The Viking's Captive

by Ingrid Hahn

  He fought to maim and to debilitate, not to send the unworthy to Valhalla.

  The rest weren’t as easy as the first overconfident guard. Battle raised the fury of men—the madness in them that made them animals. Thorvald was not exempt. There was a rush of feeling nothing else could come close to giving him. The sensation of being purely and wholly alive, but existing on the brink of death. Like the gods themselves gathered at the fray to call them, call them…closer and closer. With each blow, each swing, each dodge, Thorvald defied them. He would live. Curse them all, he would live.

  For Alodie…

  A blade nicked his shoulder. Dark red blood began to stain the brightly colored wool. It was nothing but a flesh wound. By this time next year, the scar would already be fading.

  But it was close. Too close.

  He couldn’t think of her. Not now. The fight—that was the only thing that mattered.

  At the end of the hall stood the jarl.

  Thorvald pushed his opponent aside, whacked him unconscious with a blow to the back of the head, and stepped forward. He pushed his way through the confused tangle of men to stand before the man who’d been the cause of so much needless misery. “Fight me.”

  Jarl Erlendr’s eyes gleamed. He looked smug. Like he still believed he had the upper hand.

  “Fight me.” Thorvald wiped wetness from his brow with the back of his arm, hand still gripping his weapon. “Fight me, you stinking, rotting—”

  However inventive he was about to be with his insult was lost in the next instant when, a little to the side of the jarl, a small face appeared behind an upturned stool. Thorvald cursed and the jarl turned when Thorvald pointed his sword and spoke. “You, there. Domari’s boy. What are you doing here?”

  The boy’s brown eyes were big as goose eggs. His hair was messy, his face smudged with dirt. His lips moved, but his voice didn’t pierce the noise of the hall.

  “Speak up,” Erlendr snapped.

  The boy glanced nervously at the older man. He swallowed. “I want to fight, too.”

  The jarl laughed. “Come out, then. Join us.”

  A stumbling body of a man being knocked aside slammed into Thorvald. He pushed the body away with all his might, nearly losing his footing. When Thorvald looked back, the jarl had Domari’s son by the shirt and was trying to tug him out from his hiding spot.

  Thorvald stormed over and grabbed the child away, absurdly grateful for the young one’s youthful stupidity. It reminded him that this is exactly what he had to fight for. If he lost Alodie, there was still the future to consider. The children could not grow up knowing the unjust rule of this man who called himself their jarl.

  He was about to push back through the fray to deposit the boy outside and send him home to his mother with a stern word about waiting until he was old enough, when the father himself, Domari, plucked his son away from Thorvald.

  Thorvald turned back to the jarl. “Now it’s you and me, old man.”

  “I have a better idea.”

  Thorvald’s breath was coming hard and heavy. “You think you can withstand me.”

  “I know I can.”

  “Going to have me fight Hrolf, are you?” Thorvald’s grip on the end of his sword tightened. For Alodie, he would rip his own heart out and let her feed it to a troll. Fighting Hrolf would be far more difficult. It appeared there would be no other choice.

  Now that he thought about it, though, where was Hrolf?

  “I think that would be far too easy.” The man’s face betrayed nothing. He stood upon his carved throne, spread his arms wide, and called for attention. Slowly but surely, the din quieted. Men heaved in deep breaths while others moaned in agony.

  The jarl shot Thorvald a triumphant glance. It was obvious what was coming. The jarl thought he could bring everything to a swift halt. He believed he was about to bring Thorvald’s world crashing down upon him.

  If the jarl only knew. Thorvald was already picking up the pieces of his shattered world.

  His breathing was calming and he took a deep inhalation. For the first time, no residual fear lingered in the dusty pits of his bones. It was gone. The jarl’s power over him was broken. A perfect calmness settled over his skin like a cloak of finest fur.

  A single regret lingered at the back of his awareness: that Sigurd wasn’t alive now that the truth was known.

  Thorvald focused on the jarl, tried not to smile, and stayed silent. Let the man speak. The more fool him. There would be time enough afterward for their steel to clash.

  “This—this warrior here”—he said “warrior” with a sneer—“who you’re following is no great warrior’s son. He’s the son of a man who turned and ran from battle. Old Bjorn ran in fear, pissing himself, and crying like a frightened woman.”

  The details were heavily exaggerated, and Thorvald grunted in disgust, but held his tongue.

  The jarl lowered his arms and glared at Thorvald. His words rang out in deadly tones with the finality of someone believing all the advantage was theirs and theirs alone. “He’s nothing but the son of a coward.”

  Ozrik raised his sword and let the words ring out of him for the second time that night. “The son of a coward!”

  Men took up the rallying cry. Their bloodied weapons raised, they echoed Ozrik. “Son of a coward!”

  The jarl’s eyes were huge.

  “You’re too late. I already told them.” Thorvald let himself smile. “I won’t be remembered as the son of a coward. The skalds will be singing of me as the great warrior who took you down.”

  The fighting resumed. A spray of blood from a slit throat sprayed in Thorvald’s face, temporarily blinding him. He didn’t see what the jarl did next. Wiping his face, Thorvald was swept back into the fray. Men came at him from both sides, and he was too focused on saving his own neck to get back to Erlendr and pick up where they’d left off.

  But when he glanced back again, the jarl was gone. Had someone else killed him?

  As he kept fighting, Thorvald lost the trail of thoughts. The question stayed there in the back of his mind—where was the jarl?—but his immediate attention remained on finishing the first part of what he’d begun.

  The irrelevant parts of the world fell into the distance. Colors faded. From pockets of dark came flashes of metal. Men were nothing more than eye shapes. The outline of a shoulder raised a particular way made him bring his own sword up to block a blow. The direction of a gaze set him dodging to one side, then taking advantage of where the man had left himself open.

  It all happened quickly, without conscious thought. Years of training conditioned his reactions.

  Between himself and Ozrik, they beat their way to the back of the great hall, blood-spattered, sweaty, and heaving. His head buzzed. The whole world shimmered and danced. Like he were above everything. Untouchable. Infallible. A part of the world from tips of the deepest tree roots all the way up, up…so high as to be able to reach and comb his fingers through the most distant clouds and brush the dome of the sky.

  It wasn’t over yet.

  Hrolf was suspiciously absent, for one. And whatever had happened to the jarl still needed to be seen.

  Behind them, the noise began to die down. The men who’d fought against them were sprawled over the ground, unconscious or groaning. The whole place reeked of blood and sweat.

  Thorvald and Ozrik stood together at the doorway to the jarl’s private chamber. They looked at each other. Thorvald gave a brief nod. “Thank you.”

  “No need.”

  “Every need. You didn’t have to stand by me.”

  “I’ve been waiting to stand by you since we came ashore.”

  “What…” Thorvald swallowed, part of him not wanting to hear the answer lest it be that the boy was dead. “What happened to Hrolf?”

  “I haven’t seen him.”

  That wa
s odd. Had the young man fallen early? Thorvald frowned. It would have been more honorable to Sigurd’s memory to have done better by Hrolf. Then again, what could Thorvald have done differently given the choices the young man had made?

  Ozrik nodded toward the closed door. “Shall we?”

  Thorvald pushed. The door had been barred from the other side. With the back of his sword he began pounding.

  An unwelcome image flooded his mind of what might meet him on the other side. The worst way the jarl could take revenge…the worst possible way…would be to kill Alodie. Thorvald could be opening the door only to find her lifeless body.

  Fiendish claws of fear tore at his insides. A surge of renewed strength powered his blows. Harder. Harder. His arm might have burned. It probably would later. He was numb to everything but the desperation inside of him. Get inside. Nothing else mattered.

  The wood began to splinter.

  A few more blows…and…there.

  A man-sized hole was all he needed, and he hopped through, sword raised to fend off any unexpected threat that might be lying in wait.

  Nothing was as expected. His gaze darted frantically about the room. No jarl.

  No Alodie.

  Thorvald’s blood pumped hard and fast.

  On the bed was Hrolf, stomach-down and sprawling like a starfish over the whole surface. He was the wrong color. Ashen. Stony almost. Not sallow or sickly. But…

  “He’s dead.”

  Ozrik poked the body. Hrolf snorted loudly and his head thrashed to the other side. Then he went still. Ozrik glanced to Thorvald, brows raised. “Asleep?”

  “How in the name of anything could he have slept through the battle?”

  The image of Alodie possessively gripping the plate of food flashed through Thorvald’s mind. Before he could offer a theory, however, Ozrik’s eyes went wide and he shouted. Whatever it was he was saying, Thorvald never heard it. He had no time to react. A bright, sharp pain exploded at the back of his head.

  He sank into black oblivion.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Thorvald Goes Silent

  Alodie struggled in her bonds. She’d heard his voice—his and Ozrik’s—but they’d gone silent. An icy finger of fear caressed her spine.

  She was outside on the other side of the door, hands and legs tied, then the ropes themselves tied again to ensure she’d remain incapacitated. The jarl had dragged her away, bound her, and tossed her into the dirt. Then he’d vanished back inside.

  In the interim, while the noise of fighting from within drowned out all else, the moon had set. False dawn flirted on the horizon. She’d been trying to distract herself with prayer, with limited success.

  She tugged. There was no give in her bonds. No room to wrestle free. The ropes dug into her flesh and the knots were tight.

  How long until anyone looked for her? The fighting seemed to be largely finished. When she’d heard Thorvald and Ozrik on the other side of the wall, she’d assumed they’d been victorious.

  The jarl and one of his warriors emerged. They struggled to get a chest over the lip of the threshold at the door, then began dragging their burden together. The container was too small to hold the body of a man.

  A gruesome thought entered her mind, bringing a tidal wave of cold terror. It was too small for a man, but not small enough for part of a man.

  She closed her eyes and tried to breathe. It was imperative she remain rational. First, they hadn’t had time to carve anyone up. Second—she cracked her eyes to double-check—yes, their hands and garments were free from blood. Even if they’d cut into a body whose heart no longer beat, surely they’d have smeared some blood upon themselves.

  Without stopping, the jarl cast her a glance, looking as if he were trying to decide whether to take her, too.

  She glowered. She’d sooner be forgotten and left here for a whole day and night than be taken.

  He averted his gaze and kept going.

  Alodie let out a breath.

  Once they’d passed, a figure rushed from the trees and she jumped. But it was only Birna and she had a knife. Quickly, she knelt in the dirt alongside Alodie, pulled away the rag over her mouth, and began sawing through the rope. “What’s happened?”

  “I don’t know, but it can’t be good for the jarl. He’s fleeing.”

  “What? Where does he think he’s going?” Birna turned her head. “I don’t see him.”

  “He headed in the direction of the water. He had a trunk with him that he and one of his guards were dragging.”

  The rope tying Alodie’s wrists together snapped free. Each was still tied individually, but there was no time to worry about that. Birna bent and began working the ropes at the ankles. “If he’s trying to leave, we have to stop him.”

  A moment later, Alodie was released. She’d worry about the ropes that still hung from her wrists and ankles later. Birna began rushing down in the direction the jarl had gone. She stopped and turned back when she realized Alodie wasn’t with her. “What is it?”

  “Ozrik and…and Thorvald.” She gestured back, then licked her dry lips and self-consciously rubbed at the light abrasions on her skin where the rope had chaffed. “I heard them. Then…then I didn’t.”

  Birna stared hard at the back wall of the great hall. She swallowed and nodded, plodding back up to put a hand upon Alodie’s shoulder. Her expression was stern, but in a way that suggested she was trying to remain strong in order to face whatever was coming. “I’ll go in first.”

  Alodie shook her head. “I will.”

  “You’re in no condition—”

  “I’m strong. I can manage.”

  She faced the door, placed her hands on either side of the opening, and forced her leg up for her foot to clear the lip of the threshold.

  Hrolf was where she’d left him, except his head was turned the other way. It must have been in an odd position, for he snored like an old bear.

  On the floor Ozrik and Thorvald lay sprawled. Their eyelids were closed. That boded well, didn’t it? Corpses tended to stare into nothing.

  She knelt and Birna crouched beside her, the older woman’s knees creaking audibly. Alodie reached out to touch Thorvald’s skin. Warm. A vein pulsed in his neck. Air left her lungs in a heavy rush. “He’s alive.”

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  The Jarl Flees

  Thorvald’s consciousness returned slowly. Like he were on a ship on a still and silent night with the burning torch of an approaching vessel creeping closer and closer.

  He blinked his eyes open. A beautiful face hovered above his. Her huge gray eyes shimmered with concern. “Alodie. Are you—have you been hurt?”

  “No.”

  He reached for her hand, but she jerked away, visibly prickly with hostility.

  So that’s how it stood between them. It didn’t bode well for what choice she would be making when they saw the end of this. Did even a thread of hope remain for them?

  He focused on his aunt, who was beside Alodie. “You? Are you hurt?”

  Birna shook her head.

  He pushed himself up to sitting, leaning his torso’s weight upon his hands. The drumbeat against the back of his skull was far worse than the morning after a particularly hard night of drinking. Ozrik was still out cold beside him. “What happened?”

  “You’re lucky.” Birna sat back on her feet. “He must not have wanted to kill you in cold blood.”

  “Or didn’t have time.” Alodie peered over Ozrik.

  Before she could do anything, a warrior darkened the doorway leading into the main area of the hall. It was Fasti. He swept his gaze over the scene, then shouted back over his shoulder. “I found them.”

  More bodies crowded around him to peer in.

  Thorvald pulled himself to his feet, shaking his head once at Birna’s outreached hand. She was far, f
ar stronger than her narrow frame and advanced years suggested to a casual observer—and he was in a bad way. The ruthless vigor of the fight was catching up with him. He was beginning to ache all over, and his head pounded. It was not, however, so bad as to risk what few scraps of pride he was slowly reassembling.

  “It’s all right.”

  On the floor, Alodie shook Ozrik. He groaned.

  Fasti jerked his chin toward the bed where Hrolf continued snoring. “What happened to him?”

  Birna’s face went carefully blank and Alodie quickly dropped her gaze to the floor. So that’s how it had happened. Thorvald’s suspicions about the plate of food had been right, then.

  “More to the point”—wincing, he rubbed the hard lump at the back of head—“where’s the jarl?”

  “He left.”

  All eyes turned to Alodie.

  Thorvald didn’t blink. Had the blow to his head ruined his hearing? “Left?”

  Birna nodded. “He tied her up and dumped her outside. Then he left.”

  “With a trunk,” Alodie added.

  Thorvald glanced around for what might have been missing, then went to the door. Sure enough, there were marks in the dirt where something had been dragged.

  From the ground, Ozrik’s eyes opened. He scrambled to standing, blinking and teetering as he regained his balance. “What happened?”

  “The jarl’s gone.”

  “Too cowardly to fight you, eh?” Ozrik’s mouth quirked at the corners.

  “Probably with as much gold and silver as he could take with him.” Thorvald couldn’t enjoy the twist of fate. His time with the jarl might have been over, but the ending felt…incomplete.

  “He’s not going to get far if I have anything to say about it.” Ozrik rushed to the door. Thorvald caught him with a flat palm to the center of his friend’s chest and Ozrik gave him a questioning look. “What?”