The Angry Mermaid 102 or Y Morforwyn Dicllon 102

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The first ambush of the Viking invasion fleet proves moderately successful because the Vikings were anticipating the trebuchet. They were not expecting three trebuchets.

Here are the pertinent charts.

http://www.westernyachtclub.com/chartsbundle/CHARTS/1548.htm
http://www.westernyachtclub.com/chartsbundle/CHARTS/1549.htm
http://www.westernyachtclub.com/chartsbundle/CHARTS/1540.htm

Having managed to inflict modest damage to the invasion fleet. The defenders abandon and burn their static trebuchets while Drustina endeavours to transport her smaller mobile trebuchet along the southern shores of the Shannon estuary to assist King Dal O'Dalgliesh in the final defence of his city and castle at Limerick.

Askeaton Castle where Drustina's recovery of the abbey proved successful.

Thanks to Belfastcity for advice and historical information.

Askeaton Abbey.png
The abbey on the island at Askea.

Chart showing Askea..jpg

Chart showing Askeaton. (Askea)

Askeaton Castle.jpg

The Angry Mermaid 102
Or
Y Morforwyn Dicllon 102.

Drustina shivered in her blanket and pulled it tighter around her as the pre-dawn chill from the ground began to cool her bones. She stirred and reached out automatically to hug the warm bulk of her partner only to remember that he was encamped on the north shore with Heliox the Gaul. Then she remembered that Udris was camped on Foynes Island and she finally remembered that Dorvan’s carpenters assisted by some of his father’s men had volunteered to work all night making a third trebuchet. She reluctantly crawled from her makeshift bed and stared across the Shannon to both Foynes Island and the north shore. She was pleased to note that something resembling a trebuchet was tucked in amongst the trees and all but invisible from the river. Udris would simply fire over the treetops.

‘Udris has been wise,’ she told herself; ‘he would get off several shots before the Vikings would realise there was a third trebuchet firing upon them.’

Carl had obviously placed his weapon on the exposed promontory to get maximum effect and be plainly visible to all who sailed up the north side of the channel. Drustina had also done the same with her smaller, more portable war engine. However, the Vikings on seeing her trebuchet would soon realise that the mid channel was out of her range from the South shore and they would think, initially, that they were safe if they stayed in mid stream.

Drustina smiled as she watched Udris testing the third weapon and grinned even further when he spotted her and waved. Without any means of signalling accurately, he had his men swing the weapon around so that he could demonstrate its flexibility. His trebuchet could cover a wide ark encompassing the whole of the middle channel and the south channel that led to Foynes town. Drustina clenched her fists together over her head to demonstrate her satisfaction; the Vikings would have a dreadful gauntlet to run if they expected to make their way up-channel unhindered.

Finally, she had her own men practice limbering and un-limbering the small trebuchet and getting the team of horses used to hauling the mobile weapon up and down the beach road that led to Foynes. After a dozen or more practice runs, she had her men prepare as much of the road as possible all the way to Foynes and beyond. Her idea was to use her portable weapon to harry the Viking fleet in a progressively more effective manner as the channel became narrower and narrower until the estuary became the River Shannon proper some distance above the southern tributary River Maigue.

As her men were labouring away at the crude track that led from Poulnillin Point to Foynes town, Dorvan appeared with all his men at his back. By now he had some three hundred mounted horsemen and a hundred foot-soldiers. Drustina’s eyes widened appreciatively. The horsemen would be ideal for harrying and monitoring the Viking progress from the South shore while the extra hundred foot soldiers would be ideal to improve the road all the way to Askea.

“Why to Askea,” Dorvan asked.

“I’m told the road from there to Limerick is well paved.” Drustina replied.

Dorvan smiled.

“Did you not travel it when you met my father?”

“No, we sailed up if you remember.”

“Well then let me tell you, it’s a bit better than this track but it is not paved Lioness. Very few Hibernian roads are. We never had the Romans on our island.”

“Huh. More’s the pity.” Drustina sighed. “But I’m told the River Deel can be easily forded there and I’m hoping to haul this weapon along the South shore until we reach the narrow River Shannon above the River Maigue.”

“Huh, it’s a good job there has been no rain and the roads are dry. If it rains, the roads are turned to mud.”
Drustina grinned.

“You think I don’t know that? I come from Cambria Dorvan; we are as familiar with rain as you are. Now, once we have to evacuate this site, I’m hoping your men can escort me and the trebuchet to the River Maigue and we can relocate on the south bank.”

“And how will you cross the river Maigue?”

“Are there no bridges, it’s only a few miles from Limerick. I’m also hoping your father will have at least come down the river a part of the way, if only to see the situation. Can’t one of his older ships be sacrificed to ferry the weapon across?”
“Somebody will have to ride to Limerick and tell him.”

“That somebody had better be one of your more reliable lieutenants and he’d better go now.”

Drustina cursed silently, it seemed she had to think of every little detail herself. As she considered her options Dorvan wondered.

“Are you saying you are not going to face them?”

“No, they are too well armed and to well protected with their chain mail. Your horsemen are fast and have no armour so our best tactic is to harry them and ambush them all the way up to Limerick. We simply do not have the resources to face them blow for blow just yet. These butchers are fully prepared for war!”

“But we will have to face them eventually,” Dorvan persisted.

“Not until we have reduced their numbers ... and their ships. I hope to do that by a process of attrition. Come, while your men eat before the battle, I’ll explain.”

Dorvan was intrigued but remembered his father’s words. ‘Listen to the Lioness my son; she will teach you cunning and tactics.’
As they ate an oatmeal breakfast followed by bacon and beer, Drustina laid out her plan.

“It’s essentially simple Dorvan. Carl and Heliox will shadow and harass the Vikings on the north shore whilst possibly enticing a few of their fleet to pursue them into the islands of the Inishmore archipelago. Hopefully they might be able to goad them into running aground. Simultaneously the Hibernian horsemen will try to disable some of the ships if they do pursue Carl and Udris into that maze of waterways and islands. The mermaid ships should be able to escape via the shallow channels and by that time, we hope the main fleet will have passed above them on their way up-channel to Limerick.

For our part, Udris will take both our mermaids up-channel ahead of the Vikings and meet with your Dad’s ships just above the junction between the Shannon and the river Maigue. They plan to make a stand there and I am planning to get there overland before the Viking ships and set up the trebuchet to pound the Vikings as they collide with King Dal’s ships. You father has agreed to string his ships across the channel and when the Viking ships arrive, they will be confronted with a barrier of ships lashed together to form a chain of hulls right across the river. At that juncture, this portable trebuchet should be able to wreak havoc amongst the Vikings when they pile up against the barrier. By then Carl and Heliox should be behind them and we will have them boxed in to a small degree. Carl and Heliox won’t be able to face the Vikings head on but the longer we can delay them and keep them penned in, the more shots I can launch with my trebuchet.

If we can reduce the Viking ships by only five or ten, we can improve our chances of survival by a huge margin.”

“It sounds risky to me. Carl and Heliox will be exposed to great danger.”

“So will Udris and I when the Vikings realise we have a trebuchet on Rhinekirk point where the Maigue empties into the Shannon. If we can cross the Maigue as well as the Deel, we might be able to block the Viking ships effectively at the Muckinish point or above it where the river is really narrow and my trebuchet can cover the whole width of the river. Wherever I eventually set it up it’s going to take a lot of support from your cavalry. The trebuchet is quite heavy despite being small and it will take rotating teams of horses to pull it.”

“What you mean harness our horses to that contraption?”

“You have three hundred horses for God’s sake! I’ll only want about six teams of ten.”

Dorvan was forced to concede the logistics so he agreed. It had become blindingly obvious even to Dorvan that her tactic to engage the Vikings on the water was preferable to hand-to-hand fighting. The lightly armed Hibernians had to muster sufficient strength to face them on the field. Finally convinced of her plan, he nodded and even exceeded Drustina’s request to help prepare the road. Two hundred mounted warriors dismounted and joined the ‘road-builders’ by clearing any potential obstructions that lay on the road between Foynes and Askea. They worked with their horses beside them to be ready at a moment’s notice to fight wherever they were needed.

At noon Drustina’s signal horn sounded sonorously to warn of the Viking approach. Its deep mournful note reverberated between the hills and quickly alerted all of the defenders.

Several riders arrived to inform Drustina and Dorvan that there were twenty two ships approaching. Drustina hoped that the twenty third had been too damaged to continue the campaign. The Vikings appeared to the west and had spread out to avoid getting bunched. They had now realised that gathering the ships together offered a better target to the trebuchet that they had grown to respect the dreadful engine if not fear it. However, as the channel narrowed at Foynes Island they were forced to bunch together or approach Foynes Island in ‘dribs and drabs’ thus negating the effect of a singularly mighty killer blow.

Knowing the capacity and accuracy of her three trebuchets, Drustina would have chosen to bunch together and simply forced her way through whilst accepting the sacrifices and losses. By rowing hard, the Vikings would then have only been exposed to the combined salvoes for perhaps half an hour then they would have been through and clear.

The Viking commander however, was not party to the location or strength of Drustina’s defence and he chose instead to ‘test’ her fire power first. Seeing this, Drustina signalled to Udris to hold his fire while she and Carl struggled to hit the lonesome pair as they stuck to mid channel. One longship suffered minor damage to hull and oars while the other got through with just a few injuries to her crew. They arrived on the other side of the defence line mistakenly feeling confident and then waited for the next pair of ships to try.

Drustina smiled as she signalled to Udris to join the fray when they approached. Her ploy was successful. The second pair adjudged it safe to pass close to the north of Foynes Island only to be totally destroyed by Udris’s sudden intervention. They were so close that he chose to use much heavier boulders and a single hit smashed the keel of the first ship. It simply broke in half before their eyes and a huge cheer went up from the defenders on all the banks. The second ship immediately rowed furiously towards the north shore only to meet a similar but less spectacular fate as Carl’s trebuchet made its claim. The fourth longship slowly settled into the deep waters and Carl watched with little sympathy as men frantically shed their armour and chain mail in order to try and swim for freedom. Carls mounted warriors quickly captured them and brought them to Carl for inquisition.

Drustina’s Saxon husband had long ago learned the lesson of gathering intelligence and while he admired the Viking’s refusal to divulge obvious facts and figures, his clever questioning of each individual prisoner soon told him a lot. His only problem now was getting that information to Drustina and King Dal. For the time however, he still had more Viking ships to contend with as this time the Viking commander had learned his lesson. The remaining eighteen ships decided to attack in full number and smash their way through the defence line.

This tactic proved successful but it cost them a further three ships totally sunk and three more badly damaged. The Viking fleet ended up with thirteen fully functioning ships above Foynes and four damaged hulls that would only hamper the attack. As soon as the Vikings had passed above the trebuchet line Carl and Udris had set fire to the engines to prevent them falling into Viking hands. Then each man had mounted his horse and galloped away to make their pre-arranged escapes.

Udris’s men were partly local men from the settlement of Foynes. They well knew the shallow parts of the south channel where they had pre-prepared a long rope hawser to help them cross the channel and join Drustina on the south shore. She met them as her forces were towing the portable trebuchet as quickly as the wheels would allow along the road to Askea.

On the north shore, Carl’s forces had either ridden away to ford the river Clare or boarded the two mermaids that they had hidden in a creek. With local men offering abundant local knowledge Carl and Heliox set about harassing the four damaged longships by slipping in and out of the islands. By then the bulk of the Viking fleet had raced up the river to continue the main attack and the four damaged ships took it upon themselves to chase Carl’s two mermaids amidst the maze of islands that filled the estuary of the River Clare. Their shortage of oars and damaged hulls made them slow and Carl was soon able to outmanoeuvre them and entice them to within arrow range of his hidden horsemen on the banks of the River Clare. The falling tide and shallow banks soon caused the Viking ships to be trapped in a ‘pocket’ of water and they were summarily dealt with as they were unable to escape from the deep pocket because the banks were too shallow all around them. The trapped Vikings had to remove their armour and try and swim ashore or suffer the constant hail of arrows raining down from Carl’s horsemen. By mid afternoon, the four damaged ships were nullified and the Clare warriors had over a hundred prisoners.

This time Carl had not the time to gather intelligence and he left the prisoners to the tender mercies of the Clare, north-bank warriors who had suffered many times at the hands of brutal Viking raids. Carl and Udris set sail up the Shannon to determine just how far the remainder of the invasion fleet had travelled. He also needed to meet with Drustina and swap information.

~o00o~

On the Southbank Drustina had reached the River Deel at Askea and she was relieved to find that the bridge was still intact. However a Viking ship had seen the River Deel estuary and decided to investigate it. One of the Viking crewmembers with previous knowledge, believed a church to be located on an island in mid stream at the point where the tidal influences finished. By Coincidence Drustina and Dorvan arrived just as the Vikings were disembarking and anticipating some rich pickings in the church. One hundred armed Vikings were wading up the river and were almost within reach of the church when the first elements of Dorvan’s horsemen appeared from the Foynes road. The first inkling of trouble for Dorvan was the sudden stampede of frightened Askean villagers running to escape the Viking menace. He halted his troop and demanded to know the situation at the town. After learning of the Viking occupancy he galloped back to Drustina who was attending the towage of the trebuchet but half a mile behind.

“It’s bad news Lioness! The Vikings have the ford where the river divides.”

Drustina cursed and demanded numbers.

“The villagers think one longship must have diverted from the main attack and come looking for richer pickings in the abbey. It seems all these pirates are interested in is loot and treasure.”

“If it’s only one longship, then they can hardly exceed one hundred men. You have at least two hundred men mounted in addition to your men helping out here. So where is this longship now, I don’t see it at the quay below the abbey bridge?”

“After they landed the men, the ship retreated back out into the River Shannon. A skeleton crew waits with the ship now to return later.”

“Well that’s not my concern then. Capturing this damned church is.”

“It’s not that easy Lioness. The abbey is set on a rocky islet in the middle of the river. The bed of the river is very rocky and it would be dangerous if not impossible to charge at the abbey walls. The monks fortified it well.”

“So how did the Vikings manage to overwhelm it?”

“I don’t know, surprise I must suppose; maybe the monks were not expecting them.”

Drustina cursed, not because of the loss of the abbey for she had little time for religion and valuable trinkets. She cursed because the Vikings had become an obstruction, a hindrance that necessitated removal. Fortunately she had the very weapon to deal with the impedance, namely the portable trebuchet. Angrily she urged the men to double their efforts by attaching a second team to the trebuchet. For the whole of the journey she had walked with her men alongside the trebuchet as the horses towed it along the track but now, with certain trouble up ahead, she had to ride to the town of Askea and ascertain the problem. Leaving Udris to redouble the towing effort, she raced ahead with Dorvan to where his horsemen were fidgeting with frustration as their arrows bounced harmlessly of the abbey walls.

“We could lay siege to the abbey.” Dorvan suggested.

“We haven’t time, I want to be up at the river Maigue before nightfall. I can’t leave your father to face those ships alone, he just doesn’t have the resources. The trebuchet is vital to our plan.”

“Will the trebuchet be able to strike the abbey?” Dorvan asked.

“If we can get close enough, yes. We will need to use bigger boulders than we did at Foynes Island if we are to strike the curtain wall somewhere between the chapel and the great tower. Where’s the best place to cross the river on horseback?”

Dorvan motioned to a local man who turned out to be a local fish warden. He pointed out the salient hazards then indicated a path that ran diagonally across the river just above the Island.

“There’s a ridge of coarse sand between those two rocky ridges and the water is only a couple of feet deep! It is quiet at the moment, as you see.”

“But it’s right under the battlement by the tower. Anybody crossing there would be a sitting duck!” Dorvan protested and Drustina was forced to agree.

There had to be a better approach but she could see nothing that might enable her to bypass the fortified abbey that acted as a guard house to the ford. Drustina cursed as she racked her brains for a plan.

The villagers who had scattered were now returning as they realised that upwards of three hundred men plus the trebuchet crew were now facing the Vikings now trapped in the abbey. As Drustina studied the river and the island another villager joined the fish warden. He was the local miller. Tentatively he approached the strange woman who wore a battle jerkin, leather leggings and a sword on her back.

“If I might be so bold your ... your ... your uuuuhhm —“

Drustina turned a little irritably at first but quickly softened her expression as she realised the miller was trying to suggest something. She recognised his flour powdered apron and hat and realised the man would know something about the river because she had seen no wind-mills and that meant his mill was probably powered by water; water from the River Deel. She smiled briefly and softened her tone.

“Yes master miller, what have you to tell?”

The man relaxed as he realised she had recognised his business by the flour that covered his clothes. Being a miller made him a man of consequence in the town. He lost his uncertainty and explained.

“The river is low your maj- your ... do I call you majesty?”

“Never mind titles for now master miller, what is this about the river.

“The river is low your majesty because we are filling the mill-pond ready to commence milling the harvest tomorrow. As you know it’s the end of the summer and the corn is being gathered even as we speak. I have shut the millrace and the bypass control sluices above the falls. This obstructs most of the river flow and the water gets backed up to fill the mill-pond. The pond will soon be full.”

“So?”

“Well ... your majesty, if we can somehow entice the Vikings into the river again, I can reopen the bypass sluices and send a torrent of water down to the island. Any man in the river will be knocked off his feet and swept downstream.”

Drustina stared hard at the miller and bade him show her the mill-pond. Dorvan lent the miller a horse and the three went to inspect the mill race sluices. When she saw the arrangements for controlling the river level and the leat that led to the millrace, Drustina and Dorvan could see exactly what the miller was saying. She looked at the huge expanse of pond and smiled at Dorvan as she congratulated the miller.

“Well done master miller, your plan shows enormous promise. All we need to do now, is somehow persuade those robbing bastards to evacuate the abbey.”

The miller shrugged abjectly.

“I cannot help you there ma-am.”

“You’ve done enough master miller. Wait here by your sluices and when you see a green smoking signal arrow, open all the sluices you deem best. I’ll send a couple of men to help you.”

As they galloped back to the abbey Dorvan asked Drustina.

“So how do we persuade these thieves to leave their comfortable billet?”

“It won’t be comfortable for long my Prince; believe me. Set your men with fire arrows ready to send a hail of fire wherever the wall is breached by the trebuchet.”

Having at last devised a plausible plan she turned again to the fish warden to ask...

“When the river is in spate Mr Warden, where is the water wildest?”

“On that side my lady where the large rock serves to narrow the channel. Now, the river is almost dry because the Master Miller is charging the mill-pond. That little gorge for now seems but a trickle. When the river is in its winter floods that passage is a maelstrom of death.”

Drustina nodded and smiled at Dorvan as he caught her drift.

“I think I see your plan Lioness; we strike the curtain wall between the end of the chapel and the corbel turret. Then we send fire arrows to set fire to the abbey church inside.”

She grinned and nodded. Her grin widened when she heard the commotion announcing the arrival of her trebuchet. Eagerly she called to her commander.

“Set it their Udris then have the men set about finding stones slightly bigger than a man’s head.”

The plan was obvious to Udris and he soon had the men in teams scouring the land for suitable stones. After a few practice, ranging shots the work of demolishing the curtain wall began in earnest. Soon great lumps of masonry were being smashed out of the wall and the whole of Dorvan’s cavalry watched in sober silence. It was an awe inspiring experience to watch the wall steadily diminishing before their very eyes until they could see right into the courtyard and the timber buildings within. As soon as they had sufficient view of the innermost secrets of the abbey compound the barrage of fire arrows commenced. With three hundred fire arrows arriving every few seconds, it wasn’t long before every timber building inside the curtain walls was blazing furiously. Once again Drustina had cause to thank the long hot dry summer that facilitated the towing of the trebuchet along un-muddied roads and also ensured the wooden buildings and thatched roves inside the abbey compound were tinder dry. As the flames leapt furiously into the sky the Vikings within quickly discovered that their supposed fort had become a lethal fire trap. Eventually they were forced to evacuate.

As they formed a turtle to burst out through the breach in the wall, Drustina prepared the signal arrow. Amidst all the other arrows it did not appear significant then as the Vikings charged out to cross the river and dash down the rocky gorge. Drustina realised her plan had been doubly successful for it was obvious the Vikings were successfully using the rocky sides of the gorge to protect themselves from the arrows. However by then the green signal arrow had been fired high into the sky towards the miller and his sluices. Within a minute the river as thundering down towards the island and quickly filling the gorge with the predicted raging maelstrom.

Packed as they were in the confines of the gorge, many of them drowned where they stood in their armour. Few escaped and those that did, fought and died as they struggled to escape the water by climbing the banks right into the hands of Dorvan’s men. Eventually only one giant of a man stood screaming defiance at the cursed Celts who had so unexpectedly proven to be masters of war.

~~oo000oo~~

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Comments

Well... they've done well this day

But the Vikings still have a good number of ships and over a thousand men. The war is certainly not over.

Thanks for the chapter Bev!

Drustina predates Charlemaigne

Dru may predate Charlemaigne but she new his practice to utilize nature to defeat your enemies. (Think Henry Jones Sr in Search for the Holy Grail.) I'm guessing that Drustina lived in the fifth or sixth centuries AD. She predates Charlemaigne by about three centuries.

Another great chapter. Thanks, Bev.

Much Love,

Valerie R