asked.

  Thorn regarded him with an annoyed look. “When do you think? Today!”

  Hal shook his head. “No. I haven’t seen it today.” He looked away, avoiding Thorn’s eyes. Thorn shivered again.

  “Blasted nuisance. I’m freezing.”

  “Maybe you can buy a new one in Skegall,” Hal suggested, but Thorn snorted irritably.

  “I don’t want a new one. I like my old one.”

  “It was pretty beaten up and raggedy,” Hal said.

  “That’s why I like it. It suits me,” Thorn replied. Then, after a pause, he asked, “Why did you say it was old and raggedy?”

  “Well… it was. And it is. Wherever it’s gotten to. I’m going back to bed.”

  And he hurried back to his blankets, with Thorn watching suspiciously after him.

  chapter thirteen

  The Raven was at sea.

  South of Shelter Bay, the weather had cleared several days earlier and Zavac had put to sea immediately. The Raven was a bigger ship than the Heron, with a much larger crew to handle her, and to bail her out if necessary. So Zavac had no fears about her ability to handle the waves.

  And Zavac’s hunting instincts were aroused.

  After a lengthy storm like the one that had finally passed, he knew that traders would be eager
to get to sea as soon as possible. The first ships to reach trading ports in the weeks to come could demand a premium for their cargoes, since goods would be scarce due to the storm’s delays. Once more and more ships were at sea, however, the prices would come back to normal.

  That meant there would be lone ships on the ocean, laden with valuables and trade goods. Their captains would be after those initial high profits. They wouldn’t wait to travel in company with other ships—even though such a course might be safer—their speed would be restricted to that of the slowest ship in the fleet. And they would be competing with the other captains to sell their cargoes.

  Greed and an appetite for gold were wonderful motivators, Zavac thought. And he should know. They were what motivated him. He’d taken the Raven to sea the previous day, standing by the tiller until a few hours before dawn. Then, deciding that the weather held no unpleasant surprises in the near future, he’d turned in, leaving the helm to his second in command.

  He woke hours later, sensing movement in the ship as the rowing crew changed. He rolled out of his sleeping furs and sat upright. Unlike the Heron, the Raven had a decked-in section running the full length of the ship. Zavac had a small sleeping cabin at the stern, accessed by a sliding hatch close to the steering platform. The headroom was minimal—barely a meter and a half. But it was sheltered and dry and it gave him privacy when he wanted it.

  It also gave him an excellent place to store his personal treasures. He sat on the deck and pulled on his sealskin boots and a fur-trimmed leather jacket. His sword lay to one side in its scabbard and he picked it up, preparatory to going on deck. He half stood, crouching in the low headroom, then paused. There was a shelf to one side of the cabin, set on an upward angle to prevent its contents spilling out as the ship rolled. He reached toward it and stroked a chamois sack nestled on it, as he did every time he left the cabin. He felt the hard round shape inside the sack and smiled to himself.

  “Oh, Oberjarl Erak, wouldn’t you love to have this back?” he said softly. Then, still smiling, he slid back the hatch and clambered out onto the deck. Andras, his first mate, greeted him with a nod as he scanned the horizon.