God's Eye (The Northwomen Sagas #1) (16 page)

“Still not yet a day without a smile like that. I think I am the one of us with the touch of the gods.”

~oOo~

The day rose clear and cold, and the night’s chill had turned the previous day’s thaw into a glassy shell over all the land. The bright sun in a cloudless sky made stars leap from the sparkling snow into one’s eyes. Beautiful and blinding.

They had lost half the snowpack in that single day, and the river rushed loudly, swollen with the fresh cold water of the melt.

Vali, Leif, and a few of the other men planned to mount their intrepid horses and ride north to patrol the land nearest Prince Toomas’s territory. They had kept up patrols as they could through the winter, and with the weather warming, they meant to be even more vigilant.

Brenna had woken in excellent spirits, buoyed by the prospect of a day spent in the fresh air. Since she’d been a freewoman, she had spent her winters alone in the woods. This winter trapped inside a stone castle, weeks without real daylight or fresh air, amongst a throng of other souls, and with her belly growing large and changing all she knew about her body, herself, and her life, had taxed her mind more even than she’d realized.

After a waking romp, Vali taking her from behind like a beast and making her scream into the furs, they had joined their people to break their fast.

Now, with the horses for the patrol party saddled and the sledge horse harnessed, Vali had Tord and Sigvalde trapped under his great arms and was speaking to them in earnest. Standing near the sledge, Brenna watched, amused. She expected that the smaller, younger men were being threatened with no end of doom should any discomfort befall her during the day.

He clapped them hard on their shoulders, making them both stumble forward, and then turned and came directly to her, his serious scowl still in place.

“Be mindful, shieldmaiden,” he instructed as he reached her and took her hands. “A ride only. Let the pups do their work.”

“I will. I’ll not be reckless with our child, Vali.”

“And yet you would have ridden.”

She let loose an aggravated huff. He had made his point. Again and again. “I shall sit meekly in the sledge like the helpless female you think I am.”

“Good.” He grinned then, and she answered it with a smile. As he brushed his thumb over her cheekbone, he added, “I wish you a happy day, my love. One that brings peace back to your mind. I would that I could join you.”

“Perhaps we can go out another time.”

“Perhaps.”

She knew he was humoring her, and that she likely would not win from him another day like this until after their son was in her arms, but she didn’t mind. She was out of the castle and wouldn’t see its cursed stone walls again until past midday.

He picked her up with his broad hands under her arms and lifted her high, setting her on the seat of the sledge. As she scooted her cumbersome body to the center, he went to the cargo they would pull and came back with a heavy fur.

“I will swoon from overheating,” she complained as he tucked it around her legs.

“If so, you will at least be resting.” He leaned in and kissed her, catching her face in his hands and plunging his tongue deeply, stealing, from her lips and from her mind, any further protests.

She traced the nick in his tongue with her own, as she always did, loving that evidence of their first connection. He groaned and broke away, touching his forehead to hers. “Be safe, little mother. My love.”

“And you. I love you.”

With a press of his lips to her brow, he stepped back, and two pale, anxious raiders came forward to take their places at her sides.

~oOo~

Well cowed by whatever Vali had said to them, Tord and Sigvalde treated Brenna as if she were made of glass, jumping to her aid if she so much as shifted her seat. They were unusually quiet, as well. She had expected to be irritated by their nonstop chatter, but instead she might as well have sat between two posts. Two overly solicitous posts. Despite her normal preference for quiet, Brenna found it awkward to be sitting so near two usually garrulous men who had nothing to say.

The ride to the village was not long; a sledge like this could comfortably make the trip there and back thrice in a day. Brenna decided to pretend she was alone after all. She turned her mind inward, to her thoughts, while she released her body to experience the beauty of the day—the bright sun, the sparkling snow, the brisk cold, and the occasional peep of a bird, the clearest sign yet that the angry winter was stomping off to sulk elsewhere.

Once they got to the village, Tord and Sigvalde became more like themselves. They had friends who were keeping the village and tending most of the animals, and there was a jolly reunion, even though it had only been a week or so since this team had taken over the village. They spent the midday at a cozy fire in a small hut, enjoying skause and bread and mead—and goat’s milk for Brenna, who had not been able to abide mead since the babe. Though all the men around her treated her like they might break her, they japed and laughed around her, and Brenna felt contented. The babe had been quiet in the sledge, but he kicked and rolled while she sat among their friends, as if he, too, were enjoying himself.

After the meal, the men unloaded the supplies. Brenna behaved herself and stayed at the fire until Tord came and told her they were ready to be off. Walking back to the sledge, she felt melancholy. Already her good day was ending.

The ride back, however, was much more amusing. Their time in the village had loosened Tord and Sigvalde’s tongues, and they bantered back and forth, seeming to have forgotten that a woman sat between them in body while they bickered about one who sat between them in spirit.

“She wants more man than you, my friend. She deserves more.”

“And you think you are the one to offer more? I’ve seen your little maggot that shrinks into your belly in the cold.” Sigvalde moved the reins to one hand so that he could hold up his little finger and make it curl down into a nub.

Tord’s only response was a rude gesture. When Brenna chuckled, they both looked surprised and then joined her in laughter.

“You know less than you think about women if you think what’s in your breeches is all that matters,” Brenna offered, smirking.

“Ah, Tord. We have an opportunity here that we’ve nearly missed, to have the God’s-Eye give us wisdom about women.”

Brenna stiffened at the hated name, but she didn’t let it show. It was rare to hear it now, and she knew Sigvalde meant it in jest. So she lifted the brow above her right eye and let him have her God’s-Eye glare.

His eyes flared in real shock, and she regretted her failed attempt to join in the joke. But then an arrow zinged past her and buried itself in Sigvalde’s left eye. He flew backward, out of the sledge, taking the reins with him.

Pulled sharply off course by Sigvalde’s dead body landing on the hard snow, the draft horse screamed and stumbled. As he struggled to keep his hooves under him, another arrow sank into his rump, and he screamed again and went wild.

“Brenna!” Tord caught hold of her arm and tried to shove her down to the floor of the sledge, but she couldn’t hide in a runaway sledge. That would get her killed just as easily as the arrows. She fought against his pushing hands, and then they went slack—he’d been struck, too. A fearsomely thick arrow had come through his chest.

He was alive, though, gasping and sinking to the floor. Brenna grabbed for his still-sheathed sword, fighting the violent heaves of the racing sledge, and drew it free.

Leaning over the front of the sledge, trying to protect her child and stay low in case their attackers still followed, Brenna worked to slice through the hard leather of the harness. Before she could get more than halfway through the first strap, the horse, now with several arrows buried in his flesh, stumbled and fell, and the sledge went over, threatening to flip end over end before landing on its side.

Brenna was thrown clear, landing hard on her back. A great gush of liquid came from her body and soaked her legs. She tried to lift her head to see if it was blood, but her head would not leave the snow.

She couldn’t move at all. Her breath would not come, either. She stared up at the clear blue sky and tried desperately to make her lungs work. They could not be far from the castle. If she could shout, they might even be close enough to hear, on this bright, still day, with the snow hard enough to bounce the sound.

Just as she managed to suck in an excruciating breath, a man in armor came into her field of vision. He stared down at her and then aimed an arrow at her head.

Brenna saw him note her condition then, and he faltered, blinking. With the arrow still nocked, he dropped his aim. She tried to think of the words she needed to say. “Please—do not harm my child,” she gasped in her own tongue. “
Palun! Laps,
” she managed. ‘Please’ and ‘child’: the only Estland words she could remember.

He blinked again. Then a male voice beyond her sight shouted words she couldn’t understand, and the man above her aimed again.

This time, he let loose his arrow.

The patrol was uneventful, as usual, with no sign of any incursion from Toomas’s men. The day was fine, a bright, clear day, the cold enough to keep the snow from turning into soup as it had been the day before, but not so frigid that riding was dangerous or even uncomfortable. Not for the likes of them.

Vali was in good humor. Brenna’s spirits had been lighter that morning than in weeks as she anticipated an outing to the village, and, although he could not help but send his thoughts her way throughout the day, he was glad he’d been able to offer her a solution to her restlessness. He hoped she and the babe were well. Before they had left, he had impressed upon Tord and Sigvalde the necessity of his family’s health for their own.

In the afternoon, as the sun began to sink low toward the earth and bring the heavier cold of evening, Vali, Leif, and the others rode through the castle gate. Immediately, he noticed with some mild surprise that the sledge wasn’t on the grounds. The supply run to the village should have returned before them. Perhaps they’d been back so long that the sledge had already been stowed.

As Vali dismounted, Leif said, “Vali.” Only that. Vali turned in the direction of his friend’s nod and saw Orm coming out of the main castle doors, walking directly to them, his expression serious. Three other men walked behind him, armed and dressed for riding.

Something was wrong.

“We’re preparing to send a party out just now,” the old man reported as he stood before Vali and Leif. He lifted his eyes to Vali’s. “The sledge has not returned.”

Without waiting for another word, Vali leapt back into the saddle, as did Leif and the others. He turned his horse and kicked him into a gallop at once. He heard the hooves of other riders’ horses following, but he paid them no mind. They would follow or not, but he was going for his wife.

They came across Tord first, just as they left sight of the castle, and Vali tasted the copper of battle rage at the sight of his clansman and what it meant for Brenna.

Tord reeled through the snow, dragging his sword, leaving a red ribbon of blood behind him. He had an arrow through his chest, and when he saw them, he collapsed sidelong into the snow.

Vali jumped from his mount and ran to the young man. “What happened?! Where is she?!” he demanded as he dropped to his knees and grabbed Tord’s shoulder.”

Tord groaned and spat blood. Gasping, forcing the words from his mouth, he answered, “Beset. Need…help. She’s…she…the tree. Halfway tree…covered her.”

A pine tree with a massive base marked the midway point of the journey to and from the village.

“Does she live?! Tord, does she live?” His mind flashed him a vision of his wife lying dead in the snow, sinking into a pool of her own blood, taking their child away with her. Leaving him. His stomach rolled. Without meaning to, but unable to help himself, he shook Tord’s shoulder, and the boy gave a weak scream. Leif, kneeling at Vali’s side, laid a steadying hand on his arm but said nothing.

“Yes…when I…left. Hurt but alive. Can’t move. Sigvalde…Valhalla.” As Vali shot back to his feet, Tord waved his hand feebly. “Not…Toomas. Flag…the other.” Tord closed his eyes and said no more.

Ivan. The one they had discounted as too small and weak to fight them, especially in the winter. They had turned their attention and their resources to the obvious threat from the north, the nearer, stronger, richer, better-provisioned prince, and they had left their southern flank exposed. Indeed, lately they had rarely mentioned Ivan in their planning at all.

None of the raiders who stayed in Estland were real planners. The leaders among them were leaders during battle, not before it. They executed the plans of other men. Of them all, Brenna had been the most insightful strategist, the best planner. She might well have seen what they had missed, but they had closed her out of their discussions because she was with child.

And their blindness had put her in harm’s way. Her and the child she carried.

Vali had no time to let that irony sicken him. He nodded and ran back to his horse. As he mounted, he heard Leif tell the others, “They didn’t move on the castle. They might have beset the village. Sten, get Tord to Olga. Orm, take the others to the village. Be ready to fight. I go with Vali.”

Vali didn’t wait. He mounted his horse and he rode.

~oOo~

At the dying horse and the overturned sledge, Vali dropped to the ground, barely taking the time to slow his horse, and ran past the wreckage. He found Brenna, motionless under the fur he’d settled over her legs that morning, lying just beyond the halfway tree.

He dived to his knees as he reached her and pulled back the fur. She was curled on her side, and she flinched hard as he laid his hands on her. Her eyes opened and looked wildly around.

Relief warred with worry. She was alive.
She was alive
. But in the waning light of the day, he could see that her color was wrong—she was pale and blue—and she had been lying long in the snow.

“Vali?”

“I’m here, my love. I’m here.”

“Help me. The babe. Something’s wrong.”

The fur moved, sliding down Brenna’s body, and Vali looked up to see Leif pulling it away.

Brenna was lying in melting snow stained red with blood. Her hangerock was stiff with the cold and stained dark as well. There was an arrow embedded in the ground not far from her head, but Vali could discern no wound.

The babe. The blood was their child. Just then, Brenna tightened into a coil and cried out in pain. The sound was weak but still agonizing, and it went on for an eternity. The specter of his brave, stoic shieldmaiden in pain so intense that she would scream made Vali’s stomach roll again.

Then she stopped, gasping in a stilted breath, and another, and another. Her body relaxed slightly.

“Something wrong is happening.” In her tone, he heard her pleading for his help.

“We have to get her to Olga.” Leif had crouched down with them.

“Brenna, can you not stand?”

She shook her head. “My chest. Something is wrong in my chest. But the babe. Something wrong is happening to him. I think he’s coming. But it’s not his time.”

Vali realized then that she didn’t know about the blood. “I’ll get you to Olga.” He slid his hands under her body. When he lifted her, she screamed again, feebly, as if the effort of the scream hurt her more, and a thin trail of blood seeped from the corner of her mouth.

As he stood with his wife in his arms, he met Leif’s eyes, and they both, having the same idea, turned to the sledge. No. To right it would take too much time, and to free the harness from the dying—no, dead—horse would take longer. He would have to ride back to the castle with Brenna in his arms.

“I’m sorry, my love. I think I will cause you more pain to get you home.”

She shook her head. “No matter. I need Olga. She will fix it.”

Leif took her in his arms while Vali mounted. As he leaned down to lift her into his arms again, she made that frail, long scream, her body pulling inward. Leif held her until, again, it eased.

When Vali could again cradle her against his chest, she had swooned.

Leif mounted, and they turned back and raced to the castle.

~oOo~

Olga met him on the castle grounds. She was covered in blood already—Tord’s, Vali guessed—but she ran up to him as he handed Brenna to Jaan and jumped from his horse.

“To bed! Right away!” Olga’s command brooked no argument.

Taking his wife back, Vali nodded and hurried inside. Olga followed, calling out to the women in the Estland tongue. Too focused on Brenna to translate, Vali nonetheless understood that she was calling for supplies and giving instructions.

Once in their chamber, Vali laid Brenna down. She had not woken again on the ride, although a few times more, her body had clenched, becoming like stone in his hold. When he had eased her from his arms, he crouched at the side of their bed and stroked her hair back from her forehead. She was so cold, and her color had the dusky blue of death. But she breathed. He could hear her. He could see the small bubbles of it in the pink froth at the corner of her mouth.

The women were undressing her, pulling off her boots and underclothes. Olga came and wedged herself between Vali and Brenna.

She pulled her hand back and slapped his wife. Hard. Then she did it again. Vali leapt to his feet and grabbed the small woman by the back of her dress. He yanked her back and pushed her against the wall. “What do you do?! She is hurt enough already!”

“Your child is coming. If she doesn’t wake and help him, you will lose them both.”

He stared down at her, a mix of unfamiliar emotions churning his blood. The most potent of them, the one that weakened his legs, was fear. “It’s too soon.”

“It is.” Olga nodded, her brown eyes fixed firmly on him, and he heard the words she was not speaking. His son would not survive. It was Brenna she was trying to save. “Let me go, Vali.”

He let her go.

She stood straight and went immediately to his wife’s side. Without facing him again, she said, “Now go. This room at this time is no place for a man.”

“I’ll not leave them.” He put all the resolve he had into those words. He would not be moved from this room.

At that she did turn, and she let those eyes bore into him again. “Very well. Then be useful. She stirs. Come keep her with us.”

Vali needed no further exhortation. He nodded and went to his knees at the side of the bed, catching Brenna’s cold, slack hand in his. Her eyelids fluttered, and a spasm of pain crossed her brow.

“Be with me, shieldmaiden. You are brave and strong. Open your eyes.”

She did, and her head flopped in his direction. “Something’s wrong,” she whispered, her tongue pushing pink froth onto her lips. “Wrong.”

“Brenna.” Olga was at his side. “When you feel the pain, do not fight what your body wants. Vali will help you. So will I.”

“Olga. It’s wrong.”

Her voice was so weak, so thready, it was as if she spoke already from beyond this world. Her eyelids fluttered closed again, and Vali clutched her hand. “Brenna! Stay!”

She cried out—that weak, kittenish cry that conveyed so much helpless, hopeless pain—and Olga said, “Vali, lift her to sit up. Now.”

He did so, sliding his arm under her back, but when he pushed her upward, she screamed again. “It hurts her!”

“It all hurts her. Ignore that and help her. Brenna! Brenna, heed me. Bear down. Heed your body and bear down.”

She did. Her body contracted, her brow pulled tight, and she made a harrowing wail. Olga, with an expression of perfect, serious focus, put her hands far up Brenna’s skirts.