by Amy Faye
The sound of an English shout made him turn to face it, just in time to catch an English arrow with his shield, and another with his shoulder. Valdemar would not be so lucky, he realized.
Gunnar took a long step, turning his back once more on the archers, who hid somewhere in one of the buildings. He would have time to respond, but not while his men were vulnerable.
The heavy ax came down, splitting a man nearly in half, and Gunnar claimed another with the point of his sword, a boy who had never seen the blow coming. As Valdemar turned to take the last of the three men surrounding him, Gunnar heard a second shout go up, and turned again, the tiniest flash of movement sending his hand out in a futile effort to catch it.
Instead the arrow hit his blade, hard enough to send it, twisting and tumbling out of his hand, and another caught him through the thigh. Though it stung badly, it was not enough to take him down. He needed to deal with this, though. More than one body lay in the stone floor, pin-cushioned like he was, but they were not continuing to fight like he could.
He could see where the arrows had come from. The door was barricaded. They would have more than enough time for their arrows to find marks as he tried to dig his way through—Gunnar cursed their good tactics, and started to charge with his shield once more. If you cannot go around, he thought. The easiest way…
He left his feet and groaned out as his hip hit the window pane, felt the glass cutting through his skin as it failed to shatter cleanly on his shield. But when he tumbled down, it was to a wooden floor, and not to the muck of the small garden outside.
Another arrow struck him, sending him back to the floor as he tried to stand. The eldest of the five men had a sword in his hand, and he raised it as another arrow hit home. They were not taking chances, Gunnar thought, and they were right not to.
Through the haze of pain and with his body pinned to the floor he swung wildly for the old man's leg, feeling the blade sink into flesh. The man screamed out his pain and fell to the ground. Gunnar took the advantage, using the man's weight to help him turn over and straddle his chest.
He wrapped his hands around the man's throat and put his weight down, feeling him struggle. Gunnar's knee came up to pin his sword arm and he watched the light go out of the Englishman's eyes. A pity, he had been clever. Cleverer than most of the English. They were known, and now the English would be prepared, more and more at each town. The danger would increase as they continued.
As the man stopped fighting Gunnar pulled the sword from the man's hands, pressing himself up even as the arrows thudded into his body with the force of an angry bull. He turned, one sword cleaving through the wooden bow of an archer that stood close by, the second finding a place in his chest. The others died as quickly, until Gunnar finally laid back against the wall, chest heaving with exertion.
The wounds hurt badly, and with the arrows still in him he could feel them pulling back open every time he moved. He was tired, and he hurt. He should have died a dozen times over. It was a blessing that he was able to survive, but it was important to remember that if he hadn't been here, hadn't been who he was, then it was not impossible that they had all died.
Ulf stepped through the door, his helm removed and sweat streaming down his face. "Gunnar, there you are."
The smell of smoke was going up, now. They had finished without him, that much was a strange relief.
"Here I am, indeed. What is it?"
"Leif said that he saw a pincushion leaping through this window, I thought perhaps you had gone to see Lord Odin."
"No," Gunnar answered, breaking off one of the shafts that had caught in his leg and pulling it out with a shout of pain. "Not yet, Ulf."
He turned to go, leaving Gunnar sitting in the room, his breath struggling. Another broken shaft, another arrow pulled straight through, and his breath started to come back as his lung healed the puncture a moment later.
No, he would not be going to sit and drink at Valhalla. Not until that damn witch-woman found out how to cure him. She tried to play her tricks, tried to say that she knew nothing about his condition or how to cure it, but he knew better. They were knowledgeable about many things, these witches.
Maybe she knew nothing at the moment, but she knew more than she let on. That, or taking her had been a waste.
Not a waste, part of his mind thought. There are more uses for a woman that beautiful than for her magic. He pushed the thought away again. He had to be a leader, had to keep pushing himself harder. Otherwise, he would be overtaken, whenever Valdemar decided that it was time to make his move.
It would be soon, Gunnar knew. He would have to find his answers before that time came—or be prepared to answer the challenge.
Four
There was a cold wind blowing across the hilltop where they had all been left, and it let Deirdre watch the Northlanders take their long, loping strides across the hills toward Malbeck.
It was the high angle that let her see when they were far enough that they were little more than specs, and then when they went down the last hill, into the basin where the next town over laid.
Deirdre waited a long moment before she spoke, and when she did she wasn't sure how long they'd let her. After all, the ones who had come from Clifton knew her for what she was. The rest, she supposed, might have guessed. Or perhaps they thought she was something worse still, a woman who tried to buy her freedom with her body.
"They can't see us any longer. Now's our chance."
Nobody said anything, nor even moved beyond a slight turn of the head.
"Come on, now! We can get away, we've got time. Haven't you got any fight left in you?"
They looked at her again, their expressions tired and disinterested. What on earth were they thinking? They could die at any moment, staying with these men. At least if they were to escape they might live.
"Well, I'm going," she announced, loudly, and pointedly looking from one face to the next. "Anyone who will come with me is welcome to."
"And if they have someone watching the camp, just out of sight? What will you do then? Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot. You're their favorite, so naturally you're safe. I'd forgotten." The man glowered at her, his eyes burning like coals. "No, I'll stay right here. I'm not going to risk anything happening. When the chance comes, I'll be safe."
"You're a fool," Deirdre said softly, but part of her wasn't sure. What if he was right? What if there was someone out of sight? She'd kept watch, but she didn't have eyes in the back of her head, regardless what the villagers thought of her.
One could have slipped off, circled back. If anyone could stay out of sight, then she supposed that these men could, and she hardly had the advantage of her herbs to make her sight clearer. No way to focus more than she had.
"Then what," she said, at last. "What do you wait for? To be enslaved? Killed?"
"We wait for an opportunity. A safe opportunity. We want to live, witch." Another had spoken this time, a man she'd seen before in Clifton. She thought he might be a baker.
How, she wondered, had they captured him? It was hardly as if they were in the business of taking prisoners. They'd killed that boy for little more than giving the leader a nasty look. If he'd been caught with a weapon in hand… he'd be rotting in the mud right now, but he might have taken one of them along. Each of them might have sent one of the northmen to Hell, if they'd only tried. If they'd had the guts to go after one of them with a knife.
Deirdre stopped speaking abruptly. What was the point of talking to a bunch of cowards, after all? It was just as well if she stayed silent, because with her hands tied behind her back it would take more than a little bit of focus to get herself off of the pole, tied to the lot of cowards that allowed the band of powerful northmen to raid the countryside.
She could already see the smoke beginning to rise from the beginnings of fire. Whether that meant they were finished, or that they were merely getting started, she couldn't be sure.
The only thing she was sure of was that she wasn't loo
king forward to having to tell the leader that she couldn't give him what he wanted, what he needed. She worked her shoulder to loosen it, where it had been stiff from being continually forced behind her.
Then, once she'd managed that, she started to try to work her hands down, moving the rope down and under her plump bottom, down to her knees…
Her legs ached with the pain of stretching, her shoulder pulled to its limits, but she continued to lean, bending her knees to relieve the pain. It didn't matter what kind of show she gave to the others, how far down the front of her dress they could see.
This wasn't about modesty. It was about freedom, and she was going to have hers back. If someone came into her little cottage again, and said they desperately needed her help, then Gods above damn them because she wasn't about to leave it. Never again. She guessed that her cottage, outside Clifton, had survived the northern onslaught, being so far outside.
She could go right home and live her life, hale and happy and grow her food, the same as she had before. She worked the rope under her feet, groaning with discomfort, and then finally… she had her hands 'round front.
She stepped over the rope to stop it hiking up her dress any more than it already had, then turned to the pole. It was only six feet stuck out of the ground, just high enough that she could lift the rope that held it if she jumped. She turned back to see if there were any men on the horizon.
She saw none, but Deirdre knew that didn't mean anything. She could have missed them cresting a hill, and they hid now in the valley that two hills made, and she would have been none the wiser. She still had to hurry, as if they could top the next hill at any moment and see her going.
Hers was, to her great displeasure, not the top loop on the post. In fact, as she looked, it was very nearly at the bottom. She would have to free ten people before she could have a solitary hope of going.
She loosened the first, letting it slide up. Standing just on her tip-toes in the soft earth, she was able to… just barely… push it over, with the point of her fingers. She had misjudged the height, she thought, and now she was beginning to realize how much of a disadvantage it was going to be that she was far from a tall woman.
Perhaps, she thought to herself, looking askance, if she had help from any one of them, things would have been different, but she did not. The man whose thong she had loosened stood up, testing his bonds.
Oh, now he is interested in escaping. What a good, principled man. It was hardly a wonder that Deirdre had given up on marriage, she thought bitterly. Cowardly and opportunistic, what a wondrous combination.
"If you're going to help, then come here and I can untie you."
He turned to face her, clearly unimpressed by her attempt to be reasonable and polite. An attempt, she noted to herself, which had taken no small amount of effort. He was a pig, the worst kind of animal, out only for himself and using only the easiest possible means.
He stepped up to her, looking her right in the eyes. "You don't get it, do you? I want to live. My wife, my daughter, they're gone now. I don't have any reason to risk my life to escape back to something that's gone. I want to live, and I'm going to live. I'm not going to let you, or any of these men, put that in jeopardy."
He reared his head back, and brought it down, and the world went black.
Finding her on the ground, her eyes still out of focus, put Gunnar into a mood that he couldn't afford to show. She was a prisoner, he reminded himself. Just a prisoner, not his woman. The fact that he seemed to have forgotten that… it was hardly any wonder why Valdemar had thought he could stand up to Gunnar.
No, he had to make sure that he kept his head on straight. There was no way to say for certain what had happened, unless they interrogated the prisoners, and there was little reason to worry so much about it. Aside, of course, from Gunnar's wounded pride, but even he could manage to stifle that.
Once the prisoners were checked, the next thing he had to do was… he thought. They wouldn't break camp tonight. Not with so many injured. How many had they lost today? One had died. Leif, he'd been too old for the expedition by a few years. Older than Gunnar, and without his peculiar talents.
Another two had taken bad wounds. They wouldn't be up and moving again for weeks, but it was a risk you faced. Eirik brought up the rear, with the wagon that Gunnar had suggested they steal from the town. It would make a better way to keep the prisoners in line, and it would let them carry the wounded.
He turned back and helped pull the wagon the last bit of the way up the steep hillside, until he and Eirik stood beside one another breathing hard.
They would rest tonight, post a guard, and in the morning they would be off. How long would it take before the witch could cure him? How would he know when she had, for that matter? Was it something that he would feel right away?
How many more nights would he have to call her in, to feel that stirring inside him and have to squash it? He pushed the thought away. No, he wasn't attracted to her. That was out of the question. He couldn't afford a distraction and he wouldn't allow one.
It was becoming a near-hourly struggle whenever he had to stay in this camp, reminding himself that he had a job to do and couldn't afford to dally with pretty fire-headed witches.
He went to check the firewood stocks. They had been plenty the night before, but they went through them at a surprising rate, and the wood was needed to cook supper for the camp.
Valdemar caught his eye as he walked back through the center of camp. The younger berserker had seen him, and knew that Gunnar had seen him as well. After a moment he pushed himself forward, off of the cart that he'd leaned himself on.
Gunnar wanted to ignore him. Wanted to keep on moving and let him do whatever fool thing he was going to do. There was no advantage in wasting his attention on Valdemar's attempts to goad him into a disadvantaged fight. All he would be doing would be to give them credence.
But at the same time... he pushed the thought away. No, he would have to ignore it. There was nothing else for it, he had to ignore it or he would face trouble.
The man spoke loudly, in Norse that told the entire group that he did it for Gunnar's benefit.
"What a pretty little whore. I wonder what she'd say to spending a night with a real man, for once! What about you, would you like that?"
He leaned down into her face. Gunnar couldn't help seeing the leering stare he gave her, one that left little to the imagination whether you could understand his words or not. She wasn't questioning what he wanted.
Gunnar could imagine what was racing through her mind right now. Had seen how she acted the first night in his own tent. She was trying to decide how quick he was, trying to figure out if she could kill him and get away with it. In the midst of the group of prisoners, her arms in front of her—
Gunnar cursed below his breath and made his way over. At best she would do nothing, but at worst she was going to get herself killed. He had searched for ten years for a chance to make himself a proper man again, he wasn't about to let his opportunity slip through his fingers.
And as far as the camp was concerned, she was his. He didn't want to admit it but if he were to let Valdemar continue then he would just be showing everyone that he was too weak, too afraid to fight back. Well, he wasn't afraid, and he wasn't weak. If it was a fight that Valdemar wanted, a fight he would get.
His foot came up and he put a boot into the side of the berserker's face, sending him sprawling to the grass. He was barely down an instant before he rolled and was on his feet, his hand darting toward his waist, where he kept his knife.
When he saw that Gunnar hadn't pulled out a weapon his body relaxed, just a little bit. There would be no need for an immediate response. If it were just a punch, he could take one of those.
That was where he made his mistake, Gunnar thought. He ducked his head and darted in, using his shoulder the same as he had earlier that day. With both of them tired, he didn't get the effect he'd had earlier, but Valdemar stepped back. The leader's
hips dropped, and he pushed up with his legs, lifting Valdemar until he tumbled head-over-heels to the ground.
Gunnar stepped back, looking down on the berserker as he started to stand. Gunnar's foot came up, pressed into his shoulder and sent him back to the grass. It didn't escape his notice that a crowd had formed, nearly every man who could walk having started to circle the central clearing of the tents.
This was all about the show, now. There was nothing he could do to escape it any more, whether he wanted to or not.
"You think you can face me? You couldn't best me with your ax against my bare hands, what makes you think that you could win?"
Valdemar's eyes burned with anger. This wasn't going to be the end of it, whether the others took the lesson or not. Not by a long shot was this the end.
Gunnar looked over at the woman, the fire of anger managing the dampen whatever he felt for her, then looked at the circle of men that surrounded the pair of them.
"The witch is under my protection, and I will not see a one of you trying to go around that. Am I understood? Can you all hear me? Anyone who wants to know her, that man has to go through me first. And I'm not going to give you an easy fight."
Eirik was opposite him, he could see. He stood, impassive and seeming not to judge. The Gods could be cruel, and they had no problem with what might happen between a man and a woman on a raid.
Eirik spoke oft as not with the Gods' own voice, but Gunnar knew one other thing. The Gods respected strength and respected a man who could protect what was his. Eirik might think what he wanted, and the Gods could allow whatever they wanted to allow.
Gunnar did not speak with their voice and did not pay them any special mind. If he declared that she was protected, then no one—not Valdemar, not Eirik, not Ulf or Leif, would challenge him.
Not because he had command, or because they were not permitted to stand up to him. Because if they tried to, and it was very possible that they might, he would see them sent along to Valhalla before he let them touch her.
