An Encounter with the Northmen
A Tale of the Sea by Galant McCail
Sit right down, and I’ll tell you a story of adventure on the high seas. ‘Twas back several years ago, when I was sailing aboard the good ship Cassandra. We were roaming the seas, looking for Sessuar vessels to raid, when we saw three ships like none we had ever seen before come out of the north. They must have come from the top of the world, because in all my time at sea, I had never seen anything else like them. Their ships had only one giant, billowing sail on each mast, and the ships themselves were long and narrow. It seemed to me that they were built more for travel than for combat, but they were deceptively quick and maneuverable. We had no idea what to expect when we first sighted them.
Our convoy had three ships in it. The Cassandra, the ship I was serving on, was a four mast beauty. We had four ballistae up on her deck, with one secured to each mast. They say that her name came from an ancient sea spirit. Our Captain, Floyd McAndrews, was a very spiritual man, and he believed that if you paid enough tribute to the sea spirits, then they would watch over your ship. The Cassandra took a lot of damage while I was on board, but it never went to the bottom, so maybe there was something to the Captain’s beliefs.
Also in our fleet were the Bloody Jewel and the Deliverance. The Bloody Jewel was a small ship, with only two masts, but it was feisty, and had taken down many ships far bigger than it. In fact, the Sessuar had put out a reward offer on the Bloody Jewel because of all the damage it had done to their shipping. The Deliverance was feared like the Jewel, but that was about all they had in common. The Deliverance was a giant warship, with its deck lined with ballistae. Legends say that the Deliverance was enchanted with powerful nature magic upon its creation, hardening the wood of its hull and masts until they were nearly unbreakable. Because it is protected by magic that delivers it from harm, it was christened the Deliverance.
The enemy fleet was also composed of three ships. One of them, the Hrunting, was a massive ship with three masts, and its deck was lined with ballistae. It was probably about the same size as the Deliverance, and in its own way just as intimidating. All of the crew of the Hrunting were large, muscular warriors who wore thick furs, pointed helmets, and had thick beards. They looked like an odd cross between a barbarian and a dwarf. Stranger yet, the northern ships were powered by oars as well as the wind. Every northern warrior had an oar next to his seat. I guessed that the oars were to give them the ability to move when the wind was weak, but it later turned out that I was wrong. The oars were there to help them ram during battle. The other two ships in the northmen fleet were called the Sleipnir and the Ragnorak, and they looked much like smaller versions of the Hrunting, except with only one sail instead of three.
We were cruising west off the coast of northern Avalon when our lookout on board the Cassandra first spotted the northern vessels. The commander aboard the Deliverance put out the call to engage, and we lined up in battle formation, with the Cassandra covering the starboard side of the Deliverance, and the Bloody Jewel covering the port side. All hands were called to deck on board the Cassandra, and I took my place loading bolts onto one of the ballistae on the starboard bow.
As the two fleets neared each other, you could feel the sense of anticipation in the air. These northmen were totally new, and we had no idea what to expect from them. We on board the Cassandra encountered the Ragnorak first, and we got the jump on it. We fired our port side ballistae, and then watched in horror as all the bolts went sailing over the low-sitting Ragnorak. Much to our chagrin, the little ship returned fire and brought down our rear mast. The mast came down on top of one of our ballistae, and the ballista was out of action.
Meanwhile, off to our port side, the Deliverance sailed in towards the Hrunting. All seemed quiet as the two giant ships prepared to face off. The Deliverance got its bolts off first, and several of the bolts found home, doing serious damage to the northern ship. We weren’t even sure the Hrunting would remain afloat, so it came as a great surprise to us a few moments later when the Hrunting let loose with its remaining ballistae and took down the center mast on the Deliverance. The damage itself was fairly minor, but the morale damage to the crew of the Deliverance was tremendous. They truly had believed that their ship was invincible.
While that battle was raging, the Bloody Jewel moved in on the Sleipnir. It unleashed its ballista bolts in a furious salvo, and they all found home in the small northern ship. The Sleipnir went to the bottom of the sea almost as soon as it had been hit, and most of its crew went with it.
Back on board the Cassandra, we had our ballistae re-loaded and and we let loose another salvo at the Ragnorak, trying to aim lower this time so that we didn’t overshoot it again. Most of our bolts still went high, but one of them took down the Ragnorak’s one mast. We figured that was the end of the little ship, but their undeterred crew dropped their oars in the water and rammed their masthead right into our hull. The damage was fairly severe, and to add to our troubles, we started to see grappling hooks appear over the edge of the deck. We grabbed our weapons and prepared to repel the northern boarders.
The northerners were ferocious fighters, swinging their battle axes and claymores in wide arcs, and for a while it looked like they had the upper hand. However, our crew had some pretty skilled fighters as well, and our swords were much more effective once we got inside the range of their huge weapons. I personally flitted around the side of the battle, using the rigging to my advantage to move from place to place, and taking back shots wherever I could find them. Pretty soon, we managed to beat back the northerners, although we lost a lot of good men doing it. The remaining boarders fled back to their ship, just in time for us to finally sink it with a few well-placed ballista bolts.
Meanwhile, instead of trying to finish off the Hrunting, the crew of the Deliverance was frantically trying to repair their damaged mast. The Hrunting took advantage of the situation, and fired two bolts at the warship at point blank range. Perhaps the Deliverance really was magically protected, because somehow both bolts managed to miss.
Seeing an opportunity, the Bloody Jewel rammed the Hrunting. The hull of the northern ship splintered, and it joined its two companions in the unforgiving waters.
That night, we limped into port to get repairs and retrieve our resurrecting companions. We realized that we were lucky to make it out of that battle as unscathed as we did. A few crewmen, a few masts, and a few ballistae were trivial losses by comparison to how bad it could have been. I do not look forward to the day when I again encounter those ferocious northern warriors on the field of battle. I fear that next time the ending may be much worse.