by Amy Faye
Gunnar had known these things, but at the same time it burned knowing that he hadn't predicted it. Still he kept himself pivoting, kicking out as best he could without losing his balance to keep any who got too close away from the girl. He turned to check that she was alright, but to his great surprise, she was nowhere. The knife she had stolen, the knife he had given back to her before his capture, laid in the guard's chest.
"Gunnar!" Ulf's familiar voice called. "This way!"
He was at Gunnar's elbow an instant later, pulling him along. The peasants had already fled, leaving what seemed to be a hundred soldiers, half of them not getting up from the ground after being trampled by the panicked crowd, and the remaining Danes fought them, save Magnus and Ulf who were making quick work of the chains on Valdemar and Gunnar.
He moved and flexed his arms to get feeling back into them, then pulled the knife free of the man's ribs and wiped it on his tabard. It had saved both of them, now. A good knife indeed. Then he unbuckled the sword-belt hanging at the side of the slain guard and fitted it around his own waist, slipping the knife in, regardless of the fact that he had no sheath for it.
The blade inside was not quite so nice as the one he had stolen before. It didn't gleam so much, didn't feel so well-made, but it looked as if it had seen considerable use. Until he had been killed by his own inattentiveness, the blade had served its master well, and Gunnar would see that it served its new one as well.
If they stayed then the fight would become too much for them, he knew. Even with the advantage of the crowd helping to injure so many guards, they couldn't hope to fight the full might of the city's guard force with just the thirty of them. Not in open combat like this.
But if they fled too quickly, they would leave themselves open to attack. Between himself and the giant, they formed the leading point of a wedge, cutting through the guards and making a space. After their stunt the night before, he had been left without dinner. He frowned. No, he wasn't happy about it. But it was all he could do.
The guards had decided that the gate seemed to be the right place to defend, and Gunnar had to agree. It was the right place. But they should have closed it.
Valdemar let out a cry and rammed sword-point-first into the thick mass of men, bowling the first two rows to the ground and then started the mad slashing that made him a force on the battlefield. Gunnar strode by, the whirling mass of gore seeming to miss him as if by chance.
Yet he knew that if Valdemar wanted to cleave him through, it would have been an easy thing, and there was no chance in his survival. His own blade met the attack of another guard, turned it aside, and plunged into the man's bowels. Ulf cut another wide arc that saw men falling back and away, and then the way was cleared for them.
The time to go was now. Gunnar called out the retreat, and stood by as the men ran past. He would follow last of all, to ensure that no one was left behind. The men had taken a great risk in saving them, a risk that he would have told them not to take if he had the opportunity.
But he hadn't been there, nor had Valdemar. So they were left to make the decision themselves, and they had made their decision. That didn't mean he was going to let them take more risk than they had to. And it didn't mean he was going to run like a coward.
"Go! I'm right behind you!" The last man through went by, and Gunnar slotted in behind, making sure to stay a step or two behind. If someone were going to be caught then it would be him. But he wasn't going to let it happen easily. They ran hard, but they ran.
His lungs burned with the effort, though he reckoned that he could have run harder if he were ten years younger. A full belly might have done wonders, as well, but he kept up without trouble, until they were free of the city. Then they ran harder. There were few guards that followed, and the ones that did, never made it back to report on their location.
They were far from clear of any danger, Gunnar thought, but at the very least they were able to take a night's rest. They had earned that much, and when they'd had times to lick their wounds and recover themselves, they would move to the coast.
Valdemar might not like it. He might see more glory to be had, more raiding to be done. He was a born raider, same as Gunnar. But where Gunnar was tempered by experience, Valdemar was still raw. But he would have to listen to reason, Gunnar thought. He hoped so, anyways.
If the berserker wanted to fight him on the decision then he would find himself with quite a fight on his hands. They were going home, and the only thing they would wait for was to make sure that nobody was too injured to leave.
That, he told himself, and until he found the woman he was bringing with him.
Thirty-Three
For a moment the world stood still as Deirdre fell to the ground, the weight of her body jabbing the blade into the guard in front of her. To her surprise the pair of them sent the other guard to the ground as well. Then everything started happening again.
Gunnar turned and kicked a guard away from her, the movement awkward with his hands shackled behind his back. Someone in the crowd screamed, and then people started to run in a mass around her, away. She looked up at Gunnar, who kicked roughly at the guard beside her.
He looked as controlled as a man could without the use of his hands. As if he had known all along that she would come, and had been preparing to respond. But she hadn't been sure herself if she would. So he obviously couldn't have known, could he?
She tried to look through the crowd as it streamed past, to see what had scared them so, and saw a tight mass of Northmen. She knew the sort of havoc they could wreak if they set their minds to it, and knew that if there was time to run then it was because they were more interested in the guards than in the peasants.
It was time to go. She couldn't be here when the city-folk cleared out, or there would be a reckoning. Her face on wanted posters, the whole thing. She needed to be gone now. She gave another glance to Gunnar, but she would have to find him later. Then she jumped up and was in the crowd before she could change her mind.
She turned back, the press of the crowd moving her whether she wanted to or not, hoping to catch a glance of what was happening. In an instant the giant, Ulf, had come up to Gunnar and dashed off his chains, the messenger-boy striking Valdemar's off as well, and the battle had begun.
They had been hopelessly outnumbered when she had finally made her escape, but now they seemed prepared for it somehow, as if they were better-equipped somehow. She wanted to stay, wanted to see what would happen. Wanted to make sure that Gunnar would escape alive. But she couldn't afford the time, nor the risk. She had to be gone and she had to go now. The crowd continued to press, though slower now as they pressed through the eastern castle gate.
The last thing she saw before she turned to follow the crowd was a tight mass of soldiers pulling together to block the gate. They should have closed the portcullis, she thought. But they would learn that before it was too long.
Then she was being pulled further away as the people tried to press through her, to get as far from the fighting as possible. These people had the right idea, and without her knife she shouldn't have considered staying for even a moment. Her hand automatically shifted to her pouch, felt the sheath there, but no knife. She had left it buried in the man's chest.
Yet still something in her heart pulled her back to the fight, to hoping that she could see for herself that Gunnar made it out alive. Feelings drifted through her, feelings she didn't understand and couldn't explain. She had to accept her feelings about Gunnar.
They were connected by more than she wanted to admit, and she was never going to be able to ignore that completely, but now too many questions ran through her mind about why Valdemar had stayed. Questions she didn't remotely want to have to answer, but questions that she couldn't ignore, either.
The fact that the others had come back… she couldn't reconcile the idea of the Vikings as the bloodthirsty killers she had known them to be, and the men who came back into the thick of enemy territory to fight impossib
le odds to recover only two men.
She turned and ducked her head, trying not to stand out too much. Her fire-red hair would not make it easy for her to hide, but she had to hope that nobody would care enough to investigate a poor wretch in the middle of a crowd fleeing madly through the streets until she was far enough away to deny any involvement.
The people around her were dispersing slowly, each intersection taking a few who decided to turn, but she wanted out of the city. Needed to get out, as quickly as she could. She took a jog left along with a dozen others when a building blocked the straight street. The new road curved out and she turned right to re-straighten the path.
Her breaths were coming sharp and hard, but she couldn't stop. Couldn't slow down, not even for an instant, or she risked being seen by the guards. It was a miracle that no one had pointed her out already, that nobody had accused her of being involved.
She fancied herself a perfectly good liar, but there was a wide gulf between being able to lie, and being able to deny the obvious. She was the one who had killed that guard, yes. How could they be so sure? Well, she had blood on her hands and the same bright red hair of the woman who everyone had seen try to help that awful Northman, so it stood to reason that maybe they could take a guess this once.
Finally the outskirts opened up around her, allowing Deirdre a better view of the chaos that had overtaken the city. She let herself slow, turning back to see what was happening. She could hear fighting, very far away, but otherwise the city was oddly still. Those who had fought to flee the city and go back to their homes had been able to find plenty of time to do so; she was, after all, one of the last.
Those who lived in the city were likely now huddling in their homes, hoping that the Northmen and the guards both decided to leave them alone. She took a deep breath. Where could she go from here? She wanted to reconnect with Gunnar, but where would he go? She couldn't remain in the city, that much she knew.
She would have to search for him, but at the very least she knew that they wouldn't stay nearby either. She had to leave, and they were so much more wanted than she was. Deirdre turned back, pulled a cloak from her backpack, and pulled it across her shoulders. The chaos of the crowd and the fighting had warmed her up, but now as she calmed down the chill was beginning to get to her.
She started walking out, careful to keep herself calm and collected. To keep her red hair hidden beneath the hood of her cloak. She was just any person, walking through the streets. Trying to get back home. She wondered briefly where the blue mare had gotten to.
At the stable, still, she thought. But Deirdre knew nothing about horses. She should have just sold the girl. At least she might be kept properly if Deirdre never went back. Not that she could afford to go back into the city to get her. No, she needed to stay about as far away as she could. She would stay just long enough to get Gunnar.
Then she would be on the road back to Malbeck, back to the answers that Brigid owed her.
The mood had never been worse around the Danish camp. Always, someone had been drinking and telling stories in the middle of camp, away from the tents. People talking, getting ready for whatever was to come.
Now they seemed to all be deflated. No one particularly spoke, and certainly no one drank. They wouldn't have if they had anything worth drinking. It had been lost, and there was not going to be any effort to go and get more. Not until they'd recovered from the madness of the past days.
Where they had gotten away cleanly the first time, thanks to Gunnar and Valdemar slowing the English down, not everyone had made it cleanly out of the city this time. Some were cut badly, but thankfully few. Others had superficial wounds, bad bruising. A few bones that might have been broken.
And the excitement had them all tired out. The general atmosphere seemed to be one of everyone just wanting to go home as soon as the opportunity arose. Gunnar felt the weight on his chest again, the weight of leadership and of knowing what needed to be done. The weight of knowing that it wasn't what you wanted, but it was the right thing to choose.
They would have to go soon. He lay on his back, looking up at the stars that were starting to dominate the sky as the sun dropped below the horizon. This was the first time they hadn't had kit to sleep under. It was oddly nostalgic, reminding him of other expeditions. They hadn't been planned as well, and they hadn't turned out as badly as this one.
One in four of his men were dead, and they wouldn't get a proper send-off. The men who survived were exhausted, and they had lost all of their loot. They would be lucky to get back to the coast with their lives, and then it would be a long trip back to Denmark. A trip in which none of them would want to discuss exactly what had caused such a catastrophe.
Had it been his own failing as a leader? Had it been the mutiny? Was it because Valdemar gambled one too many times? There was no use in asking questions about whose fault it was. It was everyone's fault, and it was no one's.
The injured ones especially wouldn't be able to move. Not right away, and they certainly wouldn't be able to take a fighting retreat for miles. They needed time. A scant few days to recover their strength. Then they would be able to move, and he knew the right thing to do was head straight back home.
Exhausted mentally and physically, it would take a miracle to do any more raiding without the men being hurt or killed. Perhaps if they ran into a town where the men-folk had gone off to join this ambush party, but how would they know unless they risked it first?
Magnus stood over him, he saw now. Waiting, not speaking, for Gunnar to address him. Gunnar let out a grunt to indicate that he knew the boy was there.
"Valdemar says we need to speak about what comes next."
Gunnar pulled himself upright, groaning at the tightness in his entire body. How had he let this happen to him? He was becoming old before his very eyes. It hadn't been so long ago that he never hurt after a fight. A disgrace indeed. He pushed the thought away. After what they'd been through, a little soreness was allowed.
They picked their way through the camp, each man having set out a little space for himself in the open ground. They couldn't risk a fire, so in the failing light it was hard to be certain at more than a few paces that you might not be stepping into a place where there wouldn't be any convenient way through, but between the two of them, Gunnar and Magnus picked their way through.
Leif, Ulf, and Eirik were already seated in a rough semi-circle, with Arne and Valdemar across from them. Magnus took a seat on Valdemar's other side, leaving a space for Gunnar to sit.
"We need to talk, Gunnar." He hadn't had time to slip down to a seated position before Valdemar spoke.
"Do we, now?" Amusement colored his voice. They had a great deal to talk about it, and the time was passed for the majority of it. Did they need to talk when he'd been injured and Valdemar decided to take his raiding party from him? Did they need to talk when Valdemar had decided to ram headlong into an ambush, knowing full well what he was getting himself into?
He knew the answer. They certainly did have to talk, but they hadn't. It was what had gotten them into this entire mess. But it didn't help the sting to go away. Valdemar, for his part, ignored the jab.
"We need to talk about what we're going to do next. All of us."
"Why only the seven of us? Why not any of the others?"
"Look at them, Gunnar." He gestured with his eyes at the bodies spread around the grass, most of them already asleep, except for the injured, who writhed in pain. "They weren't recruited for their leadership abilities, were they? And now they're exhausted, and even their usefulness in a fight is… questionable."
"So you think we should leave them behind?"
"I never said that."
Leif spoke next. "The Gods aren't happy with our progress."
"Nor am I," Valdemar countered. "But there are other considerations. We can't ignore the toll that these two weeks have taken on them. That rescue of yours—I thank you for it, but it was dangerous. A big risk."
"It's am
using to hear you talking about risks that are too great, Valdemar."
The tension was thickening. Gunnar decided to step in. "We need to go home. The men are tired and if we stay any longer than we must, then there will only be more deaths."
"My thoughts exactly," Valdemar said. "We make our way to the coast. It should be that way."
He pointed in a direction that seemed right to Gunnar. "We can't go before the injured have time to recover a bit, though."
Valdemar shook his head. "Would you have us wait forever? Perhaps we could just walk back to the city tomorrow, and tell them we need a few weeks' rest?"
"I'm not asking for weeks. Two days. Give them two days. In that time, if there are any who can't walk themselves, we can find a way to carry them."
Valdemar looked at him hard, but nodded all the same. "Two days it is. Anyone disagree?"
No one spoke. "Then I think we're all in agreement here," he said. "You can all go to sleep. Everyone's had a long day, and we'll need it come morning, and definitely in two days' time."
Gunnar rose along with the rest of them, turned before anyone could say anything, and stalked back to the little claim he'd laid on the ground, and laid himself out.
Deirdre had been there. She'd been involved somehow. But if she had been brought there by the others, with Leif and Eirik, then they would have said something. They would have told him where she was, at least. The fact that nobody had mentioned her suggested that there was something else at work here.
He didn't know what it was, but he knew that he didn't like being unsure. If she was still alive, she might be looking for him. He had denied himself the opportunity to be with her once. He wasn't going to make that mistake again.
Thirty-Four
Deirdre had never slept so badly. After everything that had happened—she was just as wanted as any of them were. She'd killed another man, and this time she didn't have the excuse of self-defense to fall back on. There were matters of scale to be considered, sure. She hadn't killed dozens.
