Make that so, God, she prayed, so I can forget the past. Let him just be dead and I will try to learn wisdom like my father, forgiveness like my sister Bede … for truly, God, what I have witnessed is horrible. I cannot love this carnage. I cannot, I cannot.…
She couldn’t stop her shaking, nor control the horrible taste of sickness that kept rising to her mouth. She smelled death all around her; it had permeated her mouth and nose. She wanted nothing more than to find water and wash and wash until she could wash the horror from her mind.
But she rode a distance before she dismounted and once more battled through a heavy tangle of trees to the brook that raced through the forest. Even then she was alert and careful. Before she tethered her mare, she stood silent, listening, looking. But the forest was quiet and peaceful; she was alone. Still, she pulled her heavy steel sword into her hand when she left the mare to venture to the water.
Seeing the crystal stream sparkling beneath the sunlight, Erin forgot caution and ran to it. Flinging herself on her knees, she dropped her face into the water and then flattened to allow the rush of cold wet cleanness to cover her, clothing and all, so that it might purge the terror. She pulled her head up and began to breathe more easily, then lowered her face again to drink and clean her mouth. She breathed in the air deeply, her eyes closed as she brushed wet tendrils of hair from them. She began to blink the water from her lashes, then froze as her eyes lit upon a body in the water not fifty feet away.
She knelt there stiffly as seconds ticked by, not blinking, holding her breath. She raised herself lithely to the balls of her feet, her eyes never leaving the body as she fumbled around until her fingers closed over the steel of her sword. Then she stood, sword raised high, her eyes glued to the body.
That he had come from the battle was evident. Half immersed in the water, his massive body was clad in bloodied and dirty mail. He wore no helmet, but it was impossible to discern the color of his hair because it was covered with mud, and she could not see his features as his head was turned from her.
Warily, her sword poised to strike, she began to move toward him. A fish jumped in the water and she leaped back at the sound. But the body hadn’t moved, and she forced herself to move forward again. When she stood beside him, she first thought him dead, but then she saw the rise and fall of his heavy shoulders.
She stood, poised to strike, but the awful carnage she had just seen made her loath to take a human life, and she didn’t think she was capable of murdering a scarcely breathing man.
She noticed that blood was caked to his temple and matted with his hair. Beneath the water’s edge she could see the flesh of a bent thigh. A terrible gash had rent away leggings and flesh.
He groaned suddenly, and once again she almost jumped back to the trees. But after that one emission of pain, he was silent again. A pity she didn’t want to feel welled within her. The man was sorely wounded.
Erin was truly at a loss. She couldn’t slaughter him as he lay there, yet she would be a fool to let him go. He would probably die anyway, just another dead Viking. And didn’t she want all Vikings dead? It was one thing to think so in the luxury of her father’s home, but it was quite another when she had just stared upon a profusion of broken bones, crushed skulls, and mangled bodies. And she had heard his heart-wrenching groan … Dear God, could she be this weak?
It occurred to her then that he might be a Viking of note—a worthy prisoner to bring to her father. Actually, her situation was a brilliant one. She could save this man and, in so doing, prove to her father that she could be as worthy as any of her brothers.
But how to capture him? She would have to render him helpless before attempting to revive him and forcing him to move to the threat of her sword. She was good with the weapon, but it would be only intelligent not to rely upon her prowess alone. The man at her feet was incredibly long and massive.
Erin thought only a moment, then hurried back to her mare and rummaged through her saddlebags. She had nothing. Then it occurred to her that the leather thongs that held the bag together were sturdy and supple enough for her to bind the man’s wrists quickly. She would wet them, and they would dry and become so tight and strong that he would never free himself.
Excited with purpose, but wary still, Erin returned to the fallen Viking. She knelt beside him and placed her sword at her fingertips as she reached gingerly first for one wrist and then the other. The dead weight of the man’s arms was such that she almost staggered beneath them, and she reflected that she was very lucky he was barely alive. If this man was conscious, it was doubtful that, for all her skill, she could deal with him with any hope of victory.
She couldn’t quell the pity that arose within her again as she glanced at the broad hands and long fingers that feel limply from the wrists she bound. Tiny tufts of gold hair dotted his fingers and backs of his hands. Absently Erin dusted away the dry mud that clung to that hair. Strange, how that gesture made the man seem so human. I am crazy, she thought. His hands and fingers are strong because they wield weapons against the Irish.
He groaned once more, and she clenched her teeth together. Her mind fought a silent battle, one side saying he was a barbaric animal and should die, a deeper side unable to bear his suffering.
Finally she shrugged. He was bound; he was her captive, and should he dispute it, she would kiss his throat with the ready tip of her sword.
She had to move him, at least roll him over, if she was going to be able to bathe his face, ascertain the extent of his wounds, and make him walk. Once she returned him to Mergwin’s cottage, she would have the Druid give him a sleeping potion. If he lived, this was one Viking giant who would be dangerous awake.
Erin first attempted to roll him over by his mail-clad chest, but she quickly realized the effort was futile and ludicrous. All she had to do was lever the elbow of his arm, and—if there was life in him at all—he would naturally roll to the balance. She put all her weight into her pull, and, as she had reasoned, his weight followed behind hers. The movement was accompanied by a deep, low, anguished groan. She took the large, sodden head into her lap and began to smooth the hair from the man’s brow. Without thinking, she began to speak soothingly. “Shh … you are all right. I will cleanse your wounds.”
She broke off as the man’s eyes opened, instantly sharp and alert and as cold and blue as a frosted morning. She stared into those eyes and her own narrowed dangerously. Now there was no mistaking the roughly hewn and rugged features of the man. Not even blood and mud and the filthy beard could hide the raw, hard planes of the sharply arrogant and indomitable countenance.
Her tone changed radically, her voice rising high and shrill. “You!” she gasped. For his was far too familiar a face. It was one she had long envisioned in nightmares. “You!”
Her exclamations had become snarls. Instant warning and the reflexes of the warrior came to Olaf. His head was ringing, his body ached with pain, he knew not where he was nor his circumstances. He knew only that the face above his was filled with shock and hate.
“You! Wolf bastard of the North—”
He attempted to move, to grab the screaming harpy who tormented him, only to discover that he had no power over his arms because his wrists were securely bound. And then it all came back to him. The battle … Grenilde.… His eyes closed again.
When they reopened to his tormentor, they were curiously empty, devoid of fear, anger, anything. He watched Erin as if he were the captor rather than she, just staring at her almost absently, as if she were totally inconsequential.
She pulled her body back sharply, allowing his head to fall back to the earth with a sharp crack. He winced, and his eyes narrowed sharply as they looked up at her with irritation. Erin sprang for her sword and quickly held it to his neck. “Up, Olaf the White! Dog of Norway.”
He ignored her command. Erin tightened her lips and pressed her sword more firmly against his jugular. She received great satisfaction from the surprise that filtered through his eyes.
/> Still he didn’t make a move. Erin smiled. She would have been surprised to see the intensity of cruelty in her own eyes.
She brought her sword in a casual line down his torso, scraping the mail. Her sword hovered below his hips. “Up, now, dog. You raping, plundering, murdering bastard. I wish to prolong your suffering. Oh, Viking, what I would do to you! But you will be my father’s hostage. So we will go to him. But I warn you now, bastard dog of the North, one wrong move and I will sever your manhood and roast it before your eyes!”
She had hit a core of anger. His eyes flashed blue fire as his jaw tightened, but he began a painful attempt to rise. When he wavered on his feet before her, Erin inadvertently took a step backward. She was fairly tall for a woman, but this man towered over her. The giant muscles in his arms and thighs bulged with his strain to stay afoot. She saw his teeth clench more tightly together beneath the mud-matted growth of his beard as he was forced to place weight upon his wounded thigh.
“Turn slowly, Viking,” she hissed. “I assure you the caress of my sword can be a long one. I would not kill you swiftly, Viking. The Danes would show greater mercy.” He turned. Erin pressed the point of her sword in his back. “Walk, Viking, and don’t, don’t, make the mistake of turning.”
He began to walk, wavering badly. He stumbled and fell. A flash of compassion tugged strongly at Erin, but she closed her eyes and remembered, Clonntairth, the smell of the fires, the screams of the women.… Her sword dug into his downed back. “You have five seconds to get up, Viking.”
He stumbled back to his feet. Once more they moved for the trees and Erin’s tethered horse. She didn’t take her eyes off him as she gathered her mount’s reins. But he was half dead, weary, encrusted with blood and dirst. His mail armor must weigh down on him terribly, Erin thought. She bit into her lip as she watched him waver, thinking she wasn’t going to be able to take him far in his condition. But once again, bitter memory rose above her compassion. He would walk until he dropped.
Carefully, with one eye upon her barely conscious prisoner, she cut through the left rein on her mare’s bridle to use as a rope. The rein was not particularly strong, but then, at this point, neither was the Wolf. “Put your hands out,” she commanded him sharply.
He refused to oblige until she raised the point of her sword to his neck once more and pressed threateningly against his flesh. He blinked, but not even then did the empty, arctic ice leave his eyes. He raised his hands.
It was difficult to keep her sword raised with one hand and loop the rein securely around the bounds that held his hands, but despite his condition, she couldn’t trust him, couldn’t let down her guard for an instant. It was even more difficult to mount her horse while holding both prisoner and sword but she didn’t dare release either. Thankfully the mare was a docile creature, and although she was occasionally skittish, she remained as meek as a lamb while Erin struggled into the saddle. She dug her knees against the mare’s flanks and began a crisp trot.
From her vantage point Erin stared down at the captive. Another flash of unwanted compassion swept through her and a trace of grudging admiration. He was as pale as clouds, his face was strained with pain, and yet he ran. Clonntairth! she reminded herself, and she closed her eyes quickly, forcing the images of terror to her mind. To feel compassion for this dangerous beast was to betray the memory of those she had loved.
She opened her eyes to find the ice-blue ones staring up into hers. They were so strange, so devoid of life and yet they seemed to mock her from a ruggedly structured face that was handsome and supremely arrogant even now. He stared at her as he struggled to run and a cold wind seemed to send shivers up her spine. There was something terribly frightening about him. He seemed to be more than mere man. Wounded, ragged, muddied, tethered and dragged, he still managed to walk, still managed to stare at her with contempt and arrogance the only distant emotions in his cold, cold … empty eyes. She shivered, staring again. He was a giant of a man, muscled and yet trim, with his golden head at a level with her waist even as she sat on her horse. If he had his customary strength, I would not still be riding, she thought. He would have attacked her, dragged her from the horse, broken his bonds.… She leveled her sword carefully at his eyes. “I warn you, Viking, one move and you will suffer hideously.”
His eyes were still on her when he fell, sinking to his knees, then careening flat on his face.
She leaped from the mare, wary at first that his action had only been a ploy. But when she carefully skirted around him and pressed the point of her sword into his spine, he didn’t move. She stood, perplexed, berating herself for not thinking more fully about the extent of his wounds. She might have already killed him. She shrugged. Didn’t she want this particular Viking dead?
“Oh, God …” she whispered aloud. She wanted him to suffer, as the Irish had suffered. But there was a thin, fragile line between life and death, and though she did not understand her feelings completely, Erin knew she didn’t want the responsibility of murder, of snapping the fragile line of life, on her hands and heart. Such responsibility belonged to her father, to her brothers, to the warriors who met their enemies on the field.
Erin sighed, bending to touch his broad back. He still breathed. She stood again, looking into the trees. She hadn’t come far, and she had followed the trail that wound around beside the stream. Somehow she had to get him back to the water. Sighing once more, she knelt down and maneuvered him onto his back. A bitterness gnawed at her stomach as she again studied his face. It was no wonder that he was known throughout the Viking and Irish worlds alike, thought to be touched and guarded by the ancient Scandinavian gods. Even down, unconscious, a prisoner, he seemed to radiate an aura of golden power as if he were one of those blond and blue-eyed gods. Hah! He was no god. He was her prisoner. And he would never possess the power of any god again because she would see that, if he wasn’t executed, he would be incarcerated by the very Irish he had arrogantly assumed he could conquer and subdue.
“I am the conqueror, Viking!” she whispered. “You are the captive … the conquered … my prisoner!”
Gritting her teeth, she stood and firmly gripped his bound wrists. She groaned aloud as she attempted to drag him, his weight tremendous against her more delicate strength. It was terribly slow going, and she grunted and panted most of the way, but eventually she moved him the twenty feet through the foliage back to the bank.
Drawing upon her remaining strength, she dragged his torso up against the trunk of an oak and secured his bound wrists to it with a piece of the rein. Once she had assured herself that he was secure, she tethered her mare and hurried to the stream to drink thirstily. Then she looked back to her prisoner. He too needed water.
Erin returned to her mare and procured the little silver drinking cup she always carried, filled it with water, and returned to the Viking. The full lips beneath the golden curls of his matted beard were parched. His eyes were still closed, but she gingerly brought the cup to his lips, allowing water to trickle over them and into his beard. His eyes began to flicker and his lips to move. She pressed the cup against them again and he instinctively began to drink. “Slow!” she warned him sharply as he began to gulp and the penetrating blue ray of his ice eyes looked at her.
Apparently heeding the wisdom of her command, he paused, taking a deep breath and closing his eyes before drinking again. He attempted to move, then realized that as well as being bound at the wrists, he was tied to the tree.
One of his arched brows cocked slightly and he smiled dryly, his lips twisted into a snarl. “Thank you,” he muttered in Norse.
She moved away from him. When he was conscious, he frightened her, no matter how he was tied. She was too keenly aware of the breadth of his chest, of the steel-hard strength in his sinewed arms.
“Don’t thank me, Viking,” she snapped. “I keep you alive so that you may suffer more fully. Quick death would be too good for you, dog of Norway.
Hoping to prove her point, Erin stepped o
ver his sprawled legs disdainfully and hurried back to her mare. From her saddlebags she brought out a piece of bread. She was about to hold it for him when she halted. He was a Viking, and Vikings were known for terrible atrocities. He might just very well attempt to bite her fingers.
Smiling grimly, Erin stuck the piece of bread on the end of her sword and leveled it beneath his nose. “Your meal, Viking,” she mocked haughtily. “All that you eat in my land comes to you through the use of a sword. Today should be no different. Except take heed, Viking, you would not want to swallow the point, or find that I allow it to slip.
She was glad Aed had made her learn the language of the invaders when she was young. She knew the Wolf understood her every word clearly. The emptiness left his eyes and was replaced with pure hatred and vengeance. But looking at the bread, he carefully began to eat. Erin controlled a little shiver as she watched him bite into the bread and she remembered the day he had laughed so handsomely, so captivatingly with his blond she-wolf at Clonntairth.
Erin jerked her sword away with the bread still on it, forcing him to twist his head quickly to avoid slitting half his mouth. Her eyes were emerald daggers in the twilight now descending. She yawned elaborately. “Excuse me, Lord Dog of Norway. I’m too exhausted to further satisfy your appetite.” She took a position ten feet away from him and curled up on the bank, her sword beneath her, the hilt beside her hand. “Sleep well, Viking,” she hissed. “Tomorrow you will run alongside my horse and you will meet my father’s wrath—the justice of the Irish!”
CHAPTER
5
Erin awoke, damp, cramped, and miserable, with a start. Blinking fog from her eyes, she noticed first that it was barely dawn. She recalled instantly where she was but wondered why she had awakened. And then she knew. The Wolf was glaring at her again. And despite his icy gaze, she felt heat, as if he could penetrate her mind with those extraordinary cold blue eyes.