by Betina Krahn
“A blade of the Ulfberhts,” she declared, sliding the shoulder strap over her head and slipping the blade from its sheath. The polished blue-silver blade gleamed as she lifted it into the sunlight and turned it slowly, reflecting light into the grizzled faces around her. A murmur rippled through the men and a number of them shoved to their feet, their eyes fixed on her weapon.
A sword from the Rhineland, from the famous forge of the Ulfberhts, was indeed a treasure. Such blades were widely reputed to be harder, tougher, lighter, and to hold their edge against far weightier weapons.
“Such a blade should have a name,” Borger said with grudging admiration.
“She has a name. Singer.”
“Singer?” Borger snorted and crossed his arms over his chest. “What manner of name is that for a blade?”
“A fitting name, for she sings sweetly on the air.” With a powerful swirl of her arm, she set the blade whirring above her head so that the air hummed with sound. Then she brought it slashing in a downward arc between her and Borger . . . from shoulder to opposite knee and back up the opposite direction . . . so close to the old jarl’s arms that it brushed the hair on them as it passed. When she brought it to a halt, tip upraised, Borger jolted back a step, taken aback by her boldness.
“By the Great Hurler!” Borger bellowed, his face puffing so that his whiskers stood out like hedgehogs’ quills. He turned and called out: “Thorkel Evardson!”
A tall, lanky warrior, seasoned by sea salt and blade-battle, rushed forward to accept his jarl’s command. Borger looked from Aaren to the formidable warrior, who was exactly her equal in height, and broke into a cool smile. “Draw your blade, Thorkel Ever-ready. And break for us the Allfather’s curse.”
Aaren gave her new opponent a long look, which he returned in kind, then she strode to a nearby table to set her scabbard aside and prepare. Her heart beat faster as she tightened her wristbands and braced a foot up on the edge of the table and leaned into it to stretch her legs. In the midst of stretching her other leg, she looked up—straight into the face of the handsome giant, the woman-judge.
He stood a few paces away, his chest heaving and his hair wind-tossed, as if he’d just run a long distance. For a few unsettled heartbeats, they stared at each other. She narrowed her eyes and her lips formed her silent claim: warrior.
Behind her, a blood-chilling cry rose from her opponent. She just had time to clasp the grip of her sword and pivot to meet his rush. The suddenness of his attack had caught her off guard, half prepared; she’d had no time to warm and stretch or even put away her hair.
The first three hacks of his blade forced her back huge steps, then a sideways slash sent her dodging and feinting. Then something in the familiar ring of steel on steel penetrated her senses and began to resonate deep in her core, calling forth her strength and summoning her skill. She dug in her heels and met, then countered, his next blow.
Around them the men were on their feet, shouting, galvanized by the savage start of the fight and by the battle-maid’s struggle to meet Thorkel’s attack.
The lean, battle-toughened warrior wore a fierce grin, which dimmed as Aaren’s resistance to his blows increased. She wore a smile also, but on the inside. For after the first shock of his lightning-quick strike, she had recovered and assessed his straightforward fighting style . . . down-hacking and free-swinging that made use of his powerful arms and chest. After two more crashing blows, she understood exactly how to counter him.
She began to divert his powerful blows like a roof did rain, shrugging them off, letting them slide down her blade again and again. Over and over she allowed him to strike, playing her game, giving him the edge and then snatching his goal from him at the last moment. Frustrated by her increasing resistance, he began hurling insults.
“Your father was but a thrall man . . . your mother, a blackened troll!” he snarled. “Your blade does not sing, troll’s daughter—it whines for mercy.”
With each foam-flecked slur, her shoulders tightened and her grip on her blade grew more sure. Slowly, she pared away sensations—the shaking fists, the shouts of the warriors, the taunts of her opponent—until sight and sound became mere light and vibration. All she saw was her opponent’s face, the contorting angles of his body, and the flashing arcs of his blade as it cut the air around her. In her racing mind, made fleet by battle-fever, his movements seemed to slow and lengthen, became exaggerated and predictable.
Jorund stood rooted to the hard-packed floor, watching the maid battle one of the most renowned bladesmen in his father’s band of warriors. He silently cursed Old Borger for his pride and wretched thirst for the dew of wounds. It was sure slaughter, sending a young woman, even a battle-maiden, against a hardened veteran of twelve Viking seasons. But he could not tear his gaze from it, could not keep his shoulders from twitching defensively with every movement of hers.
Then, before their eyes, she roared to life as she had the previous night. Springing up with her blade braced, she gave Thorkel an upward rip that just missed opening him from groin to chin. As he lurched back, she pressed the attack, using both hands and wielding her blade with such quickness that all heard—or imagined hearing—it sing upon the air.
She moved with fierce, animal-like grace, in a swirl of hip-length hair that shone whenever they surged into the dusty shafts of sunlight pouring through the roof. She was both woman and warrior, a living flame bent on engulfing her opponent. Her features were carved by concentration into a taut mask that radiated sensual heat, and her eyes glowed like a tiger’s—hungry in a way that stirred his loins and ignited his blood. He was riveted to the sight of her long, willowy form, swaying and almost yielding, then suddenly snapping taut and driving forcefully.
Again and again the sleek muscles of her legs braced, her buttocks tightened, and her shoulders whipped taut as she swung her blade. She was a raging storm, a nerve-searing bolt of fury trapped inside a sleek, steel-thewed frame. Every nerve in Jorund’s body was quivering. He began to feel the shock of the blows she received in his own muscles, as if they’d been dealt to him. His arms flexed, his weight shifted, and his gut tightened . . .
Borger stood before his high seat watching not the fight but his eldest son’s reaction to it. Jorund’s eyes shimmered like liquid silver, molten with desire, and his face was bronzed and fierce with wanting. Borger read the clenched fists and involuntary movements of his son’s body as signs of arousal, and the old jarl’s countenance began to glow. Whether it was the battle or the woman that had inflamed Jorund so, he could not say. But it heartened him to see his son burning so fiercely over anything. For months now, he had been desperate to get his heir’s blood up and instill some proper “Viking” ferocity in him.
He turned back to the fight to find Serrick’s daughter advancing on Thorkel and knew she would soon have him worn down. Admiration bloomed in him as his eyes slid over her magnificent body and drank in the power and grace of her movements. Such thighs! Odin’s Living Stones! A warrior could reach Valhalla itself while trapped between those thighs! What a creature she was, to inspire such a delicious combination of woman-lust and battle-lust in a man.
With fresh insight, he looked back at Jorund. Shades of the Troubler! The gods had delivered her into the old jarl’s lap just when he was about to abandon all hope for his eldest son and heir. She wasn’t here to torment him—the gods had sent her to confound and provoke Jorund!
His eyes fairly misted. The battle-wench was the fulfillment of a desperate father’s prayers.
Aaren’s blood roared in her head and sweat rolled down the back of her neck and between her breasts and shoulder blades. Her pace continued quick and steady, but she could feel Thorkel slowing, could see the strain in his sweat-slicked body and feel the desperation in his blows. It was only a matter of time. That knowledge fired both her courage and her caution; the final throes of battle were always the most desperate and therefore the most dangerous.
Drawing on her deepest reserves, she la
unched a final offensive, using her feet, connecting with his braced knees and jarring his arms, forcing him back. Then she leaped onto the benches along one wall and used the added height to advantage, raining downward blows on his blade. When she bolted down onto the earthen floor again, he bellowed, raised his sword in both hands, and charged her full-out.
She felt more than heard his battle cry and focused on the stark line of his blade . . . a demarcation between life and death. She saw the tilt, the beginning of the swing, and in an instant projected the circle it would inscribe. Instead of raising her blade to meet it, she whirled to counter with a savage sideways blow.
The hit spun his shoulders to the side, throwing him off balance. He slammed into the hearthstones and wobbled—just as she reversed and brought her blade crashing into the hilt of his. Before he could right his balance or weapon, she had struck the sword from his hands and sent him sprawling back onto the upraised hearth in a billow of cold ashes. In the blink of an eye she stood astride him, her steel pressed to his throat.
There was dead silence in the hall, except for the sound of Thorkel’s choking on the flying ash. Every man in the hall suffered a violent shiver at the sight of her standing on the upraised hearth in the shaft of sunlight, wrapped in the fiery haze of hair, her long, powerful legs astride her opponent’s prone body. In that moment, she was the very essence of a Valkyr, the fierce goddess who challenged each man to taste her passion, to drink of her and die a hero’s death. Each warrior present burned to test both his sword arm and his flesh-blade against her hot, lathered body.
Aaren fought back crashing waves of dark and light in her senses . . . her lungs felt raw and her heart beat as though it would burst from her chest. Then through that inner chaos came the low, sweet trill of triumph. She had won! The discomfort of her body was swept away in a massive eruption of exultation. She turned to Borger and found him standing with his feet braced wide and his thumbs tucked in his belt.
“I claim victory, Jarl,” she panted. “And with it, I claim a seat in your hall, a place at your board . . . a warrior’s honor in your service.”
A ripple of angry surprise went through Borger’s men at her bold demand.
The jarl narrowed his eyes. “This day you have earned a place at my board, Serrick’s daughter. But as to the rest . . . you cannot serve both my purposes and Odin’s,” he declared with a crafty expression. “You will be my warrior when you are his no longer.”
A clamor broke out among the men as each demanded the right to snatch her from the Allfather’s grasp. Aaren jumped down from the hearth with her blood still roaring in her head and her body still vibrating with battle-fury.
He refused to honor her victory? She stood, feeling charred and confused, as he stepped down from his seat and swaggered toward her, his gaze fastened greedily on the damp cling of her tunic beneath the leather breastplate. He stopped two paces away and wheeled to face his men.
“From this day forward,” he declared in ringing tones, “there is but one man who may challenge and fight Old Serrick’s daughter.” Not a breath was taken or let in the hall as they waited to learn which warrior had found such favor with the jarl. “Jorund Borgerson.”
A typhoon hitting the hall couldn’t have unleashed more of a storm than that shocking decree. “Jorund?” came outraged shouts from Borger’s younger sons and warriors.
“Have you lost your wits, old man?” Garth lurched forward, his fists raised and his face crimson. “He’s no fighter!”
“You heard ’im—he’s got no stomach for blade-battle!” A burly fellow with sooty hands jabbed a thick, black finger at Borger.
“He’ll never defeat her,” Hakon the Freeholder snarled, shaking a fist. “He’s too soft on women—he’d never raise his hand to one!”
Aaren stood in the center of that storm, buffeted by their anger and stunned by the jarl’s vehement proclamation. One man? He was declaring that only one man could fight her? And the others were virulent in their opposition to his choice of this “Jorund” as her sole opponent. Something about the name brushed a cord of memory, but her head was too filled with disbelief to think why it seemed familiar.
Borger stumped back to his high seat and turned a violent glare on the warriors to his left. They looked over their shoulders and drew back to give Borger a clear line of sight. As Aaren followed his compelling stare across the hall, the men parted to give her a clear view of a huge male frame sprawled insolently on a bench.
It was him, she realized with a start. Jorund was the great, strapping warrior who had sniffed at her, squeezed her buttock, and declared her a woman instead of a warrior. Borgerson. A jolt of recognition went through her at his sire-name. She cast a hot look between the blond giant and the jarl, perceiving now the common mold of eye and nose and jaw. He was the old jarl’s son!
Objections flew thick and furious around the hall: “He won’t lift a blade,” “Hasn’t gone a’viking for two summer seasons now,” “Refused to come wi’ us when we raided old Gunnar Haraldson!” and “Whenever there’s fightin’ to be done, he stays home with the women.” Then they summed up their complaints against him with a name: “Jorund Woman-heart!”
Aaren watched Jorund’s defiantly relaxed pose and unruffled countenance with astonishment that turned to unreasoning fury. What warrior with any pride or honor would sit and listen to himself described so? Soft . . . blade-shy . . . woman-hearted. Jorund Woman-heart. They named him a coward and he just sat there, seeming untroubled by their derision and unwilling to defend his honor. Her tawny eyes narrowed scornfully on him, as well. A warrior with no honor was no warrior at—
It struck her like a fist in the gut: Borger had just declared that no man could challenge and fight her but this Jorund Woman-heart! Horror collected like stone weights in her stomach as she realized that her fate was being linked to that of the coward of the village. How dare the jarl do this to her, when she’d fought valiantly and triumphed over his warriors in her first two tests?
“Nej!” she declared hotly, drawing every eye in the hall to her. She strode to face the high seat, ablaze with indignation. “I have no wish to fight a man with no fire in his blood.” She leveled a look of fierce contempt on Jorund’s insolent frame. He responded by sitting straighter and meeting her gaze with a smug, insinuating smile.
“I am a warrior, not a coward. And I’ll have no dealings with cowards.”
The taunting pleasure in Jorund’s face dimmed, then faded altogether. He glanced around him at the vengeful, expectant looks on the men’s faces. Never in all the taunts and teasing, never in all the rough banter directed at him in Borger’s hall, had that word been uttered against him. Coward. It was a strong word, a fighting word. With it, the fire-eyed maid had willfully crossed the narrow and precarious line between insult and true injury.
The hall grew hushed as his big, relaxed body slowly gathered. He fixed a heated look on the battle-maiden and shoved to his feet, every muscle now taut, every feature pared sharper by determination.
Aaren watched him come, moving like a great rangy wolf . . . massive muscles working visibly, shoulders swaying, long legs flexing. Her heart lurched as he filled and then crowded her perceptions, closing the distance between them by small, ever-more intimidating increments.
Closer, closer, he came . . . until his ribs settled against the molded leather that covered her breasts and his thighs nudged hers. She had to tilt her head back to continue to meet his stare as he loomed above her.
She held her ground, refusing to reveal how unnerved she was by his superior size and by the slow, disturbing way he inflicted it on her. She met him eye-to-eye, determined to face him down, telling herself that if he truly had no battle-fire in his blood, then he was not to be feared.
But as her gaze slid into his, her heart pounded harder and her blood surged into her already heated skin. Suddenly all she could see were the sun-bronzed angles of his face, the jumble of his hair, the bold blue lightning of his gaze. All she cou
ld feel was the heat radiating from his body into hers, melting some nameless part of her and sending it trickling down the curve of her spine. It was a reaction to a power in him that had nothing to do with battle-strength or skill at the reddening spears.
Her eyes narrowed to hide her alarm. But a slow, taunting smile spread over his handsome mouth. When he pulled away, she had to take a step to keep from swaying.
Jorund turned to Borger and declared in a voice that rumbled like boulders crashing down a mountainside: “I will defeat her . . . in my own time.”
With that, he turned and strode out, leaving Aaren steaming, the hall in turmoil, and Old Borger slapping his thigh and crowing:
“Did ye hear that? He’ll fight her! Ale—this calls for ale!”
Aaren snatched up her scabbard and strode through the gawking men to the door. The crackle of her burning pride so filled her head that at first she didn’t even see Miri and Marta waiting anxiously outside. Their faces were flushed and their eyes were luminous with unshed tears as they threw their arms around her.
“Aaren! We were so worried,” Marta said with a smile of relief, which faded with her next thought. “Now you have yet another warrior to fight . . . that Jorund.”
“Aaren, he’s so big,” Miri said, looking fearful.
Aaren heard the men pouring out of the hall behind them, and pulled her sisters toward the women’s house.
“Have you not heard it said,” she growled with a furious glance over her shoulder, “that the bigger the boar, the bigger the feast he makes?”
FOUR
WORD THAT the battle-maiden was about to fight again had spread swiftly through the village. Helga’s boy had come running to the fields where the women and thralls were cutting and bundling sheaves of barley. Jorund, who worked with them, dropped his scythe and went running to the hall. Then a short while later, news fanned like wildfire through the line of female harvesters: Aaren Serricksdotter had defeated Thorkel the Ever-ready, and Jorund Borgerson would be the next to fight her. The women stared in disbelief at one another, then promptly abandoned their sickles and hurried back to the village to learn if it was true.