The dark man named Cormac looked about.
Two Pictish boats trailed the little ship he commanded. Six paced it on either side. They might have been an escort, save that the Picts were friend to none in the world but themselves. Cormac knew that an ancestor of his had been friend and fighting companion to the last great Pictish king, Bran Mak Morn, years ago. That meant nothing now, either to the squat swarthy men or to the current bearer of the name Cormac mac Art of Connacht in Eirrin.
Small were the Pictish boats, of well-scraped hide rubbed with butter so that they were as if faced with glass that sparkled in the sun flashing on the placid waters. In each were two Picts, armed with spear and knife-and oar. A few had bows and arrows. The two-man craft were light and swift-gliding. Full a hand’s breadth had the sun moved in the sky since the little flotilla had intersected the ship’s course. Nor did the barrel-chested rowers seem in the least winded, nor minded to abandon their odd, paralleling chase.
“Ah for a wind,” Cormac said with anger and longing, “a wind, that we might leave behind these apish scum from Time’s dawn who seek our very hearts!”
He glowered ferociously about at the ringing skinboats, de curucis or curraghs: caracks. All remained just outside the distance to which any sensible man would seek to speed a spear. And few used the bow, which was a hunting tool, rather than a weapon of war.
Cormac snapped, “A-port!”
The steersman responded at once. Swiftly his craft began to move away from the caracks on their right. Nearly as swiftly, the Pictish boats to port swung away, nimble little craft rowed by experts.
In his anger and desperation Cormac himself snatched up arrow and bow of yew and sent a shaft at that skinboat which seemed nearest. The Picts howled in derision; Cormac mac Art was an indifferent archer at best.
“What do we do?”
Cormac looked at the short, leather-capped warrior at his side. “Row,” he said, in a snarl. “Go on. And hope for wind!” He glanced half the length of the ship at the druid.