The Northmen Series Box Set

by T S Florence

  “Unlikely,” another man laughed at Dag, while staring at Hilda.

  The men’s eyes made her feel uncomfortable. She looked back to Brenna, who was staring at the ground, as if hoping that she would be forgotten by the excited crowd.

  “What about this one, then?” The man asked, as he yanked on Brenna’s arm.

  “What would your wife think?” Dag asked, skulking at the insults he had just suffered.

  “Why would I care what my wife thinks, they will both be lucky to share my bed,” the man said, full of self-importance.

  Brenna gripped Hilda’s hands; her eyes wide with fear.

  “It’s ok, don’t be scared” Hilda whispered as she fought tears; she wanted nothing more than to take Brenna and protect her from the horrible men.

  A huge man with bulging muscles and long dark hair climbed onto a platform to address the crowd.

  “For those of you who don’t know, I am Grim,” he boomed.

  The crowd cheered once he had said his name.

  “Anybody who wishes to purchase a slave must give their gold to me, personally. This money will go to making each and every one of us rich, and our small village will prosper,” he shouted.

  Hilda looked around. The vikings who had seemed terrifying on the day that they had invaded did not seem so huge and terrifying now. In fact, most of them were smaller and skinnier than the average warrior she had seen come through Fyrkat over the years.

  This was a poor village, and the men in it weren’t real warriors; rather, they were desperate men who took opportunities like raiding unguarded villages, like Fyrkat. If Ragnar had been there with his men, Hilda knew that they would never have succeeded in raiding Fyrkat.

  Once Grim had finished speaking, men began to grab at Fyrkat’s women and children, arguing over why they should take a particular slave. Dag hastily untied Hilda, and she turned to hug Brenna, who was being pulled away by another man. They cried as they were broken from each other’s grip, and screamed at their new owners.

  “Hilda,” Brenna shrieked, as the man dragged her towards Grim, and offered him gold.

  “Hilda?” Dag said.

  “What?” Hilda said, wiping at her face.

  “I don’t like that name. I will think of a new one for you,” He said.

  Rage tightened her chest, yet she fought the urge to argue with him. If he wasn’t an incompetent simpleton, he would have been able to negotiate with Grim a deal that would have seen both her and Brenna go to the same place.

  He began to drag Hilda through the bustling, muddy pathways, but was interrupted by the sound of a horn. The long, low sound caused the streets to fall silent. It was the sound of the war horn.

  “Raiders,” a man shouted.

  Dag hurriedly turned around, hobbling back into the village, to get a better view of the incoming vikings. As they rounded a corner, Hilda saw 4 huge ships filled with warriors, all armed and wearing their war glory. The sound of their swords and axes and maces beating against their shields made a terrifying beat echo through the village.

  “We’re dead,” Dag said, hopelessly.

  Surely it was not Ragnar, Hilda thought. The chances that he had gotten the news, assembled such an army, and reached her was almost impossible. She was sure he had forgotten her, for he didn’t even care to come back to Fyrkat for his own mother’s death. She looked for his face amongst the men on the boats, but they were too far away.

  An enormous man with a huge brown bear skin draped over his shoulders stood on the bow of a boat, a sword in his hand. She knew it was not Ragnar, for even he was not the size of the man that was leading this group of raiding vikings. Hope left her heart, and she knew that if they were not taken unwillingly and then killed, she would simply go through another process of being sold.

  Ragnar

  Ragnar knew that he had found the right village. It was a pathetic mess of poverty and desperation. A village that had been started by a former farmer, no doubt, and the local men had taken to raiding nearby unguarded villages in an attempt to build wealth.

  The sound of his men singing their war songs as they beat their weapons against their shields filled him with excitement. His rage conflicted with nerves of uncertainty. He told himself that he would surely find Hilda here, but if he didn’t? He would continue ripping through every village, town and city until he found her. He would find the man who thought he could take her for his own, and he would erase him from the earth.

  A disarray of men bumping into each other and fumbling with their weapons and shields as they raced to the beach to meet them made Ragnar’s men laugh.

  “Do not laugh, and never underestimate,” Ragnar turned back to his men.

  “Victory or death, glory or Valhalla” Ragnar boomed.

  “Victory or death, glory or Valhalla” they began to chant.

  These words filled Ragnar with a firmness in resolution. Victory or death. Glory or Valhalla. He knew that today must be Victory. He knew this because if he went to Valhalla, he would never see Hilda again. She still worshipped her own god; at least, she did when he left her four years ago. She was as stubborn as a mule and he doubt she had changed. The thought of Hilda going to her own god in death sent a shiver down his spine.

  “Victory or death, glory or Valhalla,” Ragnar shouted, as he leaped down onto the sandy shore, and began striding towards the fearful farmers-turned-raiders that stood uncertainly on the beach.

  As Ragnar got closer, the men began to drop their weapons and get to their knees, but Ragnar was not here to hand out mercy. Ragnar was here to rain death down on those whose actions had taken away his sunny days and replaced them with dark clouds and rage. These men would pay the ultimate price for this. They would pay the blood price.

  He swung his axe out in front of him, taking the heads of two men, causing others to fall backwards in shock.

  “We surrender,” they begged.

  Ragnar’s men ignored their pleads for mercy, and put cold steel through their chests, causing the old men and women and children who watched to scream in sadness and fear.

  Ragnar could see that there was a sale of slaves taking place as they had arrived. This was a sign that he knew he was on the right track, if not already in the right place. He pushed through the crowds of people, ignoring the risk that any person could stick a blade into his heart or throat.

  “Hilda,” he screamed, as he towered over the top of the crowd, looking for her face. Sweat began to prickle through the skin on the back of his neck as he scanned the through the mass of people.

  He kept pushing through the crowd, looking at every blond head that he saw, hoping to see her face. The face that had occupied in his dreams from he day had met her all those years ago on the beach, the first time she had been taken for a slave.

  “Hilda,” he screamed again, pushing to the back of the crowd, as an unfamiliar feeling of fear began to take grip in his chest. But this was not a fear for his own life, but for Hilda’s.

  “Ragnar,” he heard the distantly familiar accented voice of his childhood friend.

  “Hilda,” He screamed, looking around to try and see where the voice had come from.

  “Ragnar, over here,” he turned and saw her as she struggled against a feeble looking man whose white knuckles wrapped against the rope that was tied to her waist.

  He began striding towards them, the mass of people was thinner at the back of the crowd, allowing him to pick up his pace. His hand gripped tight around the hilt of his sword, and he locked eyes with the man who had obviously just attempted to claim Hilda for his own.

  “She is mine,” Ragnar growled like a rabid bear, as he broke into a quick jog.

  He looked at Hilda, and she had changed from a pretty girl into a captivatingly beautiful young woman. Her golden hair draped down the sides of her face, which was marred by dirt. Her eyes glistened as brightly and defiantly as ever, and he could see that his father had not made her work hard in the fields in the years that he had been gon
e. The sight of her beauty almost stopped him in his tracks, but the rage that had been building over the last weeks won over.

  “He doesn’t need to die,” she said, looking to Ragnar with pleading eyes.

  Ragnar could not stop himself. Rage had taken over; the black clouds that had hovered over his head since the moment he had heard the news had now erupted with thunder and lightning, with Thor beating inside of his head.

  “Ragnar, No!” Hilda shouted at him, but it was too late.

  He swung his sword down at the wide-eyed man, who had pathetically held onto the rope until his last dying breath. The huge sword made it half way through his skull, and he hands fell from the rope.

  “What did you do that for,” Hilda screamed, swinging her tied hands at his chest.

  “I just saved your life, girl,” Ragnar growled, taking her hands.

  “I didn’t ask you to save me,” she clipped.

  Ragnar had played this moment over in his head a thousand times. He dreamed of tears of happiness and a warm embrace and stories from their years apart, but instead she greeted him with disdain. The dark clouds did not clear like he hoped they would, but the thunder and lightning had roared on, with the death of the man who had thought he could claim Hilda for his own.

  Hilda

  Ragnar stormed towards his boat, pulling Hilda along behind him by the rope that tied her hands. “You didn’t need to kill him,” Hilda said, as she stumbled behind Ragnar. The relief that Hilda first felt when she heard Ragnar’s voice above the shrieking of the crowd was soon replaced by sadness and anger when she watched the weak man, Dag, get killed by Ragnar.

  “He stole you from me, and thievery is punishable by death,” Ragnar growled.

  “Oh, so I’m your property?” Hilda asked, indignantly. She pulled back on the ropes, to get his attention.

  “Yes, you are my property,” Ragnar turned around, growling, as he stepped towards her.

  “And I will say it for everyone to hear,” Ragnar continued, “this girl is my property, she was mine before she was stolen, and now I claim her again,” He bellowed, silencing the mayhem of noise that had filled the village square.

  “Hail Ragnar the Destroyer, Earl of Fyrkat,” one of his soldiers shouted out, breaking the silence.

  “Hail Earl Ragnar,” his men chanted.

  “You’re joking,” Hilda said flatly, getting Ragnar’s attention.

  “What?” He said, as he turned to her.

  “Ragnar the destroyer? And since when were you the Earl of Fyrkat? What happened to the stupid boy that left Fyrkat four years ago,” Hilda said in a deadpan voice.

  “Watch your tongue, Hilda,” Ragnar said.

  “Or what? You’ll beat me, to show your men how you discipline your slaves?” Hilda clipped.

  Hilda was embarrassed that she was still tied, and suddenly realised that she had not seen Brenna back in the town square.

  “Ragnar,” Hilda’s voice changed from anger to desperate urgency.

  “Yes Hilda?” Ragnar asked, his voice changing drastically to a quiet tone.

  “My friend - Brenna, I haven’t seen her. I don’t think she’s here,” she said, trying to look at all the faces. Ragnar looked at a steep trail on the outskirts of town and pointed to a white horse. The horse was being ridden by a man with long red braided hair, just like the one who had joked of making Brenna share a bed with his wife. A dark-haired female what was unmistakably Brenna was lying over his horse, still bound at the hands.

  “That’s her,” she looked back to him, “please Ragnar, we need to save her,” Hilda said.

  “I didn’t come here to save strangers,” Ragnar said, looking back to his men on the beach.

  “Then untie me and let me get her myself, if you’re too cowardly,” Hilda said, as she felt the urgency of the situation grip at her.

  “Torsten,” Ragnar said to a man, almost as tall as himself.

  “Earl Ragnar?” The man said.

  “Kill that man on the white horse and bring the girl back alive,” Ragnar said.

  “Yes, Ragnar,” Torsten said bowing his head.

  Hilda noticed Grim, the viking chieftain, standing in the crowd in an attempt to avoid being noticed from Ragnar’s men. As if Ragnar read her mind, he suddenly spoke up.

  “Where is your Earl?” Ragnar shouted to the crowd.

  “He does not live in this village, but in a larger town a day’s ride away,” an old woman said.

  “Who led the raids?” Ragnar asked the old woman.

  The old woman looked towards Grim, whose displeasure at being pointed out was evident.

  Hilda was distracted by Ragnar’s man, Torsten, who had taken a horse and was riding it hard along the steep path, quickly catching up to Brenna and the red-haired man.

  Ragnar walked over to Grim and grabbed him. Grim was the biggest man out of all the vikings that had taken Hilda, but he seemed small compared to Ragnar.

  “You took my slave from me, and sold her to your man,” Ragnar growled.

  Hilda felt her face harden as she heard Ragnar refer to her as a slave. She began to fidget with the rope around her wrists, feeling vulnerable and uncomfortable.

  “Who, her? The blond girl? I gave her for free to Dag, the cripple. I doubt she could have made even Dag happy,” Grim forced a jolted laugh, to make a point of Hilda’s hard face. “Nobody could put a smile on that bitch’s face,” Grim continued.

  Ragnar replied by swinging a huge fist into Grim’s face, which caused a sickening crunch. Grim wailed in pain and Hilda watched him as blood poured through the hands that held his nose. Ragnar did not stop. He hit Grim again, causing him to fall to his knees. Ragnar grabbed Grim by the top of his hair, and pulled his head backwards, forcing him to look up at him. Ragnar then beat the man into an unrecognisable pulp of torn flesh and blood. Grim lay there unmoving in his own blood, turning the dirt beneath him into mud.

  Ragnar turned and walked towards the boats without turning back to look at Hilda. Rather than follow him, she turned to look at what had eventuated with Brenna and Torsten. She was surprised to see that Torsten was already making his way back down the steep track, with Brenna now untied and sitting behind Torsten on his horse. Torsten was a large man, though not as large as Ragnar. He had long sandy blond hair and golden coloured skin from days spent out at sea.

  “What happened?” Brenna said breathlessly to Hilda, as Torsten lifted her from the horse.

  Before Hilda answered, she noticed the careful way that Torsten handled her, like a man who was unfamiliar with babies would hold another’s new born. He looked at her as if she were a riddle that he did not know the answer to. For the first time that day, Hilda found herself smirking, despite her rocky reuniting with Ragnar.

  “What?” Brenna asked, cluelessly.

  “Nothing,” Hilda said, before continuing, “My frien-owner,” Hilda corrected herself, “Ragnar came to collect me. It seems his ego couldn’t handle another man taking something from him that he owned,” she said, her own words stinging with truth as they left her mouth.

  “Ragnar the famous warrior?” Brenna asked.

  “Apparently so,” Hilda rolled her eyes.

  “Earl Ragnar. Ragnar the Destroyer,” Torsten said to Brenna, helpfully.

  “Thank you. And thank you for saving me,” Brenna said, craning her neck to look up at Torsten.

  Torsten bowed his head, smiling to Brenna, before turning away to meet Ragnar at the boats. Hilda stood at the edge of the beach, and looked at Ragnar. He had grown significantly since he left Fyrkat all those years ago. His muscle size had seemingly doubled, and he looked a full head taller. Hilda felt like she was almost looking at a stranger, yet she could still see her once-best friend behind his blue eyes. She felt safe now that he was here. Despite her anger towards him, she knew that he would not let harm come her way.

  Ragnar

  Hilda approached Ragnar, interrupting his discussion with Torsten.

  “Earl Ragnar, Ragna
r the Destroyer, if it is not too much trouble, may I please have my hands freed?” She said, her voice laced with sarcasm.

  Ragnar was perplexed at Hilda’s lack of gratitude, for he had travelled all this way, and freed her from raiding vikings. He clenched down, flexing his jaw, fighting the urge to say something back, but instead took out his knife and cut the ropes in one clean swipe.

  “Careful,” She said, flinching at the speed with which he cut her free, “you could have cut me,” she said.

  “I believe what you meant to say was thank you,” Ragnar growled, looking at her.