A huge man lurched through, blood slicking the club in his hand. He paused to let his eyes search. Edin took him in all of a piece, his war shirt and leggings, his club and shield. She could almost see his savage mind working: No one to fight here. Just this unprotected creature. His pale eyes gleamed like lake ice, and he grinned.
She no longer heard the war shouts and death screams of the battle below. She heard nothing but the heavy breathing of the barbarian approaching her. She saw nothing but his sweat-reddened face. He loomed sinister, malevolent, his eyes brimming with ugly desire.
She retreated, until her back came up against the wall. He tossed down his club and shield and reached for her with arms as big as tree branches. She was too frightened to scream. She saw his hands, big, bloodstained. She knew he hadn't seen the dagger clutched in her fists, or mayhap he'd thought the jeweled hilt was the top of a crucifix. The blade, though slim, would never penetrate the fine iron mesh of his war shirt. Her eyes frantically sought —and found in his bare throat — a place where a blue vein stood swollen. She took the hilt in a new two-handed gasp, raised it, and jabbed it into the soft flesh behind his collar bone. She shoved it down, praying the blade was long enough to pierce his heart.
His eyes fluttered wide. His face went dark and strange, a face from a nightmare, expressionless yet ominous. His arms dropped like dead weights and he took a step back. She saw blood oozing over the jewels studding the dagger's hilt. He stumbled on his own club as he clutched the side of his neck.
Yet, for all that, he still seemed very much alive. Edin thought, as in a dream, I suppose I couldn't expect to kill him. I hurt him, though; he can't feel very good. A trembling nausea came over her, a sick terror.
With a bull-like roar, another Viking pitched into the room: a huge body, a hard, steeled iron head above a thick neck, a round shield, and a long, broad, ornate sword. Edin's attacker cautiously turned to face him. The new man rose from his ready crouch. He was larger, even fiercer-looking, and Edin couldn't find a trace of gentleness or kindness anywhere about his partially masked and bearded face. He watched as his fellow monster fingered the hilt of the dagger then yanked it from his throat. Blood spouted immediately, staining the covers of Edin's bed a yard away.
Seeing that bright scarlet spurting, her hands went to her mouth. The man took no notice; he looked at his own blood on the dagger's blade as though he couldn't imagine how it had gotten there. When he tried to speak, nothing came but a gurgling sound. He sagged to his knees. With faithful-dog eyes, he seemed to entreat his companion, but then, to Edin's surprise, he fell face forward, like a huge timber put to the axe.
The newcomer lifted his gaze from his fallen comrade. Caught by the warm light spilling from the rushlight, his face seemed as bitter and cold as the face of a thousand winters. The helmet he wore and the glittering sword in his hand added to his terrifying appearance. Yet as their eyes met, Edin was fascinated. He had a sinister quality as he stared steadily back at her. He seemed sharply intelligent. And exquisitely dangerous.
Squatting, he took the dagger from his axe-brother's lifeless hand and said a few gruff words in Norse.
He looked up at Edin again, and looked her over in a way she'd never experienced before. She lost all sense of where she was. She heard mere blurs of sound from far away, but she and the Viking seemed to exist alone together in isolation. His eyes reminded her of dark grey clouds tumbled low in a sky as cold as pewter. That trembling sensation came again, more violently
She bent to reach for the dead man's club. It was heavier than she expected, and as she struggled to bring it up, the newcomer stood. With a negligent flick of his sword, he knocked the club away from her. Her fingers burned with numbness: One instant she was gripping the heavy club with all her strength, and the next it was flying from her hands.
He stepped forward, forward again, until he towered over her. She turned her face away a little, as she would turn from the glare of a too-bright, overcast sky
He put down his shield, and his freed left hand came up to her throat. It seemed nearly to encircle it entirely, so that she could feel his hard fingers beneath her ear and his raspy palm under the hair at the nape of her neck, his broad thumb barely touching her windpipe. She swallowed convulsively. The hand smoothed down, hooking the wide, round neckline of her shift and pulling it off her shoulder, so that her right breast was bared. Her hands fluttered upward, then fell to her sides again. Her eyes sidled to his, and then away. The indecency seemed to her less ghastly than the coolness of his stare fastened on her breast.
At last he grazed the tip of it with his middle finger. She had the hazed nightmare feeling that this was a check, nothing more, the way a man checks equipment he intends to use. She felt the beginnings of sexual terror. Her stomach pounded like a second heart; panic pounded through her veins.
Just as she felt herself growing weak with the piling up of horror, a further movement came at the door. There Cedric stood, with his sword out of its scabbard at last. He held the weapon awkwardly, with the hilt gripped in both fists. Upon seeing one dead Viking in the room and another looming over Edin, he paused. His eyes met hers.
That intense, large-eyed stare was much too weighty and sustained. Her understanding rebelled for a moment against what she saw in it —no deep cunning thoughts, just his sense of helplessness, his fear. And his desire to simply leave her to whatever fate was in store for her. She saw him as he was then, unmarked by experience, decision, or impact. She had been willing to become his wife, to give herself to him, her body, her heart, her life. From a young age, there had existed in her mind a set of expectations and hopes, an aggregation of conceptions picked up from remarks, descriptions, reveries, all of which sheltered under the word love, and now in her bridegroom's eyes she saw that there was . . . fondness, certainly . . . and desire . . . but not love.
Whether he would have quietly stepped back and fled for his own life she was never to know, for the Viking lifted his eyes from her breast and saw the direction of her gaze. He whirled, his sword coming up reflexively. Everything seemed slowed down as Edin watched. The length of his sword added to the length of his arm gave him such a long, killing reach. Cedric saw the broad, keen blade coming. He moved his own sword with desperate ineptness. He shouted; the Viking made not a sound. The blade sliced horizontally Cedric's mouth opened wider, though only a gasping sound came from him now. He seemed to fold at the waist, over that damascened blade, then he crumpled to the floor.
Edin screamed. She struggled against the Viking's grip on her arm which kept her where she was. Cedric's face was a terrible thing. Clearly he was in mortal agony. His legs moved, and his mouth still gaped silently, as though there was not enough strength in him to give voice to his pain.
The barbarian muttered something, glanced at Edin with those coolish eyes, then frowned, shook his head, and suddenly plunged his sword into the young thane's heart.
Edin felt something in her slip. Her pulse slowed to half its rate. She swayed on her feet; her vision darkened. She hardly noticed that the Viking had let go of her. She sagged to her knees and crawled to Cedric's side. "My lord?" She reached for the tatters of his blood-soaked shirt and tried to close them over his wounds. "My lord . . . Cedric . . . you've ruined your shirt. I could try to sew it, but ... oh, Cedric, you should have fled."
She felt a hand on her arm again and looked at it, at the twiglike scars that started at the fingers and went up the wrist until they disappeared beneath the sleeve, scars of innumerable blade cuts. She looked up into those pewter eyes that were divided by the iron nosepiece of the helmet. A Viking. She ought to be terrified, she understood that distinctly. His appearance there above her was violent and impossible. For a moment more she was uncomprehending; then anger such as she'd never known flooded her. Everything savage in her surfaced at once. She yanked away from his grip and stood, facing this man who had in the space of minutes stolen her future. Her heart turned bitter inside her. She raised her hands over
her head, joined them into one fist, and went for him, went for his bearded face with all her strength.
He merely lifted his free hand and caught her doubled fists in fingers of steel. At the same time he jerked her forward so that she fell against him. It was like falling against a stone wall. There was no give in his stance, no give in his hard chest beneath his metal war shirt. She tried to arch away from the shocking contact, but now his hand was around her waist. Her face lifted beneath his chin. She shook her head to throw the wisps of her hair out of her eyes and saw him staring down the nosepiece of his helmet at her. She felt her will waver, then crumble into fear.
His smile was thin, his voice soft, soft: "Even the dullest thrall knows never to strike her master."
Part of her mind absorbed that he'd spoken this in Saxon, and part of it absorbed what the words meant. She struggled again, now with strength born of terror. Her hand went to his face, really hoping to scratch his eyes out so that she might escape him.
As if impatient with such puny resistance he simply shoved her away. She stumbled back, tripped over the dead Viking's legs, and fell. For a moment she was wrapped in her hair. When she got it out of her eyes, she paused. She dared not look at Cedric, at that open dark hole his mouth made in his dead face. Nor did she dare look at the standing Viking. She felt relieved when he turned his grey, unflinching gaze to the door. He bellowed, "Rolf Kali!"
In a moment, a third Viking entered, big, as evidently were all their breed, showing reddish hair beneath an iron helmet decorated with copper and red rubies. He looked about him, his roving gaze ending with the Viking on the floor. The two spoke; their jaws seemed to chew the unintelligible Norse words like gristle. Then the newcomer looked at Edin. A droll little grin escaped his mouth.
Cedric's murderer approached her. She tried to scramble away, but he caught her arm in a grim grip and pulled her up. She raised her hands over her face, anticipating a blow, but he only spun her around so that her back was to him, and wrapped his arm around her rib cage beneath her breasts. Thus he lifted her right off her feet. She was held with her back to his chest. She struggled again, tore at his arm, kicked. Since her feet were bare, she knew he hardly felt her heels beating against his legging-wrapped shins, yet he growled at her, in Saxon again, "Don't take on so."
She would take on. She must. If she surrendered, her vulnerability and helplessness would rush at her.
He gave her ribs a squeeze. "Still you don't learn! A man would be dead and stark already for what you've done."
She gasped for breath — then went on writhing under his forearm. His hold, and her straining, served little by little to draw up her shift, so that the whiteness of her upper legs flashed. She heard his icy voice again, speaking in Norse to the redheaded Viking who stood watching with that grin dancing around his face. The giant seemed to be issuing an order, something severe and unsparing—then he paused, as if listening. The redheaded man turned a little, also listening. Among the garrulous, loud voices coming up from the hall, Edin now heard a terrible battle laugh.
The two men looked at one another. They spoke again, briefly, while Edin went back to twisting in the giant's grip. His arm didn't give a bit, though she was becoming exhausted; her movements were jerky, puppetlike.
Then suddenly her wriggles brought her breast into the palm of his hand. Her heart jumped up into her throat and nearly throttled her. As if he too felt something akin to an uprushing flame, the Viking all but threw her at the man he called Rolf.
Rolf let her put her bare feet on the floor before he pulled her from the room. After the dimness of her chamber, the sudden torchlight was strong. When her sight adjusted, she beheld the ruin of the manor hall.
The place was all alight. The big double doors, thick and ironbound, the manor house's strongest defense, had been broken wide open. Many of the wall tapestries had been pulled down. One tremendously fat man was stuffing all the edibles he could reach into his mouth, and in a corner two men were breaching a cask of the pale yellow wine meant for her wedding feast.
Edin was pushed down the narrow stairs. She saw the king's man; Ceolwulf, lying dead among the thyme-and lavender-scented rushes. His darkly brooding eyes stood open in what seemed great surprise. He'd brought a dark cloud of ominous news to sunny Fair Hope, and now it seemed he'd been caught by an unnatural justice.
Arneld, white-faced, dashed by the foot of the stairs, chased by a terrible-looking savage. The boy dodged this way and that as the savage tried to scoop him up. The scene resembled a gruesome game of tag. When the lad spied Edin, he cried out, as if he thought she could save him. He was mistaken, as the Viking proved by catching him, hooking his squealing body under one huge arm, and starting for the splintered door with him. The wine drinkers in the corner cheered their man— for his courage in taking so fierce a captive? The savage tried to swallow a grin, but it got away and slipped across his face.
What was he going to do with Arneld?
What was this Rolf going to do with her?
A frantic urge to escape stiffened Edin. She stopped. The Viking gave her a push to get her going again, and when that didn't move her, he stepped past her and tugged her wrist. She took him by surprise when she planted her feet and twisted her arm to break his grasp. It was easier than she could have hoped. His fingers slipped; in fact, he nearly fell down the stairs. Heart pounding, not with exertion but at her own audacity, she ran back up the stairs.
The whole manor house had the bizarre air of disaster, of things badly out of kilter. Seeing room after room being looted and no place to hide, Edin zigzagged in a frenzy. But then the redheaded Viking blocked her way. When she tried to dodge by him, he threw his leg out and tripped her. She fell full-length right at the feet of another warrior.
This one wore no helmet; he had a shaggy head of long blond hair that hung over his ashy blue eyes. He started to speak, to crow by the sound of his voice, and dropped his ornately inlaid battle-axe into a loop on his belt. He drew her up off the floor, up onto his chest, placing her breasts at the level of his face, which he rubbed against them.
The redheaded Rolf spoke a warning of some sort. Edin's shaggy-haired captor left off nuzzling her to glance about in an exaggerated, scornful way. His blue eyes sparkled with strange fire.
Edin's arms were caught in his clutch around her hips. He laughed as she tried to squirm free. She reclaimed one of her fists, however, and rapped his eye with her sharp knuckles. He jerked his head to the side. Her courage whetted, she bent and sank her teeth into his ear.
He yelped and threw her backward. She hit the wall, hard. Her head struck it with a dull thud. Stunned, she slid down until she was sitting on the floor.
It seemed someone had thrown a spider-lace black shawl over her eyes. Through it she saw the Viking glaring at her, his face white, going whiter. He smiled, but the smile was unpleasant. A froth appeared on his lips. She was too stunned to move, but her heart clenched as he took his axe from his belt. With a scream, he raised it over his head in both hands . . . only to lower it slowly as he felt the edge of another ornate blade against his neck. Nightmarishly, Edin recognized Cedric's killer once more, recognized those grey eyes and that bloodstained, damascened sword.
"You ill-handle my property, Sweyn." Thoryn looked levelly at his sworn man.
Sweyn laughed. That laugh had struck terror into many hearts this night. He swept his axe, Death Kiss, in a round scything motion. Only he could say how many times its biting edge had taken its meal. He said, "I sought only an amber-haired maid to light me to bed."
"Were you not told the woman is mine?"
"I told him, Thoryn," Rolf said, shrugging, "but the Berserk doesn't listen when his battle craze is on him."
The maiden was sitting with her legs sprawled, her short shift riding up above her knees, exposing her silken thighs. Thoryn watched as Rolf gathered her and lifted her to her feet, where he supported her. Thoryn saw her peculiar emotionless stare, the ashen color of her face. But then she bl
inked, and her hands lifted, like cup handles, to her head. The motion reassured him that she would recover.
He turned back to Sweyn, now with a cold, dry smile. Other Norse were gathering, as though some instinct had told them trouble was brewing. They muttered from one to the other as Sweyn said, "What makes her yours, Jarl?" Trouble indeed. A clear challenge to Thoryn's authority. The Norsemen shifted on their feet as they waited, tense and restless, reckoning to see blood spill and to feel the earth shake to the weapon strokes of their two mightiest warriors: their jarl and the strongest of their jarl's elect.
Thoryn said: "I see the Berserk needs to be reminded why I am called 'jarl.' " He backed away from Sweyn, his face set. He placed himself, left foot forward. His motions were deliberate, and Sweyn recognized that Thoryn had accepted his challenge. His own ashy blue eyes went huge and wild, and he laughed again, laughed as though he owned the skies. Then, abruptly, the laughter faded to an ugly grin, and he lifted his axe. With a yell, he rushed at Thoryn, swinging his great weapon.
Thoryn's shield was made of thick wood with a heavy iron boss in the center. Sweyn's first mighty blow splintered the top right off. Thoryn retreated, discarding the wreck.
Sweyn struck again — swung his axe up then brought it down toward Thoryn's head. Thoryn stood still as a stone as the blow came, then stepped to the side and with a two-handed grip used his sword to catch the axe shaft. His father's blade still carried the old magic; the sharp edge of it penetrated the heavy handle of Sweyn's axe to the depth of half an inch.
Sweyn had to pry the axe free. The cords of his neck stood out; a vein pulsed in his forehead. Once again he attacked, and once more Thoryn thrust out his sword and parried the blow.
Sweyn made to lift his weapon yet again, but now Thoryn sliced, so swiftly that Sweyn had to suck in his stomach and curve his back in order to avoid a slit in his belly. Sweat beaded his brow. Seldom did it take him more than one or two blows to finish a man. But then, seldom did he face Thoryn. He stood uncertain a moment, clearly wondering how best to proceed. Meanwhile, Thoryn gave a bellowing cry and leapt forward. Sweyn lifted up his axe to fend off the sword-sweep, but Thoryn's attack was too shrewd. His sword was raised in two hands, swinging back over his shoulder; his left foot stepped as he braced himself to pull down the blow; his blade crunched right through Sweyn's mesh armor and into the joint of his shoulder.
Edin's embrace Page 3