Then they had taken a few days to heal and regain their strength, and to persuade Vali’s clansmen to take on the jarl. Finding allies eager to demand an answer for the death of Snorri, they had taken a few more days to prepare their ships for war.
Two days again on the water, and now Geitland emerged from fog before them.
Vali stood at the prow of the main ship, his chest bare, his axes in their rings at his hips. The sails were full, showing the colors of Jarl Snorri Thorsson, and the warriors and shieldmaidens behind Vali stood. As they neared the docks, they began beating their shields with their weapons.
Let Åke mistake them not; this was no peaceful visit.
Scanning the town, Vali saw that Åke was slow to respond to the coming threat. Their ships were nearly at the dock before armed men appeared in force on land. Archers fired first, and at his call, Vali’s warriors threw up their shields.
He stood where he was, unshielded, his axes at his hips. When an arrow came at his chest, he caught it and threw it into the water. No other came near him, despite the thunder of arrows hitting the shields behind him.
He did not release his archers to respond, though in each ship they stood ready, arrows nocked.
Another volley from the shore, and he heard the grunt and splash as one of his men was struck. Still, he did not release a response. He could sense the restlessness around him, but he knew his plan.
As soon as the water was shallow enough, warriors jumped from the ships and surged to the shore. Åke’s archers did not release a third volley. The force on the shore stood pat, waiting.
Vali had his ship brought right to the dock, and he jumped onto the slatted wood as soon as the vessel came abreast of it. Unaccosted, he strode toward land while Åke’s men stood with their weapons raised and watched him.
He scanned the crowd but did not see Brenna or Leif. The first, he meant to save; the latter, he meant to kill.
When he stepped onto land, he stopped. “I challenge Jarl Åke Ivarsson to single combat!”
As he spoke, his force made land and stood in a thick row across the town’s shoreline. For the first time in ages, Vali was not outnumbered.
He scanned the crowd again, this time not looking for particular faces, but seeing all the faces before him, and he understood. Åke had sent his ships out. His most powerful fighters were off raiding. The town defense would fold quickly to the invasion. Vali had won already.
But perhaps his plans for Leif would have to wait. Leif was a powerful raider, and no jarl would keep such a warrior back from a raid.
In the meantime, Vali doubted that the old jarl would have weathered a second voyage in the same season, so he knew he would have at least that revenge.
Again, he called out, “I challenge the jarl! Here and now!”
The town was almost perfectly silent. Vali stood, alert, and waited. Then the crowd facing him—which was as much populated by townspeople as by fighters—split in two, and his former friend, Leif Olavsson, walked toward him, dressed in his boiled leathers, his sword in his hand. He had been kept back after all. Curious.
Viger walked with him, standing just behind and carrying Leif’s shield. Vali spared a moment to sneer at the smaller man. Viger had been part of their betrayal, too. But Viger had not been so great a friend as Leif had, and so Vali’s need for vengeance against him was less. He would be content if Viger died, no matter how.
Vali pulled his axes, and at that, his fighters shifted into even greater readiness.
Leif stopped. “Vali Storm-Wolf. Jarl Åke accepts your challenge and sends me, Leif Olavsson, as his champion.”
An acceptable response according to their ways, especially considering Åke’s age, but Vali found it craven. If he was strong enough to perpetrate horrors, he should have been strong enough to answer for them on his own. “I will gladly kill you, Leif, for the hurts and betrayals you have made against me and mine. But I will see Åke on my axe this day, whether he stands like a man in combat, or dies a coward’s death instead.”
Then Leif did something Vali thought exceeding odd: he smiled. “I understand. I would offer another plan.”
Without any other warning, Leif turned hard and brought up his sword. He slashed Viger’s throat so quickly and cleanly that the dying man stood, still holding Leif’s shield, blood washing down his chest, for a long, stunned moment before he fell.
By the time he did, Leif had turned back to Vali. “I am your friend, Vali. Always have I been.”
Vali had no time to make sense of that turn, because Leif’s move against Viger had incited Åke’s men to fight. Chaos churned around them, and Leif was already fighting for his life.
Vali charged up into the fray.
~oOo~
The defensive force Åke had kept home from the raids was no match for Vali’s horde of angry warriors seeking redress. The townspeople fought or ran, as was their wont, but Vali held his people off from chasing the runners down. They had no need to decimate Geitland. Vali made it his primary mission to seek out any of Åke’s men who had been in Estland with them. He found none besides Viger and Leif—and seemingly Leif had not betrayed him after all.
But he had. He had taken Vali out of the fight and allowed Brenna to be taken. A true friend would have alerted him to the danger and fought at his side—as he was doing now. Vali had been so full of black rage for so long that he could not believe in Leif’s assertion, even as they fought side by side and slaughtered Åke’s men. As he hacked and slashed, he had no time to sort it out. But he kept his eye on Leif and never turned his back.
As the number of enemies dwindled and he could turn his attention from the fight, he grabbed Leif’s arm. “Brenna?”
Breathless and splashed with blood, Leif nodded. “It has gone hard for her here, but she lives, my friend. She carries a mighty warrior’s heart in her chest. She was at the stables this morning.”
Vali’s heart sagged as relief pushed despair from it. Brenna was safe. He nodded. “First, Åke. I will not risk him escaping or doing more mischief. I will wear his entrails around my neck.”
They ran together toward the great hall. Orm, Bjarke, and Astrid saw them and ran up as well. As they approached the door, Vali surveyed the area and knew for a certainty that they had won. He did not think more than a few of Åke’s force had survived.
Before he opened the door, he turned to Astrid. “Brenna is at the stables. Will you bring her to me?”
Astrid gave Leif a poisonous glare and then nodded at Vali. “I will. Watch your back.” She spat at Leif’s feet and trotted off with her axe in her hand.
Astrid had been sworn to Åke, just as Leif and Brenna had. She had been left for dead in Estland when she’d resisted Åke’s cowardly, clandestine departure. Vali thought there could be no clearer condemnation of Leif’s complicity than his clanswoman spitting at his feet.
He would decide what to do about Leif later. For now, he opened the doors to Åke’s great hall and stormed into the dark.
The hall was empty but for a few goats and a couple of cats. He had expected Åke to be protected, but there was no one at all, neither fighter nor family, in the hall. Vali ran back to the private quarters and found no one. Had the coward already run and escaped?
If so, Vali would not be far behind. He turned to Leif. “Is this yet another betrayal?”
“He was in his seat when I left, Vali. On my arm ring, I swear.”
“The arm ring on which you swore to Åke?”
Leif made a frustrated sound. “I am with you. I kept you alive. And Brenna, too. It was the only way.”
Brenna. Without another word or hesitation, Vali stormed back out into the daylight and ran for the stables.
All around him, he saw frightened townspeople, mostly women and children, hiding just inside their doors, or under wagons. But they were all safe now. He could hear that the fighting was over. All that was left was the collective moan of the injured.
Just outside the stables, Astrid stoo
d in tense readiness, her axe raised. As Vali came up to her, he saw what held her at bay—and a fury immense and white-hot soared into his head. He roared loud and long, until his breath and voice gave out.
Åke had Brenna. He held her before him, one hand around her slim throat. His other hand held a long, jeweled dagger, its point pressed into her flesh, under her ear, already deep enough that a thin line of blood trickled down, disappearing behind the shackle she wore.
She was shackled. A heavy chain sagged from it and was looped around her waist like a belt. She was filthy and skinny, her face badly bruised, and Vali could see the damage that vile iron band had done to her lovely, pale throat.
“Brenna!”
Brenna’s eyes locked on his, but when she tried to answer, Åke pushed the blade in a hair deeper and snarled, “She is mine!”
Vali tried to stay calm and find his next move. “She is not. She is mine—my wife. More than that, she is her own. And you will pay for all the harm you’ve done her.”
“No. I will have your word that my family and I may leave Geitland well-provisioned and unharmed, or I will put this dagger into her brain.” He pushed it in a little deeper still. Much farther, and he would kill her. Vali tried to see his way to save her.
Then Brenna turned her head in Åke’s grip. The movement made the blade slice her neck, and her blood poured from the wider wound. With that very blood, her life force leaving her body, she freed herself. It made Åke’s hold on her and on the dagger, both, slip, and then Brenna simply dropped to the ground.
Vali wasted no time. He swung his main axe with another mighty roar and planted it in Jarl Åke Ivarsson’s head. He fell at once, a look of dumb surprise frozen on his face.
While the jarl’s body still twitched, Vali dropped to his knees and gathered his wife in his arms. “Brenna!” Leif handed him a length of linen, and he pressed it to her bleeding neck. That shackle—he wanted to bring Åke to life again so that he could end it more painfully.
Brenna laid her hand over his. “Vali. When Leif told me you lived, I knew I’d see you again in this life. But I wanted to kill Åke.”
Vali chuckled, and the sound seemed oddly choked to his ears. “It was my turn to do the saving, shieldmaiden.”
She smiled. “I don’t think it was.”
Her blood had soaked through the linen. “You need a healer.”
“It’s not mortal. I have survived worse.” She clutched at his arm. “Olga?”
Crouched at some distance from them, Leif, too, sharpened his attention at that name. Vali didn’t look at him. “She is well. In Karlsa.”
“Karlsa?” Leif asked. “She came with you?”
Vali ignored him and directed his answer to Brenna. “There is nothing left in Estland. For her or any of us. But enough of that. We have all the time in the world to tell our stories. You need healing and rest.”
But his wife shook her head and pushed him until he let her sit up. She took the linen from him and held it to her own throat. Then she turned to Leif. “I want Igul. I want him alive until I have my hands on him.”
Leif nodded but said, “Brenna, Vali is right. You need strength. If he still lives, we will put him away for you, but you need care first.”
She fought her way up to her feet; Vali’s jaw clenched at the rattle of the chains on her. “No. I need the smith to take this cursed thing off of me, and then I need Igul and Viger chained to that table.”
“Viger is dead. I opened his throat.” Leif seemed suddenly abashed.
Holding her hand to her bleeding throat, bruised and scarred, filthy and weak, shackled in iron, Brenna cast a look of regal disdain on Vali and Leif both, as they crouched at her feet. “Have you left me no vengeance of my own? If Igul is dead as well, perhaps I’ll take it out on your hides instead.”
Then she walked out of the stable with her back tall and her shoulders square.
Her braid lay over her shoulder, and Vali thought he saw a scar across the top of her back. Yes, they would tell their stories, and soon. He retrieved his axe from Åke’s head and spat in the dead man’s face. There would be no Valhalla for him. He had been a great warrior once, but he had died a coward. Hel could have him.
~oOo~
He stared at the raw, red flesh around Brenna’s neck. Now he knew that it was the least of her injuries, by far. To remove the shackle, the smith had opened her soiled shift and pushed it down to her waist, and then Vali had seen the ladder of vicious burn scars, still tender and pink, from her shoulders to her hips. Since then, his stomach had tossed violently with a fury he could not assuage.
Åke had died far, far too easily. So had Viger, who had been the one to burn Brenna, Vali now knew. He and Leif had taken her vengeance away from her. He had been single-minded and arrogant, thinking of the wrongs done to Brenna—which he’d only imagined, and were in fact much worse than his mind had conjured—as if they’d been done to him. He could have disabled Åke and left his death to her, but it had not even occurred to him. He had acted out of rage and need.
Leif had caught Igul, however, and he would not be so lucky as the others. The fat punisher was chained, supine and naked, to a massive table in a room made for bad intent.
Once Igul was in custody, they had convinced Brenna to take a moment for herself first. Now—unshackled, tended to by the healer, bathed, braided, and dressed in a gown and hangerock more befitting the great woman she was—she rolled up the sleeves of that gown and picked up a small dirk from a table at the side of the room, on which were arrayed a number of brutal tools.
When she had instructed that Igul should be stripped of his clothes, Vali got a sick feeling in his stomach about the kind of wrongs Brenna meant to right in this room. But he stood aside and remained quiet; he would not interrupt or interfere.
Brenna had wanted Leif in the room, as well. Vali felt jealous and territorial; he didn’t like that there was ease between them when Leif had caused so much of the damage they were repairing today. Brenna’s trust in the man spoke to the truth of his friendship, perhaps, but her body told the story of how much she’d suffered because Leif had let her be taken.
Igul shook, making his chains rattle, but he had not yet spoken, neither word of challenge nor of plea. When Brenna came to the table, standing at his hip with the dirk in her hand, however, he grunted out a “No.”
Brenna stared at the blade. “I told you once I would bite it off, but I have no wish to have that diseased thing in my mouth. So a blade will do instead.”
Vali’s fists clenched so hard that he felt blood wet his palms.
“No,” Igul said again, panic adding an edge to his tone.
When she put her hand around his flaccid worm, Igul lost his bladder. She paid that no mind and severed his member with a quick flick of her wrist.
Igul screamed, his mouth wide open as he yelled until his air gave out, then took a great gasp and yelled again. Brenna dropped what she had taken from him into his mouth, and the sound of his agony was reduced to muffled gagging.
She turned and laid the blade on the table where she’d picked it up, then went to the bowl and washed her hands. When she was clean again, she dropped her sleeves.
Brenna turned to Leif. “Will you see this to its end?”
Leif tipped his head in a terse nod. “I will, Brenna. Shall I keep his head for a pike?” She had insisted that Åke and Viger’s heads be displayed at the docks.
She stared down at the suffering, dying man on the table. “No. He is not worthy. Cart him out to the woods to rot.”
At Leif’s agreement, Brenna came to Vali. Feeling more emotion than his chest could contain, he brushed his thumb over her cheek. So pale and thin, so bruised, and yet still so beautiful to him. His shieldmaiden. “Brenna.”
She laid her hand on his chest. “I knew you’d come. I knew our story was not ended.”
He pulled her into his arms and kissed her head. “And it never will be. I would like to find a place to be alone with you.�
�� She stiffened, and Vali shoved back the fresh surge of rage at what she’d been subjected to. He bent his head and put his mouth to her ear. “Not for that. I would only hold you and talk with you. I have missed you, shieldmaiden.”
“Take the jarl’s quarters. They are yours now, Vali,” Leif said.
Surprised, Vali turned to Leif, forgetting that he didn’t trust him. “What?”
“You killed Åke,” Brenna answered. “You invaded and vanquished him. No one will challenge you for the seat. You are now jarl.”
Of course. But he didn’t want that. This was not his home. He was not a leader, not off the field of battle.
God's Eye (The Northwomen Sagas #1) Page 27