God's Eye (The Northwomen Sagas #1) (26 page)

It was another total loss, and the bodies at his feet wore the weave of village linen more than the armor of Toomas’s soldiers.

The soldiers slew indiscriminately, taking unarmed women and children as quickly as they took the men who challenged them. Amidst the clang and grunt of combat, Vali heard Astrid’s warrior shriek, and the echo of it in the few women who had trained with her.

As he sought his next target, he caught sight of young Nigul, who had only ten years behind him, dangling from the point of a soldier’s blade. As he watched, a short iron dagger dropped from the boy’s hand. He had tried to fight. Vali roared and threw his axe, leaping after it. When it sank into the soldier’s blade arm, Vali was there. He grabbed it, yanked it back, knocked the soldier’s helm off with his free hand, and buried his axe in his head.

Nigul, on the ground with the sword through his chest, gurgled and coughed as blood bubbled from his lips and down his chin.

Vali crouched at the boy’s side. “It is a great thing to die in battle. You are young to be so honored to sit with the gods in Valhalla. Odin and Thor will be impressed with you, boy.”

When the light of life dimmed from his eyes, Nigul was smiling.

Vali sensed movement behind him and, still in a crouch, spun and swung his axe. It buried easily in the belly of a soldier whose armor had broken, and when his entrails began to spill out, Vali dug deep and pulled the mass out with his hands.

He stood and spent a moment to survey what was left of the home he’d chosen. His half-built house was gone, not even enough left to feed the flames that had taken it. No building was left unburned. They were overmatched, two soldiers or more still fighting for every villager.

And then a soldier blew a horn. Vali didn’t know their signals, but the soldiers in the village did not stop their fighting, so it was not a call to pull back.

He thought it might well have been a call for another wave. If that were true, it would be an effective means to flatten them completely. They wouldn’t even have to dismount.

These soldiers had dismounted, and their surviving horses had massed, as if trained to do so, at the edge of the village. About half of the beasts were dead.

He thought that there were enough living beasts to mount all that remained of his clan and his friends.

They could hold the castle. Its walls were high and solid, and early on they had reinforced it against a possible siege. At least it would give them time to rest and regroup. To make a plan.

“TO THE HORSES! BACK TO THE CASTLE!” he shouted, running through the village. “THE HORSES! RETREAT!”

A familiar voice screamed at his side, and Vali turned toward it, changing his direction without thinking. Olga held a raider’s shield in her hands, and she struggled against a soldier swinging a shortsword. She had no other weapon but the shield, but she was blocking his swings well.

Then the shield split in two. As the soldier swung for a killing blow, Vali charged and brought his axe in an upward arc, cleaving the soldier’s arm at the elbow. He howled as his blade and forearm fell to the ground. Vali swung again, blood spraying from his axe, and opened the soldier’s chest.

Olga stared, wide-eyed, as if the splitting of the shield had split her sense and her courage as well. “Come!” he shouted and grabbed her arm. When he pulled, she fell forward like a statue. So he picked her up and heaved her over his shoulder.

Then he ran for the horses, yelling for his friends to follow.

~oOo~

The soldiers chased after them for a long way, taking yet more of them down. Then they pulled back. When the survivors cleared and closed the castle gates, they were only twelve: five raiders and seven Estlanders.

Olga was among them, because Vali had carried her on his horse.

Her brothers were not.

She had not yet spoken a word. She might not have even blinked. Vali cast his mind’s eye back and tried to see in the fray where the young men had been. He had seen them fighting.

He had seen them near where he’d collected Olga. He had seen the older of them, Anton, wielding the shield that had broken in Olga’s hold.

“Olga.” He put his bloodied hand on her pale cheek. “I am sorry.”

She didn’t acknowledge him at all. She stood as if made of stone. But they needed their healer.

“Olga. You are needed. There will be time later for grief. Now is for action.”

After another long moment in which Vali asserted patience over his battle-manic mind, she blinked and looked up at him. “I have no one.”

“Untrue. You have friends. Friends in need. Stay with us. Do not give up.”

“Leif did this. He—he made this possible.”

“And he will pay. Help me, and I promise that he will pay.”

She nodded and shook herself briskly. Then she stalked off to tend to the wounded.

~oOo~

“We have no other choice.” Vali leaned forward, his arms on the table. Seated with him were the sum total of the survivors, who had once numbered nearly two hundred, raiders and villagers together. Of the raiders, besides Vali himself: Orm, Bjarke, Astrid, Harald. Of the villagers: Olga, Jaan, Georg, Hans, Jakob, Anna, and Eha. Four women and eight men.

“We will die. All of us. Drowned in Ægir’s drunken sea.” Orm huffed and slammed his cup on the scarred wood.

“We die on the sea, or we die here.”

“Fleeing or fighting. I would fight and join my friends and ancestors in Valhalla. My time is long past already.”

“You have known me many years, Orm. Do you think I would flee? I mean to fetch my wife and kill all those who called us clan and yet left us to this fate.”

“Vali, do you not see? Your vengeance is good and just, but an Estlander fishing boat is not built for the open sea. We will capsize at the first stiff breeze. We will be swimming among twigs if it storms.”

“Then we will ask the gods to keep us. As you say, our purpose is good and just. I am named for Odin’s son, born to wreak the Allfather’s vengeance. I go to save the shieldmaiden who bears his given eye. Do you not think he would ease our way?”

Vali doubted that Brenna’s eye bore any mystical import. But her legend said it did, and he knew that Orm and the other raiders believed it. And he was named for Vali, Odin’s son, who, in his first day of life, had avenged his brother Baldur’s death, as he had been birthed to do. He certainly believed that Odin would see this need for vengeance and know it right.

“The Allfather let Brenna be taken and us all betrayed.”

“We will make a sacrifice before we go. Odin will not abandon us. He will not.”

Jaan spoke up. “One of the boats was my uncle’s. It is sturdy for a fishing boat, and with the women’s help, I can craft a sail for it. I need two days, and the beam outside.”

The beam that had been meant for the longship that would take Vali back to Brenna. It was fitting that it should be dismantled to be a mast for a wee boat that would have the same purpose. He nodded.

“Even if Toomas makes a siege, we can hold for that long. Most of you at this table would leave your home to sail with us. All of us, I think, call this home now. I make no claim on you. If you would stay and fight, or try to work a peace, or surrender, I understand. But I sail back for my wife. Someday, she and I will return and pick up the life we had begun here.”

“That life is dead now,” Olga interrupted. “There is nothing left but ash and bone. None of us have anything left here. I will sail with you. My older brother traveled far in his life and had many adventures. I thought his life was the dangerous one. But it was full. Mine has been empty, and yet I have lost what little I had.”

“I think we all should sail,” Jaan added. “The voyage has a better chance with more hands to row in still winds, and we are not so many that we would overwhelm the boat, even with supplies. Olga is right. None of us have anything left here. We are all penniless orphans.”

Vali turned to Orm. “What do you say, old man?”

Orm sighed. “The offering must be great.”

“And it shall be.” Vali knew what the offering must be.

~oOo~

Two days later, while Toomas’s men were camped outside the walls, Vali led Freya onto the grounds. She was a beautiful mare, her coat a rich gold, her creamy mane so long and flowing that it had sometimes tangled in the reins when Brenna had given her her head and let her run.

The mast and sail were ready, and the cart of supplies was loaded. Vali and Orm had ridden out to parley with Toomas’s captain, and they would be free to leave the castle and travel to the coast, abandoning all the holdings to Toomas’s control.

The twelve were ready to go. Vali knew that they most likely would die on the open water. One storm would break them.

So they needed the gods’ help.

While the last of his people stood in an arc, their posture and expressions serious, Vali led his wife’s beloved horse to the middle. The mare nickered quietly and nosed at his side, seeking, he knew, a treat. He rubbed her nose.

To him, a horse was transportation. He treated his mounts well because he wanted them strong and healthy and steady, to do the job they were meant to do and to do it well. He had never thought to bond with a beast. But his wife had. She liked animals better than she liked people, and she loved this mare.

It was the greatest offering he could think to make. Freya represented, to him and, he thought, to Brenna, their life here. The freedom and peace they had fought for and nearly won.

He unsheathed Brenna’s sword. Holding it up so that the sun shone on the blade and made it glint, he raised his voice and said, “Odin, father of Vali, born for vengeance. Frigg, great mother. Thor, god of war and storm. I am Vali Storm-Wolf, one of the Úlfhéðnar, and I beseech you. Accept this offering and guide us safely over the sea. Our purpose is good and true.”

With his hand on the mare’s neck, soothing her, he drew the blade across her throat, cutting deeply so that blood washed over his arm. She went immediately down on her front knees, and Vali went down with her, cooing softly at her ear as her rear haunches dropped. When she died, her head simply bowed until her nose touched the earth, and there she stayed, as if she had dozed off.

Emotion surged up from Vali’s heart. He cared little for this beast, except that his wife had loved her, and he loved his wife. He bent his head and buried his face in the long, creamy mane.

“Brenna,” his whispered, his throat tight and his heart heavy. “My love. Be strong. I am coming.”

It had not occurred to him that she might not be alive. He would not allow that thought to take hold in his mind. She was alive, and she was waiting, and he would go to her.

A beetle lumbered across the earthen floor near Brenna’s face, and she brought her chained hands up and caught it. She ate it quickly and scanned the floor for more. Her first sustenance in days—she had lost track of how many days.

Daylight crept around the door and through cracks in the walls, so she might have used the sun and stars as her guide to track time, but she couldn’t account for the periods of unconsciousness that had broken her understanding from the beginning of this ordeal.

Calder had beaten her badly, and they had been at the coast before she’d woken. When she’d struggled against her bonds, he’d beaten her again, and she’d woken to the rocking of a ship on the open sea.

They had not dressed her. She had been dropped on the floor of the ship in her linen sleeping shift, and a fur had been tossed over her. She had been offered occasional drops of fresh water but no food. By the time they had landed at Geitland, she was nearly delirious with cold, hunger, and fever.

Leif had been there, though he had done nothing more than watch her. He had not spoken to her at all. No one had spoken to her. She had tried to speak once and been kicked in the head for it. So she’d spent the voyage in silent misery and grief.

Leif was with Åke, even now. The thought that they had all been betrayed by a man whom they’d trusted utterly, whom they’d loved, who had led them—that thought burned a hot fire of hatred in her soul. Brenna thought it was that fire, that need, which had kept her alive and undefeated so far.

With a rope around her neck and wrists, in nothing but her shift, they had dragged her from the Geitland docks. People throughout the town had come to gape at the God’s-Eye so humbled. When they brought her to this dark hovel, they had shackled her neck and wrists. The shackle around her neck was connected by a chain bolted deep into the earth. The chain was no longer than the distance from her fingertips to her elbow. She could not sit up. She could barely move at all. When her body needed to shed its meager waste, it did so where she lay.

Since they’d left her here, no one had come in, not even with water. Although she had no understanding of how much time had passed, although it seemed infinite, Brenna knew it could not have been long. Without water, in her ill, weakened state, she would survive no more than a few days.

She didn’t understand Åke’s purpose. If it was to kill her, why had he not simply opened her throat? It could not be to reclaim her as his shieldmaiden, because he had abased her thoroughly. And he had, she feared, killed Vali. No, she
knew
he had. She had overheard enough of the raiders’ talk during the voyage to know that they had left death and devastation behind them.

Åke knew her; he had to know that she would never bow to him again after this.

So why did she still draw breath? Was it her eye? If so, if he feared Odin’s wrath, why was she chained to the ground?

Knowing the answer was irrelevant, she focused her mind on the question even so, because it was something that might be answered. Something that would keep her reason engaged, her sanity, and kept hopelessness and grief at bay. She worked the puzzle and waited for another beetle to cross close enough, until hunger, thirst, hurt, exhaustion, and illness took their due, and she slept.

~oOo~

The creak and drag of the iron hinges and heavy wooden door woke her. The room was full dark; it was night. Hours later? Or days? She didn’t know.

Staring into the darkness in the direction of the open door, she waited to see who would come in. Whoever it was bore no torch, but there was just enough starlight to show her a large body that filled the door space. A man, then. Come for what? No one yet had used her to sate their itch, but it was the last abasement she could think of, so she expected it would happen soon. Perhaps that was the punishment Åke had in mind for her—to turn her into a slave whore.

The door closed, taking what little light the starlight had offered. Brenna waited.

Then she heard the familiar slosh of water in an oaken bucket and the drag of a ladle along its side. Her dry throat cramped hard with needful hope.

“Brenna.”

Leif’s voice killed her hope. If he had come to bring her water, she would not take it. She would take nothing from him. She had not used her voice in days, she had not slaked her thirst in she knew not how long, but she opened her mouth and forced the word “No” from her cracked lips.

She heard the press of his boots on the earth and the slosh of water in the bucket as he came to her. When he crouched before her, he was near enough that she could make out his vague shape.

“I have water for you. And leiv bread. And I would talk with you. You must heed me, my friend.”

“I will take nothing from you.” The words came as if dragged over loose rock. “You are no friend. I would choke your life out with the chains that bind me if I could.”

Again, she heard the glorious and agonizing song of moving water, and then it fell over her lips. Leif was pouring the full ladle lightly over her face. The bliss of the cool water wetting her feverish skin, seeping through her parched lips, drizzling down her swollen tongue, was too much, and a whimper escaped her.

“I understand your hatred. But Brenna, I am your friend still. I am the reason Åke did not kill you. I am the reason Vali still lives—and, I hope, more of our friends. We were too few to defeat him at the castle. So I am trying to keep you alive until we can make you free.”

“Vali lives?” Her erratic heart stopped for a moment.

“He does. And so do you. Åke believes I killed him, but I did not. I got him out of the way so that he would live.” As he spoke, he held the ladle out to her. This time, she lifted her chained hands and held it to her lips. She would have drunk it all except that he pulled it from her before she could.

“And I? You could not have gotten me out of the way?” Brenna hated the petulance in her broken voice, but this bit of kindness, and this sliver of hope, had opened a crack in her heart.

She felt his hand on her face. When she didn’t flinch away, he brushed her matted hair back gently. “Åke would not have left you behind, alive or dead. There was no way for me to hide you. You are his gift from the gods. He was enraged that you wanted to leave him. Please forgive me, but it was my idea that he could make you a slave again. It was all I could think to do to keep your heart beating.”

“I will not serve him. Vali will come, and we will destroy Åke and all he loves.”

“Vali has no ship, Brenna, and few men. I believe he will come, but not for months, until he can build a seaworthy vessel and gather a force. Until then, you must live. You must give Åke what he wants. Living is the important thing. Perhaps we will find a way ourselves, and you will be free when Vali returns.”

As he spoke, he found her hands and placed a small chunk of the flat bread in them. Brenna shoved it into her mouth and swallowed it so quickly that she barely tasted it.

But the flavor lingered, richer and more wonderful than ever leiv bread had tasted before.

“More. Please.”

He gave her a drink first, and then another small chunk. “No more, Brenna. It has been long since you’ve eaten, and you will be ill and lose the good of it. I will come as I can, in the night, and help you. I will try to bring you herbs for your fever soon. But I must be careful. I cannot cross Åke now. Not until we have a way to defeat him. We must both comply until then.”

Brenna tried to take small bites of this chunk and make it last. “I cannot serve him, Leif. I have served him well these long years, and yet he would have destroyed everything I love. He might yet have. I cannot serve him, no matter the purpose. I will not.”

“If you do not, Brenna, first he will break you—and then, when you break or he loses interest in the breaking, he will kill you. And Vali will come back to grief.”

She would simply have to make the breaking of her a challenge, then, and keep his interest until she could take his head.

~oOo~

The water that her jailers gave her was brackish and full of silt. No food was offered. But Leif came in the nights with clear water and bread. He even brought a small bite of meat. And herbs for her fever.

He had come to her three times, and her fever had passed, when one of her jailers—a rotund, red-nosed brute named Igul, whom she’d known of in her earlier days living in Geitland—slammed the door open and let bright sun spill into her dim hole. She blinked in the sudden light and tried to see him.

Usually when he came, he dropped the water bucket before her and made a coarse comment about her filth while he checked her chains. She shrank back against the wall as far as she could. He had a repulsive reputation for his treatment of female prisoners. He had not yet touched her, but she remained leery. She supposed her eye gave her some protection even now. Her attitude about people’s superstitions had changed since her life in Estland. Before she had understood that others’ fear and awe could be exploited, but she had still wished it away. Now she recognized it as a truly potent weapon and a shield.

She had come to an understanding of herself in Estland, and was no longer her own enemy. Now, she valued the power of her eye, and in her current situation, she was especially grateful to have its protection.

This time, she noticed that the water in the bucket was clear, and instead of a ladle, there was a wad of linen floating in it.

And then a second man came into the hut, his sword unsheathed. Brenna didn’t recognize him, but she knew she was in danger, and she shrank back again, the chain tying her to the ground going taut.

Igul reached down and grabbed a handful of her hair, then bent low and got his ruddy face down with hers. “The jarl wants to see you. You’re in no fit state for the great hall, so I’m going to clean your filth. I’ll unchain your hands, but if you give fight, my friend there will shove that blade so far up your hole you’ll taste iron. Do you understand?”

Days with the merest possible sustenance, overcome with ague, and tied to the ground, had left Brenna too weak to fight with anything but her mind. They could do to her body what they would; even if they unchained her completely, she could not have stopped them.

She nodded.

Igul opened the shackles on her wrists, and then released her neck as well. “You move how I say,” he grumbled and yanked her by her arm up to her feet.

Brenna’s feet and legs exploded in thousands of painful pricks. Her knees promptly gave, and she fell.

Igul crouched low again. “You stand, or I’ll shackle your neck again and chain you to the wall.” Again, he yanked her up, and this time, prepared for the pain and weakness, Brenna managed to keep her feet.

Then Igul tore her tattered, filthy shift from her body, and she stood naked before these two men and anyone who passed by the open door. With that, Brenna found some last reserve of strength, and she straightened her back and squared her shoulders. She would not cower before these vile men.

When he looked at her face, she caught his eyes and held them, and she took no small comfort in the way his contemptuous smirk faltered in the focus of her right eye, and he looked away. He feared her. Even now.