by Amy Faye
No, he wasn't going to. As he flipped the knife around and handed it to her, she frowned. There was a plan at work, surely. He'd stop her somehow. He stood and reached down a hand to help her up off the ground. She took it, but instead of standing she used it to pull herself into a lunge forward, pulling him in towards her.
When she stepped back, his knife was buried inches-deep in his stomach.
And then he did something that surprised her. He laughed. She gripped the knife again, twisting the blade, and he groaned out in pain. The laughter continued. She pulled hard, trying to carve a large hole in him.
He pushed her back off him, onto her back. The knife came free of his stomach easily, leaving a red mess on the white shirt he'd worn, beside the red bloody hole left by the spear that had gone through and through.
She couldn't have missed his guts, unless it was some sort of trick. It was absolutely impossible, absolutely. He would be dead, whether it took a day or a week, it was as sure as anything. So why did she feel so sure that he hadn't been the least bit effected?
The wound in his gut had bled badly—for a moment. Then, like most, it had closed up, and now, after a long day's march he wasn't sure that he felt it at all.
If he twisted hard, he could feel some tightness, he thought. But it could have been his imagination. He imagined himself to feel pain from most of his wounds, but few of them even left a scar for more than a week or so.
Gunnar sucked in a breath through his teeth, replaying the night before in his mind. What had he wanted when he had her taken to his tent?
He'd wanted what he had always wanted. He wanted to have the damn 'blessing' lifted. He wanted to live like his brothers, to take scars, like a warrior.
Yet, there had been a thousand other things in mind when he'd seen her there. He'd wanted—Gods above, he'd wanted something very different from her expertise as a witching woman. The way that her dress, torn from the morning before, had let just enough of her spill out when she was pushed onto her back. He blinked the memory away.
The primal feeling he'd gotten when he put his weight down on her, knowing that he could have taken whatever he wanted. The thought set him on edge. What he wanted had nothing to do with a woman's body. He was leader on this raid, and he wouldn't let anything distract him.
That he would never join his brothers in Valhalla, that concerned him. Concerned him enough that he had to see it rectified before another failed expedition sent him home alone, carrying only the memories of his comrades.
He refocused his sights on the horizon. There it was, another village. They were only a few miles out, now. Best to make camp here, where they wouldn't risk being seen. He stopped abruptly, letting the men behind him stop in their own time. Valdemar walked past, brushing shoulders with Gunnar.
It was probably intended as a slight, he thought. But better to ignore it than to let him see any chink in the armor. Valdemar had always been a gifted fighter, that much was without a doubt.
But he was too aggressive. He couldn't make the right decisions under pressure. He was clever enough, true, but he always raised the stakes too high. Gunnar smiled. He sounded as if he were describing himself. Dangerously similar. And if they were dangerously similar, Gunnar knew what would come next.
Did he want to stop it?
Gunnar let out a long breath. "We'll make camp here for the night. Get to making your tents, get a fire going."
He looked back at the men, at the group of prisoners. He did a quick head count, saw that two had found their ways to freedom. No matter, so long as the witch was with them.
In the distance, over the rolling hills he could still see a thick chimney of smoke from the town they'd left earlier that day. He smiled mirthlessly. The Gods would be pleased with them tonight, to be certain. It had been a narrow thing, with the boy acting as mad as he had. But between Eirik and him…
Valdemar was beside him when he spoke. "We are too far out," he said, loud enough for others to hear.
So it began.
"We can't risk being found before we march," Gunnar said. Now their argument was a show for the entire band, a position he'd rather not have been put in. "Or can you go into your berserk trance at the snap of my fingers? It seems it usually takes you the morning march to find yourself, to me. Perhaps you would benefit from having a little bit more distance?"
"Worry about yourself," he growled. "They're weak. We will march right through them, like we have the last three towns."
"All the more reason that we shouldn't risk being taken by surprise. No man here would like Thor to see him embarrassed like that."
"Perhaps you would be caught by surprise." Valdemar shot it out like an accusation. Gunnar could see the frustration, even anger, in the lines of his face.
"When have I ever been caught unaware, Valdemar?"
"When have you ever been rutting with English savages whores on a raid?"
Gunnar's mind flashed to the woman's ruby red hair, spread out below her after he'd put her to the ground. The way that her breasts heaved as she struggled to get at him. Futile, but so energetic nonetheless. Then his jaw tightened.
"Are you trying to question me, Valdemar?"
"Yes," he said plainly.
"Then challenge me to a duel. I won't refuse! Or are you too much of a coward?"
"You've said it yourself. There's no reason to risk injury the night before a raid, dear leader. There will be more than enough time for us to come to an understanding in the future."
He shucked the pack off his back, letting it fall at his feet. Well, his tent was marked, Gunnar thought. Most would want to choose a spot more carefully, but not Valdemar. He was too obstinate to be reasoned with; he would let it fall where he stood, and wouldn't move it for any of them.
Gunnar knew how Valdemar saw him. Weak, retreating. He would place his own tent last, and it was usually to the outside. It was easier to make sure that the stolen horses were kept, that the prisoners didn't escape. Nobody would be able to avoid putting up a tent, but that meant nobody could watch.
He would, and that was part of being a leader: recognizing when the group would have troubles, and finding a way to fix them in advance. Valdemar had never seen the value in safeguarding others, and it was why Gunnar would not simply let him have his way. A good leader needed to be able to put the needs of the group first.
He sat down on the ground with his legs crossed, his sheath pulled away from his belt and put on the soft earth. The rain from the day before had begun to sink into the soil, leaving it firmer, less muddy. Nicer.
Gunnar had to confess that he couldn't keep his eyes off of Deirdre as he watched the prisoners. There were perhaps a score of them, and he'd taken his measure of half of them before this. Now he should have been keeping an eye on the entire group, looking for the ones who might have some fight left in them. Instead he focused on her.
Once they were identified it would be easy to see it beaten out of them. But all he saw was the prisoner with the most fight of all. He should have made sure that he saw her attitude corrected immediately. He could have done it himself.
Instead he found himself thinking of her like a doting father. He didn't want to see her lose it. Why was he thinking of that now? Valdemar had gauged the situation wrong, but only by shades. It was no time for him to be finding time for a woman. There were more important things to be taken care of.
She stood out compared to the rest, her red hair. Her clothing, brightly colored even with the dried muck covering it. She seemed… different. More different than he had realized. He took in a deep breath and checked on the camp from his seat on the ground. They were making it well enough.
He had to force himself to stand, pace a little bit away, and only after a long moment did he turn back to face the prisoners. The whole lot of them were still there, seated on the ground.
He did a head count. Eighteen was a good number, but more would come. Some would die, or escape. He expected they would have more when the time cam
e for them to go back. The raid was to be a large one, compared to what he had done before. Going up and down the coast was easy, but the English had gotten wise to it.
Marching inland, on the other hand, cut them off from the sea, something none of them wanted desperately. But it was the right decision to make. He hadn't needed to wait for Valdemar to make the suggestion, though he had made it.
Most looked afraid. The fourteen who had been found in the villages over the past week had already learned what happened to anyone who tried to leave. The new arrivals were the only ones with any spirit left, but… he looked through them.
None with enough to try anything, not unless it were a sure thing. None except her. As he looked across the group, she caught his eye again.
She was looking at him.
Watching him, more like. The way that her eyes were wide, staring. The fury writ-large across her face. She looked at him as if he had done exactly what Valdemar suggested he had done. As if she were going to take the little seax each night and try again and again until it finally stuck.
Well, good for her. If she could manage it, she should have been commended. Killing him where men had failed, more than Gunnar could easily count any more. There would be plenty of time for her to try killing him.
But he wouldn't just let her, not like he had before. His mind drifted to other things that he would had gladly let her do, and he had to shake the thoughts from his mind. No. He had little time to concern himself with his cock. He had to keep control of the raid.
If he needed something from her, then he would be able to deal with it after the raid tomorrow morning, but it would be better still if he could ignore his need. She wasn't his prisoner because she was pretty, after all. He had to remind himself of that more than once.
If she'd been an old crone, wart-and-pimple covered, then he would have taken her the same, as long as she had the shine of a woman who had touched magic. As long as she could make a wound stick to him, he would have taken a toad.
Three
Deirdre had been on the earth for just short of twenty years, and she had long since decided that men weren't for her. There was no chance of her finding a husband when she lived in the swamp, far enough outside of town that they didn't come for her every time a flu went around.
The way that the Northlander looked at her made shiver. She didn't want him to keep looking at her like that. Did she? She closed her eyes. No, don't think about it. She had to escape, and that was what she had to do.
But with all these men around, how was that even going to be possible? The leader—she could see from the way that he acted that he led them. The powerful man, then. She tried to figure who was whom from her vision, but she had little information to go on.
The powerful man, the leader. The weak man, the one who would stop the bloodshed. Perhaps the thin man with the shaven head and tattoos? But the priest, and the other two, she couldn't begin to guess. No one wore a cross, that much was certain at least.
But that left her with desperately little information.
She shivered at the thought of what would come next as the sun began to set. They had been given some food, tied all to another post erected in the center of the camp. She took a bite, watched the sun sinking and the shades of pink and purple it cast on the thick clouds as she looked out.
A stab to the gut like she'd given, particularly the way she'd cut so rough across like she had… the Powerful man should have died from it, an hour or two later. There was no way to close up a wound like that before the rot set in. If they'd had a gifted physician, he would have died slower, but he would have died.
He certainly shouldn't have been walking around comfortably, leading a band of twenty men or more. Shouting at them loudly. Watching her like a jackal after.
The Weak man came to get her, his tattooed head reflecting the lights from the setting sun and putting a halo around his head like a church painting. He didn't speak much, just one word as he untied her hands.
"Come."
He walked behind her, prodding her past the now-empty wagon that she guessed they must have stolen and to the large tent she had been taken to the night before.
He pulled the flap aside for her and gestured with his head for her to go inside. The night before had been some sort of fluke. She knew that much to be true. But what he had in store for her tonight she had little to guess.
She had long-since given up on having a husband, or being part of the town she had once lived near, even thought of as her home in a way. But that did not mean that she was naive in the things that men wanted with women, either, particularly in their tents at night.
She tried not to think about whether or not she would fight him. She would, but trying to figure out how she would do it when he shrugged off even lethal wounds, that was a question she would need to answer in the moment.
Her heart beat in her chest like a drum, loud enough that she wondered if he could hear it from where he sat, his legs crossed again. That same expression like a hungry wolf on his face, looking at her from under a heavy brow. He didn't stir as she came inside, but she knew that he could have caught her before she made it a hundred yards, were she to run.
She struggled to decide. What would she do, then? She had to wait. Had to have the right opportunity, when his attention was on something else. If she just waited long enough, then the opportunity would come… right?
"Sit," he said softly. He made a wide, sweeping gesture. She saw that the box, the one that she'd imagined to be a makeshift table, was pulled a little away from the wall of the tent. She used it as a makeshift stool, watching him from a distance.
"What do you want from me?"
His brow furrowed, his eyes lightly closed. He had understood her, but only just. She thought about running, for a moment. She would have a few moment's head start as he thought through what she had said, but it wouldn't be enough time.
He would hear the flap, and her advantage would not be near enough. And that was assuming, of course, that no one watched the tent from the outside, which she knew was not a safe assumption by any means. No, she was not done waiting yet.
His eyes opened and he nodded for a moment, clearly formulating a response.
"I can not… ah…" his eyes flicked to the corner of the tent, thinking of the word. "Die."
He stood, lifting his still-stained shirt. A white line marked his stomach, like a years-old wound he'd taken. Where she had cut a ragged line across him only the night before.
He must have been waiting for a reaction to continue, because as soon as she leaned forward from her perch, her brows furrowed in confusion, he continued.
"I want to go to heaven, with my brothers. I must fall in battle. You are magic."
The words came slowly, but Deirdre was only half-listening. She knew nothing about what he was saying. This was so far beyond her capabilities. She was nothing more than a hill witch. She had learned from her teacher before her, little things.
Herbs to help control her mind. How to read the signs that the earth left for her. How to read weather patterns. This was so much more than anything she had ever seen, or even heard of.
He took a step toward her, letting his shirt fall to cover his hard, nearly-unmarked body. "You are magic, and you will make me a man."
She looked up at him, the way that he looked at her no different than it had been before. Uncomfortably close, a reminder that pulled her out of her reverie, reminding her again that she was a woman in a man's bedroom.
He seemed to be saying that he had taken her because she was a witch. That was what his words said.
His eyes said that he didn't see her as a witch. He saw her as a woman, and whether he would take advantage of it or not, there was no denying what he saw.
"I don't know how to fix it. I don't know anything about—"
He put her hand on his stomach, letting her feel the skin where she had cut, feel the smoothness of it. She couldn't help but feel the hard muscle beneath, a shiver g
oing up her spine. She didn't want to think the thoughts that ran through her head.
She didn't want to think about the fact that they were much closer to his than he might have realized.
"You are magic. Find a way."
The march was another half-hour at double pace, but for Gunnar the march never began until the last thirty paces, when the fury of battle finally started to overtake the cold knowledge of what would come. When they broke out of the loose ranks and picked up the pace.
Gunnar tried to keep himself in check. Nearing thirty, he was not as young as some of the boys, and he needed to remind himself of that. But as Valdemar started to pass him, and the fever of battle started to rise, he couldn't help speeding up to match, ducking his shoulder behind a shield. He'd topple the first man he came to with the sheer weight behind the tackle.
That one would live, for a moment, until someone decided to take the kill or he decided to get off his back and rejoin the fight. Whatever man stood behind him would not be so lucky, as Gunnar's practiced arm let the shield slip off to the side and revealed the sharp blade behind it.
Valdemar had no shield. Never carried one, which Gunnar had to respect from a man who had not been blessed with Gunnar's peculiar talents. The battle madness had already overcome him as they started to hit cobblestone pavement, his great ax swinging back to take off head of the first man to dare stand before him.
Gunnar pulled his blade free, glancing to the side as they passed by a house, making sure that no ambush lay in wait. He caught the blow of a sword on his shield, turning it aside with the round redoubt, and brought his own sword down on the man's arm, separating it cleanly at the elbow, finishing by putting his shoulder into him and sending him to the ground.
Something was wrong here. They'd come to a larger village than the last. There had been at least two dozen homes, from what he could see, perhaps more. There must have been more than this, but as he looked around he saw that there were scarce few to be found.
