Somehow that seemingly magic shield was there again, the stranger turning partway aside-and then completely around, to crash his buckler against Bledyn’s with such force that he groaned and felt his shield-arm strike his mouth with a splitting of lip. Desperately he tried to chop. Upward whipping shield-edge struck his arm, his fingers flew open, and his ax went sailing.
At the same time the other man used his sword against the Briton for the first time. He drove it with jolting power into Bledyn’s belly, through leathern jerkin and blue-dyed tunic. A strong arm gave the imbedded blade a half-twist before whipping it free.
The tall slender man stepped back while the Briton, in his eyes a startled look, stretched his length on the sand.
“Ye were warned, Briton,” the man from the night said with a sigh. He half-bent to thrust his sword into the sand. “Unfortunately, killing is usually necessary, though one does try…”
With care, he returned his sand-cleaned blade to the sheath he had slung across his back. Bledyn made no reply, nor did he see aught, for all that his eyes were wide. His feet kicked the sand in spastic jerks.
First looking all about, straining his eyes against the moon-shot dark,. Bledyn’s slayer nodded; the Gwentish Briton had been alone. The tall man walked down the strand to water’s edge, behind the rock to which was bound the red-bearded captive. There he left his targe, and waded out through the tidewaters.
Coming around the huge rock rising up from the sea, he looked into the face of the outsized man bound there. The latter’s eyes widened.
“Cormac! Thunor singe my beard-it’s CORMAC!”
Cormac shook his head. “For shame, Wulfhere, leading total strangers to our island. Ah, Samaire’ll not be liking this, after it was you your self named this isle for her! And man, man, the vanity in ye… bathing your ugly self at this hour!”
Wulfhere Hausakliufr’s fiery beard twitched as the giant’s mouth writhed. He was able to curb hot rejoinder: “It’s shame upon me on both counts in truth, Wolf. But meseems to’ve got entangled… might ye be prevailed upon to lend a poor shame-filled son of Woden a sharp blade?”
Cormac showed his old comrade his dagger, a Saxon’s sax-knife the length of his forearm. “Why o’course, old friend. Where would he like it best: across the throat, or the belly, or straight into the heart?”
After a moment, Wulfhere made reply, “The heart were best; I’d prefer death to come all at once.”
“Aye.”
Unsmiling, Cormac, put up his left hand to the Dane’s massive chest, which even in naught but sodden tunic looked as if he wore one of those moulded cuirasses that gleamed on the high officers of the Romans.
“And whiles I be finding the exact spot-so as to be sure to miss it first time, old friend-suppose ye occupy your gross self with the telling me of how it is ye came here in company with Britons. When I last saw ye it was crew ye were going in quest of-and naturally methought they’d be Danes, sith ye could not afford the best-Eirrin’s sons. But… Britons! And to our island!”
“Cormac!” Hurt broidered Wulfhere’s tone.
Cormac lifted his brows. “This grows more difficult. Your nipples are already under water.” He glanced about, then up at the moon. “Well, ye probably have time for the telling of your tale, ere the tide silences ye.”
“Cormac! Ye… ye demand explanation of ME, battle brother?”
“Humour me.”
“Use your reason, man! Those Britons tethered me here to die as the tide came in. Now no great brain be needed to know we are not allies, they and I! Nor to know that the man ye’ve just come through had an ax, which is my weapon. Now if it’s Britonish blood ye’d be seeing and our booty ye’d prevent their taking, it’s much worse ye could do than to have with you a man in search of the same goal-vengeance sped!”
“A good argument,” Cormac said in the same flat, emotionless tone that was all Wulfhere had heard this night. “And unsullied by statements of old friendship and the like. But Wulfhere… how came ye here in their company?”
Wulfhere sighed. When Cormac the Wolf had a point to make or to hear, he was tenacious as the jaws of his namesake. Nevertheless, Wulfhere tried still again. “How know ye I did?”
“This water grows chill, Wulfhere. Saw you a ship of Eirrin a day or two agone, and it ringed about by Picts?”
“Aye-was you, then!”
“We were too far to recognize, but I know now who was the big fellow standing so close against the mast of the ship I saw.”
“Then ye know I was their prisoner,” Wulfhere said in his chesty rumbling voice, “and roped to that mast. That, Cormac who sore injures me with his doubts, is how I came here ‘in their company.’”
Cormac nodded. He said nothing.
Wulfhere waited, hopefully. Still the Gael spoke not, and the Dane realized that Cormac, too, was waiting. At last the huge man heaved a sigh and gave it up. Looking straight ahead into the darkness so as not to meet the other’s eyes, he told his tale in a swift-running string of words that were quietly spoken indeed.
“I left ye, with Ceann and Samaire, on Eirrin’s shore, nor will I ask aught of what befell ye after. As for me, Odin smiled. I had crew before I reached Dane-mark. Next we found an easy, ah, prey, and soon we were as happy as men can be, with a good ship and no wounds and the wherewithal to buy the best ale. That we did-unwisely, though, for one of my company told me this townlet of Britain, at the Demetian point, was open and there we’d be welcome. Too, he spake of a fine inn, and a great thirst was upon us. There we put in, and went to the ratty inn of that mud-heim, and whilst I wet my throat I let it be known I was alook for more seamen. None came forward, though there were friendly spirits there-”
“Meaning you bought the ale.”
“-and, to my eternal shame, a tavern-wench, an exotic Romish looking girl with shield-broad hips-and may she be accursed with lice, piles, and phlegmy throat all her days! I… she…”
“Ye got drunk with her and your lip flapped like a loose sail in the wind.”
The massive chest rose and fell in another great dolorous sigh that rippled the waters. “Aye, old comrade. When I awoke, my men were gone and I was captive. The wench had two brothers and she brought them fast enow, once I was asleep.”
“Blood of the gods,” Cormac said, his wondering tone not all feigned. “You, drunk unto sleep! Why ye must’ve drunk the land dry as far inland as Powys and Gwent!”
“The place was… well stocked,” Wulfhere admitted. “Naturally it was only denials I made, despite some small pain… I be missing a fingernail now. But these fellows had a ship, and plenty there were about who sought any sort of hope other than being pushed into the sea by the Saxons-ye know how goes it with the Britonish.”
“Ye denied what ye drunkenly blabbed to the wench, but they elected to come and look for themselves.”
“Ah, that brain-how I’ve missed ye and your wise counsel, Cormac!”
Cormac said nothing. Wulfhere, waiting, realized then that so was his fellow-pirate of old. He went on, dully.
“Aye, they decided to sail down here anyhow. With me bound to the mast, stiff and baking by day and shivering by night.”
Such things Wulfhere Skull-splitter was not wont to admit, Cormac knew; how anxious the giant was becoming, with the water approaching his collarbones!
“Were there no such isle they said, or no such castle upon it, they avowed it was back they’d take me, and mayhap even aid me in seeking out my crew and the ship they stole from me. An it were here, I’d die though, for having lied that it wasn’t. They, claim to set great store by the truth, these lying Britons!”
“It’s considerable regard for it I’ve always been having myself,” Cormac said musingly.
He ruminated. He believed most of the woeful story, and decided to press no further into the matter of a few points he believed not, and some few details he was sure had been left unmentioned. He knew Wulfhere. He understood.