Page 87 of Come the Morning

Below him, dozens of farmers’ cottages with fencing and barns and stables lay strewn over a wide area of land that was abutted by the rocky cliffs and naturally protected by them. Shallow waters stretched out, with huge outcroppings of rocks here and there, to the isle itself. Like here on the mainland, long stretches of sandy beach gave way to rich green grasses; then the rock seemed to rise to the sky, and the castle itself seemed to be part of the rock, and part of the sky, the high towers all but meeting the clouds.

Angus had ridden beside him.

“I told you, Waryk. It’s a place as beautiful as your bride. As wild, as well, perhaps. Sometimes, the sea rages, and beats against the rock. At low tide, a man can run across the water to reach the isle, and yet, to the protected southern side, there is no finer harbor.”

“No one is about,” Waryk heard suddenly, and he turned to see that Mellyora had ridden to join them at the precipice, and that she stared down the distance between them and the shoreline with distress.

He frowned. “Dusk is coming—”

“There is no one about!” she repeated.

Then Waryk saw the smoke, rising from the thatched roof of one of the cottages below. “Angus, alert the men, we’ve visitors,” he said calmly.

“Visitors,” she breathed. “I have men-at-arms—”

“Aye, lady, and they are atop your walls, yonder, see?”

Indeed, once alerted, they could all see that men lined the high parapets and towers of the castle. Small boats could be seen northward to the shoreline, and a man in simple mail, waving a staff, came from one of the cottages, dragging with him a youngwoman whose hysterical cries could suddenly be heard rising even unto the cliffs.

“My God!” Mellyora breathed. And before he could stop her, she was racing down the cliff toward the shore.

“Mellyora!” he cried, and charged after her. He was glad that no horse was faster or more adept than Mercury. His wife had drawn her sword as she charged down the cliff, and he swore, furious that his first action would have to be to subdue her when his newfound home was under attack. But he would not allow her to charge against an unknown enemy, and so he shouted to Angus to lead the attack while he brought Mercury galloping hard in front of Mellyora to cut her off, and when he had so succeeded, she stared at him as if he had gone mad. “Waryk, they are killing my people—”

“My people, my lady, and they will not kill you.”

“I can fight, you know that, I am a Viking’s daughter—”

“You were a Viking’s daughter. Now you’re my wife.”

She was frantic, he saw. All the worse. Fighting he had learned, despite his own successes as a passionate and desperate lad, was best done with a cool head. She pulled back on her horse, ready to race by him, and he swore, spurring Mercury on so that he could leap from his own mount and bring her down.

Tears stung her eyes now as he straddled her, tears of utter frustration. “Waryk—”

“Lady, you know I can best you, and you know that I can best whatever enemy strikes your doors. By God, will you leave me to it?”

“It’s my home, Waryk, we can both fight, we can both die—”

“You are to be the lady, the bearer of the heirs, and I the protector, madam, it is the way it is done.”

Her lashes covered her cheeks. “That is hardly the situation at this moment.”

“Then practice allowing me to be the one to lead the charge against our enemies!”

He rose, swiftly helping her to her feet, then leaving her there. She wasn’t helpless, she could swing a sword, and he knew it. That frightened him more than anything.

He leapt back on Mercury and stared down at her. She watched him with frustration still in her eyes. “My lady, allow me to die for you!” he said, and whirled his horse about. He saw that Jillian, on her gentle gray mare, had almost reached Mellyora, and so he dared spur Mercury onward. Clumps of mud and grass flew as he covered the distance to the shore, where he discovered his men engaged in pitched battle with a small, fierce army of attackers.

Boats—Viking longboats, so it seemed—had come ashore on the isle as well, and quickly assessing the situation, Waryk realized that the inhabitants of Blue Isle and the shore had been surprised by a whirlwind attack that had come strategically from the sea—the boats had crept dead close to the shore until the attackers could come in force and first overwhelm the inhabitants of the cottages, then turn to the business of the castle with its people demoralized by the slaughter of their land mates. Men hastily prepared counterattacks at the parapets of the great stone castle. The gates had been closed against the attackers, and he saw that no troops had left the walls to fight because opening the gates to allow warriors out would make the castle vulnerable to the attackers.

Many of the attackers were in mail. They carried shields and wielded axes, maces, swords, and more. The farmers on the shore were fighting back with nothing more than shafts and pikes, knives, and an occasional small sword. Men lay scattered about; women screamed. A baby sat in the midst of the melee, crying and muddied. An attacker bore down upon the infant, his mace raised to swing at the child’s head.

Waryk raced Mercury toward the scene, gripped with his thighs, swept up the babe, and turned just in time to avoid the mace. Angus, quick to fight in perfect unison with him, saw the action, and rode in where he had been, his blow against the man so ferocious that the would-be child murderer was nearly decapitated.

His men, trained warriors, had turned the tide of the attack at the cottages. The invaders were shouting to one another, turning toward their boats. Waryk saw the young woman who had been seized and torn from the smoking cottage; he passed the crying babe down to one of the women who had come from a burning home, and tore after the offender. He rode the fellow down; he and his captive fell into the dirt. His claymore drawn, and swinging the double-handed weapon with all his strength, he felled the Viking before he could be axed down himself. The young woman was screaming and shrieking; the dead Viking fell at her feet. Waryk drew her to her feet, and directed her back toward the village on the shore. “Go!” he commanded, and she turned and fled as told. He leapt back upon Mercury, turned his attention toward the men trying to escape now in their longboats. They had already shot away from the shore. They were experts in their boats, and pursuit would be futile.

He stared across at the castle, looked at the water, and judged the tide.

“Cross the water!” he cried, as he saw Angus riding to join him. “Divert the attackers so that the castle’s warriors can open the gates to join in the fighting!”