"As it finishes—" She watched Goadel's massive frame collect itself, drive forward suddenly with the strength of thick muscle and the unslaked thirst for vengeance. With all the malice that had left her father bound to the torture of the knife.
"Well," snapped Duda.
"The Picts."
Your people
, Duda had called them.
Her people
. Her gaze took in the contorted figure bound at bleeding wrist and ankle with rope, then
' across the clearing, the helpless fury in Cunan's face.
"My people," she said, "will free my father and—"
Goadel lunged. Brand caught the return blow on the brightly coloured shield. The edge held. He twisted as Goadel had done before, regaining balance. But slower, surely? No, it had been imagination. The shield edge caught Goadel's arm, nearly sending the sword spinning. Goadel leaped back as Brand's blade slashed at his legs.
"My father's men will protect me." She watched the moving bright-gold fall of Brand's hair, the sparking light as fire-tempered steel met its equal match. "And after that—" She watched his body twist away from the blow as before, a fierce, subtly woven glitter of silver and gold.
After that… nothing. Because I will not be able to leave you
. "After that—" She was suddenly aware of the effort in that lightning-fast movement, as though she felt it.
"Duda, what—"
Brand was back on the attack but as he twisted a second time, Goadel's sword hit. It was so quick, she did not at first know what her eyes had seen. She would have thought sight deceived her because it made not the slightest difference to the driving attack of Brand's body.
But she could see the blood blossoming just above the braided sleeve edge.
"Duda…" It was not really a sound because the word could not escape the tightness of her breath, the sick dizziness that would kill her. She could hear Duda's curses. There was not the slightest alteration in Brand's movement.
"All the saints," said Duda. "He did not feel it."
"What?"
"He did not feel it. Perhaps he does not even know. I cannot imagine. I have never seen him do this. He has never let himself."
"Do what?" She stared at the blood.
"It is just…there is such fire in him. I used to tease him about being a berserker. Only of course he could not be, not with his heart. But I always said if he wanted, he would.
"Be able to do that."
"Yes."
They did not feel their wounds, those fell Northern creatures. They just went on fighting with a spirit unquenched, whatever happened to them, until they died.
"Why would he do such a thing now? Why—"
"Maybe you can answer that better than I can."
Her heart seemed to catch in the painful tightness of her chest. But Duda did not realize how things were. He seemed to think, to believe, all sorts of things that were wrong. Because he did not understand what had happened in the past.
It could not be for her.
I will do what I have always wished. I will pay what I owe to Northumbria… Your fate is not my responsibility anymore.
"No…" She closed her eyes against the blood and the fierce, untiring movement of the wounded body, and asked the only question left.
"Will he live?"
There was a small silence that seemed to hold the two of them, while outside it was the sound of steel and wood and the primeval yelling from the throats of a score of blood-crazed warriors.
"I do not know. That was not a crippling wound, though it is awkward. The blood will make the sword hard to hold and the loss will tire him even if he cannot feel it. If that had been the first wound—"
"What do you mean?"
"Eadric said he was hurt rescuing your brother. Did you not know?"
No
. The word was like a silent scream in her mind. There seemed no limit to what her family could do: her half brother, her father. Herself. She fought to breathe.
"And what about Goadel?"
"Scatheless. Before this."
"And is he…very good?"
"He was always good. Brand's made him angry."
"I see." She looked for one brief instant at Duda's face and she could see the reflection of her own fears, the terrible tie of friendship, the unredeemable bond to someone you owed more than your life to. "Thank…thank you."
"For what?"
"Telling me. Letting me understand. I…I am sorry I hit you."
Duda snorted through his swollen nose. She heard him sniff. "Girl's hit, that. Watch this."
She opened her eyes.
"And for pity's sake do not start crying. You have got a job to do when this is over."
"Yes." The tears faded and with their going, her mind became clear as ice water.
"I know."
It was actually possible to see his orders
being carried out. Brand's hand flexed round the sword hilt, bettering his grip. It was as though some part of his thought hoard remained, ice-clear and remote, unsullied by the mad desperation of his body.
That part of his brain could discern the pattern in the seemingly random movement of the yelling blood lust that surrounded them, the careful-placement of his own men. And the Picts. Even Cunan, now closest of all to Maol, dangerously close. The guilt of failed plans. How familiar that was. None of it would be atoned. Ever. Unless Alina was safe.
He struck, forcing Goadel to retreat, watching the fury grow in the pale, malice-filled eyes of Hun's brother, goading it, waiting for that fury to cause an error that would be fatal.
The blade came back at him, high, cutting for his face. He parried with the shield, training that had become instinct angling the board to take the blow against the metal boss, the lunge of his own blade in response instant. Yet not so. The blade slipped again in his grip. The palm of his hand must be sweat damp. The power of the blow was deflected.
Goadel sensed the weakness. The greedy rage in the pale, narrow eyes had blunted under the fatigue that came with the unrelenting ferocity of the attack. Now the greed became sharper, eager for its reward of death. And all that would follow.
Brand's gaze flickered over the seething press of men around them, straining to see whether the preparations were complete. He had so little time left The clear part of his mind knew it. His left arm blocked the slashing blow of Goadel's blade. The shield cracked. Wood splinters flew, striking his face. He shook stinging wetness out of his eyes.
It should be his left arm that was numbing from the force of the blow over the older wound, slowing him, but it was not. It was his right. He could not understand why.
He saw that his men were there, high on the grassy slope beside Maol. Every man of Goadel's watched the fight, heedless. It was time.
Just as he moved, he thought he saw the darker swirling green of Alina's dress at the foot of the rise. His hand gripped the slippery hilt. Duda would stop her. He would not let her be so near to where the danger would be. Not again. The single fast glance that he could spare showed her still moving.
It was now. Had to be. Before she got too close.
He stepped inside the next blow, striking out with what was left of the shield. His blade sought the gap the splintered wood created. Goadel saw it coming. The bale-filled eyes widened. The mouth stretched.
"Kill—" The voice screamed. He struck. Before the name of the helpless prisoner could be loosed into the air, ordering the death that would plunge both sides into carnage. Before Alina's fragile body could move up the slope.
The rune blade flashed, just as Goadel struck with his own sword, crashing forward, overbalanced, the full weight of him falling. The blades clashed, steel ripping along steel. The ground slammed into his ribs.
He rolled, hearing already damaged bones
scrape without feeling it, twisting his body to free it of the crushing weight. He clawed half-upright, seeing the writhing mass of men around the staked-out body resolve itself into order at the sound of Eadric's voice yelling orders.
He could not see Alina.
Or Duda.
He could not move. The weight seemed to cling to him. And then he saw her. Not pushing upwards through the brief skirmish on the hill slope but on the other side of him, with Duda. She was turned towards him. They both were.
He saw what was behind them.
His sword was gone, the hilt out of his reach, useless anyway, because he could not move. He kicked at the weight that held him trapped. It seemed to move with him like a death grip. He clawed free enough to get a hand to the
seax
hilt at his belt
He had not the slightest consciousness of moving after that, only of the faint glint of shining metal cleaving the air. Then Alina's scream and Duda's curse as they turned. Behind them Goadel's man, the one who had been set to cut pieces out of the prisoner, collapsed, the bloodied knife spiralling out of his hand.
He expected Duda to stop, then, to at least make sure the man was dead. But he did not. He charged, holding his own
seax
in one outstretched claw. Then he felt movement in the dead weight, saw the brief flash of steel.
He struck out backhanded, with all the strength of his arm, just as Duda dived. The double impact took his breath, Duda's weight adding to the other in a bone-jarring thud. Then nothing.
He levered himself up out of the mess.
"Is he really dead?" But it was not his voice that asked the question.
He turned his head and saw Alina. His sword was in her hand, in a warrior's grip, with her thumb all the way round the gilded wood of the hilt. Her face was death pale. But she was whole.
"Aye, the creature's dead now," said Duda. "Give me that sword, woman, before you do some damage." Duda was dragging the weight off his lower body.
"Dead all right," muttered Duda. "Would not have lasted five minutes anyway after that sword thrust. I only gave him a flea bite. But it was worth it."
Once he was free of the weight, he could get to his feet. Duda and Alina were staring at him. Horrors lived in Alina's eyes. The instinct that tore through him was to crush her in his arms and take her head against his shoulder, the way he had before. To tell her that she was safe, that no one would harm her. That she was his.
His feet took the first step towards her, even though he could say none of the things bursting against the walls of his heart. She did not move. Just stared at him with that look he could not describe.
He held out his hand, not knowing what he could say, or what he could do, but unable to turn away from her, unable to stop just looking at what he had so nearly lost. To Goadel's malice.
Her stricken gaze moved slowly from his face to his hand. He realized it was covered in blood. She would hate that. She loathed such sights. She was too tenderhearted for that.
He snatched his hand back, feeling suddenly and utterly disoriented, like a sleepwalker who had stumbled unknowing into the world of those who were awake: an unwelcome creature out of someone's nightmare.
He stared at the blood. At his sleeve sticking to the uneven surface of a gash.
"The knife blade must have caught me after all." But there was too much blood, some of it drying.
"Nay," said Duda in the kind of voice you would use when you did not want to provoke a wild animal. Or a savage. "It happened before. It is a sword cut. Goadel's blade."
He had no memory of it. The implications of that were something he could not bear. He took a step backwards. He stared at the blood on his arm, still welling sluggishly. He could not feel anything.
He took another step. At the edge of his vision he could see the fluttering movement of Alina's skirts, the narrow shape of her bronze-buckled shoe. It moved towards him. Not away.
Of course she would not turn away. That was the other side of her tender heart. Its strength. She had such
Pity-He realized he was utterly covered in blood: Goadel's, his. It clung to his body. It must be mired over his face from the splinter cut. He could not let her touch that, could not let her anywhere near him. Not just because of that, but because of what must be on the inside.
He was a creature of nightmare. "Brand—"
He spoke across her, to Duda. "What of my orders? The prisoner?"
"Safe enough." Duda's answer was quick, as one should answer a commander. At least that much was still his, still real. He looked across the vast distance of two paces that separated them. "And?"
"Most of them surrendered without striking a blow. You did not leave them much of a choice."
"Cunan?"
"With his father. Where else?'
Not with his sister who had nearly been cut down by the man who served as Goadel's executioner. Of course not. He tried to focus his thought on what still had to be done.
"I will see Maol."
"I will come with you." The ridiculously small feet in their expensive shoes moved.
"Not now." He looked up, met Duda's sudden frown, then the disbelief in Alina's gaze swiftly succeeded by anger. He shook his head.
"No." The force in the word was vicious. It made her flinch but he could not help that. He had no breath to explain, and he did not know whether Maol would look as bad as him. He did not want her to see another image that would haunt her mind.
Besides, there were things to be sorted out with Maol the Pict. Now. While the evidence of what the man had done was still before his eyes.
He turned away from the masked hurt in the night-dark eyes that was all too visible to him, the incomprehension of what he was and what he had done. What he had turned into.
At a gesture, Duda handed him the sword. The blade was covered in blood. Dirt crusted it from where it had hit the ground. It was his match. He did not clean the blade.
He climbed the slope. The blade hummed in his hand as though the power of the elk-sedge rune hidden beneath the dirt were something living. Such dangerous force. He did not need to be able to see it. He could feel it.
They fell back to let him pass, his men, the Picts, even Goadel's men. He could see the same expression in all of their eyes, like men who saw one of the
hellkinn
. The other word he would not name, not even in his mind.