Torn Avenger

by Lea Bronsen

  “Where’s your husband?”

  “Out fishing.”

  The baby in her arms wailed and moved tiny arms. At least, she had survived.

  Alv chewed on his lip. Had he arrived earlier, he might have been able to save the mother. Gorm had told him how sometimes a woman’s womb didn’t retract back to its normal size after birth, and one had to press hard on her stomach for a long time to stop the bleeding. Alv could have done it...

  Her death complicated things. Changed things. Not only did the prisoner accuse Joar of having raped his sister, his pregnant wife died after having been forced to flee from Bjorgvin.

  “How did she get up here in her condition?” he asked the young, black-haired woman.

  “Roeland pulled her up with the rope.” Her accent sounded the same as the prisoner’s.

  “Roeland?”

  She looked down. “My brother.”

  “And what’s your name?”

  “Elke,” she whispered.

  “He lifted her all that way up by himself?”

  She nodded.

  Such dedication! Alv was baffled.

  The older woman handed the newborn to Elke. “I’m going to wash my hands. There’s a waterfall nearby,” she told Alv, passing him, “if your men need water. You have to follow a path along the hillside.”

  “Thank you.” When the door closed, he walked over to Elke. He wanted to interrogate her about the rape, but she looked too shaken by the death of her sister-in-law to talk about another horrible experience.

  Up close, she had the beauty of a rare, exotic jewel. Her dilated pupils reminded him of shiny black gemstones and matched her long, wavy hair and golden skin.

  The baby in her arms made sucking sounds. Elke gazed down. “Roeland doesn’t know that Hilda is dead,” she said, big tears welling in her eyes. “He loved her so much. He did everything he could to protect her. The news is going to break him.”

  A familiar pain flared in Alv’s heart. He knew exactly how it felt to lose someone dear. In the past days, he’d grown accustomed to the hurt, but it had simmered, ready to blossom at any time.

  Why had Joar caused this? War wasn’t about hurting women and children. It was a thing between men, and sometimes women when they joined the battle. But to destroy Elke’s young life for a little pleasure? He couldn’t reason Joar’s deed in his mind, couldn’t accept it. The disappointment stung. He, who had looked up to his big brother! Rape didn’t justify murder, but if Alv was honest with himself, he could understand how Roeland, in the heat of the moment, had attacked his sister’s rapist.

  As a relative, Alv felt responsible for what had happened and needed to make the situation right again. The least he could do was take care of Elke. Her beauty was so striking, if he’d been into women, he might be tempted to do more than take care of her—he might want to marry her. But he wasn’t interested in women. Besides, every time he saw her, she would remind him of Joar. Such a tragedy.

  “What are you going to do now?” he asked her.

  She sniffed. “I have to stay with Roeland.”

  “It’s not possible.”

  “Why?”

  “He didn’t tell you?”

  “Didn’t tell me what?” Her young voice spiked.

  He hesitated, unsure how to tell her the truth without adding to her distress. “He killed my brother.”

  She paled, and something in her gaze told him she remembered the scene.

  “That’s the reason we hunted him down.”

  “No!” she shouted.

  “Yes, and for that he has to die.”

  “Nooo! Please, don’t hurt him! He’s a decent man.” Breaking into tears, she leaned forward with the baby in her arms and rested her forehead against his shoulder. Her curly black hair filled his vision and a feminine scent wafted up his nostrils. She sobbed, pressing herself to him. “Please, I’ll do anything you want. Anything.”

  Startled by their intimacy, Alv stepped back and frowned at her. Was she offering herself to save her brother?

  She stared back with big, tearful eyes, her lower lip quivering. “Please.”

  By Thor, he couldn’t handle this. Shaking his head, he turned on his heels, went out of the hut and, for the first time, dared to contemplate the view displayed at his feet.

  Underneath heavy rain clouds, an astounding scenery of steep, rugged mountains and endless, dark blue fjords with miniature rippling waves stretched from east to west. The terrace he stood on was so high, a force seemed to pull him down to the bottom of the hill. At the same time, a chilly, humid breeze blew upward, as if a current of air was sucked by the clouds above. He swayed, the contradicting sensations making him dizzy.

  Torsten came over and pointed to white spots that danced at sea near Fitjar, a Norse settlement on a vast island. “Foreign ships are coming from south.”

  Alv’s heart jumped. More bad news. He leaned to Torsten and whispered, “The prisoner’s wife is dead.”

  That drew a grimace from the seasoned warrior. “You better hope these ships aren’t Dutch.” He squinted to see in the distance. “If they learn one of theirs is captured and his wife died during a Norse raid, they’ll go mad. They’ll send an army from the Netherlands.”

  A deep shiver went through Alv. “All right, let’s leave. You help the girl and the baby down, and—”

  “The baby?” Torsten’s brows shot up.

  “Yes, the wife gave birth in there.” He nodded to the hut behind them.

  Torsten groaned and shook his big head. “This is getting complicated.”

  “So, get the girl down, and I’ll deal with…uh…Roeland.” Although, Alv still hadn’t figured out how to kill him. He’d never had it in him to take another person’s life.

  “Who?”

  Alv glanced pointedly over Torsten’s broad shoulder to the prisoner on the ground. The gaping cut parted his cheek in two, blood leaking down his throat.

  “Right.” With a deep sigh, Torsten spun, gave orders to his warriors, and strolled to the hut.

  While the other men started descending the ladder, Alv crossed his arms and watched, exhausted. The steady rain glued wet locks of hair to his face.

  It had been a dreadful eight days. Three people had died, and it was just the beginning.

  Why, Joar, why?

  CHAPTER FOUR

  After Torsten came out of the hut with the sobbing Elke in tow and the baby tucked inside his shirt, they climbed down the ladder, leaving Alv alone with the prisoner. Roeland had shouted, demanding to talk to his sister, but Alv had thought best to avoid dramatic goodbyes.

  He glanced over at Roeland, whose head hung. Dark, wet hair concealed his eyes. He sat cross-legged in the grass with his wrists tied behind his back. He looked beaten and cold, his clothes drenched.

  Alv was supposed to avenge his brother’s death, but needed time. He was a medicine man apprentice learning to save lives, not take them. Besides, he hated the idea that a family had been destroyed just because Joar had gone on a wild raid with his friends and assaulted a woman. He clenched his teeth until his jaw hurt. Now, the responsibility lay in his hands, and he didn’t know how to make up for the misdeed, while at the same time executing the community’s expectation—killing the one who hacked Joar’s head off.

  Roeland looked up, black gaze shimmering in a tired face. “How is Hilda doing? She hasn’t left the hut, and no one is telling me anything.”

  Alv didn’t want to answer. It pained him to tell the truth.

  “Please, I have to know!”

  Norsemen never cried, at least not openly, so it would be natural to scorn the prisoner for his child-like behavior. But the hurt in Roeland’s voice brought warm tears to Alv’s eyes. His own grief, that he’d been forced to suppress in order to appear strong among his peers, blew up like a fire. The pain from losing Father and his beloved brother became too much to hold inside. His chest and stomach ached as if he’d swallowed a poison. Choking, he turned away so the prisoner would
n’t see his reaction, but in doing so, he revealed that something terribly bad had happened.

  A loud cry broke the silence behind him. “Hilda!”

  Alv didn’t want to turn back and see, but did. The prisoner had risen to his knees and looked up to the sky with a disfiguring grimace, as if imploring his God, for surely he was Christian, to save his wife. “Hildaaa!” he yelled, his torso spent like a bow.

  That shocked Alv. Facing the warriors, Roeland had demonstrated immense courage and not moved a hair width when Alv swung the sword and sliced his cheek. But upon learning that something was wrong with his wife, he expressed his innermost feelings.

  “I’m sorry,” Alv mumbled, throat tight. And he meant it.

  Breathing heavily, Roeland sat back on his calves and closed his eyes. Silent sobs made his body twitch. Tears pressed through his lids, rolled down his cheeks, and mingled with the blood seeping from his cut. “What happened?” he croaked.

  “She…uh…lost too much blood.”

  “And the baby?”

  “It survived.”

  Roeland gasped and turned to him wide-eyed.

  “Yes. She’s a girl.”

  “Oh, thank God.” Roeland hunched forward so his hair shielded his face and cried without a sound.

  Tears rolled down Alv’s cheeks, too. The pain bubbled inside. He couldn’t kill Roeland. It wasn’t going to happen.

  He glanced at the ocean again. The white dots had approached and now had rectangular shapes. They were probably headed for Bjorgvin.

  Please don’t let them spot my war ship below and check things out…

  Hurting, drained of strength, he walked over to the prisoner, knelt behind him, and undid the knot. He had no choice. No way could Roeland climb down the ladder with tied hands.

  It took some time untangling the thick, wet sailor rope. Alv struggled, his fingers frozen from the rain.

  Roeland spun, face tear-stricken. “Why are you freeing me?”

  As their gazes met, a current went between them, something real, profound, like mutual understanding. Something that brought them together on a human and spiritual level, and surpassed the fact that one man was a prisoner of war and the other held his life—his death—in his hands.

  And it hit Alv how handsome this man was up-close, if one disregarded the bleeding cut and disheveled beard and hair. Handsome, noble, valiant, and with a presence and power that stunned him.

  He blew out a breath, then sucked it back in, and continued working on the tight knot. “Shut up.”

  * * *

  Halfway down the ladder, Roeland stopped descending. The week-long escape in extreme conditions, rowing a small boat along an endless shoreline, hour after hour fearing for the safety of his family, had worn him out. They’d brought little food and he’d given most of his share to the women. Then, he’d used his last strength to help Elke climb the ladder up a vertical hillside to the farm before proceeding to lift the heavily pregnant Hilda with a single rope. When her painful contractions had started, an equally trying wait had begun for him and a day later ended with his capture by the Vikings…and her death, separated from him.

  His body shivered but couldn’t move. His limbs were paralyzed of cold and hurt and exhaustion, his hands lifeless from having had their blood circulation cut off for too long. All he could do to avoid a fall into the moving abyss below was hold onto the rope, whose fibers dug into his palms and caused them to bleed. Though that sting wasn’t as bad as the gaping cut in his cheek, a hurt that pounded continuously. But all those burns, added to the cold, incessant rain that infiltrated everything, his clothes, his skin, his mind, drove him numb.

  In the beginning, he’d been thankful for the rain, because the cool drops had blended with his tears and concealed the pain that tore his heart apart. He would have hated to appear weak in front of other people, especially masculine, scornful warriors. Now, the rain made the task of climbing down a rough ladder in his condition a severe test.

  “What’s going on?” a light-timbre voice from the steps above him asked. The rope tugged.

  Roeland drew in a lungful of air. It had the acrid smell of humid rock and moss. “I-I need a break.”

  That earned him an irritated groan.

  Well, how could he continue? He wasn’t superhuman.

  His young captor had the looks of one. He was mystical, effeminate in his ways, a mix of man and woman. He held his back straight and head high, with poise, as if belonging to the lineage of some Viking god. His hair was so thin, it flew like feathers in the breeze blowing up the hillside, so fair, it shone white in the low light, and so long, it covered half of the gray fur coat he wore. Unlike his peers, his skin was pale, pure, probably soft, suggesting he’d been spared a life of outdoors labor. But the most noteworthy detail was his turquoise-colored gaze that sparkled when he bored it into you and revealed rare depth and intelligence.

  The Vikings had called him Alv. A fitting name. In the Norse language, which Roeland had learned growing up in Bjorgvin, it meant “elf.” Local stories had it those weird creatures seduced people to manipulate them. Roeland would have to watch out for this specimen: it was suspicious that Alv hadn’t executed his vengeance yet—he had to have something in store. The reason could not solely be that Alv felt responsible for his brother’s rape and Hilda’s death in their captivity.

  “Hey! What are you doing?” Alv shouted, tugging on the rope again. “Oh, by Odin, this is all your fault. See the situation you’ve put us in. Why did you have to kill my brother? Rape doesn’t justify murder!”

  It is my fault.

  Roeland’s vision blurred. He hunched forward, rested his forehead against the cold, glistening wet rock, and closed his eyes. Mental tiredness overcame him like sleep. He didn’t know what was going to happen to him, nor to his precious baby daughter, now that she had been kidnapped by the Vikings. Would she grow up one of theirs? And beautiful, innocent Elke, would she be abused again? Was she going to be reduced to a slave and mistreated for the rest of her life? God, he had failed her. By wanting to protect his little sister, he’d torn her out of the safe environment of Bjorgvin and thrown her into a hostile one among savages.

  Worse, he blamed himself for Hilda’s death. If he hadn’t killed the rapist, she wouldn’t have had to flee, her labor might not have been provoked so early, and once it did happen, she would have been in competent hands and not died.

  If only I could turn back time and re-do everything, Hilda would still be alive!

  Instead, she’d been on a traumatizing run for over a week, only to die in a farmer’s hut on a remote hillside…and he, stupid Roeland, hadn’t been there for her. He hadn’t held her hand, hadn’t soothed her when she hurt the most, hadn’t kissed her goodbye.

  Even before the Viking raid, he’d let her down. Though he loved her more than life, he’d been preoccupied with business, wanting it to flourish fast. He’d been ambitious, eager, spending days and nights at his office calculating and making plans for the shop, while Hilda rested alone in bed knitting baby clothes. They’d been married one year only. One year, and he’d barely seen her.

  The pain inside exploded. He cried out, couldn’t take it anymore. Couldn’t live on. What for? To be lonely, a slave, forever crippled by guilt?

  He pushed from the vertical rock and swung outward, holding the ladder one-handed. The chilly breeze from below brushed his face and brought the smell of sea salt. On the other side of the fjord, a row of rugged mountains stood from the ocean, silent witnesses to his agony. Mid-air, a couple sea gulls surfed on an invisible current.

  He glanced down. The dark sea danced at the bottom, angry, relentless, with white foam topping the waves.

  His stomach dropped from the altitude. Queasy, he swallowed air. Jumping from such a height would be enough to punch his miserable life out of him. And if he missed the water, he would land on the thin strip of shore and die instantly.

  He extended a leg and arm to taste what it felt like to hang
in nothingness. His weight pulled him down. He closed his eyes and swayed.

  “No.” A hand reached from above and caught his wrist while the ladder jerked to and from the rock. Alv landed beside him.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The war ship sailed eastward fast, surfing on long, rolling storm waves that made its nose tilt up and dive down again with water spraying all over the boat. The men held onto the railings for balance. Thanks to the strong ocean wind filling the sails from behind, it had taken them less than a half-day to cross the fjord. Eðni appeared at the bottom, a wide creek of farmland surrounded by forests and mountains. Rain clouds hung over the usually charming village, rendering it sad.

  The houses grew bigger, people the size of insects rushing to the quay. Distant cheers reached the ship. It looked like the whole population hurried to greet the homecoming warriors. Alv filled with warmth and joy. So this was what it felt like to get home safely from a raid!

  He recognized Mother’s gray hair and the brooches on her silk dress that reflected the low light. Towering behind her was his slave Hedin, a young, slim man with the slaves’ typical short-cropped hair, wearing a tunic.

  At the sight of his secret lover, Alv’s cock twitched. He hadn’t had a sexual release in a long time, and his carnal need was bound to blossom.

  But first, there were more important matters to handle. As soon as the ship reached its home port, the community of Eðni would realize it carried the murderer of earl Gunnulf’s heir, and Alv would have to defend his decision not to kill him. What would happen next? They couldn’t cross Alv’s will and execute Roeland, so they would likely demand that he be kept as a slave like the other prisoners of war. Alv shuddered at the thought. Roeland didn’t look like he’d been used to hard labor. It could ruin him.