Chapter 3

'What agent?'

Inghen strode back down the ship and grabbed me. With a slash of her sword, she cut me free, then dragged me up to the prow.

'This Irish trickster!' she shouted back. 'Don't deny you sent him to hoodwink us!'

Hvirvil looked at his companions, then turned back.

'I would never sink to such underhand tricks!' he shouted.

'You deny knowledge of him? Then how did you learn of the island?'

'How did you learn of it?' Hvirvil shouted. 'From that man's lips!'

I went pale. What did he mean? I'd never seen him before! Now he'd really got me in trouble. Inghen gave me her slitted gaze again.

'I'd hoped,' she murmured, 'that Hvirvil would tell me that he'd discovered the location of the island from some other source. I'd been getting to like you, Irishman. But now...'

She flung me away from her, into a coil of ropes near by. I hit it with enough force to knock my breath from my body. Then she turned to her men, and shouted;

'Attack!'

They rose up from the benches, grabbing shields, axes and helmets, and swarmed towards the other boat, leaping across like monkeys, smashing into Hvirvil Einhandi's forces in a red swathe. Soon the deck of the Trollwife was deserted.

I staggered to the rail and gaped at the desperate engagement.

Once again, Inghen and Hvirvil battled at the centre of a ring of steel while their men fought and fell around them. Blood crusted the armour of both, their own and the others', and their mail had been half hacked away by savage strokes. Hvirvil seemed at a disadvantage, confined to his left hand, but soon I realised that the handicap was all Inghen's. Her shield was useless, since Hvirvil's attacks were all hammering at her right side, and early on she slung it away. Her only advantage was the relative weakness of her opponent's left arm. At one point, she managed to knock the sword out of Hvirvil's hand, but he dodged back, and tore an axe from the stiffening hand of one of his fallen crewmen.

Meanwhile, around them, Inghen's men were hacking down the battle-scarred warriors, and the tide of battle swirled relentlessly round Hvirvil's men, bringing many of them down. They were bone-weary after their battle with the Viking fleet, and their leader had been forcing them on, pressing them too hard. They were mighty warriors to a man, but even Danes and Norsemen tire eventually. Inghen's men slew them one after another, and blood rained down on the deck until it was awash with crimson. I watched with amazement as Gunnholm hacked his way through something like nine men, all of them cutting and stabbing at him, but to no avail. It seemed that there were no berserkers in Hvirvil's crew.

Finally, the few who were still on their feet found themselves forced into a position with their backs to the stern, while Inghen's men menaced them from the front and their leader battled the Red Daughter at the centre of the deck, surrounded by a ring of dead. But an unspoken truce seemed to arise between the two crews as they stopped to watch Inghen and Hvirvil fight their final battle.

The blades rang, and the two warriors gasped with effort as they staggered on through a red haze of bloodlust. Both were weary, both seemed ready to fall from sheer exhaustion as they hacked desperately at each other. But in the end, Hvirvil stumbled back over a fallen Viking, and Inghen had him at her mercy. She grabbed him round the throat like a tigress, and heaved him to his feet, placing her sword blade to his throat.

'Now,' she gasped. 'I want a few answers.'

Hvirvil shook his head tiredly. 'Just kill me,' he croaked in despair. 'Just kill me!'

She smiled evilly.

'Soon,' she promised in a light voice. 'I'll do that once you've satisfied my curiosity. Now, when did the Irishman betray us to you?'

Hvirvil looked dazedly up at her.

'Irishman?' he mumbled.

She shook him.

'Aye, fool! The traitor! When did he tell you about Innis Scathach?'

Hvirvil reached up to wipe the blood from his eyes. He shook his head again.

'We'd tracked you down to the tavern,' he mumbled. 'I was ready to just attack, but we overheard you and the Irishman. I'd got a similar story from a man on the west coast, you see. It was following his advice that I looted the Tomb of Manannan, on the Isle of Man... He said that the undead Fomorians could only be slain by the magic blade, the one that you stole from me. But we were uncertain as to the exact location of the island, so when we saw you there with the sword and the map, we knew we had almost come to the end of our quest. We attacked to try and get the map, but you escaped. Then I sent one of my ships to track you across the sea, and followed with my fleet at our leisure. We have a way of communicating with trained birds and rune-staves... It had never failed us in the past. That's how we managed to follow you.'

I sighed with relief. Perhaps the Red Daughter would trust me now. She was an honourable woman at heart, and would honour our original agreement, I told myself. Then I stopped short.

Now that she had got what she wanted out of Hvirvil, she smiled again, almost lustfully. Then she raised the Sword of Manannan high in the air, and brought it whistling down.

Hvirvil's severed head fell bloodily to the deck. Inghen turned to her crew, who were standing over the few survivors.

'Kill them,' she said mildly. Then she turned, and headed back to her ship.

We reached the shore of Innis Scathach about a quarter of an hour later. They hadn't bound me again, but I was keeping out of Inghen's way, and wanted as little as possible to do with any of them. I'd known that they were Vikings, sea-wolves, ruthless warriors, but their recent massacre of Hvirvil's men had turned my stomach. I wanted to get the business over and done with, and get away as quickly as possible.

Innis Scathach rose from the surrounding waters like a shield. Flat expanses of turf rose sedately towards the centre, where a large basaltic formation jutted upwards, towering over the surrounding land. No trees grew anywhere on the isle, and it was obvious why it had never been settled. A colony of sea-birds clustered around the low cliffs at the southern end of the island, but otherwise it was uninhabited.

'Where is the burial mound?' Inghen demanded, as she strode over to me. I looked up from the rail warily.

'I take it you no longer look on me as a traitor,' I probed.

Inghen shrugged grimly. But then her face broke open in a smile. She gazed softly down at me for a second, then looked away.

'That was a mistake,' she admitted. 'We know the truth of it now.'

I nodded quickly, grinning idiotically with relief.

'The burial mound?' she repeated gently.

Hurriedly, I slipped my recovered map out of my jerkin. I looked down at my father's notes.

'It would appear to be in the lee of that cliff in the centre of the island,' I said quietly. 'About half an hour's walk.'

'Right,' said Inghen, turning away. 'We'll just circle round the island, and find a place to tie up...'

'No!' I exclaimed.

She turned back.

'What?'

'I, er, it says here that the best harbour is this area in front of us. Next to the cliffs.'