Summer Warrior

Read an Excerpt

The Village of Drimnin, Morvern, Argyll, late summer 1136 A.D.

SOMERLED SMELLED THE SMOKE before he reached the village.
      A small community nestled around a crescent bay on the western shore  of Morvern, everyone who lived in Drimnin was related either by blood  or marriage. The villagers made a good life raising cattle and reaping  the bounty of the sea. Somerled had passed this way only once, and then  he had approached from the Sound of Mull in his galley. He remembered  the villagers’ humble but generous hospitality.
     Today, he and  his men had traveled on foot along the coast, wending their way through  the pine woods in search of the Norse rumored to be raiding the shores  of Morvern, hoping to catch them before they could strike. His ships  were still too few to take them on the water.
     He stepped out of the trees, lush with ferns at their base, his hand on his sword hilt, prepared to fight.
     A ghastly sight met his eyes, sickening his stomach.
     Too late.
      Bodies were sprawled upon the grass between the shore and the woods,  struck down while trying to flee. Dreadful wounds revealed some had  fallen to axes.
     Acrid smoke rose from the cottages still  burning, the flames leaping from the dry thatched roofs. He could see no  longships pulled up on shore but the raiders could not have been long  gone.
     Aghast at what he saw, he was suddenly aware there were no  birds to be heard, save the hooded crows pecking at the blood-soaked  bodies. “See if any live,” he said to Domnall and started forward.
     “Aye,” said his cousin and swung his arm in silent command, pointing to the fallen. The men hastened to obey.
      Both old and young had been killed by the merciless Norse. Seeing  the women who had been violated, Somerled ground his teeth. Their tunics  had been ripped from their bruised bodies before they were killed.  “Cover them,” he said to one of his men. “Cover them all with whatever  you can.” The men closest to him hurried to accomplish the task.
      He walked through the village, assessing the carnage. The doors of the  burning cottages stood open. Goods, taken in haste, had been discarded  like so much rubbish. So, too, had the Norse raiders considered the  lives of the people. He knew they would see judgment in the next life  but Somerled wanted justice in this life. He did not hate the Norse. How  could he when his mother was one of them? But these were lesser men,  ruthless pirates, some ostracized from their own people to prey on  others.
     When his men returned with reports that none lived,  Somerled faced the woods and in Gaelic said in a gentle voice, “If you  live, come to us or make a sound. We will help you.”
     Two boys  staggered out of the woods, their fearful expressions and tear-stained  cheeks bearing witness to what they had seen. From the look of them,  they were brothers, close in age, both with dark brown hair and wide  eyes. To them, Somerled’s sun-gilded fair hair would mark him more Norse  than Gael.
     Kneeling before them, he said, “I am Somerled, a man  of Argyll, and these are my men. You will be safe with us.” When he saw  relief on their faces, he said, “We will return to bury the dead but  now we must go in haste to exact vengeance on those who did this. Do you  come with us?”
     The boys shared a glance and the older one  nodded. “We will come.” Somerled gave them into the care of a MacInnes  man who stepped forward and offered to raise the boys with his own  children. As they started to go, the older one said, “They took our  sister and another girl.” It was clear from the boy’s haunted eyes he  had an idea of the girls’ fate. Likely he had already witnessed the rape  of the village women, including his own mother.
     Somerled’s eyes narrowed as his heart hardened within his chest. “We will see them avenged.”
     A short way down the coast, one of Somerled’s men scouting ahead had spotted dragonships offshore.
      They approached the top of the rise and Somerled signaled his men to  stay low. A field of yellow wildflowers bloomed where he crouched  behind a boulder, observing the Norse longships. He counted five, three  just pulling up at the water’s edge, their sails doused, their  dragon-carved stems boding ill for the people who lived farther down the  coast. Counting shields, he saw they numbered nearly three hundred.
      The sea was calm, as if nature herself was unaware a massacre had  just taken place to the north. Somerled’s heart burned within him, a  furnace of rage. He wanted the waters to roar, to cry for vengeance on  the heathen dogs.
     Behind him were the forests in which he had  hunted. Gathered around him was his group of one hundred men, MacInneses  from Morvern, archers from Argyll and Irish mercenaries from Antrim,  who had heard of his plan to retake Argyll and joined the cause. They  were stout-hearted men yet still too few to take on so many Norsemen  clad in mail and conical helms and armed with swords, axes and spears.
      The Highlanders and Islesmen wore tunics of linen or wool over  tight-fitting trews or hosen, their tunics secured at their waists with a  belt. On their feet were soft leather boots. Around their shoulders,  some wore woolen cloaks. A few, like Somerled and his brother, also wore  leather armor. None wore mail. It was expensive and rare in these  parts. All carried weapons but not all had a steel sword at their waist.
     No matter the odds against them, Somerled wanted those ships and he wanted justice for the lives cut short at Drimnin.

Copyright © 2020 Regan Walker