Soul's Fire (The Northwomen Sagas Book 3) Page 6

  Eadric pushed away from the chart table and stalked to the soldier, who cowered in the shadow of the Crown Prince. “You blaspheme to tell such a tale as a truth, boy. We know the work of the Lord our God on this earth, and there is none such as you describe. So tell me true or lose your head as a blasphemer.”

  “Your Highness,” Leofric cut in. “The boy is affrighted. We should not have charged one so young with the reporting.”

  His brother turned his head just enough that Leofric could see he hadn’t appreciated being interrupted or redirected. But he did step back. “Leave,” he commanded, and the boy nearly tripped in his hurry to back respectfully from the tent and their company.

  “We have nothing of sense in his report,” he complained, returning to the charts. “We lost a unit and a priest, and we have nothing.”

  Leofric watched through the tent opening as the poor boy walked backward far longer than necessary before he spun and ran. He turned to his brother. “I disagree. We know that your strategy thus far is working. The loss of the young priest is regrettable, but he understood the sacrifice he might make. As did our soldiers. Standing firm against the bishop’s bilious wails and convincing the king to empty the church and then guard it heavily gave us exactly what we hoped.”

  That had been a hard fought debate, among Eadric, Leofric, their father, and the bishop. Eadric commanded the king’s army and had developed a defensive plan against the chance that the raiders would make their way to this kingdom as they had so many others.

  Father Francis had been appalled at the idea that the church should be denuded of its treasures and had argued long that to worship the Lord in nothing more than a hovel smacked of blasphemy. Eadric had quoted scripture at him, reminding him that the Lord was present wherever the faithful worshipped.

  Their father had focused on the ‘waste’ of a full unit, left to languish in the village for an indeterminate time, against a threat he didn’t agree was so likely. The Northmen were a seafaring kind, and Mercuria’s coastline offered few points of welcome.

  Eadric and Leofric had persuaded their father that, in this time of peace, it did no harm to send a unit to Garmwood. Their best case was made, to king and priest alike, when they argued that should the horde arrive and they were ready, they might be the only kingdom to defeat them. Though Mercuria had never yet been invaded, the lands abutting the kingdom, all to the east and the north, had, and they were weaker for it.

  The king was already considering ways to overtake the claims of his neighbors and unify the realm under his own banner. Defeating the Northmen would make him all the more fearsome. If King Eadric stopped them, then none would dare stand against him when he sought to unify.

  The Northmen had had their way with Mercuria’s neighbors, and whole legends were rising up about the rampaging hordes of wild men from the sea.

  The heathen barbarians crashed onto a shore, stormed through a land, taking everything, and often everyone, of value and destroying anything they left behind. They desecrated churches and went through defending armies as if mail were vapor, and then they sat outside castle walls, astride stolen horses, and waited for chests of gold and jewels to be rolled out to them. And then they went away—until the next time they had a taste for the blood of good Christians.

  It was little wonder the scout had seen monsters surrounding the church in Garmwood. Leofric had a difficult time himself imagining this horde as made of man.

  He had heard the stories of women fighting, but he had an even more difficult time picturing that. He knew no woman who could wield a longsword or broadsword, much less do so well.

  What kind of savages put their women in harm’s way? Had they no kind of honor at all, no sense of responsibility, even to their own kind? Even the greater of the animals respected each other. Yes, it might be blasphemy to believe them true monsters, but it was no easier to believe them men.

  Eadric considered the charts before him. After a moment, he nodded. “Then we proceed with the plan. We confused their first attack, so we let them encamp and take them in the night.”

  They meant to go without the aid of moonlight, sending stealth and range soldiers ahead and then coming through with torches to set the camp ablaze.

  When one’s enemy did not understand the concept of honor, the cause lessened to fight with honor oneself.

  Leofric believed that wholeheartedly, but he knew his more pious and honorable brother had felt turmoil over a decision to fight like sneaks and ignore the rules of engagement. Even the king had felt more right with the plan than his son who had devised it.

  Eadric sighed and looked up at Dunstan. “Ready the men.”

  Dunstan bowed. “Your Highness.” He backed from the tent and went to do as he was bid.

  Before Leofric could think of a thing to say that would settle his brother’s mind, Dunstan was back. He ran in, forgetting his courtesy. His complexion was deadly pale. He said nothing, but stared wildly into Leofric’s eyes.

  He carried a bundle in his arms. Leofric couldn’t understand what he might have found that would have induced his friend to charge into the royal tent in such a way.

  “What? Duns—oh, no! Our Father in Heaven, let it not be!” Eadric wailed and grabbed the bundle from Dunstan’s hands.

  As he did, a dirty, blood-stained hank of long hair fell from one end of the bundle.

  Leofric blinked.

  Underneath his brother’s weeping, he heard a thin, wispy sound, like a whine. The bundle moved, ever so slightly.

  “She lives?” Eadric gasped and fell to the floor, pulling the covering—an officer’s cloak, it was Dunstan’s own cloak—back and exposing a sweet face with a bow mouth.

  Leofric’s legs gave, and he landed on his knees. “Dreda?”

  “She lives!” Eadric whipped his eyes to Dunstan’s. “The healer! Bring the healer NOW!”

  Dunstan ran from the tent.

  As Leofric crawled to his brother and sister, Eadric rocked her and cooed, “You’re safe, sister. You’re safe now.”

  “Dreda?” Leofric repeated. There was no other word in his mind.

  She whined again, and her eye fluttered as if it might open. Only one eye; the other had been pushed inward, its socket destroyed, and the pretty cheek caved in.

  There was no healer who could make that right.

  But her eye opened, its stormy blue center resting in a vile sea of red. “Lee…Lee…”

  “I’m here, poppet. I’m here.” He opened the cloak and found her hand. He also found that she was bare and bloody, and rage and horror filled his chest. But he took his sister’s slack hand gently and bent his head so that he could kiss her fingers, and then her forehead, and her lips. Her skin was cool already.

  “Was…bad…need…c-c-c-….conf-…”

  Tears surged from him. She knew she was dying and wanted confession. “You have nothing to confess, poppet. You have never been bad in your life. The Lord is waiting for you. He’ll take your hand, and you’ll meet our mother in Heaven. She’s been waiting to hold you in her arms.”

  Eadric grunted fiercely as if to protest, but he didn’t speak. Dreda trembled, and Leofric realized that it was their brother’s shaking body that made hers quake.

  “I…wanted…to see…”

  “I know, sweet girl. I know.”

  They waited in silence for her to say more, but there was no more. Her eye did not close. Her hand remained slack. Eventually, they understood that she had left them.

  ~oOo~

  Dunstan returned with the healer only moments after, but it was too late, and after allowing him to make certain, Eadric sent him away.

  “Take her,” he said and lifted the bundle that had been their sister to Leofric. As the prince stood, Leofric remained on the ground and cradled Dreda to his chest.

  “Tell me what you know,” Eadric commanded of Dunstan.

  Leofric didn’t want to hear the details of what he already knew, what he could see. Dreda had slipped the guard of
her governess again and gone off to run wild. Perhaps she had somehow overheard word of the Northmen. He thought she must have, and they were what she’d wanted to see. The little girl who wanted adventures and had not enough fear in her to keep her safe.

  He’d promised her a long and adventurous life. Leofric laid his cheek on her broken head.

  Dunstan cleared his throat and answered the prince. “The scouts returned with her. They found her in the woods, near enough to the Northmen’s camp.”

  “And in what state?”

  A pause. “As you see her, less my cloak. They carried her back covered in the pieces of rags they found nearby, but I could not bring her to you in such a way.”

  Eadric stormed back to Leofric and ripped the cloak back, exposing their sister’s lifeless body. Blood spatters covered her, with thick streaks and dried pools over her belly and legs. Into the crease between her pale thighs.

  The prince roared and wheeled back. Stunned with grief, Leofric covered her again and held her even closer.

  “If I may, Your Highness,” Dunstan began, quietly, “We are ready here. If you would take her to the king, we can proceed in your absence. Your word commands us.”

  “No.” Eadric’s voice showed no sign of sorrow’s weakness. “Brother, if you would take her, you have my leave. But I will be at the vanguard when we set the savages on fire.”

  Keeping Dreda close to his chest, Leofric stood. “As will I. But we cannot send her to Father without us. He will need us. We must be the ones to tell him.” That was private family talk, but Dunstan was as near to family as could be without blood.

  “Then we leave her here. Under guard. And get Father Francis.”

  “No.” Leofric carried her to a chaise and laid her on it.

  “Brother?”

  “Francis will snoop and sneak to Father while we fight. He shouldn’t know before the king.”

  “One of the lesser priests, then.”

  “No. They obey Francis in all things.”

  “She needs the Rites!”

  “She’s dead already. The Rites will not ease her way.”

  Eadric’s eyes narrowed. “You balance on a thin thread, Leofric.”

  “Yes. But I am right.”

  The prince went to the chaise and crouched at their sister’s side. He drew a finger lightly over her pert little nose. “She was a great gift to come from such sorrow. A light to lead us from our grief for Mother.”

  “Yes.” Leofric blinked back fresh tears. He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned, surprised. He’d forgotten that Dunstan was in the tent with them. Tears streaked his friend’s cheeks, too.

  Eadric stood and wheeled around, his brow creased deeply. “I want to see these filthy barbarians in the light. Leofric, will you ride with me?”

  “I will.”

  ~oOo~

  Against emphatic protests by Dunstan and anyone else who saw what they intended and had the spine to object, Eadric and Leofric, the only heirs to the realm, dressed in common soldier’s garb and rode out that afternoon alone through the forest toward Garmwood and the raider camp.

  They were silent and watchful on the ride, moving in as much haste as care and quiet would allow. When they were near enough to the place the scouts had named as the raider camp, the brothers dismounted and left their horses to await their return.

  The forests of Mercuria were known for their dense underbrush and thickly clustered trees, both of which made speedy stealth more difficult. But if one took one’s time and knew the way, one might be all but invisible.

  Eadric and Leofric knew their way, and they took as much time as their roiling hearts would allow.

  The closer they came to the camp, the more Leofric’s eyes wanted to seek out bushes for signs that Dreda had lain there. The scouts had found her alone, under a bush near the camp. Alone and bare, bloody and broken. Defiled. Destroyed.

  It was his fault. He had condoned her escapes and helped her to keep them from their father. He’d protected the governess who could not keep control of her one and only charge. If he’d done what he should have done, what Eadric would have done, and told their father, Dreda would be alive right now, sitting in her chamber, dressed in fine silks, with her pretty little feet on a satin tuffet, learning to stitch.

  Not dead in a tent, naked and bloody and wrapped in Dunstan’s cloak.

  He had indulged her foolish fancy, and now she was gone.

  They heard the camp before they saw it. They’d come in obliquely and were on a rise, above the camp. When it emerged from between the trunks of the trees and the branches of the brush, the brothers crouched low and went still.

  Even in the crush of his grief, Leofric found room for fascination. He’d never seen a camp like this, or men like this. He couldn’t discern a hierarchy. All the tents seemed alike, or alike enough, and the camp was erected without an intentional shape that he could see.

  The tents were rough hewn and made of hides and furs, and the people seemed dressed likewise. Nearly everyone had long hair in braids, even the men, and the men wore massive beards, some of those braided, too. Many of those without long hair had oddly shaved heads. Some had both long hair and shaved heads. Many had black drawings on their skin, and some wore paint on their faces.

  And women. The women wore the same clothes as the men. They wore breeches and boots and leather chestpieces. Warriors—just as the stories said.

  “There.” Eadric yanked on Leofric’s arm. “That must be the one the scout spoke of. He is a big one at that. But nothing more than man.”

  Leofric found the one his brother meant—the biggest man he’d ever seen, with a back so broad and muscles so carved it was as if boulders filled his skin. He had both long hair and a shaved head, and dark pictures over his shoulders and arms and back. Which was bare.

  A young lad watching that man fight in a bloody battle might well wonder if a monster hadn’t crept from the sea.

  He stood with another large man and with two women, both blonde and elaborately, though messily, braided. They seemed small in the company of the giant, but Leofric thought they were both taller than the women he knew. One woman wore a sword and shield on her back. The other had an axe under her shield.

  These were the warrior women who shrieked and flew.

  “I want one of those women alive.” Eadric snarled quietly. “I want her to feel what Dreda felt.”

  “Eadric?” Leofric couldn’t have heard his quiet, pious brother correctly.

  “One of those.” He nodded toward the group talking below. “They are important to the giant, and I think he is their leader. I want one of those women alive. We will take her to our father and let her carry the burden of his grief. And of our own. All the rest of the savages will burn tonight, but one of those mongrel bitches will be made to atone for their sins against our sister.”

  As they watched, the giant hooked his hand over the neck of one of the women, drawing her close. The gesture was tender and possessive, and Leofric understood that she was his woman.

  “That one,” Eadric said, obviously seeing what Leofric had. “I want her.”

  ~oOo~

  They returned to the camp and prepared for the attack. Dreda’s body lay in the tent, so Eadric met with the captains outside, leaving the tent to serve as her resting place for now. The guard at its entrance was ignorant of whom he protected, but he needed no knowledge to keep his duty. The Crown Prince had said his task was the most sacred, and so he had not moved.

  The plan was uncomplicated: they would move through the forest during the near dark hours, stopping well away from the camp until full dark descended. The range units would move forward from there, sending flaming arrows into a quiet camp, and the riders and foot soldiers would charge in to exploit the chaos the fire would create. Any scouts they might encounter would be speedily and permanently silenced.

  There had been quiet rumbles of distaste when the plan had first been laid out to the men. This was not the way honorable men fou
ght. Men of honor faced each other on a field of battle, and they limited their battle to that field. There were rules of engagement to be followed. Foe or not, there was no honor in stealing into a camp, where innocents worked and men slept unarmed, to kill someone not prepared for his own defense.

  That was murder, not war.

  But these Northmen were not men of honor. They flouted even the laws of God. They were barely men at all.