by Betina Krahn
She closed her eyes, feeling those words branding her very heart, then opened them again. They were filled with tears and fierce determination.
“Well, it is not enough for me, Jorund Borgerson. I want children . . . a whole quiverful of sons and a whole hearthful of daughters . . . and many seasons by your side and in your furs.” She curled her fingers tightly into his hair and growled: “You’d better fight like Godfrey’s Devil!”
ACROSS THE FIELD of honor, in Leif’s long hall, the new jarl of Gunnar’s clan had also spent time with his warriors, listening, admonishing, and instructing them, and sought some privacy with his woman. He carried Marta to his sleeping closet and sat with her on his lap, caressing her body and holding her tears at bay with his hungry kisses. She pulled her mouth from his long enough to whisper, “Now, Leif. Take me now, before you go.”
He set her back and looked into her luminous eyes, sorely tempted to do as she asked, for his need was roused. But Marta was yet a maid, and he had lived long enough as a man to realize that the physical spending of desire in so hurried and desperate a mating would scarcely be pleasurable. And he wanted nothing but sweet pleasure in these moments with her.
“Nej, Little One, there is not time,” he answered. It was the agony of his soul that he had not pressed beyond both their fatigue to claim her during the night just past. But she had seemed so distraught and exhausted . . . and he had treasured just having her there, watching her sleep, never guessing what the morrow would bring. Now there was only time to touch and kiss and speak bravely of what would be.
“Please, Leif, give me some part of you,” she said, entreating him with her hands . . . caressing his powerful chest, stroking his face, and sliding her fingers through his long, thick hair. He smiled despite the pain her touch inflicted on his heart.
“So I shall. I shall give you my vow.” He stood up with her, carrying her out into the hall and bellowing to set the very roof beams rattling: “Get me that little holy-man—that Father Alfred! I want to take this little Christian to wife!”
AGAINST THE DEEPENING red of the western sky-vault, Leif’s men rose along the crest of the earth wall, beating on their wooden shields with their spears and swords, chanting as they came. Aaren felt her blood stand still in her veins . . . it was as though they crawled up out of the earth itself.
Aaren and Jorund joined hands, calling to Garth and the others that it was time, then moved out of the trees and across the field to meet the enemy. Jorund’s warriors began a similar pounding on their shields as they started across the field. Drumming . . . chanting, louder and louder . . . lifting Jorund on their loyalty, invading his blood with their rhythm, supplanting the cold hand clutching at his stomach with the warmth and oneness of their sound and spirit.
A number of Leif’s warriors carried torches tied to poles, and when they reached the field they quickly formed a glowing half-circle of light on the well-trodden snow. Jorund’s warriors closed in to form the other half of the circle. Jarl Gunnar arrived to witness the fight, and Garth and the others stared at the gnarled shell of a man, once a feared and mighty warrior, who now leaned on a staff and a sturdy young warrior in order to walk.
Aaren’s eyes darted beyond Old Gunnar to another figure . . . a small, feminine shape topped with achingly familiar golden hair. She clutched Jorund’s arm. “Marta.” With her eyes fixed on her little sister, she took a deep breath and started across that frozen ground. Hostile and curious gazes buffeted her like blows as she approached their line, but she weathered them and soon stood three paces from Marta.
“Thank Jorund’s God . . . you are well,” Aaren said. For a moment, she studied Marta’s face and form, her heart too full to say more. Then she realized that Marta stood by Leif Gunnarson . . . and that her small hand clasped his arm tightly. Her eyes fastened on that speaking gesture and when she managed to lift them, Marta’s eyes were shimmering.
“Aaren . . . I took Christian vows with Leif a short while ago. I am his wife now and I will stay with him no matter . . .” She halted, unable to continue. Aaren looked from Marta to Leif, whose great size dwarfed her little sister, then back to Marta’s hand on his arm. Leif had spoken the truth . . . one of her sisters had wanted to stay.
“Do you truly want him, Marta?” But even as she said it, she knew the answer, for Marta had always been strong-willed. Her heart could never have been taken by force . . . even if her body had. And that slender hand resting of its own accord on his arm said that Leif Gunnarson owned her heart.
“I do.” There were tears in Marta’s voice. “I love him, Aaren . . . even as you love Jorund.”
Aaren stiffened and took in a sharp breath to counter the constriction in her chest. For a moment she felt Marta’s pain, shared it as only a sister-mother could. And she knew that from that moment on, whatever the outcome, she would carry Marta’s hurt within her . . . doubling her heart’s burden.
“Then pray to your White Christ, Marta, to help us all.”
She turned and strode back to Jorund . . . her eyes glistening and her shoulders squared. She wanted to scream and rage and cry to the heavens . . . to all the gods, wherever they were . . . to stop this horrible fight. But somehow she continued her erect stride across the ring of warriors and resumed her place beside Jorund. As she stood holding his arm and waiting, she looked across that frozen circle toward her sister and saw that Marta looked her way, as well.
Both knew: One of them would lose the man she loved this night.
She scarcely heard Leif’s law-speaker calling for each side to affirm a vow against retaliation, or the roar from each side that answered him. The law-speaker then announced the rules of the contest and called the combatants into the center of the ring. Panic went through her as Jorund removed his cloak and placed it around her shoulders. He pulled her against him and kissed her long and hard. His kiss tasted of farewell. She seized his tunic and held him to her a moment longer, pouring her love for him into her eyes.
“Your God go with you, Jorund, and protect you.” She touched his lips with her fingertips, then dragged them down his chin and throat to mold them against his chest. “You fight with two hearts . . . yours and mine.”
“Then I have a mighty heart-weapon indeed,” he said with a bittersweet smile.
And he was gone.
A leather thong was used to tether Jorund’s and Leif’s legs together, a pace apart. Jorund chose to remove his tunic, despite the cold; there would be that much less for Leif to grab or hold. After a moment’s thought, Leif removed his and tossed it aside also. When they were offered daggers, Leif seized one. Jorund did not.
“You must take a blade, Borgerson. I will not have it said I slew a man unfairly matched,” Leif declared.
“I need no blade to do what I must do, Gunnarson,” Jorund replied, opening his massive hands. “These are my weapons.”
“If you are so determined to die, then the fight will be so much the shorter,” Leif said thickly.
Confusion raced around the circle of warriors and to the villagers beyond, as word spread that Jorund intended to fight bare-handed. Garth hurried to Aaren’s side. “What is he doing? He cannot refuse a dagger!”
She shook her head, unable to speak. His vow . . . his cursed vow. She strode out into Jorund’s line of sight, entreating his eye, pleading without words. He looked at her pained determination. A mighty heart-weapon; his last words echoed in her head. Now she truly understood. She drew back to the edge of the circle, dread settling heavy in her stomach.
“It is how he wishes it,” she told Garth and Erik and the others. “He has taken a vow to the White Christ never to raise a blade to a man again. He will only fight bare-handed.” She had no time to react to their horror. Her mind filled with the memory of the three wolves. At least that day he’d carried a dagger.
Jorund and Leif faced each other in the circle of light, eyes searching, bodies curling forward. Each shivered with both cold and tension and broadened his stance, flexing his
thighs, lowering into a crouch.
They were magnificent to behold: massive, handsomely proportioned, deep of chest and wide of arm, ribs ridged tightly with muscle . . . corded, sinewed, and seasoned. They were uncannily matched, these sons of dreaded rivals; Jorund slightly taller, Leif the more heavily muscled. It was as if the Norns had decreed this fate for them . . . selected their god-gifts and woven their destinies to bring them to this moment.
“Fight!”
The order lashed through Jorund and Leif like the crack of a whip. They snapped forward and began to circle each other like great stalking beasts. Their huge shoulders rolled forward into thick yokes of muscle, flexed, straining . . . eager to unleash their power. A roar went up from the ring of warriors as Leif lunged in with his blade. Jorund dodged and gave a mighty jerk with his leg, upsetting Leif’s balance as he recovered from the swing. Leif caught himself and wheeled, lunging again—this time dead on center.
Jorund jerked his knee up, knocking Leif’s arm up enough to grab his wrist. Suddenly they were joined and locked, wrist to wrist, arms shooting above their heads, bodies snapped taut and straining. Together they staggered and grappled for footing in the packed snow, Leif trying to bring his knife slicing down, Jorund desperately resisting that downward thrust.
It was a deadly dance . . . two great bodies joined, circling, feet scrambling, sliding, and digging in again and again. They finally thrust apart and circled again . . . panting, eyes hot now, each having taken grim measure of the other. The shouts of the men joined with the blood pounding in their ears to blot out all distractions. Each focused on the other’s face, reading in the nuances of eyes and the tensing of muscles the direction of intended movements.
Leif lunged and slashed, again and again, and each time Jorund dodged or met the blow with a foot or an arm. Twice more they locked and writhed and heaved. Twice more, their fierce straining gained them nothing but chilling sweat in the cold night air. Then, with a roar, Leif launched his whole body at Jorund with his blade flashing, laying a shallow cut along Jorund’s ribs. The clamor from both bands of warriors was deafening.
Jorund felt the blade connect—a sharp, burning sensation around which his senses contracted. He glimpsed red as he whipped aside and that color now began to seep through everything in his vision. The knife—he had to get the knife away! Lowering his shoulder, he sprang at Leif with a bellow and knocked him onto his back—grappling with his powerful arms, squeezing and twisting Leif’s wrist, trying to loosen his grip on the dagger.
Leif seized the ridge of Jorund’s shoulder, digging his fingers in, squeezing like a pair of iron tongs. Pain shot into Jorund’s head and down his arm, breaking his concentration, allowing Leif’s knife to inch closer and closer. Jorund could see the sharp point coming toward him as the pain from Leif’s hold curled through his head and around his brain . . . squeezing relentlessly.
Suddenly all he could see was eyes . . . filled with the primal rage from the bottom of another human soul . . . set to devour him and all that he was . . . all that he wanted. And the straining, clawing battle beast in him broke free with a snarl.
In conscious but unthinking fury, he thrust his arms wide . . . at the same instant he rammed his forehead into Leif’s face. Leif groaned a strangled cry and for one stark instant his hold on Jorund and his blade thrust faltered. Jorund groped for the dagger with both hands and wrenched it from Leif’s fist. He scrambled to his feet and just had time to locate the edge of the crowd—and fling it with all his might into a soaring arc above their heads—before Leif used the thong to jerk his foot and send him sprawling.
The dagger landed in the hard-packed snow in the darkness behind the ring of warriors—straight in the path of two approaching horses. The riders reined up, sensing something had just fallen in their darkened path. They frantically searched the torchlit ring of frenzied, shouting warriors for a clue to what was happening.
“Hear that?—a fight! I told you it was a fight!” Borger roared with both pain and impatience. “It’s Jorund! Get me down off this beast—I have to see—”
Godfrey all but fell from his mount and groaned as he hurried his aching body along to help Borger down. Shortly they were pushing through the ring, Borger leaning mightily on Godfrey’s stout shoulders. Borger’s former warriors were startled by the sight of him and quickly parted to let him through. When he and Godfrey reached the open ring, both were galvanized by the sight of Jorund and Leif locked in mortal combat, Jorund bleeding from his side and Leif bleeding from his face.
Possessed by pure, elemental fury, they grappled on the snow-packed stubble . . . on their feet, then their knees, then their backs . . . each seizing the upper hand and surrendering it when the strain of maintaining control became too great. They twisted and levered each other’s limbs and drove with their powerful legs, each attempting to roll the other beneath him—each relentlessly wearing the other down and recklessly spending his own reserves in doing so.
Driven by burning pain in his limbs, side, and lungs—Jorund managed an explosive twisting arch of his back, throwing Leif off for an instant, rolling to one side and gaining his feet. But as Jorund thrust up, Leif also scrambled for position . . . then plowed into Jorund’s belly, smashing him to the ground near the edge of the circle. The back of his head smacked both the packed snow and a rock half hidden beneath it.
Suddenly Leif was on top of him, driving for his throat, and Jorund was momentarily too dazed to prevent him from reaching it. As Leif’s powerful hands closed on his neck, Jorund managed to seize his wrists and counter the killing force of his weight as he bore down from above. But he could not counter both Leif’s weight and the deadly gripping force of his hands.
Blood filled Jorund’s head and drenched his vision as he strained and gasped for air, trying to rock their bodies and throw Leif to the side and loosen his grip. But carnal red—the dew of wounds, the stream of life—began to dam in his eyes, deadening his vision. Frantically, he kicked his feet and arched and strained against that choking hold, but still those viselike hands managed to squeeze tighter. His lungs felt ready to burst, his heart was wrenching wildly in his chest, and he felt darkness gnawing at the edges of his vision, consuming his consciousness.
As his sight constricted, the noise in his head seemed to recede into a dull wavelike roar. From somewhere, he heard Aaren’s voice.
“Fight, Jorund! Fight back—for the love of God! You cannot quit—you have to live. Jorund—fight—fight for us! Take my heart—” His own heart was air-starved, nearly spent; it convulsed fiercely in his breast. Once . . . twice. He hurt so. . . . It would be so easy to surrender and slip into the encroaching darkness, to let it all end.
You fight with two hearts . . . live . . . for the love of God.
Love was his only weapon. His strength. Those rumbling voices in his soul roused his heart-weapon to love’s fiercest edge . . . slicing through the icy and seductive grip of darkness, forcing him to feel the warmth and life in Aaren’s call. Fight back! And out of the depths of his soul came a mute cry of pain and longing . . . and love.
He summoned the very last of his strength, harnessing the wounded beast, yoking his heart-strength to it—blending the darkness and the light in him in the service of Life itself. And with an unutterable plea, he gave one last savage, heaving thrust.
Leif’s pressure had eased as Jorund’s struggles slowed and ceased. His fatigue and the numbed sense that it was over had dulled his reflexes. Jorund exploded beneath him, and he was knocked aside and rolled onto the snow. With a pained beast-roar that came from the very bowels of his being, Jorund kicked away, then staggered onto his knees, gasping and shuddering to take in air. A half-instant later, he lunged savagely, slammed Leif onto his back, and climbed atop him, quaking with battle-fury. Hoarse animal growls issued from his damaged throat as his hands shot straight for Leif’s neck.
He seized that corded column of muscle and blood and dug his fingers in . . . squeezing . . . focusing . . . us
ing every bit of his body weight to counter Leif’s frantic grip and thrashing. The beast ruled, insensate with rage, impervious to Leif’s fists beating at his arms and ribs from below. Gradually Leif’s resistance and wild writhing slowed, but Jorund relaxed none of the pressure.
Aaren had fallen to her knees at the edge of the circle and pleaded with him to live, to fight back. Now, as he arched over Leif, white-eyed with savagery, she began to realize that the power that had saved Jorund was part of the killing-beast in him. Set free, tasting both blood and triumph, it was bent on destroying Leif the same way it had almost been destroyed.
She saw Leif slacken beneath Jorund’s grip and lurched to her feet, wild with fear. If Jorund killed him, even bare-handed, it would violate everything he believed in . . . destroy his dreams for peace. But she was there to guard his dreams, to tend his hopes, and to call to his strength. She seized Godfrey’s shoulders.
“He’s in trouble, Godfrey! Pray!” When Godfrey just stared at Jorund, she shook him. “Pray, damn you—pray and get your White Christ to help him!” Dragging his eyes from the sight of Jorund’s battle-madness, Godfrey turned a look of mute horror on Aaren, then seemed to understand and fell to his knees.
“Jorund—stop!” Aaren called out to him across the ten feet that separated them. She took three steps into the ring, jerking away from the hands that tried to restrain her. “Jorund, if you don’t stop you’ll kill him! Jorund—let him go! You want peace, not killing. The fight is over!” She crept closer as she called to him, defying the unspoken rule of combat to approach them. “Jorund—think of the White Christ—of peace! Love your enemy—let him live!”
Even as Jorund’s hands slackened around Leif’s throat, another form hurtled from the edge of the crowd to stand across from Aaren. The crowd roared and, at the sight of Borger’s hated form, some of Leif’s warriors had to restrain others to keep them from charging out after him.