They were running down to the boats, all of them. Not the sea-going boats, the Walrus and Seamew, but the dories, the rowboats. Hauling out boats Shef had never seen. And there were other boats, pulling into the harbor like demons, with the men of the fjords shouting. All shouting the same word. This time Shef caught it. Not the wind. “The grind! The grind!”
Shef and Cuthred stared at each other. Down below, at the harbor, Brand saw them slowly rubbing themselves dry. He made a trumpet of his hands, bellowed up to them.
“We are leaving your men behind. No room in the boats for idiots when the grind comes! You two follow if you want to see something.”
Then he was off, in a boat, balancing on the thwart with a great lance in his hand.
Cuthred pointed to the little two-oar boat he had commandeered, tied up ten feet away on the shore. Shef nodded, looked round for his narwhal-hilted sword, remembered that as usual he had left it by his bunk. No time to go for it now, he had the eating-knife strapped to his belt. Cuthred stowed sword and spiked shield as ever in the bottom boards, grabbed the oars, began to pull out into the long fjord that led to the open sea. As they rowed out Shef saw the English catapulteers standing by the machines that now guarded entrance to the harbor. They were shouting “What? What is it?”
Shef could only shrug helplessly as Cuthred rowed on.