Chapter 10: Washed Ashore
Kenji’s world was a roaring, cold blackness until it wasn’t. He came back to himself with a mouth full of salt and sand, the thunder of waves still pounding in his skull. Ragnar’s immense weight was half on top of him, a lifeless shield against the suck of the retreating sea.
Warmth bloomed against Kenji’s cheek where it was pressed to Ragnar’s neck—not warmth, he realized with a jolt, but blood, shockingly hot as it diluted in the icy water. “No,” Kenji choked, scrambling out from under him. The giant lay on his side, a deep, ugly gash above his temple weeping a dark rivulet into the black sand.
Kenji ripped a strip from his own soaked tunic, hands shaking violently, and pressed it hard against the wound. “Stay with me, come on,” he pleaded, the words swallowed by the wind. Ragnar’s eyes fluttered open, glazed with pain, and his hand fumbled for Kenji’s wrist.
His fingers, slick with blood and seawater, traced two signs slowly into Kenji’s palm: Keep. Him. Safe. It wasn’t a question. Then the light in his eyes guttered, and his head rolled back.
“He’s over here!” a voice yelled. Torchlight, harsh and swaying, cut through the rain. Bjorn emerged from the gloom with three of his men, their faces grim masks of exhaustion. The captain’s eyes went from Kenji’s desperate hands on the bandage to Ragnar’s still form.
“Will he live?” Bjorn asked, his voice stripped raw.
“I don’t know,” Kenji said, the admission tearing out of him. Bjorn crouched, peeling back the sodden cloth to assess the damage, his jaw tight.
“You’ve done what you can,” Bjorn muttered, then signaled to his men. “Get him above the tide line. Gently.” As two warriors moved to lift Ragnar, Bjorn turned his gaze inland, to the dark, rising cliffs. “We need shelter, and a fire, now. And we need to not be seen.”
“Whose land is this?” one of the men asked, hefting his axe warily.
A humorless smile touched Bjorn’s lips. “Isis Greenleaf’s. Which means if we’re lucky, she’ll just rob us blind and laugh in my face.” He looked down at Kenji, still kneeling in the surf. “If we’re not, she’ll do all that after she skins us for wrecking on her beach. Get up. We move.”
We moved. The remaining crew, maybe ten men, scavenged the splintered wreck in the graying dawn, pulling forth waterlogged sacks of grain and a few dented blades. Bjorn watched them for only a moment before turning away.
“Eirik, you have the beach,” he ordered. “Save what you can carry.” The redheaded woman could arrive at any moment.
He signaled to two others to fashion a litter from broken spars and sailcloth for Ragnar. The giant’s breathing was a shallow, troubling rasp. Together, we left the pounding surf behind and climbed a narrow, slick path carved into the cliff face. The center of the island loomed above, wreathed in morning mist and the scent of pine and woodsmoke.
The settlement was a shock after the wild shore: a proper stockade encircling a dozen longhouses, with a central hall larger than the others. Activity buzzed even at this early hour. We were nearly to the great hall’s doors when they burst open.
A man and woman, thin and desperate, tumbled down the wooden steps into the mud. “Please!” the man wept, clutching at the ankles of the guards who followed. “One more week!”
Isis Greenleaf emerged from the shadowed doorway, her fiery curls like a splash of blood against the weathered timber. Her gaze, a cool green, swept over the scene without concern before landing on Bjorn. A smile touched her lips, but it held no warmth.
“The price is the price, Finn,” she said, her voice sultry and utterly devoid of mercy. She nodded to her men. “He works the shoreline hauling stone until the debt is cleared. She’ll find warmer work in the hall of pillows.” The woman wailed as they were dragged away in opposite directions.
Only then did Isis fully regard our battered party, her eyes lingering on Ragnar’s still form on the litter before finding Bjorn’s weary face. “Well,” she said, crossing her arms. “You always did know how to make an entrance, Ironside.”
“And you always had a flair for the dramatic welcome, Greenleaf,” Bjorn said, his eyes scanning the armed men on her porch. He didn’t wait for an invitation, striding past her into the hall’s smoky warmth, his crew shuffling behind with Ragnar. “We need your herb-witch for him, a dry spot for my men, and timber to fix my ship.”
Isis followed, her movements fluid as she circled the litter where Ragnar lay. “That’s a fetching list. What’s on mine?”
“We work,” Bjorn said, standing over his friend. “Your drainage ditches are flooding, I saw it on the climb. My men will dig them clean and shore them up. We’ll repair your western fence where the posts are rotten.” He met her gaze, unblinking. “And you have that smuggler, Olaf, holed up in the sea caves, yes? The one who’s been skimming your ale shipments. Consider him found.”
A slow smile spread across Isis’s face. “You always did listen at keyholes.” She leaned against a table, tracing a finger along the edge. “The witch, the shelter, the timber—and a barrel of decent iron nails. For that, you get the ditch work and the fence.”
“And Olaf?” Bjorn pressed.
“For Olaf, delivered alive so I can have a chat,” she said, her green eyes glinting, “you get coin. Enough to reprovision properly. And my shipwright’s eye on your hull.” She extended a hand, calloused and steady. “Do we have an understanding, Ironside?”
Bjorn looked at Ragnar’s pallid face, then at his weary men, and grasped her hand. “We do.”