At the Isle of Man they tarried a single night. At dawn the fleet raised its oars and sails, and for half a day they ploughed westward across the gray sea, until at last they came to a lonely stretch of Ireland's eastern coast.
There they beached the vessels in the surf. Ten of the great "turtle ships" were swiftly reassembled—deck-plates bolted down, timbers fitted, their strange shell-like roofs taking shape under the hands of sweating carpenters. When all stood ready, the armada rowed southward, hugging the coast. By the time they entered the wide bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, the enemy was waiting.
Upon the waves ahead mustered Sweyn's fleet: dark prows rocking upon the tide, shields gleaming like the scales of some monstrous sea-serpent.
The Order of Battle
According to the plan, Ivar took command of the turtle ships, for they were made for close work and brutal exchanges of missile and arrow. Rurik, for his part, commanded the five trebuchet-ships and a screen of fifteen ordinary longships—the great engines for distant bombardment, the escorts to keep swift enemy boats from slipping round the rear.
Rurik squinted into the wind. "So this is Sweyn's fleet? Then Ivar's report was wrong—there are far more than a thousand men aboard those ships."
Climbing the mast, Rurik gazed out from the dizzying height. He counted thirty-two vessels of ordinary make, longships and smaller craft, and beyond them three giants—over thirty meters long, six meters abeam, each great hull capable of carrying a hundred men with their oars. None of them, by present arts of shipwright, was fit for the deep sea, but for river and coast they were formidable enough.
The west wind struck his face, raw and salt-scented. It was a peril and an opportunity both.
"Row!" came the cry. The oars dipped in unison, the fleet moving slowly against wind and wave toward the river mouth. When the range was judged sufficient, Rurik pulled from his belt a small crimson pennant and waved it with all his strength.
Fire from the Sky
At once the five trebuchet-ships wheeled into a line abreast, turning their flanks toward the enemy. Crews bent to the ropes, hauling up the great counterweights. Into the slings they set clay jars heavy with oil and resin, each stoppered with a rag already aflame.
"Loose!"
Down crashed the weights, up swung the arms, and ten blazing jars hissed through the sky. Nine fell short or wide. But one struck true—shattering upon the deck of an ordinary longship alongside Sweyn's flagship.
In the blink of an eye fire ran like a wolf through dry grass. The tar-soaked timbers caught, sails and rigging shrivelled, and within moments the vessel was a roaring torch upon the water. Forty men flung themselves into the freezing sea; their captain and three huscarls, weighted down by iron mail, thrashed for a heartbeat and were gone. The others clung to oar-staves, crying for aid as the waves carried them off.
"Gods above," Sweyn muttered, eyes wide. "What devilry is this?"
He stared across the bay at the five strange craft, each bearing a black banner with a golden dragon. From one of his shield-bearers came a hushed report:
"Sire, I have heard tell of such weapons. Last year, when Ragnar laid siege to Northumbria's royal city, a so-called 'Chosen of the Gods' built machines that hurled fireballs. They named them 'trebuchets.'"
"Trebuchets…" Sweyn whispered. "Not witchcraft then, but the work of timber and iron."
He steadied himself, ready to explain, when another cry went up. A second volley arced overhead—ten dark specks tumbling. This time the jars fell scarcely ten meters astern of his own flagship, drenching the sea in burning oil. The blaze hissed and spread across the foam, and the men shrank from the sight.
The enemy's power was plain. Sweyn read it in the faces around him—their courage drained, their voices hushed with awe. To fight on risked ruin, yet to flee upriver against wind and current was near impossible. One collision in that narrow channel, and the whole fleet would founder in chaos.
To fight or to fly? He prayed in silence to Odin, to Freyr, to Njord the sea-lord, begging some sign. None came—only the shouts of men pointing toward the advancing turtle ships.
The Iron Tortoises
Out of the smoke they came: vast hulks with curved wooden roofs like the shells of beasts. At their head flew a gray banner marked with a wolf's head. Arrows rattled against them like rain, most glancing harmless from the planks.
Within, archers stood upon raised decks, loosing from above. They were sheltered, their enemies exposed. The exchange was slaughter. In less than five minutes eight longships were reduced to wrecks, their decks carpeted with the dead, the survivors crouching behind shattered shields, no thought of resistance left in them.
The tide of battle was turned beyond saving.
"Retreat!" Sweyn shouted at last. Desperation drove the oarsmen to bend their backs, forcing the ships upstream against current and gale. The channel became a choking mass of hulls, oars tangling, curses and cries filling the air.
"Cowards! Fools!" Sweyn raged. But seeing the turtle ships bearing down upon him, he made his choice.
"To the shallows! Beach them!"
One by one, his ships slewed toward the mudflats and shingle banks, running themselves aground. Better to hold Dyfflin behind walls than perish at sea.
Blockade at the River Mouth
When the smoke cleared, the Liffey's mouth was choked with wreckage and grounded hulls. Twenty ships lay jammed together, blocking the channel like driftwood.
Ivar cursed his fortune. He had meant to press the victory, to sweep straight up the river and storm Dyfflin before Sweyn could rally. Now the way was clogged. He had no choice but to halt.
Rurik's second line arrived, the ordinary longships towing grapnels. One by one they hauled aside the ruined vessels, clearing the channel. Only then could the fleet crawl forward once more.
The Black Pool
At last the Norsemen beheld their prize.
Dyfflin stood on the southern bank, its timber palisade rising five meters above the tide. Behind it lay a dark lake from which the place took its name—the "black pool."
Upon the ramparts Sweyn himself strode, clad in a black cloak, directing his men to man the battlements. Archers and crossbowmen crowded the palings, their faces pale but resolute. In the two hours he had gained, Sweyn had made his town ready for defense. Ivar's hope of a swift assault was gone.
"Cast fire upon them!" cried young Halfdan eagerly. "Roast Sweyn like a pig in his sty!"
Ivar turned on him with scorn. "And when the fire has done its work, what remains? A heap of ashes. Did I march all this way to win a ruin?"
Rurik joined them, shield-bearers at his side, his face grim. "A worse matter—our fire jars are spent. All of them."
Before the expedition they had scoured Derwent and Tynemouth for pitch, resin, and animal fat, managing to fashion one hundred and fifteen jars in all. Twelve volleys they had loosed; the store was empty. Hereafter the trebuchets could hurl only stones of ten kilograms weight—enough to smash a man, but little threat to walls or ships.
Ivar's expression soured, though pride still burned in his eyes. "No matter. We have won a sea-battle, and that is no small thing. We shall cut timber from those birch woods yonder and build great trebuchets for the walls. Though it take a month or more, Dyfflin will fall."
Rurik said nothing, gazing across the thirty-meter span of the Liffey to the black-cloaked figure upon the wall. His thoughts strayed eastward to Tynemouth, to Helgi waiting there. He had no wish for a siege that might drag into months. Somewhere in his mind, the beginnings of another plan took shape.