Embers

by Helen Kirkman

  "I think the Lord Maol would like to hear his daughter's offer," said Goadel.

  Brand quietened his own men with a gesture, hoping the prisoner on the ground would have enough sense to keep silent this time, because there was nothing that could be done. Yet

  He could see the small deadly glimmer of the knife held above the prisoner. So could Alina. Her face was chalk-white, her eyes twin wells of the pain he had never wanted to see in them again. He kept near her in his restless pacing, knowing what she would feel driven to say. Knowing that with those words, the choices, precious few at best would narrow down into one.

  "I will go with you instead," said Alina to the brother of the man she had been betrothed to. "It is what you wished, if you remember. Would that not be a more…agreeable solution?"

  Goadel's laughter made her hands clench. But she did not back down. Just stared at him.

  "Do you believe I am still so much enamoured of your charms?" Goadel's gaze lingered on her with the kind of look that must cut straight through one with her fears. Brand's hand tightened on the sword hilt. But the ice stopped him. It was deadly, as deadly as what lay beneath.

  Goadel spat.

  "Wait—" It was the infernal prisoner's voice, wire thin, but everyone heard it. Behind him Brand heard Cunan surge to his feet.

  He knew what would be said. It was both suicidal and held more selflessness than he had thought Maol capable of. The pinned body twisted, the mouth formed the words that would damn Alina. "She is not as you think. She is—"

  "Worth less as a hostage than Maol would be." He yelled it. Before the words a bastard, true or not, could hit the air. Because if Goadel thought his dead brother Hun had been offered tainted goods he would kill Maol outright. The man should have calculated that. He stepped straight in front of Alina.

  "But that is hardly going to matter to you, is it, Goadel, because I will not let either of the Picts go. And besides," he said, not even looking at the knife suspended over Maol, not even looking at Alina. "There is something else that you want more, is there not? Vengeance."

  The word obliterated every other thought shifting through Goadel's eyes, as he had known it would. He saw all the thwarted fury that must twist through the blackness of that greedy soul begin to burn.

  He stopped, close enough, taunting, the sword held with deceptive looseness in his hand.

  "Would you like to know what I did to your brother Hun before I killed him? Would you like to know what he said? How I could force him to plead like a frightened child? How I could make him crawl and beg for mercy I would not give? Go on begging—"

  The black fury ignited. The only recognizable word in the stream of abuse was liar, which was unfortunately true because Hun's death had been instant, a matter of defence as much as vengeance. But at least he had driven Goadel beyond reason. He swung the sword.

  "No..." It was Alina's voice. The shocking desperation in it made him break the self-imposed rule and look at her. Turn his head. The change in the air warned him more than Duda's immediate shout. He twisted, forgetting about the pain in his side. Goadel's blade missed. He jumped back through the blackening mist, avoided the slashing backhand follow-through aimed at the knee by instinct.

  He swatted his sword, flat-bladed, at Goadel as his body came back round in one fiercely balanced arc.

  The blade missed Goadel's face by inches, striking his shoulder, deflected by the mail, slashing sparks. But it was not a blow meant to maim. It was an insult. Goadel screamed under the weight of the men holding him back.

  Brand stood still while everyone got over the shock and rearranged themselves. His gaze sought Alina.

  She was still struggling against Duda, who was trying to hold her back without using too much of the kind of weasel strength that killed people. She looked almost as wild as she had with Eadric.

  Could she not understand what he was doing? That he was not going to abandon her or her father?

  His own men closed round him as Goadel screamed a string of curses that ended in the words he wanted to hear.

  "I will kill you."

  "Then try it." His voice overrode everything. He flung off Eadric's restraining hand, striding forward into the clear space between the opposing sides. So that all could see him. So that all could hear.

  "Do you listen, Goadel? My life or yours. The winner walks free. With whatever he wants to take with him, Pict or Northumbrian, man or woman, Cenred's retainers or yours. Those are the terms. My word."

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The men yelled, on both sides, because it was the only way out without starting an indiscriminate bloodbath. They pressed back, clearing the space for the fight Somewhere beside him, Eadric was holding his shield strap. The blackness in front of his eyes held for a moment, with a sensation of numbing cold, the way it had happened after the arrow attack.

  But this time he recognized it

  It was like drowning.

  He forced the memory back. Controlled it Controlled everything. He did not look at Alina, but turned his face towards the sun, so that the bright light almost blinded him. The blackness faded like mist and he moved his shoulders, his back, forcing life into muscles tightening inexorably from the last fight. The weight of the chain mail dragged at aching flesh.

  He glanced across at Goadel being manhandled into some semblance of order by his companions. Goadel's eyes held death. It was in the air, like a dancing shadow.

  He forced his concentration back to what had to be done. He did not want to think of fate pricking the hairs at the nape of his neck.

  Duda, you ham-fisted lackwit, look at me.

  He saw the shaggy head turn, as though in response to the unspoken thought. One glance told him that Alina, standing next to Duda, was totally still. He turned his gaze away from her. He could not look on so much as the dark fall of her half-hidden hair.

  He glanced at Duda. Duda shuffled his feet.

  Just explain it to her, you fool. Tell her that whatever the outcome of this, even if I die, her father's men will not let Goadel take her. They will not be bound by my word.

  He could see Duda bend his head to speak softly. He knew that Alina watched him across the space that separated them from each other. He could sense her nearness, the tightly held stillness of her. He could sense her grief.

  The madness he felt for her made him look at her eyes, as though he could convey across a distance of ten paces the power of the living pledge in his heart. Her night-deep gaze held his and then he could feel it slipping away.

  Duda spoke to her, shaking her arm. She looked at her father, at Cunan.

  It was not ten paces of Northumbrian soil that separated him from her. It was a whole country. It was grief and loss and blood and the inescapable ties of other loyalties and other cares.

  Insuperable.

  He had known that.

  He took the shield off Eadric. Light spiralled off the painted sun wheel in Cenred's white and red colours. He set his hand to the well-worn iron grip, adjusted the leather strap. The weight of the shield settled over his forearm, the linden-wood panels strengthened with curving iron bands, the rim bound with hardened leather fastened with iron nails. Familiar as a second skin.

  The sword was eager in his hand. Sunlight reflected off the rune-blade a thousand times more brightly than from the shield. The blade moved in his grip, as though its will merged with his. That was how it always began.

  The dangerous exhilaration of the battle rush took his body, obliterating the pain. For now. But the pain was still there. It would break through the consuming fires later, and if it did, that would be Goadel's opportunity.

  It was an opportunity that should not be granted.

  This moment would be stronger. His blood surged. The power of that was something that should be controlled, always, for the future's sake. But not this time.

  His future did not exist.

  Only Alina's.

  He let the wildness that was both his strength and his bane take h
is mind.

  "He cannot mean to do it. He cannot. We have to stop him."

  Alina's feet paced the green earth, flattening grass, moss, the last of summer's flowers. The small circles of her steps dizzied her.

  "If you know how anyone can stop Brand from what he wants to do, I would be interested to learn," said Duda. Then, and more urgently, "If you are going to swoon, save it for later. You do not have time now."

  Duda's voice seemed to come from a vast distance, even though he was standing next to her. She felt something catch her arm. The feral stiffness of her fingers fastened on what might have been a bony wrist under all the coverings.

  "I am not… I will not…" But she could not even get the word swoon out of the dryness of her mouth. Because if she said that, she might do it. Right there and then while there was not time.

  "What have I been telling you about what will happen, eh? Repeat it to me. Wench!" The English word, offensive to her rank, scarce penetrated. Duda's claw-like hands shook at her arm. "Unless, of course, you want to make what he is doing worthless."

  That got through. She blinked her eyes against the otherworldly tinge to the sunlight. The light was so fierce she did not understand how it could be so cold. She tried to shake off the grip of that coldness, to concentrate.

  "What did I say?" demanded the creature attached to her arm.

  "That whoever—" whoever is killed "—whichever way it goes, there will be confusion at the end, and that is when—"

  Brand moved. Light caught a thousand woven silver rings, then shattered under his power. She had never imagined so much ferocity. Goadel staggered back. There was blood.

  An inarticulate sound from Duda drew her attention. What she could see of his face was without colour.

  "You cannot swoon," she snarled. "You have not got time." But her hand slid under the grubby rags where his arm might be. "It is all right. He hit Goadel. Duda?"

  There was the sickening sound of rending wood. She looked back. Goadel's shield. Brand's weight behind it. Goadel staggered. Almost fell. Twisted aside. Caught his balance. The next blow almost cut through to his neck.

  "Duda?"

  She could not turn her head.

  She heard curses, then, "Tell me the rest of your instructions." As though she were some bondswoman.

  "As it finishes—" She watched Goadel's massive frame collect itself, drive forward suddenly with the strength of thick muscle and the unslaked thirst for vengeance. With all the malice that had left her father bound to the torture of the knife.

  "Well," snapped Duda.

  "The Picts." Your people, Duda had called them. Her people. Her gaze took in the contorted figure bound at bleeding wrist and ankle with rope, then

  ' across the clearing, the helpless fury in Cunan's face.

  "My people," she said, "will free my father and—"

  Goadel lunged. Brand caught the return blow on the brightly coloured shield. The edge held. He twisted as Goadel had done before, regaining balance. But slower, surely? No, it had been imagination. The shield edge caught Goadel's arm, nearly sending the sword spinning. Goadel leaped back as Brand's blade slashed at his legs.

  "My father's men will protect me." She watched the moving bright-gold fall of Brand's hair, the sparking light as fire-tempered steel met its equal match. "And after that—" She watched his body twist away from the blow as before, a fierce, subtly woven glitter of silver and gold. After that… nothing. Because I will not be able to leave you. "After that—" She was suddenly aware of the effort in that lightning-fast movement, as though she felt it.

  "Duda, what—"

  Brand was back on the attack but as he twisted a second time, Goadel's sword hit. It was so quick, she did not at first know what her eyes had seen. She would have thought sight deceived her because it made not the slightest difference to the driving attack of Brand's body.

  But she could see the blood blossoming just above the braided sleeve edge.

  "Duda…" It was not really a sound because the word could not escape the tightness of her breath, the sick dizziness that would kill her. She could hear Duda's curses. There was not the slightest alteration in Brand's movement.

  "All the saints," said Duda. "He did not feel it."

  "What?"

  "He did not feel it. Perhaps he does not even know. I cannot imagine. I have never seen him do this. He has never let himself."

  "Do what?" She stared at the blood.

  "It is just…there is such fire in him. I used to tease him about being a berserker. Only of course he could not be, not with his heart. But I always said if he wanted, he would.

  "Be able to do that."

  "Yes."

  They did not feel their wounds, those fell Northern creatures. They just went on fighting with a spirit unquenched, whatever happened to them, until they died.

  "Why would he do such a thing now? Why—"

  "Maybe you can answer that better than I can."

  Her heart seemed to catch in the painful tightness of her chest. But Duda did not realize how things were. He seemed to think, to believe, all sorts of things that were wrong. Because he did not understand what had happened in the past.

  It could not be for her.

  I will do what I have always wished. I will pay what I owe to Northumbria… Your fate is not my responsibility anymore.

  "No…" She closed her eyes against the blood and the fierce, untiring movement of the wounded body, and asked the only question left.

  "Will he live?"

  There was a small silence that seemed to hold the two of them, while outside it was the sound of steel and wood and the primeval yelling from the throats of a score of blood-crazed warriors.

  "I do not know. That was not a crippling wound, though it is awkward. The blood will make the sword hard to hold and the loss will tire him even if he cannot feel it. If that had been the first wound—"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Eadric said he was hurt rescuing your brother. Did you not know?"

  No. The word was like a silent scream in her mind. There seemed no limit to what her family could do: her half brother, her father. Herself. She fought to breathe.

  "And what about Goadel?"

  "Scatheless. Before this."

  "And is he…very good?"

  "He was always good. Brand's made him angry."

  "I see." She looked for one brief instant at Duda's face and she could see the reflection of her own fears, the terrible tie of friendship, the unredeemable bond to someone you owed more than your life to. "Thank…thank you."

  "For what?"

  "Telling me. Letting me understand. I…I am sorry I hit you."

  Duda snorted through his swollen nose. She heard him sniff. "Girl's hit, that. Watch this."

  She opened her eyes.

  "And for pity's sake do not start crying. You have got a job to do when this is over."

  "Yes." The tears faded and with their going, her mind became clear as ice water.

  "I know."

  It was actually possible to see his orders being carried out. Brand's hand flexed round the sword hilt, bettering his grip. It was as though some part of his thought hoard remained, ice-clear and remote, unsullied by the mad desperation of his body.

  That part of his brain could discern the pattern in the seemingly random movement of the yelling blood lust that surrounded them, the careful-placement of his own men. And the Picts. Even Cunan, now closest of all to Maol, dangerously close. The guilt of failed plans. How familiar that was. None of it would be atoned. Ever. Unless Alina was safe.

  He struck, forcing Goadel to retreat, watching the fury grow in the pale, malice-filled eyes of Hun's brother, goading it, waiting for that fury to cause an error that would be fatal.

  The blade came back at him, high, cutting for his face. He parried with the shield, training that had become instinct angling the board to take the blow against the metal boss, the lunge of his own blade in response instant. Yet not so. The blade slipped
again in his grip. The palm of his hand must be sweat damp. The power of the blow was deflected.

  Goadel sensed the weakness. The greedy rage in the pale, narrow eyes had blunted under the fatigue that came with the unrelenting ferocity of the attack. Now the greed became sharper, eager for its reward of death. And all that would follow.

  Brand's gaze flickered over the seething press of men around them, straining to see whether the preparations were complete. He had so little time left The clear part of his mind knew it. His left arm blocked the slashing blow of Goadel's blade. The shield cracked. Wood splinters flew, striking his face. He shook stinging wetness out of his eyes.

  It should be his left arm that was numbing from the force of the blow over the older wound, slowing him, but it was not. It was his right. He could not understand why.

  He saw that his men were there, high on the grassy slope beside Maol. Every man of Goadel's watched the fight, heedless. It was time.

  Just as he moved, he thought he saw the darker swirling green of Alina's dress at the foot of the rise. His hand gripped the slippery hilt. Duda would stop her. He would not let her be so near to where the danger would be. Not again. The single fast glance that he could spare showed her still moving.

  It was now. Had to be. Before she got too close.

  He stepped inside the next blow, striking out with what was left of the shield. His blade sought the gap the splintered wood created. Goadel saw it coming. The bale-filled eyes widened. The mouth stretched.

  "Kill—" The voice screamed. He struck. Before the name of the helpless prisoner could be loosed into the air, ordering the death that would plunge both sides into carnage. Before Alina's fragile body could move up the slope.

  The rune blade flashed, just as Goadel struck with his own sword, crashing forward, overbalanced, the full weight of him falling. The blades clashed, steel ripping along steel. The ground slammed into his ribs.

  He rolled, hearing already damaged bones scrape without feeling it, twisting his body to free it of the crushing weight. He clawed half-upright, seeing the writhing mass of men around the staked-out body resolve itself into order at the sound of Eadric's voice yelling orders.