Éire’s Captive Moon (8 page)

Whoosh-thump
!

The heavy ram the raiders carried crunched into the gates of the village. Cowan grunted as if he’d been struck as well. More arrows shot fire into the midst of the raiders. One invader fell away, screaming, as his hair became a torch in the late morning’s light. Cowan shouted encouragement to the warriors as an arrow pierced the eye of another invader so that he, too, was rolling on the grassy ground.

But there were eighteen more, and Cowan feared the damage they would cause before the villagers brought them all down.

The sharp, defiant splintering of wood came a breath before the gate gave way to the onslaught of the enemy. Screaming to whatever heathen gods they worshiped, his captors lowered their shields, for the most part, and ran headlong into Ragor.

Cowan kept struggling against his bindings, though the rope cut his flesh and he was losing feeling in his fingers, and prayed that the Northmen would all land on Éire’s spears.

Devlin had been yelling at someone. Charis had itched to see who it was, for it was someone outside the village, she was sure.

Secrecy, though, demanded she stay as far away from her husbands as practical. And she did, until the shouts from the gates told her that Ragor had been invaded. She bolted into action, taking careful aim at the men who were leading the way into the
rath
. A tall man with a yellow beard and two long, blond braids under an iron helm caught her eye first and she took immediate aim. Her husbands had, over the years of their marriage, taught her the use of weapons. She could wield a light blade—even if her husbands jested with her that it was merely a long knife—throw a spear, and defend herself with a shield. She’d also learned how to take out someone’s eyes with her thumbs, and she knew how and where to kick a man to disable him. Devin had insisted on that last part because, he had said, they would not always be around to protect her.

I have to protect them!
she told herself. The need was great, making her heart pound inside her body. It seemed as if her sight grew more keen as she held her spear and chose her target. It wasn’t just her husband who needed to be protected, but all the children, too. Narrowing her focus, she could see the Northman, could distinguish the individual strands of his hair. She could see where the metal was joined on his helmet.
You can do this
, she reminded herself. She willed the spear to fly to her target, hoped it wouldn’t be diverted from its course by another person, by the wind, by anything. Then she took a step back to add momentum to her throw and let it fly.

She tracked the spear as it shot through the air over the heads of the barbarians.
It’s going to hit that Northman right in the eye!
It was almost as if the air itself were guiding it.

 
No!
He looked down to adjust his shield and her spear missed by perhaps half a handspan, hitting the Northman’s helmet instead. She cursed aloud at her error, for she had no more spears on hand. The best that could be said for her shot was that she succeeded in baring his head to the assault of any of the warriors nearer to him.

Devlin’s roar distracted her. Her husband was already at a disadvantage from the tooth extraction earlier. She hated to think of the toll the battle would take on him, and ran in his direction, needing to be with him.

Screams surrounded her. Charis hardened her heart and plunged into the middle of the battle. Men and women were dying.

Blood. Earth. Dirt. The disgusting stench of spilled guts filled her nostrils as she stepped over the body of a neighbor. She didn’t pause, but went on, seeking the man whose helm she had removed. Shouts assailed her, calls for “Healer!” But she had to get to her men! Her failure to slay the leader meant she had to do her best for them.
 

“Charis!”

 
One of the women of the village was calling. Charis dipped into herself for the peace she’d need to be a healer, not a warrior bent on saving her village.

“Maeve! Here I am, lass. What have they done to you?” Maeve was an older woman, a grandmother with white hair and wiry muscles that made her valuable in defense. But all the wisdom of her years could not build armor to guard from the axe in her back. Strange, but the older woman didn’t seem in pain. Charis saw why and bit her lip. The axe blade had cut dead center. Maeve’s backbone was cracked for certain.

“Can’t walk, Charis,” Maeve shouted over the din of battle. Charis felt her eyes fill with hot tears. “Felt something hit me, there, but I just fell down.”

“Well, now,” Charis said with false heartiness, “luck to you that you fell away from the Northmen. Let’s see what I can do for you.”

Maeve looked back over her shoulder and Charis found her whole focus being drawn into ancient blue eyes, pale as the spring sky, as wise as time itself. Maeve had lost a husband to old age, and two children—one to the ocean and the other to disease. She had grandchildren, though, and loved her life.

 
So why did it seem as if Maeve’s life were pouring into her? As if wisdom and knowledge were given to her in the last beats of a dying heart?

Charis didn’t hear the wild shouts behind her. Didn’t hear the strange, harsh-sounding speech of the Northman who approached. Her first clue that he was there was the widening of Maeve’s eyes as a red-haired giant bent over. With a grunt, he ripped the axe from her back.

“Ha!” Charis heard as the barbarian used it to finish the job of killing Maeve. The Northman chopped viciously.

Maeve’s old head rolled, soundless, from her neck.

Charis screamed as fury possessed her every muscle. Fright had no place in her heart as she leapt to her feet. She stretched for the axe in the Northman’s hairy hand. He laughed in her face, his breath reeking of old fish as he held her off the ground, making her efforts useless.

Nonsense sounds came from his mouth before he threw her over his shoulder. He marched off a few paces from the lessening noise of the battle. Charis didn’t dare look to see who was winning; she was trying to get her hands to something she could grab, push, pull, gouge. Shade fell over her. His laugh roughened as he shifted her to balance in front of him.

His animal lust was plain to see in eyes the color of a stormy sea. The barbarian said something else and set her on her feet before tossing his axe to one side. With a sneer, he grabbed her left breast with one heavy hand and snatched her skirts with the other. Devlin’s lesson didn’t desert the healer, for she remembered clearly what her husband had shown her as if it had been just that very morning.

With a darting motion, she pushed her hands up between her assailant’s hulking arms to grab his face. Her thumbs went into the inner corners of his eyes. Deep. In the next beat of her heart, she pulled them back out again, bringing fluids and two dangling eyeballs on long cords out from the Northman’s skull.

And then, while he screamed his rage and pain, she kicked him between the thighs and watched him go down.

Before she was aware, another huge warrior was upon her.

Bracing herself, Charis sought an escape, but then the axe fell. “Charis!” He cursed roundly. “I told you to go below, woman!”

“Devin!” Relief wiped out any feeling of guilt she harbored for disobeying him.

He turned to glare at the man still writhing on the ground. With the invader’s own axe, Devin hacked off his head. Then the chieftain tossed the axe from him, preferring his sword.

“Charis, I’m not putting up with this. We almost have them defeated, woman, but you have to get below! If Devlin sees you—” With hands that trembled in fear and relief, Devin gripped her upper arms and shook her with one firm jolt. “Love, please, go on with you. I can’t be watching out for you!”

Suddenly, a strange voice called her name and both Charis and Devin turned to see the leader of the raid, the one without a helmet, but with a long, red-rimmed sword that dripped with the blood of their friends and kinsmen. “Khar-iss!”

Devin stepped roughly in front of her, pushing her aside with one arm and raising his own sword with the other. “Away, if you can!”

“I can’t leave you! I love you!”

His brief glance over his shoulder was filled with his own feelings, though he didn’t have time to voice them.

The braided man growled as he struck at Devin. Devin countered, steel ringing on steel, and his blade slid down the raider’s. With an abrupt motion, Devin jerked it free and sliced at the leader’s unprotected head. The other man moved, but not quickly enough. Devin’s sword split skin and flesh, letting the blood run free and red on the invader’s cheek and jaw.

The surprise on the blond man’s face shocked Charis, but she didn’t use the moment her husband had purchased for her. It was a costly moment. The Northman took advantage of Devin’s temporary lack of balance after the attack missed its mark. The barbarian brought his own sword around, down, and up at an angle, meeting Devin’s naked ribs and parting flesh and bone in a powerful, sickening arc.

“Devin!” Charis screamed, her heart and lungs trying to leave her body. “No!”

“Khar-iss. Come,” her captor demanded. That he’d spoken the command in
Gaeilge
didn’t mean anything to her at the time. He apparently ignored the wound to his face and tossed her over his shoulder as if she were a sack of grain.

Charis couldn’t quit staring at Devin’s bleeding body. His fingers twitched and she knew—she knew!—that if she could go to him, she would be able to fix him. She
would
!

“Let me go! That’s my husband!” Flailing, kicking, screaming, she still made no impression on the Northman.

Someone else did.

“Charis!”

Hope surged in her again, for just a beat of her heart. “Devlin!”

Flung aside by the barbarian, Charis was torn with love for both her men. Devin needed her, but Devlin was facing the barbarous invader now. It was all her fault.

“No, run!” she begged him. “He’s already—” Another Northman pulled her to her feet. He made some comment that had his companions laughing roughly around her as they watched the leader square off with Devlin. Charis couldn’t take it in. Why were there still raiders in her village? Why hadn’t they all died?

As Devlin and the braided man circled one another, Charis stared, open-mouthed, around her. She could hear the moans now of the wounded. The pitiful cries of the dying. The oaths sworn in
Gaeilge
and the harsh barbarian tongue of the invaders. There were only ten of the Northmen still standing, but her people were melting away, if they weren’t being tied to one another.

She hoped Aislinn had kept the young ones below ground.

Again a rough hand fondled her body. A brusque command from the Northman leader stopped it. Charis gritted her teeth against the rising of her gorge as Devlin took advantage of the braided man’s inattention and thrust for a gut wound.

It didn’t pierce the attacker’s mail shirt. He brought his sword down on Devlin’s exposed arm. The blade sliced to the bone so that Devlin hissed and slid away on the blood-soaked earth.

Charis wanted to scream, to cry, to go to him and bind his wounds. Hands restrained her and she was forced to watch as the Northman pressed his advantage and wore Devlin down.

She saw her husband’s eyes close as he died. The world went dark around her. The ocean seemed to roar her horrible guilt in her ears, and she saw no more.

Chapter 6

Agnarr wiped his sword off on his opponent’s patterned garment. “You fought well,” he conceded to the dead man. “I won’t forget.”

What was it the captive had said? The healer—a
kvinn medisin
—had two husbands? Chiefs of their people? Judging by how the woman had reacted, Agnarr decided that he had killed her men. They had been battlechiefs, and he had defeated them without aid. Agnarr felt deep satisfaction at doing so. They had been strong men, but would have made defiant slaves.

The healer, on the other hand, would be worth any amount of trouble. If he could wake her up. She had fainted, unsurprisingly. Women were weak.

“Agnarr! She’ll be a handful! Want some help?”

Ribald laughter danced around the men, but it stopped abruptly as soon as Agnarr met their eyes. “She’s not to be treated as a common
trell
,” he instructed. “She’s to be my healer, and I’ll not have her abused.”

He hadn’t given the matter thought until he had seen her, but it seemed now to be the only right thing to do. Casting a quick look at the rest of the new captives, Agnarr stepped quickly around them and went to her.