God's Eye (The Northwomen Sagas #1) (5 page)

Grabbing her sword from the rack outside the healer’s tent, she slung it on her back and took her place behind Calder as three riders, the lead bearing a flag rather than a weapon, approached. They stopped at the edge of the camp, where the raiders had erected a spiked fence.

Calder stepped forward. Brenna and Leif did as well. In a haphazard approximation of their tongue, the envoy raised his voice and said, “My lord Prince Vladimir seeks…seeks…p-parley. He asks that you…steal…er…you…you
accept
this…in-invitation. My lord seeks peace.”

Calder looked over his shoulder, first at Leif and then at Brenna. Then he grinned back at all the raiders assembled.

He faced the envoy party again and, in the Estland tongue, in an accent that seemed, to Brenna’s untrained ear, fluid and flawless, Calder answered.

She didn’t understand the words, but she could read the reaction. Calder had accepted the invitation.

One of the riders behind the envoy, a grey-haired man in polished leather and a rich cloak, urged his horse forward and dismounted. He was stoic, but Brenna saw fear in his eyes and knew he had been offered as a hostage to ensure the safety of the raiders at this parley.

Calder took the man by the arm, said some words in the Estland tongue, and then turned to Knut. “Our guest. Bind his arms and keep a guard on him.”

~oOo~

They had captured enough horses alive that they could all ride to the castle. They left enough raiders back to keep the camp safe, and the rest followed the envoy party to the castle of Prince Vladimir. The ride was short, only a few hours.

As they came through the gates, the people within, commoners and soldiers alike, stopped and watched—not in greeting, but in curiosity. And fear.

In all her years as a shieldmaiden, Brenna had never been so deep into raided territory. She shared these people’s curiosity. But not their fear.

As she dismounted, she realized that she had not seen anyone make a ward sign. People stared, or they looked away, but not at or from her particularly. They had not marked her as different. Not yet, anyway.

Calder spoke with a small man with a long, pinched nose and hair as black as the darkest night. He wore a jeweled crown and a grand cloak trimmed, even in this waning summer afternoon, with fur and fixed over his shoulders with jeweled brooches. Arrayed at his sides were men in gleaming armor.

The prince, Brenna guessed.

He turned, the cloak swinging, and Calder followed him through tall oaken doors. Brenna and the rest followed Calder. The armored soldiers followed them.

She didn’t like having the soldiers at their backs, and she rested her hand on the hilt of her shortsword. A glance at Calder and Leif showed them to be likewise prepared for trouble. All the raiders rustled with readiness.

They found themselves inside a hall, much like the great halls of their own jarls and chieftains, but made of stone, and bleaker and colder for it. Rather than the rich warmth of the wood and fur of a great hall, this room echoed and chilled, despite the many people filling it. It seemed all the grand lords and ladies of this realm had assembled for the parley.

In the middle of the room was a long table laden with food and drink. Calder stopped at the nearest end of the table and waited. The prince turned and spoke, rattling off long streams of gibberish beyond Brenna’s comprehension.

Unable to understand the words being spoken, she used the time instead to scan the room. A dozen soldiers had followed them in. Another dozen lords were assembled along the sides, with women and even children in attendance with them. A woman wearing an elaborately jeweled crown held an infant at the far end of the assemblage. Six servants stood by. And the prince, still babbling.

They, on the other hand, were twenty. Assuming that Brenna was right about the general incompetence of the women for fighting, then the odds were good. It bothered her that there were children here, but she had not made that decision.

The prince finally stopped and stretched out his arms in a gesture of welcome. Two servants moved to the table, in the middle of which sat a large tray with a domed cover. As they reached for the cover, Brenna was not surprised at all to hear the heavy
chunk
of an iron bar being dropped over the doors. They were barred on the inside, but the delay in heaving it up could be deadly in a fight. They were effectively locked in.

But so were the Estlanders.

At the same time that sound rang against the stone walls, the cover was lifted from the golden tray.

The heads of their scouts rested on a bed of greens and fruits. Seeing his son’s head dressed like a slaughtered boar, Leif roared.

At once, the lords pushed their ladies into the shadows behind them and threw their cloaks back, pulling shining swords into their hands.

Brenna knew little after that but the slash and bash and blood of the fight.

~oOo~

When only women clutching children were left of the prince’s people, as well as the prince himself, Brenna pulled back. But Leif, in his rage of grief, did not, and Calder did not stop him—or Knut and Oluf, who helped their friend slay every woman and every child. The stone walls resounded with screams.

Then, as they reached the far end of the hall, spraying blood, Calder, holding the prince, called out, “ENOUGH!”

All that remained was the crowned woman holding a now screaming infant. Calder said something to the prince in the Estlander tongue. The prince nodded, whimpering.

Then Calder turned to Leif. “His wife and his heir. Brenna God’s-Eye!” he shouted without turning her way, and Brenna came forward.

“Hold him at the end of your sword. Kill him if he so much as blinks.”

She did as she was told, and Calder stepped away. He went to the woman and wrested the child from her arms. As the mother screamed, Calder took the babe by its ankles and slammed it into the nearest wall. Its wails ended abruptly. Knut silenced the woman by opening her throat.

The prince made not even a peep.

It had happened quickly, and was so beyond Brenna’s expectation that she didn’t understand until Calder dropped the small body to the floor and returned to grab the prince by the throat. As he dragged the prince through the hall, past the tray bearing the heads of young Einar and Halvar, past the bodies of the prince’s family, guards, and inner circle, Brenna stood where she was and stared at that small broken body. Its mother had fallen so that her arm covered it, as if trying to protect her child even in death.

Brenna’s vision swam, and she blinked and turned away.

“Brenna God’s-Eye.” Leif spoke at her shoulder, his voice rough and quiet. “We have duty elsewhere.”

She nodded and turned, following him and the others through the hall. Calder had the prince outside, still holding that thin neck in his large hand. He was speaking rapidly and forcefully in the Estlander tongue. Brenna took her place behind him, not understanding anything but that—her place. Her role. Her fate.

He stopped speaking and drew his blade across the prince’s throat. The stunned crowd gasped—commoners and soldiers alike. Some screamed. Then Calder threw the dying body forward and spoke again.

This time, when he stopped, the people before them dropped to their knees.

~oOo~

Calder evacuated the people from the castle and barred the gates, then left six men to stand guard. The rest returned to camp. They had lost two more men in the fight, and they carried their bodies with them. When they arrived, Calder stalked to the hostage, who had always been a sacrifice, and buried his axe in the man’s chest without even a pause. Then he stalked off toward his tent, alone.

Brenna knew—she thought she knew—that all would be explained eventually, but she was numb and tired and didn’t care. The sight of the babe on the bloody floor in its mother’s arms would not leave her.

She had seen dead children. She had killed women. It was Jarl Åke’s, and his son Calder’s, practice to kill most villagers, neither of them wanting the bother of keeping a large cargo of slaves. Preferring death to slavery, Brenna had few qualms about killing.

It was not new. It was expected. But that death, the cold brutality of it, had struck Brenna somewhere new. It made her sick.

She went straight to the healer’s tent, setting her sword and shield outside it. The healer wasn’t there. Only the captive woman tended to the wounded, alone. Brenna wasn’t surprised to find her unbound and unattended; slaves often had free run of the camp. There was nowhere they could go for escape, and should they try, they would be killed before they could do much damage.

Vali had been washed; his face, beard, and hair were free of blood. His color seemed better, and when she knelt at his side and laid her hand on his cheek, he was cooler. For the first time since she’d stood in that stone hall and stared at the bodies on the floor, Brenna felt a slice of calm.

“He…strong, your man. Like bear. He live, I think.”

“He’s not—” The words ‘my man’ died in her mouth as it dawned on her that the captive had spoken. Brenna stood and turned to her. “You speak our language.”

“A little, yes. My…brother? He…” Words failed her, and she made a pantomime that Brenna understood as a boat on water.

“Sailed?”

She smiled. “Yes. Went far. He teach me. I…called Olga.”

“Brenna.” She patted her chest. Speaking to this foreign woman made Brenna feel a bit more grounded and a bit less strange.

“They all say you ‘God’s-Eye.’ That this?” She tapped her own cheek below her right eye.

Brenna’s guard went up, and she scowled. Even Estlanders were obsessed with her eye. She’d had a brief delusion that since the people of this place did not have a god who’d given up his right eye for wisdom, perhaps they wouldn’t find her so terrifying.

Olga realized her mistake and dropped her head. “Excuse. I not mean…”

Ignoring her, Brenna turned and sat at Vali’s side. The poultice had been removed, and his stitched skin was bared to the room. It looked better, not so swollen, and the seam was closing. She laid her hand on his shoulder, just to the side of the wound, and then lightly stroked the length of his long, strong back.

Caught up with watching her hand move over the contours of his muscles, she didn’t notice that he had woken.

“I missed a battle, it seems.” When she jumped and yanked her hand away, he grunted. “Please. Your touch…soothes.”

After a doubtful hesitation, she returned her hand to his skin, and he sighed.

“By the look of you, I missed a whole war. Are we well?”

“We defeated the prince.” She said no more; she didn’t know if they were well. She didn’t feel well. Behind her, the captive gasped, and Brenna remembered that she could understand them. All the more reason not to speak on what had happened at the castle.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

“Like someone tried to cleave me in twain.” He slid his hand out and brushed it against her leg. Even through her leathers, she felt that touch deeply. “In this moment, though, I feel well.”

“Vali—”

He cut her off with a sigh and a smile. “You said my name.”

“Yes.” She didn’t understand why that had pleased him so. What else would she have called him? “Vali, I don’t understand you.” It was what she had intended to say before he’d cut her off; now she meant it even more.

“You will, shieldmaiden. In time. For now, will you stay with me?”