by Sandi Layne
“Can’t walk, Charis,” Maeve shouted over the din of battle. Charis felt her eyes fill with hot tears. “Felt something hit me, there, but I just fell down.”
“Well, now,” Charis said with false heartiness, “luck to you that you fell away from the Northmen. Let’s see what I can do for you.”
Maeve looked back over her shoulder and Charis found her whole focus being drawn into ancient blue eyes, pale as the spring sky, as wise as time itself. Maeve had lost a husband to old age, and two children—one to the ocean and the other to disease. She had grandchildren, though, and loved her life.
So why did it seem as if Maeve’s life were pouring into her? As if wisdom and knowledge were given to her in the last beats of a dying heart?
Charis didn’t hear the wild shouts behind her. Didn’t hear the strange, harsh-sounding speech of the Northman who approached. Her first clue that he was there was the widening of Maeve’s eyes as a red-haired giant bent over. With a grunt, he ripped the axe from her back.
“Ha!” Charis heard as the barbarian used it to finish the job of killing Maeve. The Northman chopped viciously.
Maeve’s old head rolled, soundless, from her neck.
Charis screamed as fury possessed her every muscle. Fright had no place in her heart as she leapt to her feet. She stretched for the axe in the Northman’s hairy hand. He laughed in her face, his breath reeking of old fish as he held her off the ground, making her efforts useless.
Nonsense sounds came from his mouth before he threw her over his shoulder. He marched off a few paces from the lessening noise of the battle. Charis didn’t dare look to see who was winning; she was trying to get her hands to something she could grab, push, pull, gouge. Shade fell over her. His laugh roughened as he shifted her to balance in front of him.
His animal lust was plain to see in eyes the color of a stormy sea. The barbarian said something else and set her on her feet before tossing his axe to one side. With a sneer, he grabbed her left breast with one heavy hand and snatched her skirts with the other. Devlin’s lesson didn’t desert the healer, for she remembered clearly what her husband had shown her as if it had been just that very morning.
With a darting motion, she pushed her hands up between her assailant’s hulking arms to grab his face. Her thumbs went into the inner corners of his eyes. Deep. In the next beat of her heart, she pulled them back out again, bringing fluids and two dangling eyeballs on long cords out from the Northman’s skull.
And then, while he screamed his rage and pain, she kicked him between the thighs and watched him go down.
Before she was aware, another huge warrior was upon her.
Bracing herself, Charis sought an escape, but then the axe fell. “Charis!” He cursed roundly. “I told you to go below, woman!”
“Devin!” Relief wiped out any feeling of guilt she harbored for disobeying him.
He turned to glare at the man still writhing on the ground. With the invader’s own axe, Devin hacked off his head. Then the chieftain tossed the axe from him, preferring his sword.
“Charis, I’m not putting up with this. We almost have them defeated, woman, but you have to get below! If Devlin sees you—” With hands that trembled in fear and relief, Devin gripped her upper arms and shook her with one firm jolt. “Love, please, go on with you. I can’t be watching out for you!”
Suddenly, a strange voice called her name and both Charis and Devin turned to see the leader of the raid, the one without a helmet, but with a long, red-rimmed sword that dripped with the blood of their friends and kinsmen. “Khar-iss!”
Devin stepped roughly in front of her, pushing her aside with one arm and raising his own sword with the other. “Away, if you can!”
“I can’t leave you! I love you!”
His brief glance over his shoulder was filled with his own feelings, though he didn’t have time to voice them.
The braided man growled as he struck at Devin. Devin countered, steel ringing on steel, and his blade slid down the raider’s. With an abrupt motion, Devin jerked it free and sliced at the leader’s unprotected head. The other man moved, but not quickly enough. Devin’s sword split skin and flesh, letting the blood run free and red on the invader’s cheek and jaw.
The surprise on the blond man’s face shocked Charis, but she didn’t use the moment her husband had purchased for her. It was a costly moment. The Northman took advantage of Devin’s temporary lack of balance after the attack missed its mark. The barbarian brought his own sword around, down, and up at an angle, meeting Devin’s naked ribs and parting flesh and bone in a powerful, sickening arc.
“Devin!” Charis screamed, her heart and lungs trying to leave her body. “No!”
“Khar-iss. Come,” her captor demanded. That he’d spoken the command in Gaeilge didn’t mean anything to her at the time. He apparently ignored the wound to his face and tossed her over his shoulder as if she were a sack of grain.
Charis couldn’t quit staring at Devin’s bleeding body. His fingers twitched and she knew—she knew!—that if she could go to him, she would be able to fix him. She would!
“Let me go! That’s my husband!” Flailing, kicking, screaming, she still made no impression on the Northman.
Someone else did.
“Charis!”
Hope surged in her again, for just a beat of her heart. “Devlin!”
Flung aside by the barbarian, Charis was torn with love for both her men. Devin needed her, but Devlin was facing the barbarous invader now. It was all her fault.
“No, run!” she begged him. “He’s already—” Another Northman pulled her to her feet. He made some comment that had his companions laughing roughly around her as they watched the leader square off with Devlin. Charis couldn’t take it in. Why were there still raiders in her village? Why hadn’t they all died?
As Devlin and the braided man circled one another, Charis stared, open-mouthed, around her. She could hear the moans now of the wounded. The pitiful cries of the dying. The oaths sworn in Gaeilge and the harsh barbarian tongue of the invaders. There were only ten of the Northmen still standing, but her people were melting away, if they weren’t being tied to one another.
She hoped Aislinn had kept the young ones below ground.
Again a rough hand fondled her body. A brusque command from the Northman leader stopped it. Charis gritted her teeth against the rising of her gorge as Devlin took advantage of the braided man’s inattention and thrust for a gut wound.
It didn’t pierce the attacker’s mail shirt. He brought his sword down on Devlin’s exposed arm. The blade sliced to the bone so that Devlin hissed and slid away on the blood-soaked earth.
Charis wanted to scream, to cry, to go to him and bind his wounds. Hands restrained her and she was forced to watch as the Northman pressed his advantage and wore Devlin down.
She saw her husband’s eyes close as he died. The world went dark around her. The ocean seemed to roar her horrible guilt in her ears, and she saw no more.
Chapter 6
Agnarr wiped his sword off on his opponent’s patterned garment. “You fought well,” he conceded to the dead man. “I won’t forget.”
What was it the captive had said? The healer—a kvinn medisin—had two husbands? Chiefs of their people? Judging by how the woman had reacted, Agnarr decided that he had killed her men. They had been battlechiefs, and he had defeated them without aid. Agnarr felt deep satisfaction at doing so. They had been strong men, but would have made defiant slaves.
The healer, on the other hand, would be worth any amount of trouble. If he could wake her up. She had fainted, unsurprisingly. Women were weak.
“Agnarr! She’ll be a handful! Want some help?”
Ribald laughter danced around the men, but it stopped abruptly as soon as Agnarr met their eyes. “She’s not to be treated as a common trell,” he instructed. “She’s to be my healer, and I’ll not have her abused.”
He hadn’t given the matter thought until he had seen her, but it s
eemed now to be the only right thing to do. Casting a quick look at the rest of the new captives, Agnarr stepped quickly around them and went to her.
Thorvald was standing guard over her, scowling at everyone with his sky-blue eyes and a frown as sour as bad ale. He had survived the attack and had taken charge of the captives, including Charis, the “moonbeam healer”.
Agnarr glanced around. “Is everything secure now?”
“Well, I’d know, Agnarr, if I got the chance to look.” Thorvald’s shoulders were tense, as was the grip he had on his axe. He tilted his head. “Anything else?”
“Yes. Get Kingson from where Erik left him.” Erik. Where was he?
As Thorvald stomped off to retrieve the captive, Agnarr knelt next to the healer, who was every bit as pale as—what was his name?—Colum said. She did indeed have that quality of the moon on a misty night. Her hair had been braided, but wisps had escaped and were now plastered in curling tendrils against her forehead. Her face had a tattoo, a picture of a bird, half covered by ashes and other smudging. Her long, pale throat led to the untied neckline of her gown—a simple one, of unbleached fabric. A bloody handprint on her left breast angered the Ostman, however. Who had dared?
He shook his head as he continued his survey. She wore an apron, the pockets still bulging. Curious, he prowled through them, pulling out small pouches, cloth-wrapped bundles, and pungent-smelling mixtures. These reassured him that she was, indeed, the healer he had sought.
A witch? Not such a one as he had in Balestrand.
She was . . . different, though. He would need to treat her well.
The thought reminded him of the incredible pain he had been ignoring from his own wound. How had he been sliced? His helmet had never failed him. Until it had been shot from his head this day. Who had accomplished that feat?
“Agnarr!”
Rising to his feet, he found another of his surviving warriors. He grimaced; Tuirgeis would be displeased at the numbers lost in the raid. Fortunately, he had acquired many slaves—fifteen, not including the kvinn medisin—and his men were even now combing the houses in search of any small treasure they could find.
“Agnarr!”
The urgency in the voice compelled him to hurry to where Sigurd beckoned. “What?”
“It’s Erik, Agnarr. He’s been wounded.”
A surprising pain ripped through Agnarr at the words. The two of them picked their way carefully to the outer edge of the fallen near the broken wooden gate. The smoke from the extinguished fires choked him as he drew nearer, making him cough. Spilled blood, emptied bodies, and the overhead cries of carrion birds worked through to Agnarr’s awareness as he neared the youngest member of his party.
“Erik,” he called, feigning heartiness and making himself smile slightly. “You made it!” The smile shot fresh pain through his head, but Agnarr pushed it down inside himself. His men came first.
Erik’s freckled face was drawn and pale. “Didn’t . . . get to fight, Agnarr.”
The weak, thin words were almost the only evidence of Erik’s wound. The spear shaft, broken and jagged through his groin, was the other. Agnarr didn’t dare yank it out; the wound would be redoubled in severity, he knew. Best thing to do would be to leave it until he could be seen to by a proper healer.
“Wake her up!” he shouted, bounding to his feet. “She can prove her worth to me now!”
Confusion was evident on the healer’s face when she was brought to him. Confusion and—after a moment spent acquainting herself with her situation—profound sorrow. Agnarr had seen both before and he ignored them as he ignored the intense pain on his own face.
“My warrior. You must heal him.”
Her eyebrows slanted, her lips thinned to a white line. Defiance vibrated up and down her body.
He pointed to Erik, lying on the ground in agony. “Him! He needs your skills!”
She looked away from him, crossing her arms under her breasts. He grabbed her roughly and spun her to walk beside him, pushing her down next to Erik. She would learn obedience as his slave. She would.
“He needs you!” he insisted once again.
Someone cleared a throat just behind him and Agnarr felt a growl low in his throat as he turned to see who it was.
“You asked to see Kingson, Agnarr,” Thorvald reminded him, indicating the wrist-bound slave with his hand. “Here he is.”
Agnarr shook his shoulders and rose to his feet. “Thank you, Thorvald. Now, see to any treasure and make sure the slaves are secure. We need to torch the buildings. Ask the captives about children.” It had been itching on the edges of his mind; there had been no children in this village. They had to be somewhere.
“I will.”
To the translator, Agnarr said, “Translate my words. The woman is to help Erik here. He is wounded.”
Kingson frowned at him, but Agnarr sensed the man was more confused than anything, and he almost laughed at himself. The captive did not speak Norse! The Ostman chided himself.
Then he grew serious. Both these captives would have to learn Norse. That was all there was to it.
So with exaggerated motions, enunciating each word clearly, Agnarr began, speaking to Kingson first since Charis was an unknown to him.
“Erik,” he said, pointing to the young warrior, “is hurt, see? Wounded.”
Kingson nodded. “Wounded, yes,” he repeated in Agnarr’s native tongue.
The Ostman nodded his approval then he pointed at the healer. “Tell her to help Erik.” He made motions to go with the words and Kingson seemed to understand, if only in a vague, infantile way.
In the strange, melodic words of the people here, Kingson spoke to Charis, gesturing to Erik and pointing at her pockets, which obviously contained her medicines.
Agnarr expected instant compliance.
“He wants me to do what?”
Cowan shrugged a little and glanced away from the healer’s grief-ravaged face. Was this the witch Bran had spoken of? Her? Cowan didn’t—couldn’t—believe her to be a witch. Still, the leader of the Northmen was all but glaring at him in expectation. Cowan acquiesced to the adamant flare in Agnarr’s blue eyes.
“He said, as near as I can tell, to heal the lad there.”
The healer gasped, her eyes darkening. “But—but he invaded my home! And this one here killed—” she continued, gulping and pressing one blood-streaked hand to her breast, “—killed my husbands! I refuse to help him!”
Cowan could see her anguish as easily as the tears which spilled down her pale cheeks. “I don’t think you have a choice,” he informed her, hardening his heart to the despair that flashed from her face. He indicated the ropes, which still encircled his wrists. “We’ve been taken captive, Healer,” he clarified. “We’re bound to service.”
“I’m a free woman!”
Agnarr gestured abruptly, whatever he had for patience gone.
Cowan tried one more time. “Healer. I am Cowan, son of King Branieucc of Fiatach, a day’s walk westward from here.” The healer met his eyes, but only in the most passive way. He pressed on, not wanting to fail, because he needed to earn the trust of this battle leader if he were to escape. “Please. It could go ill with us all if you do not help.”
His pleading went for nothing, but Agnarr had decided to use his own methods.
With a speed that Cowan remembered from the brief battle at the monastery, the Northman grabbed the healer by her upper arm, his hand huge and tanned against her pale skin.
“No!” Charis heard herself screaming as her husbands’ murderer all but lifted her off the ground again. Oh, she had thoroughly understood what the red-bearded prince had told her; this Northman wanted her to heal one of her enemies! “No! I won’t!”
Her captor ground out something in his harsh language and practically threw her on top of the young man with the spear in his groin. One angry hand indicated the broken weapon and he made some sort of grunt that sounded like a question.
She refused to ackn
owledge his words, but the young Northman moaned, and his eyes fluttered open. A bright path of sunlight pierced the clouds, illuminating the pain-etched, beardless face.
She could not refuse the plea in those eyes. Eyes not so very different from those of the young men she had known all her twenty-one summers. In spite of the screaming, clawing, wrenching grief inside her chest, Charis had to help. Devin and Devlin would understand. Surely they would. She composed herself, though guilt for their deaths threatened to drown her.
“I need my things,” she said. “Medicines and stitchery. And I need cloth for bandaging.” While she spoke, she was ripping the cloth of the man’s trousers; a strange garment, since her men wore leggings.
Her men. More tears burned her eyes as she probed the wound, so she stopped for a moment to clear her vision. My men.
Revenge burned inside her and for a moment—just a moment—she considered killing the patient before her and then using the same spear in the young man to pierce her captor.
But no, her men would expect more from her. Charis remembered that, sealed it in clay, and put it deep in her heart. Later. Revenge would come, she promised herself. Later.
“My things!” she called loudly, finally turning to Cowan. Impatience held nausea at bay. “I need them! If I can’t go to my home, the—the Northman can bid farewell to his man.” The prince nodded, and turned to the Northman. He didn’t speak their captor’s language, but he did manage to make himself understood, Charis observed. Good for him. I will never learn that tongue. Never!
Four thick-muscled men surrounded her and one pulled her to her feet once more. Charis steadied her guts and clenched her fists for the walk to her home. It was harder than almost anything she could remember doing.
Moans of the wounded as they died. The grunts and cries of rape. Smoke burned her eyes, smoke from burning mounds of hay and thatched roofs. Blood smeared on faces, arms, bodies, and the discarded garments of the dead and dying. The smells! Stirred earth, spilled innards, and the sharp scent of terror swirled like invisible smoke around her. But Charis tried to bury that. Her home was in front of her and she resolved she was not going to cry again in front of the invaders. Maybe, if she did as they asked, they would let her stay and help—