Soul's Fire (The Northwomen Sagas Book 3) Page 8

  If Vali went down, the raiders would lose. If he remained standing, they might beat any odds. He was more than a jarl, more than a leader, more than a great warrior, more even than a legend. He was a symbol, as was his wife. The Storm-Wolf and the God’s-Eye. They two were their strength and their valor. Their honor in the eyes of the gods.

  She ran toward Vali, but then the foremost tent collapsed in a fiery puff and blew sparks into the air. Astrid breathed in fire and fell to her knees in sudden agony. So great was the pain in her mouth and nose and throat that the battle around her seemed to fade away. She almost dropped her axe and shield so that her hands would be free to claw the fire out, but she caught her wits back and struggled to her feet again.

  What had happened inside her would not matter if the raiders took this camp. So she forced air into lungs on fire and hefted her axe again.

  Before she could find another fight, pain exploded in the back of her head, and for her, the night ended.

  Leofric had never fought men like these before. And he’d never fought women at all. He’d never even raised a hand to a woman, and something deeply ingrained in him made his sword feel heavy in his hand when a shrieking woman with wild red hair and a face full of freckles charged at him. He barely managed to block the strike of her sword, and she batted away his return as if she were swatting away a fly.

  He blinked and set his will. She was no woman. She was a barbarian warrior, his enemy, and she would kill him if he didn’t kill her first. He blocked her next slashing blow, caught her blade with his shield, spun, and buried his sword in her chest.

  He didn’t dwell on the sight of a woman dropping to the ground at his feet. Instead he turned and found another savage to kill.

  All around him, the air was an inferno of heat and reddish light, redolent with the stench of searing hide and wood and flesh, and clamorous with the crash and thud against steel and wood, and the crackle and whoosh of fire devouring all it could eat.

  Their attack had been executed exactly as planned, and they’d taken the Northmen by surprise. And yet this was no rout of an enemy camp. The savages fought like animals—no, more fiercely even than that. They fought as if they had no fear at all of death, indeed, as if they sought it. Most of them unarmored, having had no chance to prepare, they fought without caution or sense.

  Twice Leofric had seen raiders disarmed and then seen them use their hands and even their teeth to keep fighting. There were raiders who fought while their bodies were on fire, burning soldiers with them.

  They simply did not stop until they were dead.

  No wonder the legend around them had grown so high. No wonder naïve scouts raved of monsters. No wonder they’d stomped through most of Anglia and taken what they would.

  But no more.

  The big one, who seemed to be their leader, fought nearly naked, in only breeches and boots. He had five soldiers on him, and as Leofric charged in that direction to help, he watched three of his men cut down. A fourth went down. When he arrived to make his first attack, the fifth soldier’s head flew past him.

  The barbarian’s eyes turned to Leofric, and for a brief moment, he quailed. He had been a soldier since he had been old enough to fight. He had fought in wars against other kings, and he had fought for allies in their wars. He was a man of courage and honor. He might engage in the satiation of a few lusts, but he was no coward.

  And yet he knew fear. The barbarian was massive, a full head and more taller than Leofric, and he was bathed in blood that was clearly not his own. In the strange light of the conflagration, pale eyes blazed from that wild face, with gore dripping from a dense, long beard.

  Leofric had just seen him cut down five well-trained soldiers as if they had been children playing.

  In that brief moment when Leofric faced the truth of his looming death, the world stopped and went silent. Then the barbarian raised his arms—he wielded a battle axe in each one—and roared. It was no kind of human sound, and yet the rage and hate in it was pure human emotion.

  In that sound, Leofric heard victory for Mercuria. They had already beaten these savages, even as they fought on. Not on this night—this skirmish, even with the edge of surprise, would end in a draw. The only way to defeat the raiders decisively on this night would be to kill them all, and Leofric could see that they had lost too many of their own soldiers to press the point much further.

  But the raiders would take what was left of them, climb back into their odd ships, and leave Mercuria’s shores, and they would do so broken and empty-handed.

  No other realm in Anglia had accomplished such a thing.

  Those thoughts came in a blink, and then the barbarian leader lunged for Leofric. He spun an axe in his hand and swung, bringing the poll side in. He meant to do harm before taking the kill. Leofric blocked the blow, and yet its force was so powerful that it took him off his feet, throwing him sideways and back. He hit the ground hard, his breath leaving him in a gust.

  The barbarian would kill him. This was the time of his death. But Mercuria would still be victorious.

  “LEOFRIC!” Dunstan’s voice rang out over the din, and then there was a body between Leofric and the massive Northman. As Dunstan struck a blow—it clanged against the blade of an axe—Leofric got to his feet. And then they two stood against their enemy.

  Suddenly, a call ran through the night. “FALL BACK! FALL BACK! FALL BACK!”

  Eadric was calling the soldiers off. At the same moment, another tent fell, and a cloudburst of sparks flew up. The barbarian must have seen something behind them, because he simply plowed straight through them, knocking Dunstan to one side and Leofric to the other, as if they’d dropped so far beneath his notice that he hadn’t even felt them.

  Leofric turned and saw him fly at a woman on fire, bringing her down to the ground and covering her with his body.

  The woman. That was the woman they were meant to take. He took a step toward them, but Dunstan grabbed his arm.

  “We fall back, Your Grace.”

  “The woman.”

  “We have the other. His Highness took her, and she’s already been sent back to the castle.”

  They were in the middle of the enemy camp, so Leofric let any argument drop. He nodded, and he and Dunstan ran, fighting through the last of the raiders as they went.

  They had achieved all the aims of this attack.

  Now it was time to take their sister home to their father.

  ~oOo~

  After dawn, still wearing the blood of their enemies and reeking of smoke, Eadric carried Dreda’s body, wrapped in Dunstan’s cloak. Leofric walked at his side. They brought her through the castle gates, across the bailey, and into the castle. Though they would bring Dreda to their father in the private quarters, they had no intention of sneaking her in as if there were shame in her death.

  There was no shame for Dreda, and Leofric would cut down any who might say otherwise. She had been young and innocent and lovely. She had been good and ebullient and kind. No matter what had been done to her, there was no shame for her.

  A wake of silence trailed behind them. The people they passed, soldier, peasant, and lord alike, stood in quiet respect. Some had already known who Eadric carried. Others learned as they watched. They stood with their heads bowed and their hands at their hearts because there was no shame for Dreda.

  The gossip would come, but Leofric would ensure that no shame would go with it.

  Inside the castle, the steward stepped forward with a bow, and the brothers stopped. “Your Highness, Your Grace, the king—” his eyes fell on Eadric’s bundle, and his words died away.

  “Mercy, that is not—” He recovered himself and bowed again. “Cry your pardon, Your Highness, the king has missed the princess. She slept not in her bed.” His shaking hand reached to the bundle and then dropped away. “Let that not be her!”

  Ignoring his informality and his question, Eadric walked past him and took the lead, climbing the main staircase to the family quarters.<
br />
  “Is he in the residence?” Leofric asked before he followed his brother.

  “Yes, Your Grace. Awaiting word.”

  They climbed the stairs and walked silently down the corridor, side by side, toward the double doors at which two guards stood at attention. Leofric saw one of them register first confusion and then shock at the bundle Eadric carried.

  The guards opened the doors, and the brothers entered their home.

  King Eadric, in a heavy silken dressing gown, paced the room. At his sons’ entrance, his first expression was of paternal relief. He’d sent two sons into the wood to face an enemy, and, even in his worry for Dreda, he was glad to have two sons return.

  Then his eyes found Eadric’s burden.

  “No.” The word had the sound of royal decree. “No.”

  Eadric stopped walking toward him. “Father…” His voice broke.

  “No!” The king staggered backward, abject terror twisting his features. “NO!” He tripped and fell into one of the vast armchairs at the fireplace, then slid to his knees. “NO! GOD IN HEAVEN, PLEASE!” He slammed his hands over his face. “NO!”

  Eadric stood where he was, holding Dreda’s stiff body, his shoulders shaking as sobs took him over.

  Leofric went to their father and dropped to his knees before him. He tried to put his arms around him, but the king pushed him away and crawled to Eadric.

  He crawled. The sight of the king crawling and weeping was so shocking and so desolate that Leofric thought he would be ill. He doubled over, clutching himself as his tears soaked his beard.

  “Give her to me. Give her to me!” Their father yanked Dreda from Eadric. The wild emphasis of the act pulled the cloak away and exposed her bare, filthy, bloodstained body, gone stiff and grey in death.

  Their father screamed. He tried to clutch her to his chest, but the earthly form she’d left behind was unyielding. Finally, screaming again and again, he held her as Eadric had been carrying her. On his knees, he rocked her.

  Leofric had the presence of mind to look beyond the scene and ensure that the doors had been closed behind them. They had been; the family was in privacy.

  Eadric picked up Dunstan’s cloak from the floor and draped it over her again.

  The king’s wails quieted, and he sobbed whispers into Dreda’s matted hair. “You cannot leave me, my light. You are the last I have of your mother. You are everything. Please, O Lord in Heaven, I beseech thee. Please do not take her from me!”

  “Father,” Eadric said gently. “There is no hope.”

  “There is always hope! There is nothing He cannot do. Francis! We need Francis!”

  Leofric began to protest—he did not want that porcine prig in the midst of their family sorrow—but Eadric cut him off with a shake of his head. “We do. She must have the Rites. I will summon him.”

  ~oOo~

  Father Francis had no conduit to a miracle, but he did perform the Last Rites. Eventually, Eadric and Leofric persuaded their father to let Dreda go, and Francis summoned two lesser priests to wrap her and carry her to the chapel so that they could prepare her for vigil.

  Thereafter, while Leofric watched the sunlight move through the room as the day aged, King Eadric stayed where he was, kneeling on the floor where he’d last held his daughter. Leofric and Eadric sat quietly and waited.

  Leofric mused on the governess, his emotions cycling from guilt to rage and back again. She should have been able to keep her charge safe. That was the very definition of her position. But Leofric bore fault as well—for Dreda’s wandering and for the governess’s laxity. He should have insisted that the king know about each event. He shouldn’t have been so amused and gentle with her when she got up to mischief.

  He’d seen himself as a child in her, and he hadn’t wanted to quash that high spirit. He’d been proud of her for breaking free.

  And now she was gone.

  “How did it happen?”

  They were the first words their father had spoken in hours, and they’d been uttered without any affect at all. Leofric turned; the king hadn’t moved.

  Eadric stood. “She was attacked by raiders in the wood.”

  “You know this to be true?”

  “Her body was found near their camp. She was…as you saw her. Yes, we know it to be true.”

  “And she was alone in the wood.”

  “Yes.”

  “Arrest the governess.”

  Leofric almost said something, but he stilled his tongue and let Eadric leave the room to do their father’s bidding.

  While he was gone, the king stood. He brushed his knees and straightened his dressing gown. Then he came and sat in the chair he’d fallen into earlier. Facing Leofric, his expression impassive, he said, “Tell me what happened last night. I sent you out to prepare a defense, and instead you return to me reeking of smoke and carrying your sister’s body.”

  The King of Mercuria had returned. He’d put away the grief of a father and pulled the duty and power of a king over his shoulders.

  Leofric described Eadric’s plan and their execution of it. When he was finished, his father stared at the empty fireplace.

  “That you left any of them alive is a defeat. What they did to your sister—nothing but their annihilation will suffice. You must go back and finish them off.”

  Though they had dealt a devastating blow to the raider camp, they had taken heavy losses themselves in the attack last night, and for that, and for Dreda, now was not the time to attack again. In reckless fury, they might turn victory into defeat. But there was an outlet for their father’s vengeance. Eadric had seen to that.

  “If I may, Father—we took one of their warrior women. A leader among them. She is in the dungeon now. Eadric means for her to bear the burden of Dreda’s death.”

  A light of interest fired in the king’s eyes. “This is Eadric’s wish? And you?”

  Leofric didn’t answer. Savage or not, a woman could not have defiled Dreda. He would rather they had found the one who had. But his father stared, waiting for his answer. “I understand that there is a fitness to it.”

  “But you don’t like it.”

  “She is a woman.”

  His father sneered. “No more than a hound bitch is a woman. I want to see this warrior wench.” He stood. “Come. We’ll dress and then to the dungeons.”

  ~oOo~

  The lowest part of the dungeon, known as the Black Walls, was where things happened that were unutterable and went unsaid. No one who was locked away in the Black Walls ever saw the sun again. Leofric had only known two men in all his lifetime who had been subjected to the trials found here.

  And now one woman.

  She was stripped naked and bound hand, foot, and neck, lying on the stone floor of an empty cell. Her blonde hair was filthy, and its many tight braids, both elaborate and somehow unfeminine, had loosened so that her hair was like a bird’s nest.

  When he, his father and brother, and the warden filed into the dank cell, the woman glared up at them and growled.

  There was no fear in her eyes. Nothing but loathing and threat. From the filthy floor, naked and bound at their feet, she managed to convey a threat.

  The warden’s bandaged face offered evidence to the threat she posed, even as their prisoner. She had bitten his nose away—and then eaten it, spitting out the gristle before the guards had knocked her senseless again. She’d injured three other guards as well, though none other so…memorably.

  Her body was like no other woman’s body Leofric had ever seen. Her stomach undulated with muscle, and her arms and legs, her shoulders, her back, every part of her was contoured like a strong man’s body, albeit smaller. If not for the round globes at her chest, and the smooth, nearly hairless wedge at her thighs, her body might have been a man’s.

  Like the men he’d seen with dark pictures embedded in their skin, across their chests, their arms, their backs, over their scalps, this woman had such a picture as well—coiling up her thigh. A dragon, Leofric
thought.

  She growled again, and this one ended with a rough cough.

  The king was right. She was more animal than human, more man than woman.

  “We want her to suffer for Dreda,” the king said at last, using the royal pronoun. “We would she suffers long. Do what you will, but do not kill her or precipitate her death until we wish it.”

  The warden bowed. “S’you wish, Sire. The men’d have a go at her, if it wouldn’t offend.” Without his nose, his voice had a thick, stunted tone that might have been comical if there had been any humor left in the world.