Lissa raised her eyes to the heavens and blew out a soft sigh. The man did have a bit of sense.
CHAPTER NINE
The showers held off until nightfall. Brandr kept an eye out for suitable shelter but the land, while lush, offered little in the way of natural cover.
“Alwin, are there caves nigh?”
“I know of none.”
Turning to Sindre, he pointed to the line of thick wildwood that footed a ravine downslope of them. “We will stop there, and share the húdfats.”
“Share them?” Lissa sounded dubious.
He knew without looking she frowned at him. “You will see.”
They wound their way through the trees with care, traversing the whole width of the wood. It was his hope to find a shallow cavity in the wall of the ravine that might offer a more substantial shelter than the trees, but they found naught that would serve their need.
It was getting dark. A muted whispering caught his attention, followed by a wet drop that trickled down his cheek. The rain had arrived.
He gestured back the way they had come. “Move deeper into the trees. The canopy is heavier there.”
Before the dripping steadied into a downpour, each sleep sack was draped over a low-hanging limb, the back edges pushed up against the tree trunk. The hems were spread apart, tent-fashion, by securing the ties to bushes with rope. The furs were thrown onto the ground beneath them, skin side down.
“You mean to use the sleep bags as tents,” Lissa said, the skepticism more clearly in evidence.
“It is how they are used shipboard when it rains. If you did not notice, the exterior leather is heavily oiled. When it is very cold, men wear them while rowing to preserve body warmth, and protect from sea spray. We should remain dry enough beneath them, though they will provide little in the way of comfort. Here. Put this on.”
His hands brought a cloak round her shoulders. She wondered why she had not seen it before, then realized he kept it folded in the húdfat when not in use. “Will you not need this?”
“Nei.”
There was only enough room beneath each shelter for two persons. Brandr divested himself of his weapons and crawled inside, leaning with his back against the tree trunk. Reluctantly, Lisa followed, trying not to bruise her knees on the cache of weaponry.
Across the way, Sindre complained. He loudly argued Alwin should also go in with them, protesting he was too big to have to share.
Brandr shrugged off his grumbling. “Alwin stays with you, and Uncle, try not to kill him during the night.”
Sindre’s response was predictable. “If he does not keep still, I will slice him open from neck to groin and turn him into a blanket.”
∞∞§∞∞
Lissa almost felt sorry for the big víkingr, because it truly was very crowded beneath the makeshift shelters. Within the confines of theirs, neither could move without touching the other.
Brandr did not seem to mind, but while she liked sleeping nigh to him, because he made her feel safe, she did not want to sleep with him.
The steady, rumbling voice of Sindre from the nearby húdfat convinced her poor Alwin was not faring well. More than once she peeked through the opening because she feared the big víkingr would throw the boy out, but she could see naught. With no fire, it was as blacker out than the fire-scorched sides of an old kettle.
Using the simple expedient of blind touching, she shared with Brandr one of the fish, which tasted more like dirt and wood smoke than roasted trout, and the last of the apples and berries. They washed it all down with water. She wondered what to do next.
“You should sleep, now,” Brandr said. “Are you cold?”
She was not sleepy, but options were limited.
“A little, but how does one sleep sitting up? There is no room to stretch out.”
She could hear the chuckle rumbling in his voice. “Come here.”
“Brandr?”
“Will you never learn to obey? Come!”
She inched toward him and stopped. His big hands were suddenly on her thighs, then felt their way up to encircle her waist. His touch made her blood leap in her veins, filling her with that hunger she did not understand. She gasped when he lifted her and pulled her into the vee of his legs. He enfolded her in a comfortable embrace and leaned back. “You see? You will rest against me, and I will be supported by the tree, and now you know how I will keep warm. Sleep.”
She really did not think it would work, given that little pulses of fire skipped along her skin, but she had to admit that reclined against his chest, his arms around her, she quickly warmed. He really did make a fine pallet, if a bit on the unyielding side.
Time passed and she remained awake. He was, too, though he had not moved since he had ordered her to sleep. The thought occurred she had a somewhat captive audience. Might he be willing to answer more of her questions? If she knew about him, about the life his people led and the people for whom he cared, perhaps he would seem less the ruthless warrior and more an ordinary man.
“Brandr?”
A drowsy grunt was his response.
“Tell me more about your family.”
His chest rose in a silent sigh beneath her back. He shifted his weight. “My father is Óttarr Grimarson. We do not oft see eye to eye. In his youth, he gave many years of service to King Horik, and led raids against our neighbors eastward. He is still called Austmannaskelfir, terror of the east men. His skill as a trader is great and because of it, our family is wealthy. Two years ago, he led us from our home outside of Heithabyr—in the northlands from which my people come—to seek a harbor as a base for the fleet of kaupskips for which he was negotiating. He decided on Ljotness and wrested it from the Saxon thegn who ruled it. Many of our neighbors followed him. Most now crew the trade ships.
“As for my brothers, they are Karl, the oldest, and Hakon, Nicolaus, and Rathulf. Signe, my sister, is the joy of my mother, Elsef, but my father believes her conceived by Loki. He did not want girl children and would have had her put to death at birth, but my mother threatened to use her knife while he slept to cut off…she threatened him should he do so. Signe has three winters.” His voice gentled. “I am glad my father did not succeed in his desire. Signe takes after my mother, who wished to be a shieldmaiden, but neither her father nor mine allowed it. My sister is already a female to reckon with.”
He fell into a contemplative silence. She did not at once disturb his thoughts, but finally asked the one question she most wanted answered. “And what of you, Brandr Óttarrson?”
“What of me? There is naught to tell. I am but what I seem.” He pulled his knees up alongside her hips and shifted her closer. “Enough talk. Go to sleep.”
She would get naught more from him this night. Resting her head against his shoulder, she soon fell into slumber listening to the spatter of rain on the oiled hide of the húdfat, the steady rise and fall of his chest a comforting rhythm.
From the shadows grew a heavy sense of fear. It was night and she was back in Yriclea, watching monstrous figures hack and slash each other in the mist. Blood splattered everywhere and soaked the ground. Screams of pain and rage echoed hollowly, as if she heard them through some invisible wall. A nearby waterfall roared the unearthly music of drowned souls and above the scene, thunderous booms resounded. An immense hole appeared in the ground and a nightmare figure appeared, dragging a slender, linen wrapped form, leaving a thick trail of fresh blood behind. Giant wolves sprang from the darkness and began to tear away the linen to reveal a pale corpse beneath. Horror shook her as their yellowed fangs sank into the flesh and ripped it away in great, steaming gobbets. The nightmare lifted the form and the linen fell away to expose the face. Eyes filled with agony and pleading stared back at her. She shrieked in terror. The face she saw was her own.
“Lissa! Wake up. You dream.”
Pulled from visions of dreadful torment, she cried out. She lurched against an unseen tether, desperate to escape, and slapped at clawed hands that tore at
her. She could see naught. Blind!
Someone whimpered.
Abruptly, she came awake, gasping, staring into ordinary darkness. The fetters that bound her dissolved into arms that enfolded her. The tearing claws resolved into calloused hands that stroked her with soothing caress. The whimpering ceased.
She was inside the húdfat. Rain sheeted down its sides but within its confines, it was dry and snug. A great splash of white brilliance rippled the blackness. Thunder cracked overhead with enough force to quake the ground beneath, and she gave a violent start.
From behind her right ear, a deep, calm voice comforted. “Shhhh. Be still, now, lítill blóm. It was a dream. There is naught to fear.”
She shuddered, her breath expelling in great, heaving gulps. Warmth brushed her nape. Someone nuzzled her hair.
Brandr! She swallowed, and fought to hasten the return to sanity.
“You had a nightmare,” he said. A skin was thrust into her hands. “Drink.”
She swallowed a sip and choked. Honey-sweet, it tasted of leather and apples, and reminded her of mead, only more potent—beneath the flavor, it was pure fire. “What is this?”
“Bjórr, the last of it.” He chuckled, the husky sound flowing over her senses like smoke and mist from the rain. “It is a drink highly favored by my people. Take a little more.”
The liquor slipped down her throat with the ease of warm cream and hit her belly like hot coals. She decided she liked it.
A long, quivering howl rose above the sibilance of the rain, distant, but still a deadly threat. She shivered, and in that moment, knew herself defeated. The audacity—no, the utter folly—of an attempt to escape and journey on her own rose to smite her. Only one who wished for painful, unsavory death would try so reckless a venture. While she might, in the reasoning hours of daylight, believe herself capable of striking out on her own, she knew in her heart she had not the courage. Trust was a hard thing to give, but there was no other viable option. Brandr’s honor, or the lack of it, was no longer relevant. She would stay with him and hope for good.
As if he guessed at her thoughts, his arms, comforting in their latent power, tightened beneath her breasts. “The pack hunts, but they are far away. You need not fear them.”
“I heard them in my…my dream. They leapt from the darkness, great slavering shadows….”
“Do not think of it. Listen. The thunder has stopped. Hear the rain. It is peaceful. Soothing.”
“Brandr?”
“Lítill blóm?”
“What will become of me?”
He grew silent, and though his hold never wavered, her fear rose again from deep within. Why did he make no answer? Were his plans for her so evil?
“What was it you hid in your bodice the day we left your house in Yriclea?”
Now she was the one who stilled. “What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean, Lissa. Do not seek to slide around the question.”
“It was naught of importance, except to me.”
“Then you should not be hesitant to tell me what it was.”
She sighed. “It was a pendant belonging to my lady, one she promised to leave to me at her death.”
“You were close to your lady.”
“Yes. I loved her.”
“I think perhaps, she loved you, as well. Describe the pendant.”
“It is bronze, in shape a seahorse, perhaps as long as my palm is wide. It is very beautiful.”
“Come the morn, you will show it to me. Have no fear. I will not take it from you.”
His chest rose as he inhaled. “It is still deep night. We both need rest. Go to sleep. The night terror will not come again.”
She felt his cheek come to rest on the top of her head. So caring he seemed, almost as if he laid claim to her, wished her to be his own. The thought pleased, and tantalized, but also set alarms clamoring. His declaration that he had come to plunder Yriclea towered between them. How differently might events have ensued had the war band not interfered! He might truly be an enemy, instead of feeling like the closest thing to a lover she had ever had. She closed her eyes against the sightless gloom. She wished he had answered her question.
∞∞§∞∞
Brandr woke early the next morn to a world where mist smudged the dark treetops. Lissa gave a fretful mutter, but did not awaken when he slid from behind her and left the húdfat. Beneath opaque skies that dripped, rather than rained, he nodded at Sindre. His uncle sat in front of his own shelter, combing and re-plaiting his beard. “I go to hunt. We will remain here until the sun stands at day-measure.”
Sindre waved him off. Using Alwin’s bow, he soon killed a pheasant. Returning to camp, he found Alwin trying to build a fire and his uncle sitting cross-legged at the opening to his húdfat, sharpening his sax. Framed by the flaps of the other shelter were the gently rounded hips of a sleeping Lissa. She lay curled in a tight knot on her side, her back to him.
He averted his eyes and shook his head at his own folly. With her in his arms, the previous night had been a torment of little sleep but unsurpassed sweetness, one he could not regret, though it had tried his self-control in ways he had never expected to endure. What was it about this particular female that had him convinced she belonged in his arms, and in no other’s, and stirred alarmingly powerful inner currents…and when had guilt become a part of the pattern of his thoughts, that he should count the taking of her as his concubine a thing of dishonor? He should have answered her question honestly, told her plainly the role she would play in his life, but when the moment came to speak it, he found he could not. That it would humiliate and hurt her, he understood. Yet, when had that ever mattered with a thrall?
He shook off the whole unpleasant issue, reminding himself she was but a thrall, and his to do with as he wished. Such absurd musings served only to foster confusion, and he needed his mind and heart clear.
He glanced at Sindre, wondering at his uncle’s restraint in waking her. He untied the bird and dropped it at Alwin’s feet. “Dress and cook it, lad, if you ever get that fire going.”
“Pheasant! We will eat well this day, leóf! Shall I roast it, or make a stew? I looked in Lissa’s forage bag and she has greens, onions and mushrooms to flavor it.”
“Roast it. Stew may be made later from what is left over. But Alwin, are you truly skilled at preparing food, or have you delusions of becoming a rich man’s cook?”
“I am a fine cook, leóf. I swear it! My mother taught me, and my father said it was true, though it was the only thing he said I could do well.”
“We shall see. If you are as skilled as you say, you will prepare the food from now on.”
“If he lies, I will skin him.” Sindre rose and brandished his sax at Alwin before sheathing it. “I hope he is better at cooking than he is at starting a fire.”
A tiny blaze suddenly caught from the sparks Alwin struck with the fire-striker. His face lit up with a smug grin. The motion arrested Brandr and for the space of a breath, he thought he saw something familiar in the lines. Brown eyes sprinkled with flecks of gold stared up at him, full of expectation.
He blinked and gave a short, jerky shake of his head. It was gone.
He considered the hopeful look. “You expect praise for doing your job, thrall? You are mistaken.” The expression faded. “Howbeit, do you not take care, that fire, being so large, will quickly turn into an inferno, and what would you do then?”
An answering blaze of pride and pleasure leapt in Alwin’s face.
He turned away, hiding his own grin.
“You cosset that slave of yours, Músa,” Sindre said. “Wake her. I tore my tunic yestre day on a bramble. I wish her to stitch it. She has a fine way with a needle.”
Amaze flickered through Brandr.
Sindre allowing Lissa to sleep? Sindre complimenting her, instead of chiding—and all without growling? This was new. Hopeful too, for peace among their small group was desirable. Maybe the disagreement he had with Sindre the night
Alwin came to them had, at least temporarily, satisfied his uncle’s restless nature.
He started to take down the húdfat over Lissa, shaking it out and deliberately showering water droplets. She sat up abruptly with a sleepy little squawk and looked around to find they all watched her, Sindre’s look one of speculation, while Alwin grinned like one lacking in wit. Brandr held the sack over her head and squeezed.
She yelped. “Stop that! It is cold.”
“Then raise your idle bones and get to work. Think you this is a day of rest and fun, that you may laze in bed at your leisure? Be grateful I am a generous master, and do not beat you for your sloth.”
Glowering at him, she picked up the fur that had proved a serviceable floor and shook it out. “The furs and húdfats should be allowed to dry before we leave.”
“You command me, slave?”
She rolled her eyes. “That was no order, merely common sense. They will stink by nightfall otherwise, but perhaps you do not care.”
He took it from her. “Your tongue grows surly again, thrall.”
She looked askance at him, but this time, he could not keep the merriment from his eyes. He knew the moment she saw it. Her lips shaped into a sly little purse and she batted long lashes.
He could not stop his chuckles. “Stop your tease and go wash up, lítill blóm. Sindre has sewing he wishes you to do, but first I have a task for you.”
“What is the meaning of that name you call me?”
“Lítill blóm?” He raised one brow and said, with apparent gravity, “It means ‘sour face’.”
Sindre guffawed.
“My face is not sour!”
“And I say it is. If you do not like the term, you should learn to be more agreeable.”
“Very well. If you must insult me, then I name you ‘Orgelword’.”
Viking Sword: A Fall of Yellow Fire: The Stranded One (Viking Brothers Saga Book 1) Page 11
