by Lola Rebel
That was what this was all about, she reminded herself. Not about her desires. There was no use in visions of the pair of them on the ground, that was completely useless to her. The visions came again, the blush spreading lower, a heat spreading through her body.
With each thought, her body called her focus back to it, very effectively keeping her from thinking about the one thing she needed to concentrate on. There would be plenty of time for that later, she thought. When she waited again for night to fall, she could fantasize all that she liked.
The other prisoners already thought that she was laying down with him every night, enjoying his attentions. That she was being kept only for what she was giving him. Little did they know that they were more on the mark than they realized. She wasn't being kept for what she had between her legs, but she was very much there because Gunnar thought that he could get something from her.
She let out a breath that she hadn't realized that she had been holding and shifted her weight, ignoring the way that her clothes moved across her hardened nipples. Ignoring the painful shock of sensation that went straight up her spine, and the thought that flashed through her mind after.
Could he not just leave? She could have thought so much clearer if he weren't there, if he weren't distracting her. She wouldn't be able to use herbs to solve this problem, she decided. No trance in the world was going to overcome the sort of distraction that she felt when that man's eyes burned on her flesh.
She would have to think, then. If she couldn't approach it from the perspective of a witch, she would have to approach it from the perspective of a healer. She'd been much better at that, than divination, but it was hard to imagine how the knowledge of how to heal a man might help him to die.
The thought came to her so easily that for a moment she thought that she'd been making it up. There was a solution, and one that wasn't likely to fail, if she was right. A very simple one.
Her teacher's words echoed in her mind. 'There's more to the Earth's gifts than greenery, Deirdre.'
Part of the lecture that had followed was more applicable than Deirdre would have liked to her current predicament. Certain comments about the circle of death and birth, specifically.
But the thing that struck her in that moment was not a solution to Gunnar's curse. If she had a solution to her problem, a way to get her freedom, she would have to take it. And if she were betting on the Weak man's ability to stop the bloodshed, then that was the best solution of all.
Valdemar, he had called himself. He said that when she'd solved Gunnar's problem, he would take over the band. There was little doubt that it would be at Gunnar's expense. But he had promised that when he had control of the band, she would be freed, and that was enough.
She wouldn't be able to make the solution herself. It would take too much time, require too much movement. And she couldn't suggest it to Gunnar. He did not long for death, she knew that much. A fire burned inside him, the very fire that drew her attention.
What he wanted was to let that fire burn hotter, not to snuff it completely. She had a strange sort of understanding with him, the knowledge of what he wanted and why. She was surprised how easy he was to understand after only a few evenings spent in his camp, talking for an hour or two.
He hadn't spoken much about his feelings, but Deirdre felt as if she knew them instinctively. He was a soldier, down to his very core. The way that he could take wounds, and recover from them—it wouldn't have been long before he realized that he could use it to perform feats of courage that few others could boast.
There was the problem, though. What did courage mean, what did glory mean, when it was at no risk? She didn't need to be a genius to realize that it meant nothing at all, not to him and not to anyone else.
Valor only meant as much as you risked to achieve it. To a soldier, the greatest glory was to be able to sit in their strange heaven, telling stories about their deeds to the heroes of old. Stripping their sleeves and showing their scars and saying how they won them.
But for a man who bore no scars, whose body told no stories except for the power of a man who kept himself in peak physical condition—even if he were to have died, what stories would he have to tell?
She took a deep breath. Poison wasn't the sort of way that he would want to go, and it wasn't the way that she wanted to win her freedom. But there was more blood in the soil than she could be responsible for. If she had to choose between letting more men, women, and children die, and giving a man a dishonorable death, it didn't matter how she felt about him.
The needs of the many had to come before doing the right thing for one Northlander. Deirdre had to consider her people first and foremost.
Gunnar must have seen something in the way that she sat, because after an hour of silence, he finally spoke.
"What have you seen?"
Deirdre hated to lie, after the surprisingly easy treatment that she had gotten since she had allied herself with Gunnar. But she couldn't tell him, he wouldn't have accepted it. And that wasn't an option for her, or for her people.
"I've found your answer," she said, finally.
Gunnar felt strangely numb when Deirdre had finally told him that she had his solution. And to hear her tell it, the solution was a fairly simple one. Damn his utter lack of medical knowledge, he might have been chewing this foul herb for the entire raid.
Perhaps, though, it was better that he hadn't. Who knows what sort of damage the archers could have done if he hadn't been able to simply withstand so many hits taken from their arrows? So if there was one consolation, it was that he hadn't been vulnerable when he needed to be who he was.
The question wasn't one that he enjoyed entertaining. What would have happened if she had been that little bit quicker in her solution? What if he'd asked her sooner how to solve his predicament? Would he have died there, along with the rest of his men? What did that mean for their future?
He remembered the first raid they had gone on. Before he had known what he was. The arrow that he'd taken to his lung, the one that had found him wheezing and slowly leaking out every bit of breath in his body.
It hadn't been until that moment that he had realized what death was, what he had to be afraid of, and once he had tasted it, and come back from it, he had told himself that he would never taste it again. My, how things had changed in the years since.
The usual double-time toward the town, he was filled with doubts. It seemed unlikely that they would make it out of this raid unscathed; this town wasn't like the others. They were large, and a wooden fence had been hastily erected in preparation. Three deep, men stood at the only entrance, spears ready.
The risk of death made Gunnar's heart race. This wasn't the sort of wall that you run straight onto, but he had learned more than how to take a spear through his gut in the years since that first fateful raid.
He'd learned to be quick, to be accurate. And more than anything, he had learned that moving forward was always the safer option compared to sitting back and waiting. He ducked his head and let his shield knock a spear-point away, then ducked further and stepped inside the wall as his compatriots rushed up beside him. Valdemar smashed in between two of them like a great stone, sending men sprawling to the floor.
Gunnar hit one with his shoulder, but his focus wasn't on knocking them down. His sword came around and cleft hard, sending a spear-man down, and the sword came around again, hacking through a second. He caught an incoming blow on the shield, returning it with a push-kick that sent the man onto his back.
Another man went down under the sword, and then another. Gunnar kept moving. There was plenty of glory for all of them, but he couldn't afford to waste his time here. There was loot to be had, and Valdemar had yet to be dealt with. If he could ensure that he wouldn't have any trouble in the future...
It was cowardly, he thought to himself. Not at all the way that he wanted to approach the situation, but it was how it had to be. If the band split, then they would all perish. Valdemar should hav
e waited for his coup until they were back on Danish land, where there weren't thirty other men relying on leadership to keep them safe.
He stalked after Valdemar as he turned a corner at a run, the sounds of battle from behind them starting to spread as more and more of the guards at the gate fell and the men started to get through.
He would have scant few chances to put Valdemar into a position like this again. No one would see, no one would have to see. If he was lucky, Gunnar could simply distract him for the half-moment that it would take to be laid low by a swordsman. Murder was not looked kindly upon by the Gods.
But if he had to do it himself, then he would, and that was how it would have to be. When he turned around the end of the brick building, though, he couldn't see where Valdemar had gone. Down the street, or down the alley?
It wasn't clear, and he couldn't begin to say for certain. But he didn't have time to question himself. Take a guess, and stick with it, because this was about more than just the loot from a single English town, this was about the survival of the band.
He ducked down a narrow street, and the sight of the berserker, his ax already swinging, confirmed that he had chosen the right path. As he passed a small door, though, it exploded out, catching him hard in the side. Whoever was inside, whoever had seen Valdemar go by, had apparently decided to make up for the mistake of not stopping him.
Gunnar sprawled to the ground, scrambling to his feet as quickly as he could as the Englishman lunged out of the low house. His blade was already back, the swing already beginning. Gunnar was not the fastest in the camp, but he had learned more than enough to turn the blow aside.
He was already readying his response when he felt the jab into his side. Right under his shield arm. Until the last moment, Gunnar hadn't noticed, and then it was too late.
He'd wanted his hand to appear empty, but the Englishman held in his second hand a small dagger, and he'd driven it all the way to the hilt in Gunnar's side. He could feel the same sense of deflation, the same wheezing that he had felt, all those years ago. He knew instinctively that he'd had his lung punched through.
Gunnar tried to ignore the pain; he wasn't going to go down without making an accounting of himself. He reached up and grabbed the man's head with his shield-hand, pulling him close as his sword drove through the man's torso.
Then the energy sapped out of him, and the both of them slumped to the ground. Gunnar spit out the bitter herb that Deirdre had given him to chew. If it would work, it had already done its job.
With what little remained of his strength, he pushed the English body off of his legs and tried to stand. There was more fight to be had. But his foot slipped on the stone street.
Why wasn't his leg working properly? Had he simply forgotten how to use it? What was wrong with him? He took a grip on the windowsill above where he'd fallen and pulled himself up. With a tentative step, he decided he could move. A second step sent him to the ground. The blade fell free from his chest, the blade clanging on the ground.
Was this what dying felt like? His vision started to dim. If it was, if that was what he was fated for, then he welcomed it. Welcomed his entry into Valhalla. Death during a raid—how else could a warrior choose to go?
The blood that pooled under his chest was hot and wet, and it seemed to stain everything it touched. If Valdemar wanted the band, then one of them had to go. That was how it would be. Well, perhaps it was better this way.
Gunnar's vision dimmed, what little energy he had left flowing out the hole punched in his side. And then, all at once, his vision was black, and he wasn't thinking anything at all.
A voice echoed in his ears, somewhere in the distance. "Gunnar!"
He tried to open his eyes, but he couldn't. What was the point? He was already dead. He'd felt himself dying, felt the last vestiges of strength leaving his body. Felt his lungs emptying themselves even as he tried to fight for breath.
A second voice. Further away, indistinct.
Something pulled on his arm, and then his other arm, and the hard, cold stone pulled away from his face. Was this what it felt like to be taken away by the Valkyries? What were the voices he heard? Why could he not open his eyes?
He fought to open them, fought to see himself leaving the battlefield, carried in the arms of battle-maidens. Finally he did, but the brightness blinded him. Gunnar had to close his eyes to make the pain go.
His side hurt, badly. What was this? How was he supposed to feel about this? He tried to breathe, felt the same wheezing leak that he'd felt before.
He opened his eyes again, saw the ground moving below him. His feet dragged behind on the hard pavement, but he wasn't being pulled away from the ground.
He forced his head to turn, the effort almost too much to bear. A man's face. Leif. Eirik on the other side. They'd taken him by his arms, pulled up onto their shoulders, and they carried him.
Was he alive? How could that be possible? He had seen men take wounds like his. They lived for minutes. He breathed in the smell of smoke and burning around him. Whatever had happened, he had missed a lot. The raid, as far as he could tell, was complete.
And somehow, what must have been at least a half-hour after taking a wound that killed men in minutes, he was still alive.
Eight
The sight of Gunnar walking back to the camp, even as he leaned on the shoulder of the shaven-headed Northman, brought out all the wrong feelings in Deirdre. She should've been excited. Elated, even, knowing that she would get her freedom.
Instead, all she could think was that she was the one responsible for this. That she'd given Valdemar exactly the cure that he had wanted, and now it had worked out exactly wrong for him.
If she was lucky, then she would be set free. If she wasn't, and something told her that she wasn't, then she would see everything falling down when he realized that the herbs hadn't done a damn thing. She'd set him up, and though she hadn't bothered to try to find out how he'd done it, Valdemar's plan had had failed to kill him.
If it were just the poison working its way through his veins, he could make it hours—days, weeks, even, if he were particularly sturdy. But he'd be weakened quite a bit.
A thought flashed through her head. What if he didn't die? What if he healed from it, entirely? What if he was just taking his sweet time in healing? She hadn't given either of them what they wanted, and she had used the only idea that had come to her.
She closed her eyes and tried to think quickly. How could she turn this to her advantage? It was hard to think when her thoughts only ran over and over again how dead she was if she were suspected. He wouldn't have any trouble with it, and certainly wouldn't hesitate. She would have her head neatly separated from her shoulders.
That was how they dealt with traitors, right? And she had betrayed him, sold him down the river to a man who was obviously his rival. Treason if she'd ever seen it. She shivered and tried to forget about it. There was nothing to worry about right now.
Deirdre slumped back against the post and tried to ignore the pain in her shoulders, waiting for the answer to what she was going to do.
The shaven-headed man carried Gunnar past her, to the tent. A dark-haired man a few paces behind stepped up and cut her loose. "He's hurt, you have to come with us."
She was in luck. Whether they knew or not, they had apparently decided that she had a use after all, in saving Gunnar's life. As she followed behind, working the soreness out of her shoulders, she watched him.
He was walking almost entirely on his own, she saw. His knees gave way every few steps, the only sign that he was suffering at all. His back was straight, and he was moving only a little slower than normal, to her eyes.
As they laid him down on his bedroll, though, she could see from his face that he was putting up a mighty effort to keep his appearances up. He was suffering more than he wanted to let on, and it was probably a struggle to move every step. Every breath he took, he winced.
"You have to heal him," the dark-haired one
repeated.
Gunnar said something to him in their northern tongue, and he stepped back. Then he turned to Deirdre. "You've done what I asked of you, and now it's my turn."
A commotion outside the tent made her turn on her heel, watching as Valdemar stepped through, his shirt stripped and lines of sweat crossing the layer of dirt and dust on his skin. He looked at the four of them in turn, before finally speaking out loud.
The words weren't familiar, but she could tell from the reaction that he wasn't saying anything nice. The shaven-headed man had to hold the dark-haired one back as he nearly threw a big, powerful fist.
She turned to see Gunnar pushing himself up, wincing as he put weight on his arm. She could see the wound, now, a big red hole. The edges were puffy and already she could see the infection setting in. He grabbed a sword from the ground as he stood, and a shield.
Then he gritted his teeth and set his shoulders and walked out of the room.
"What is going on?"
The dark-haired Northman stormed out, nearly pushing Valdemar as he went past, and then the shaven-headed man answered.
"Valdemar says he has claim to command with Gunnar injured. And I'm afraid he's decided on a duel for it."
"He's hurt," she said, confused. How on earth could they fight a duel when one of the participants had a hole in his chest?
The man looked at her for a long moment, considering. Then he nodded.
She didn't wait on the shaven-headed Northlander any longer. She ran after Gunnar. He would die if he fought now. There was no way that he could win, but all for some sort of silly pride he was going to get himself murdered. What sense was there in that? She took a deep breath and tried to think.
Could she heal him? Certainly, but not in the next few minutes. The most she could do would be… what?
She racked her brain as she caught up to Gunnar, who had pulled up a makeshift chair and now sat, his eyes more focused than she had ever seen him. He looked as if he were about to go to war, not as if he had just been stabbed.
