Loki's Daughters

by Delle Jacobs

  LOKI'S DAUGHTERS

  Delle Jacobs

  Copyright 2010 Delle Jacobs

  Discover other titles by Delle Jacobs

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  Cover Art by Delle Jacobs

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to persons living or dead or to events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any number whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  RAVES for LOKI'S DAUGHTERS

  "Ms. Jacobs has masterminded a marvelous tale of love. Ancient rites and determined men and women rule the pages of this humorous and fascinating read." "Ms. Jacobs has masterminded a marvelous tale of love. Ancient rites and determined men and women rule the pages of this humorous and fascinating read." 4 1/2 stars

  ~Faith V. Smith for Romantic Times magazine,

  "This stunningly captivating novel belongs on the keeper shelf." Very Highly Recommended" ~Cindy Penn for WordWeaving

  "An excellent story written by Ms Jacobs, and I look forward to reading more from this author. Four Stars for LOKI'S DAUGHTERS"

  ~ Natasha for Charlene Smith Reviews

  "... an absolutely captivating historical romance. I loved this historical romance so much that I read it again, to quench my appetite for more."

  ~ S. Wharton, "n2romance" on Amazon

  "LOKI'S DAUGHTERS by Delle Jacobs is a bold adventure of Vikings and Celts. Written with a deft hand and a fine eye for detail, the story thrusts the readers into the 9th century on a tide swell of love, lust and revenge."

  ~Lisa Jackson, best selling author

  Loki's Daughters

  ISBN 978-1-61658-497-9

  For Lady Jan-

  Always a heroine.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Cumbria, 9th Century, A.D.

  She had not been to the stone circle in a sennight, and Arienh yearned to escape to its quiet serenity. But rain had fallen long and hard for six days, and the river lapped threateningly at its banks. In the high mountains the deluge melted the snow, and if the slopes lost their white coats too quickly, disaster loomed for her narrow valley at their feet.

  Arienh paused in the doorway of the little stone cottage, glancing back and forth between the gathering dark clouds and her sister's pale green eyes. Beside the hearth, little Liam sat with his lower lip protruding in an exaggerated pout, for he had already been told he could not go

  "Do you go to move the stones?" Birgit asked.

  "Nay. There is no time before the next storm. The stones will have to wait." As if she had no worries at all, Arienh stopped to watch in fascination as Birgit reached into the willow basket beside her and pulled out a skein of brown wool to wind on her shuttle. In the cottage's dim light, Birgit's failing eyes probably could not even see the colors of the patterns she wove, yet her work was always perfect. Arienh shook her head. Birgit could tell the color of her wool just by the texture the dye gave it.

  Birgit smiled lightly, her pale eyes brightening at Arienh's unspoken question. "From Mildread's old ram," she said, fingering the brown skein. "He gave the softest wool. I will miss him."

  "The ewes will miss him more. I will not be long, but I must climb the low mount near the estuary to look at the mountains. Perhaps I can tell if the snow melts too fast."

  Arienh closed the door, hearing the latch click into place. Already the wind had shifted, blowing stiff, cold, and damp from the sea, so she knotted her shawl and strode briskly across the valley. When the slope steepened, the path deteriorated into a slick, muddy rivulet, then ended abruptly. Grabbing a handful of soggy brown bracken, Arienh hoisted herself up past jutting rock faces. If she avoided the mud slides, the climb was not difficult. Yet after a winter's inactivity her heart raced faster and her breaths came more quickly. It felt good.

  A lone, slender ash tree drooped down a branch, and she grasped it and tugged herself up onto the next ledge. Already she longed for the rough weather in her face at the top of her climb, and the view out over the grey, churning Irish Sea, and inland to the high peaks with the snow on their slopes that worried her. She looked up to find her next hand hold.

  Terror slammed into her.

  Her gaze slid swiftly up a huge masculine form, past alien boots, legs stout as tree trunks, broad chest and husky arms, and screeched to a stop at startled blue eyes.

  Viking!

  Her gasp burst into a shriek. The Viking lunged for her as she twisted away, hurling herself down the way she had come. His steps crashed behind her. Arienh dashed along a ledge, leapt, landed on a mud slide and skidded down the rock-strewn slope. She scrambled to her feet, clambered over jutting stones to another slide of mud, ignoring bruising rocks and snags that tore at skin and cloth as she hurtled downhill. Behind her the Viking shouted in his heathen tongue.

  Arienh hit the valley floor hard, stumbled, lurched to her feet and ran, dodging around boulders, forcing her legs as fast as they could go. Her lungs burned as she gasped, commanding herself, run faster! Faster!

  The Viking caught her hair, yanked her backward. A huge arm ensnared her waist, cutting short her breath. Jerking her dagger from her waist cord, she stabbed backward, and felt the sickening give of flesh beneath the blade. The raider dropped his hold, staggered back, astonishment flooding his wide blue eyes.

  She stared, stunned. Surely this was not hers, but some alien blade, that was gripped in her hand, dripping bright blood. Inside herself, she screamed at her legs to flee, but they rooted into the mud like house posts.

  The giant man fell to his knees, hands lacing over the bloody wound in his gut. He pitched forward, arms suddenly swinging to catch himself, then his blood-slick hands hit and slipped on the boulder before him. His head cracked against it, the sound muffled by a sudden, quiet gasp, cut short.

  He was dead. He was, wasn't he? Arienh inched closer.

  The Viking moaned. Blood oozed from the side of his head as his eyes rolled open, closed, open. His hand groped toward her. A silent word formed on his lips.

  Her scream stuck in her throat as she ran across the rock-strewn valley to the safety of her cottage. She slammed the door behind her and threw the bolt.

  Birgit startled at the noise and dropped her shuttle. "Arienh? What?"

  "Vikings! They're back!" Arienh leaned against the barred door, gasping for breath, horror still pounding in her chest with the frantic thumping of her heart.

  "Vikings! Where? Have they overrun us?"

  "No, I saw only one, but there must be others. Up on the mount behind the house."

  "Liam," Birgit called to her small son. "Come quickly!"

  Already rising, the boy tossed his brassy mop of hair.

  "Hurry, Liam. Can we make the cavern, Arienh?"

  "I don't think there's time. Oh, Birgit, I did not even raise the alarm. The others will be slaughtered, and it is my fault. I thought only of myself."

  From the peg in the stone wall, Arienh lifted the horn her father had made, then grabbed for the bolt across the door.

  Birgit's brows lifted high. "You're not going out there."

  "I've got to warn the others."

  "Arienh, you're no match for Vikings. They'll kill you."

  "Bolt the door behind me."

  "Check the window first."

  "Aye." Arienh rushed to the narrow slit in the stone wall that faced the near slope. If
they came, it would be from over the mount, beyond where the Viking lay in the muddy field.

  He was surely dead, now. But no sign of his comrades.

  Yet Vikings never came alone, for one man could not sail a longship. It made no sense.

  "Nothing," she said. "Perhaps we can make the cavern."

  Standing in the doorway, she blew three long blasts on the horn. The sound brought women and children pouring from their cottages, running toward the rain-soaked cliff behind the village that contained their cavern, the only hope of safety for those who could reach it in time. If any raiders made the mistake of entering the cavern, those who did not fall into the concealed pits would be pelted with stones by the women who had climbed to high ledges.

  "Come, Birgit. Hurry."

  Birgit threw a shawl over her shoulders and tucked the last of a wedge of cheese into its folds, then grabbed a blanket for Liam as she tugged his hand.

  The sky darkened even as Arienh watched, and large globs of cold rain slapped at her face. Arienh took Birgit's hand even though it was not yet so dark that her sister's dim vision could not make out the muddy path. Arienh lifted her nephew onto her hip and following the stream bank, steered Birgit through muddy rivulets that fed the swollen creek, until they arrived safely at the cavern.

  Arienh looked back again across the darkening, rain-obscured valley. Still no alien raiders had come.

  "Did you see them?" Mildread asked of Arienh as she reached down her hand to help Liam into the safe haven of the upper cave.

  "Only one." Arienh paused for breath and sat, resting her back against dark rock. "I killed him. He's by the stream near our cottage. Perhaps they won't come, now that we're warned."

  "Perhaps he was alone," said Mildread, folding her arms with a shudder.

  "Perhaps they turned and ran," said Elli. "They are really cowards, my father said."

  "They do not know we have no men to fight them," Selma added, nodding. Her pretty blue eyes searched Arienh's face for reassurance that Arienh could not give.

  Mildread frowned as she pushed her brown braids back over her shoulder. "Are you sure it was a Viking, Arienh?"

  "I know what Vikings look like. It was a Viking."

  Old Ferris, his black eyes gleaming like jet beads in the torchlight, clasped his wrinkled hands together. "Then we'll keep watch. Perhaps the rain has merely delayed them."

  Selma shuddered. "They will kill us when they find him."

  "Nay," said Elli. "The heathens abandon their dead."

  Either could be true, and they all knew it. Perhaps it depended upon the importance of the man she had slain.

  But only the storm came down upon them. Sheltered within the cavern's lip, they collectively regretted the need to go back out into the soaking rain.

  "Perhaps he was alone, lost from his band," Old Ferris suggested. "Perhaps he alone survived a shipwreck in the last storm."

  Whatever it was, there were no Vikings. The day grew late, and everyone knew Vikings did not come in the dark. They liked to strike swift, hard, unexpectedly, then escape to the sea.

  "The Vikings will not come now," Mildread pronounced, as if she had reached the conclusion alone. "But what about the flood, Arienh?"

  "Aye, will it flood, Arienh?" The question came from all around her.

  In the face of a danger more immediate, she had nearly forgotten the greater one. "I could not tell. I had no time to check the snow pack, so I don't know how fast it is melting, but the river is far too high. We should prepare."

  A grim murmur spread through the gathered women. Each one accepted her task; hard work made even harder by the freezing rain, but they could afford no more losses.

  Still, Arienh knew them well. If they went to all that trouble to move flocks and fodder from the lower valley, and then the waters receded without event, the entire village would grumble at her. Arienh was used to it. They always expected her to know such things, as if the stones should somehow tell her, for they didn't understand the stones the way she did. But no matter how much they complained, she would do what must be done, or the Celts in this valley would not survive. Sometimes she just had to accept the blame.

  "But what if the Vikings come tomorrow?" Selma asked, still wide-eyed with worry.

  And well they might. "Then tomorrow we will deal with them. For now, it will be enough to keep watch while we see to the flock."

  Elli's eyes glittered a silent demand as she pulled her heavy shawl over her shoulders. She took her grandfather's horn from him, and planted herself squarely before Arienh. Arienh studied her friend, knowing what was in her mind. She would be thinking of her father's violent death in his own forge, at the hands of a raider while his only child hid behind the ricks of wood. She would be remembering how the red-bearded giant had looked straight at her, then inexplicably turned and left.

  Arienh nodded as if Elli had spoken aloud. "We will do what makes most sense. If there are others, they are still here, and if they come, it will be tomorrow, when the storm abates. Take the watch in the lower valley at dawn, Elli," Arienh said, "but stay away from the river and climb the hill where you will be safer. We will all watch until nightfall as we move the flock."

  In the unreal calm that followed, Arienh trudged with Birgit and Liam along the valley path toward the lower cottages and their sheepfolds. Old Ferris and Elli gathered disquieted sheep from separate folds to drive to high ground, while other women and children bundled precious necessities to carry uphill to the upper cottages. Even Birgit bundled fodder in her shawl and slung it over her shoulders, for only her eyes were weak.

  Repeatedly, Arienh scanned the slope of the distant mount that flanked the estuary until the rain grew so heavy she could not see it. But now that the last light of day was fading, she knew no Viking would roar down its slopes. She searched the turbulent river, knowing no pitch-blackened, dragon-headed longship would dare its roiling ferocity, nor would blood red sails face the raging sea beyond the estuary. Her fears eased.

  Up on the hill beside the stream, the Viking still lay in the mud. Was he dead?

  As Arienh adjusted Birgit's bundle of fodder, the sky opened, split by a sword of lightning. New torrents of cold rain soaked the already sodden villagers as bolt after bolt of lightning illuminated the clouds.

  Shouts penetrated through the howling wind. Arienh spun around, squinting to search past slanting rain. At the river's sharpest curve where it swung east toward the estuary, the bank crumbled. Sheets of thin mud spread out, fanning out over the flat valley, in moments swirling around their feet, eroding the mud beneath their feet.

  With a yelp, Birgit slipped to her knees. Fodder spilled and spread across the surface of the water like a writhing blanket, folding under and back onto the surface. Arienh scooped up Liam onto her hip and gripped Birgit's hand to steady her as, knee deep in icy water, they forced each treacherous footfall through the flow. Hard, jerking shivers raced through her body as Liam wrapped his lanky arms and legs tightly around her and buried his face into her shoulder.

  Collective bellows of the flock blended with the din of the storm as unhappy beasts struggled to high ground. The flock would be safe, but they'd see a new channel cut for the river by morning.

  She reached Mildread's hand, extended to help them from the turbid water.

  "Are you all right?" Mildread asked, wrapping her shawl around Liam.

  Arienh could only nod, for it almost seemed to be colder out of the water than in. She had strength for little more than shivering as other women herded bedraggled beasts into three abandoned cottages for the night.

  She took Birgit's hand and trudged toward home, shivering against the storm that blew through her soaked shawl and kirtle. Her exhausted feet throbbed painfully and slipped beneath her as she walked.

  "I am a burden to you," Birgit said, her head bowed to the storm.

  How hard it must be for Birgit, who could hardly see where to put her feet. "Nay, Birgit, we need each other." Arienh did not lie, for how
ever hard life might be, it would seem futile without Birgit and Liam. But Birgit, engulfed in all her losses, could not understand that.

  By the cottage door, Arienh stopped to strain her gaze out over the dark field. Silhouetted, black against growing darkness, the Viking lay where she had left him in the field, his back to the freezing rain, face to the mud. The flooding stream rose and soon would swallow up his body. Was he dead yet? Like a writhing shadow, the black shape changed, thickening as it rose on hands and knees.

  Fear invaded her again. Was he a berserker, to rise and kill in merciless fury even as he died? Cold shudders rushed through her. Arienh gripped her dagger, slogged grimly across the open field and planted herself between him and her village.

  With an agonized groan, the Viking pushed himself up to sit, leaning heavily on his arms. Great jerking shivers from the cold rain wracked his body. Mud streamed down his face. The eyes that had been so startlingly blue had deepened, dusky dark in the twilight, wrenched with pain.

  She shuddered. He must be as cold as she.

  Arienh clenched her jaw, shutting down the surge of pity. He was a Viking, a merciless, brutal killer. She felt nothing for him.

  "I wonder what you did to your victims who were as helpless as you are now, Viking? Did you run them through? Or just cut off their hands and feet to watch them bleed?"

  With his dark gaze fixed on her, his hand trembled on the buckle of the leather strap at his waist. She sprang back. Only a quick throw of a dagger, and he could have his revenge. The strap fell free, and his long sword clanged to the stony ground. Shaking, he pulled a knife from its scabbard and held it out to her.

  "Kill me."

  The Celtic words from his heathen mouth startled her. Behind him, lightning split the sky, and in its flash, she saw, not the Viking, but the image of her brother who had died in her arms. As sharp as the brilliant bolt, the torture of Trevor's dying agony stabbed through her anew. A Viking had killed him. Perhaps even this man, or his kin.