Immortal Champion

by Lisa Hendrix

  “Ransom me quickly, then. Westmorland will pay.”

  Drawing off his gloves, Tunstall squatted down beside her. “Sadly, there is a small issue of a noose. However, I have been thinking on it as we rode. Even murder might be forgiven if I were married to the king’s cousin, don’t you think?”

  She gaped at him. God’s knees. Yet another man who hoped to find fortune and forgiveness between her thighs. Did England breed no other kind? “How unfortunate there is no such cousin willing to marry you.”

  “But there is, my lady, one my men and I rescued from John Penson.”

  “Rescued!”

  “The treacherous cur had killed your marshal in an attempt to take you hostage. By chance, I was traveling the same road, and I caught him before he could do you injury.” He leaned in so close his breath stirred the loose strands of hair that lay against her neck, sending shivers down her back. “In your gratitude, you offered me your hand and we were married—will be married tomorrow—in the next village.”

  “No. I am already married. You stole the ring off my finger yourself.”

  “A ring does not make a wife. Richard le Despenser is dead half a year past.” One corner of his mouth twisted wryly. “We are not totally without news in Scotland.”

  “But I am now bound to Henry Percy.” She shifted her tale quickly, ready to use Henry to get to Gunnar, just as Henry intended to use her to get to Lucy. “The contract is made. I am on the way t—”

  “You changed your mind because of my bravery. With the village priest as witness, Westmorland will have no choice but to accept our marriage. He will settle land on me as your husband, and our good king, your cousin, will welcome me back into England’s loving bosom.”

  “No. Absolutely not.”

  “You may not want to refuse so quickly. My Scots friends over there argue that I should share you—especially those two big hairy fellows. Donal’s never had a noblewoman and very much wants to try one. And Malcolm, there, thinks you owe him certain … comfort since that lad your marshal killed in the brawl was his nephew.” Tunstall reached out to trace her lower lip, and the combination of his threats and the stench of soured glove leather that clung to his hand made Eleanor gag. “No, I am your sanctuary, my lady, just as you are mine. They are willing to forego your favors in exchange for my consideration later as lord of whatever your father gives me, but if you refuse me …”

  “Percy is to have Northumberland back upon our marriage. He will pay you a fortune for my safe return. Take me to him. I will affirm that it was Sir John who tried to capture me. You will be acclaimed heroes and well rewarded. All of you.”

  “And then we will ride away with our gold, and you’ll tell him the truth.”

  “No, I won’t. I swear it.”

  “Forgive me, my lady, but I do not believe you. You will tell and the hunt will be on, and between Percy and your father, there is no place in all of Christendom that would be safe. No, I must keep you and the truth of what happened under close guard.”

  “In a locked chamber, you mean.”

  His shrug was confirmation that she would be more prisoner than wife. “So, there is your choice: me and a few words before a priest … or them. And me, too, of course.”

  She spat at his feet. “You vile pile of dung.”

  “I have been called worse,” he said mildly. He pushed to his feet and stood over her, his eyes boring down until it was all she could do not to waste her stone by throwing it at him. “As simple as your decision should be, I can see that you need time to come to it. You have until after we—”

  A horse screamed somewhere beyond the western wall.

  “Eat. What the devil?”

  Another cry, more human, rose from the east. Muttering words like murder and demon, Tunstall’s men drew their swords and edged toward the gate.

  The sounds rose and blended one into the other, the human cry sliding into a beastly howl, the horse’s scream melding into a man’s fading groan. The hair on the back of Eleanor’s neck lifted in a mix of horror and excitement. She’d heard that kind of agony before, that shifting from animal to man. It wasn’t Gunnar and the bull, but … Please, oh, please, Holy Mother, let it be some of his friends.

  “OW.” GUNNAR SWATTED at whatever it was that was pulling at his hair. The pain stopped for a moment, then came back with another sharp yank. “Stop it.”

  He rolled onto his belly and lifted his head to find himself looking into a pair of beady black eyes from barely a footlength away.

  Odd. The raven seldom came to him, and never so soon after the changing. But it was there now, hopping up and down, screeching, and flapping its wings against his head. Gunnar took another swipe and the bird fluttered out of reach, but continued to caw. Something had Ari going—a stranger who’d come too close, perhaps, or maybe just rats in the food stores. Wouldn’t be the first time for either.

  “All right. All right.” Gunnar heaved himself to his feet, scratched his arse, and twisted to stretch out some of the cricks. The raven circled his head, then landed on the hilt of a knife stuck in a tree trunk right in front of him and squawked. Still fuzzy headed, Gunnar stared at the bit of parchment pinned to the bark with the knife.

  The bird leaned over to peck at the scrap, then looked at Gunnar and shrieked like he was trying to raise the dead.

  It worked. Gunnar’s heart kicked in his chest, the rush of blood clearing his head. He ripped the parchment free and, with a growing sense of foreboding, picked through the runes as quickly as he could. Balls.

  Balls.

  “Brand! Brand, now!”

  He ran for his clothes and weapons.

  By the time they reached the castle, it was nearly dark and Gunnar had molded his fury into an icy, practical calm and a basic plan: Get in. Get her out. Send her back to her husband unscathed. This wasn’t about him. It was about saving Eleanor, if it even was her.

  Now that he had time to think, he doubted that it was. Jafri had only the one look at Eleanor last fall, and there was little chance he’d recognize her from afar, nor any reason for her to be near the dene to begin with. It was just some other black-haired woman who had the misfortune to fall into outlaw hands. They’d still do the honorable thing and save her, of course, but it wasn’t Eleanor. It couldn’t be.

  They left the horses hidden in a stand of trees and approached the castle on foot. Torvald spotted them and waved them toward a fallen-down section where they could scramble up easily.

  “Well?” Brand’s voice barely carried the arm’s length between them.

  Torvald held up ten fingers. “Two on the front gate. The others are by the fire, eating.”

  “The woman?” asked Brand.

  “Also by the fire. Unharmed, as yet, but …”

  But Gunnar was already on his knees, peering over the inner parapet, and what he saw threatened to crack the ice. He closed his eyes a moment, willing it to hold. “It is her.”

  The stark whiteness of Eleanor’s face told him how frightened she was, but the fact that she was picking at a biscuit, even so slowly, said she was safe for the moment.

  He took a look at the outlaws themselves, and one face jumped out. The ice flashed to steam in the furious heat that rose within him. “That whoreson.”

  “You know one of them?” Brand peeked over the edge.

  “Aye. It’s that bastard from the tourney. The one with the knife. Simon Tunstall.”

  “The one who tried to kill the squire?” asked Torvald, but Gunnar grabbed Ari’s bow and quiver and was gone, crouching low to stay out of sight as he ran toward the front wall. Shaking his head, Torvald looked to Brand. “He’s still Gunnar.”

  “Aye,” said Brand with a grim smile. “We’d better go.”

  They ran for the horses.

  ELEANOR FORCED HERSELF to break off another crumb of biscuit and put it in her mouth, even though each stale bite was harder to swallow than the last. Her appetite was a fiction meant to drag out supper as long as possible, to
give whoever was out there—please let there be someone out there—time to mount a rescue before she was forced into the choice both she and Tunstall already knew she’d make.

  But delay carried its own risks. The men had already finished eating, and some of them were staring at her, their eyes keen with ale-fueled lust. Tunstall barely had them in control. If they drank much more …

  One of them jabbed a finger toward her. “She’s eatin’ slow of a purpose.”

  “Of course she is. You can hardly fault her, when she has such a solemn decision to make.” Tunstall popped a morsel of cheese into his mouth and grinned at the complaining man. “Grant her this small victory. She’ll fill up soon enough.”

  The man sitting next on the other side of Tunstall nudged him with an elbow. “I’d like to fill her up.”

  “Watch your mouth,” snapped Tunstall. “She is a noble lady and soon to be my wife.”

  “’Struth, I’m hopin’ she refuses you.” Another man directly across the fire from Eleanor made a show of sniffing the air, then grabbed his crotch to adjust himself. “Even from here, she smells so very fine and womanish, I’m all but squirtin’ meself.”

  “That’s no great news,” said Donal. “You do that every time you smell a sheep.”

  The first man raised his middle finger, and insults flew back and forth, each rawer than the last. Malcolm and Angus drifted over from the gate to join in the sport, and the mood quickly grew darker, the words more tinged with violence.

  Shaking in earnest now, Eleanor struggled to swallow the last bite of biscuit, but it had gone dry as sawdust and refused to go down. She choked, unable to speak the words that might put a stop to this before it was too late. Promising herself she’d kill him the first chance she got, she spat the bite out on the ground and prepared to tell Simon Tunstall she would marry him on the morrow.

  “Who’s that?” Malcolm’s sudden question cut off the insults and carried all of them to their feet, even Eleanor. He pointed toward a half-tumbled section of wall. “There.”

  In the cleft stood a man, a phantom lit from behind by the rising moon, his hair a fire-tinged halo. His face was little more than a shadow, but she knew him at once.

  Gunnar.

  She clapped her hand over her mouth to catch her cry of recognition and relief. He was here. He’d come for her.

  Tunstall glanced around at his men, then screwed up his courage and took a couple of steps forward. “Who are you? What do you want?”

  “I am here for the woman.”

  “So are we,” said Angus, and some of the others laughed that nasty laugh that made her skin crawl.

  “Give her over unharmed and you may live.”

  Anger rumbled through the band, and Donal raised his sword high and shook it in challenge. “Come down here to take her and you may get to watch us fuck her as you die.”

  As the others hooted and thumped their chests and each other’s backs in agreement, Gunnar raised a bow and drew, lightning fast. There was a faint whisk and thump, and Donal’s eyes widened in shock. Eleanor followed his gaze down and gasped.

  An arrow sprouted from Donal’s groin like some odd, feathered member. He stared at it, uncomprehending, then with a wail, grabbed at the shaft and wrenched.

  “Donal, don’t!”

  Malcolm’s warning came too late. The arrow tore free, and blood fountained over Donal’s thighs, pulsing with every beat of his heart. He folded to his knees, shrieking, clutching at himself, trying to catch his life in cupped hands as it darkened the earth before him. They all stood staring, aghast, and for the space of a breath or two, there was nothing but the horror of Donal’s screams.

  Then he toppled over, the screaming fading with his life. In the frozen silence that followed, a low rumble rose beyond the walls. Tunstall’s head came up.

  “The gate,” he shouted as the rumble turned into approaching hoofbeats. He ran toward the opening, waving frantically for his men to follow. “Fools. You left the gate unmanned!”

  His shout jolted the men out of their trance and they raced after him, hurrying to form a rough line before the opening. In the moment of chaos, Eleanor, realizing she was unwatched, snatched up her rock and started backing away.

  Before she got more than a few steps, two riders tore through the gate, their swords flashing as they swept into the ragged line, their battle cries echoing off the stones.

  The larger of the two took out the nearest outlaw with a single, clean blow that sent the man’s head bouncing off into the dark like an unwanted ball. The other rider disposed of a second man in like fashion, and they each charged after another.

  From the wall, Gunnar took out another man with an arrow, then dropped his bow and hurtled off the wall with a bloodcurdling cry. The remaining outlaws broke and ran, scattering like dust before a broom. Gunnar ran one to ground, sword high.

  Still frozen in awe, Eleanor saw Tunstall break away from the group and pelt across the yard—not just running, she suddenly realized, but coming straight for her.

  “Gunnar!” She turned to run, but Tunstall was already on her. He snagged her braid and brought her up short with a jerk. She rounded on him, swung, and clipped his forehead with her stone, just enough to make him wince. She swung again, and felt the satisfying clunk of stone on bone. He grunted, and blood welled, then streamed down his temple. He stumbled, but held on.

  “Bitch.” He yanked again, harder, this time ripping her hair. She pitched into his chest with a yelp of pain, and before she could recover, the tip of his sword bit into the side of her neck. She froze.

  “Drop it.” He pulled the blade, just a little, and she cried out. As blood streamed down her neck, she let her only weapon fall.

  “That’s better.” Twisting his hand into her braid, he dragged her around the corner of the keep. “Now, we are going to fetch my horse and ride out of here.”

  IT AS A short, brutal fight, over before the blood could fully slake the white heat of Gunnar’s fury. When it was done and the moans of the dying had been silenced, he, Brand, and Torvald stood in the bailey, breathing hard and looking over the gore-covered things that had once been men.

  “They weren’t very good fighters,” said Brand, echoing Gunnar’s thought. Brand cut a scrap of fairly clean linen off the body at his feet and used it to wipe his blade before he sheathed it, then passed the cloth to Gunnar. “We’ll deal with the bodies and meet you back at camp. Go find your lady.”

  “She is not my lady.” The words tasted as bitter as they sounded. Gunnar cleaned his own sword and wiped the blood off his hands. “One of you should see to her.”

  “Gunnar …”

  “No. I will be poor company. I still want to kill something.” He put his sword away and tossed the cloth to Torvald. “I almost wish there had been more of them.”

  “There were.”

  “What?”

  Holding the scrap of linen, Torvald turned a slow circle, frowning as he scoured the bailey. “Did one of you kill a man someplace else?”

  Brand and Gunnar looked at each other and shook their heads.

  “There were one and ten counting Lady Eleanor. She’s … wherever she is. I see only nine dead.”

  Gunnar counted quickly and came up short, too.

  “Shite. Eleanor. Eleanor!” He ran toward the last place he’d seen her, by the fire.

  As he neared the spot, a flash of movement toward the rear of the bailey caught his eye. Gunnar ducked behind the keep and peered around the corner. He spotted Eleanor untying one of the horses; an outlaw held a sword at her back.

  Not just any outlaw. Tunstall.

  Gunnar signaled Torvald and Brand to send them circling around the far side of the keep to come up from behind, then flattened against the wall, where the shadows would hide him while he crept closer.

  “Over by the block,” Tunstall ordered, prodding Eleanor with his sword.

  There was no way Gunnar was going to let this asp ride away with Eleanor in his hands. The b
astard had been ready to kill a squire for a kiss and a bit of silver. The gods only knew what he’d do to save his own life. But with that blade at Eleanor’s back … Gunnar said a brief prayer to Baldr to make her as quick-witted as she had been at Raby.

  He stepped out into the moonlight. “Hold or die, Tunstall.”

  The man turned with a start. He squinted toward Gunnar, and recognition dawned across his face. “You!”

  He wrenched Eleanor away from the horse, holding her before him as a shield. Moonlight flashed off his blade as he waggled it at Gunnar, threatening. “Back away. You already cost me one prize. You won’t take this one. I’ll kill her first.”

  Eleanor met Gunnar’s eyes, then moaned faintly and collapsed, seemingly having swooned away. Tunstall caught at her limp body, but it was like holding water. She oozed through his arms and pooled at his feet. With a cry of frustration, he grabbed for her.

  Gunnar threw himself at Tunstall, carrying him away from Eleanor before he could touch her again. They landed amongst the horses, hooves flashing around their heads as the animals shied away. Gunnar threw the outlaw off and rolled clear, but the other man, lighter and quicker, was up and running before Gunnar could get to his feet.

  Torvald and Brand ran out of the shadows behind the keep, blocking Tunstall’s escape. Snarling like a cornered fox, Tunstall whirled back toward Gunnar and rushed at him, sword held high in two hands. Gunnar parried the blow to the side, reached beneath his blade before Tunstall could recover, and thrust deep between his ribs, a quick in, twist, and out.

  Tunstall froze in mid-stride and looked at Gunnar with that surprised stare men have in the instant they realize they’re dead. His sword sagged as the blood drained from his arms, and he swayed like a willow in an autumn storm. He looked down at the gaping hole in his chest where air and blood foamed together. “You have killed me.”

  “I have.”

  “Good.” Eleanor appeared at Gunnar’s side, her face hard. “I am not your prize,” she spat at Tunstall. “I am no man’s prize. I hope you burn in Hell.”