Sword of Vengeance: A Medieval Viking Historical Romance (Warrior's Claim Book 2)
Page 14
As they neared the house, Torunn ran forward and leaned against the back door of the house where Thidrik had emerged to meet them only a short time ago. But he was dead. Everyone who had tried to help her was dead.
“Iarund,” she whispered loudly. She placed her hand against the door and struck it gently with her palm.
“Here,” Iri said. “He has left us provisions—”
Iri bent and lifted two packs that had been hidden at the corner of the house. Torunn allowed herself to smile, but it was brief. Where was the healer? Every time she had come to see him in the past, no matter the time of day, he had always been awake and a candle had always burned in the window.
Something was wrong.
She struck the door again and waited for a reply, but there was no sound from inside the house. There was always something happening in the house. Acolytes going about their duties, patients who could not sleep… Her hand fell upon the iron latch and then gripped it tightly.
“Torunn, we must go,” Iri hissed.
“No, we need to see to Varin’s wound,” she whispered.
“This is not the time to argue—”
Without thinking, Torunn lifted the latch and her breath caught in her throat as the door swung inward.
She froze in place, listening for any sound beyond the whisper of the wind in the trees above them.
“Torunn—”
“Hush.”
She reached under her tunic and pulled her knife from its scabbard as she stepped into the house. With careful steps, she moved through the silent room and blinked quickly to force her eyes to adjust to the darkness.
A flicker of light in an antechamber caught her attention and she turned toward it hopefully.
“Iarund?” she whispered the healer’s name, suddenly unsure of what she was doing. Every step felt dangerous, and all of the boldness she had felt at the doorway was gone the deeper she moved into the house.
She was just outside the antechamber when the sound of footsteps made her freeze in place. Heavy boots on the wooden floor. Iarund always walked lightly, and his movements were deft and precise. Whoever was in that room was neither of those things.
Torunn crouched down and pressed herself against the wall as the footsteps moved through the chamber. A piece of material had fallen to the floor in an untidy heap and she leaned forward to get a better look at what it was, but before she could register what she was seeing, a hand clamped over her mouth and held her tightly.
She struggled briefly, and then relaxed as she felt the familiar bulk of Bersi’s chest press against her back. He held a finger to his lips and waited for her to nod before he loosened his hold on her.
Voices in the antechamber made him pause and Torunn slipped out of his grasp and crawled toward the room. She had to see who the intruders were—and she had a sudden thought that the healer might need their help.
She had only moved a short distance when she could see the pile of material that had fallen to the ground. But it was not bandages, or healers’ robes as she had thought.
It was a sleeve. And a hand, frozen into a claw that clutched only empty air.
The pale wool of the healer’s robe was stained dark red, and a puddle stretched across the floorboards and dripped between them, thick and drying at the edges.
She bit her lip to keep from crying out and did not resist when Bersi grabbed her by the shoulder of her tunic to pull her away.
“We have to go,” he whispered.
She nodded dumbly and they moved quickly through the darkness. Torunn squinted into the long chamber that held the healer’s patients—wounded warriors, women who had just given birth, a child who had broken his leg only a few days before.
But the room was silent, no snores, no movement—nothing but emptiness. A dark pit yawned in Torunn’s chest, and she tasted bile in her throat.
They were dead.
All of them.
Sprawled over their beds, bodies fallen to the floor. Pools of blood spreading beneath them.
The acrid smell of smoke touched her nostrils gently and panic flared inside her once more. Fire. They were burning the house.
“Go,” she whispered. “Go.”
Bersi moved quickly and they plunged into the darkness outside the house together. Iri propped Varin up on his shoulder and he wore one of the packs on his back.
“Well?”
“We have to go,” Torunn choked out. “Now.”
Bersi shouldered the other pack and moved to help Iri with Varin.
Iri did not reply, but pointed into the forest. Torunn looked back over her shoulder as they moved through the trees, the pale wood of the healer’s house fading into the darkness behind them.
As the trees closed around them, she could smell smoke, stronger now. It would not be long before Iarund’s house was engulfed in flames—no evidence left behind. No support.
Everything she had ever known lay behind her. Everything she had ever believed would be burnt to ashes just as surely as her father’s funeral ship...
She focused on the dark trees ahead of them.
Bersi, Varin, and Iri.
They were fugitives now.
Rebels.
Cursed by the gods with nowhere to turn.
She looked up at the stars that peeped through the pine boughs that moved above her head.
The gods were watching. She could feel it. Freya would not abandon her. Not now.
It was the only hope she had left.
The Warrior’s Claim Trilogy will be concluded in
Sword of Prophecy!
More from Avery Maitland
Warrior’s Claim ~ Viking Historical Romance Available in Kindle Unlimited
Book 1 ~ Sword of Betrayal
Book 2 ~ Sword of Vengeance
Book 3 ~ Sword of Prophecy
* * *
Highlander’s Honor ~ Medieval Highland Romance
Available in Kindle Unlimited
Book 1 ~ An Unwilling Bride
Book 2 ~ A Stolen Bride
Book 3 ~ Warlord’s Prize
With M.K. Norfolk ~ Historical Fiction
Hand of the Gods - Coming 2021