Cormac glanced quickly toward the skalli. Anzace had vanished around the corner. Apparently he was making for the front entrance.
"Lead to the girl's chamber," growled Cormac. "It's a desperate chance but Rognor might cut her throat when he learns we've fled, before we could return and rescue her."
Hakon and his companion, emerging from the shadows, ran swiftly across the open starlit space which parted the forest from the skalli. The young Norseman led the way to a heavily barred window near the rear end of the long, rambling hall. Crouching there in the shadows of the building, he rapped cautiously on the bars, three times. Almost instantly Tarala's white face was framed dimly in the aperture.
"Hakon!" came the passionate whisper. "Oh, be careful! Old Eadna is in the room with me. She is asleep, but-"
"Stand back," whispered Hakon, raising his sword. "I'm going to hew these bars apart-"
"The clash of metal will wake every carle on the island," grunted Cormac. "We have a few minutes leeway while Anzace is telling his tale to Rognor. Let you not throw it away."
"But how else-?"
"Stand away," growled the Gael, gripping a bar in each hand and bracing his feet and knees against the wall. Hakon's eyes widened as he saw Cormac arch his back and throw every ounce of his incredible frame into the effort. The young Viking saw the great muscles writhe and ripple along the Gael's arms, shoulders and legs; the veins stood out on Cormac's temples, and then, before the astounded eyes of the watchers the bars bent and gave way, literally torn from their sockets. A dull, rending crash resulted, and in the room someone stirred with a startled exclamation.
"Quick, through the window!" snapped Cormac fiercely, galvanized back into dynamic action in spite of the terrific strain of his feat.
Tarala flung one limb over the shattered sill-then there sounded a low, fierce exclamation behind her and a quick rush. A pair of thick, clutching hands closed on the girl's shoulders-and then, twisting about, Tarala struck a heavy blow. The hands went limp and there was the sound of a falling body. In another instant the British girl was out of the window and in the arms of her lover.
"There!" she gasped breathlessly, half sobbing, throwing aside the heavy wine goblet with which she had knocked her guard senseless. "That pays old Eadna back for some of the spankings she gave me!"
"Haste!" rapped Cormac, urging the pair toward the forest. "The whole steading will be roused in a moment-"
Already lights were flaring and Rognor's bull voice was heard bellowing. In the shadows of the trees Cormac halted an instant.
"How long will it take you to reach your men in the hills and return here?"
"Return here?"
"Yes."
"Why-an hour and a half at the utmost."
"Good!" snapped the Gael. "Conceal your men on yonder side of the clearing and wait until you hear this signal-" And he cautiously made the sound of a night bird thrice repeated.
"Come to me-alone-when you hear that sound-and take care to avoid Rognor and his men as you come-"
"Why-he'll most certainly wait until morning before he begins searching the island."
Cormac laughed shortly. "Not if I know him. He'll be out with all his men combing the woods tonight. But we've wasted too much time-see, the steading is a-swarm with armed warriors. Get your Jutes back here as soon as you may. I'm for Wulfhere."
Cormac waited until the girl and her lover had vanished in the shadows, then he turned and ran fleetly and silently as the beast for which he was named. Where the average man would have floundered and blundered through the shadows, caroming into trees and tripping over bushes, Cormac sped lightly and easily, guided partly by his eyes, mainly by his unerring instinct. A lifetime in the forests and on the seas of the wild northern and eastern countries had given him the thews, wits and endurance of the fierce beasts that roamed there.
Behind him he heard shouts, clashing of arms and a bloodthirsty voice roaring threats and blasphemies. Evidently Rognor had discovered that both his birds had flown. These sounds grew fainter as he rapidly increased the distance between, and presently the Gael heard the low lapping of waves against the sand bars. As he approached the hiding-place of his allies, he slackened his pace and went more cautiously. His Danish friends lacked somewhat of his ability to see in the dark, and the Gael had no wish to stop an arrow intended for an enemy.
He halted and sounded the low pitched call of the wolf. Almost instantly came an answer, and he went forward with more assurance. Soon a vague huge figure rose in the shadows in front of him and a rough voice accosted him.
"Cormac-by Thor, we had about decided you failed to trick them-"
"They are slow witted fools," answered the Gael. "But I know not if my plan shall succeed. We are only some seventy to over three hundred."
"Seventy-why-?"
"We have some allies now-you know Hakon, Rognor's mate?"
"Aye."
"He has turned against his chief and now moves against him with fifteen Jutes-or will shortly. Come, Wulfhere, order out the warriors. We go to throw the dice of chance again. If we lose, we gain an honorable death; if we win, we gain a goodly long ship, and you-vengeance!"
"Vengeance!" murmured Wulfhere softly. His fierce eyes gleamed in the starlight and his huge hand locked like iron about the handle of his battle-axe. A red-bearded giant was the Dane, as tall as Cormac and more heavily built. He lacked something of the Gael's tigerish litheness but he made up for that in oak-and-iron massiveness. His horned helmet increased the barbaric wildness of his appearance.
"Out of your dens, wolves!" he called into the darkness behind him. "Out! No more skulking for Wulfhere's killers-we go to feed the ravens. Osric-Halfgar-Edric-Athelgard-Aslaf-out, wolves, the feast is ready!"
As if born from the night and the shadows of the brooding trees, the warriors silently took shape. There were few words spoken and the only sounds were the occasional rattle of a belt chain or the rasp of a swinging scabbard. Single file they trailed out behind their leaders, and Cormac, glancing back, saw only a sinuous line of great, vague forms, darker shadows amid the shadows, with a swaying of horns above. To his imaginative Celtic mind it seemed that he led a band of horned demons through the midnight forest.
At the crest of a small rise, Cormac halted so suddenly that Wulfhere, close behind, bumped into him. The Gael's steel fingers closed on the Viking's arm, halting his grumbled question. Ahead of them came a sudden murmer and a rattle of weapons, and now lights shone through the trees.
"Lie down!" hissed Cormac, and Wulfhere obeyed, growling the order back to the men behind. As one man, they prostrated themselves and lay silently. The noise grew louder swiftly, the tramp of many men. Presently into view came a motley horde of men, waving torches as they scanned all sides of the sullen forest, whose menacing darkness the torches but accentuated. They were following a dim trail which cut across Cormac's line of march. In front of them strode Rognor, his face black with passion, his eyes terrible. He gnawed his beard as he strode, and his great sword trembled in his hand. Close behind him came his picked swordsmen in a compact, immobile-faced clump, and behind them the rest of the carles strung out in a straggling horde.
At the sight of his enemy Wulfhere shivered as with a chill. Under Cormac's restraining hand the great thews of his arm swelled and knotted into ridges of iron.
"A flight of arrows, Cormac," he urged in a passionate whisper, his voice heavy with hate. "Let's loose a rain of shafts into them and then lash in with the blades-"
"No, not now!" hissed the Gael. "There are nearly three hundred men with Rognor. He is playing into our hands and we must not lose the chance the gods have given us! Lie still and let them pass!"
Not a sound betrayed the presence of the fifty-odd Danes as they lay like the shadow of Doom above the slope. The Norsemen passed at right angles and vanished in the forest beyond without having seen or heard anything of the men whose fierce eyes watched them. Cormac nodded grimly. He had been right when he assumed that Rognor would not wait for the dawn before combing the island for his captive and her abductor. Here in this forest, where fifty-odd men could escape the eyes of the searchers, Rognor could scarcely have hoped to find the fugitives.