Davina set upon him just south of St. David’s Gate, an empty piece of no man’s land between the camps of the northern lords and those camps guarding the western walls, where everyone swung around in a wide western curve to avoid the congestion between the two wings of the besieging army.
She picked her spot and time well, as men were occupied with eating their first full supper in days. She took him from behind, a running leap using vampire speed. The knife sheared off his mail, but the impact of her body drove him from his horse.
They tumbled and rolled for a dozen paces as his horse whinnied behind him, rearing. Like a good warhorse, Freyr was trying to fight the enemy for him, but he couldn’t pick this one out when it was wrapped around Veris like a cape.
Davina snarled. It was an inhuman sound. Her canines were fully extended and the expression on her face as she lifted the knife up over him matched the snarl. “You
dare
presume to leave me,” she growled.
There was blood over the front of her tunic and down her throat. Veris grabbed her wrist, holding back the knife from his chest. She intended to cut out his heart. “Whose blood is that?” he demanded, although he already knew.
“You do not leave me. I am your master. I tell you when your service to me is done.”
He could barely hold her back. Her strength was not just inhuman. Even for a vampire it was extraordinary.
“Where is Selkirk?” he asked. “What did you do to him?”
She laughed. “The fool. He hit me. Me!”
Selkirk had taken a husband’s typical reaction. He had tried to punish his wife for her liaison and for her crimes and Davina had killed him for it.
While she was crowing over Selkirk’s stupidity, Veris used her distraction to test the distribution of her weight. He found the point of unbalance and flexed upward with a roar, tipping her sideways and keeping her knife hand pinned.
“Freyr!” he called and rolled out of the way.
The horse came down perfectly, his hooves aiming for her head, but Davina was so fast that he got an imperfect strike, getting her shoulder at best. She cried out. Even through chainmail, the strike of a full grown warhorse’s hoof would have damaged her. She kept rolling and got to her feet.
But by then Veris had his sword and knife out, ready to face her.
Davina dropped her knife to her left hand. Her right hung uselessly. “A sword
and
a knife against a woman’s left hand knife only? That’s hardly fair,” she said softly.
Veris leapt upon her. He wasn’t going to let her shoulder heal while they stood there in idle chatter. He would end this one way or another now. Fair was not something Davina understood although she liked to fling the word about because it often made others hesitate for the necessary seconds while she found their weak spots.
Her knife came up blindingly fast and parried past his blades, despite her apparent weakness. She spun away, blood flowing from another cut to her useless right arm, her chest heaving, studying him. All pretense at softness and womanhood were gone.
She sized him up purely as an enemy now. At last. “I will cut out your heart, then eat it,” she told him.
A shudder ran through him. Veris had a feeling she was not giving an idle threat. “Is that what you do with all your slaves?”
She came at him almost before he had finished speaking. Pure instinct got his sword up in time. The flurry lasted longer this time. She was tiring, her left arm weaker than her right. Veris sensed that the tide of the fight was turning his way.
That was when she dropped the knife back to her right hand with a cry of delight and slammed the blade deep into Veris’ side, through the lacings on the side of his hauberk.
She stood with her pale eyes a bare hand’s span from his, watching his pain. Then she shoved the knife deeper, turning it. Veris writhed, unable to help the cry of agony that escaped him.
Davina licked her lips. “You always underestimated me, Will,” she whispered. Her foot hooked around the back of his ankle and pulled. He could feel himself falling backward, but there was nothing he could do about it. She was pushing with all her might and he was overbalanced. He fell onto the hard, dry earth of Jerusalem and knew she had the upper hand after all.
She fell on him with a wicked smile, tearing his tunic aside and yanking the buckles on his hauberk to reveal his chest and the heart beating beneath. “You’re mine,” she breathed, her canines bared. She had another knife in her hands. A longer one. One Veris recognized. The knife she liked to use to gut fresh kill with, because it was long enough to reach deep inside. The knife was raised.
A hand snaked around Davina’s throat from behind and yanked backward. She was lifted up, so that her whole upper body was arched backward. Another hand pulled back the wrist holding the knife, holding it back from Veris’ chest.
“He’s not yours,” Brody growled. “He never was.”
Softly, from dozens of feet away, but spoken clearly enough because she knew that he could hear her anyway, Taylor said in old Norse; “I’m standing behind you, Väinä. Show me where her heart should be.”
Veris reached up to tear away Davina’s tunic. He gripped the edges of her finely made hauberk and heard the leather buckles tear and give. The undershirt came away, too. Her upper chest and the small breast gleamed in the last of the red sunset.
Davina looked past Veris’ head and her eyes widened. “No!” she breathed.
“I’m not yours,” Veris told Davina. “But you are hers. Take her, Taylor.”
The arrow whistled past his head with a sound he’d heard in so many battles. This time, it sounded sweet, like a song. It buried itself exactly in Davina’s upper breast. Deeply, almost halfway down the wooden shaft. The shaft that was just like a stake.
Davina began to struggle, her feet strumming on the dirt. Blood erupted from her mouth.
Brody tossed her away to lie on the sand and struggle, the arrow sticking up like a flag on a conquered castle, wavering as she tossed and kicked and bled and screamed in a voice so high it was almost inaudible. Until suddenly she was still.
“The head,” Veris croaked. “Take the head.”
Brody scrambled to his feet, withdrew his sword, raised it and decapitated her in one swift, powerful movement.
There was a clatter of wood and soft hands on his body. “Väinä…Veris. Please, tell me you are fine.” Taylor tentatively touched the hilt of the knife in his side.
“Pull it out,” Veris told her, turning to look at her. Her eyes were huge, smoky soft gray. Concerned. Warm.
“What?” She sounded shocked.
“Pull it out. Hurry,” Brody urged her.
Her lips trembled, but she nodded and gripped the hilt. He saw her draw a shaky breath and felt the knife slide from him. There was a sucking sound as air replaced the blade.
Taylor fell forward, leaning on her hands. “Oh…” She dropped the knife. “Oh…” she repeated. She crawled away and hung her head and was violently sick. Brody dropped his sword and hurried after her, then stopped and came back to Veris and bent over him. “You are healing?”
Veris began to laugh. The chuckle caught him by surprise. Then it expanded and became a full throated roar that made his side ache and his head hurt.
But it felt damn fine, all the same.
It was a strange procession that made its way back to Brody’s camp. Brody led Freyr, who by animal instinct had decided Brody was trustworthy and continually nuzzled his shoulder as he walked docilely behind him.
Veris sat upon Freyr with Taylor in his lap. They drew stares, for Taylor still wore the tunic with Brody’s shield upon it and Veris wore Selkirk’s colors, now bloodied and covered in gore. Brody’s tunic was slashed with blood where he had wiped his sword after dealing with Davina’s body. Both men were streaked with dirt, for they had buried what was left of Davina beneath a rocky outcrop, moving silently in the dark. They had placed the rocks back as they had been. Brody had done most of the work for Veris was still healing—all except the moving of the larger rocks. But the rocks were big enough that no human would be able to move them and they left the place looking undisturbed.
Despite the speculative glances sent their way as they walked back to Brody’s tent, they offered no explanations. No one asked for them, either.
As they progressed down the line of the western encampments, the activity around the campfires did not die down as it should have at that late hour. Every camp was buzzing, with shadowing figures moving around the firelight, carrying their own torches, or the camp blazing with lanterns.
“Something is amiss,” Veris said softly. “No captain would waste firewood hauled over such distances this way without good cause.”
“There must have been a change of orders since we left to find you,” Brody called back, just as softly. “We’re nearly there. We’ll find out in a moment or two.”
They slipped into their camp to find it in chaos. Brody’s captain was bawling orders, but seemed on the verge of hysterics. He turned to Brody in deep relief. “My lord, thank heavens! They’ve changed orders! We’re rolling the siege engines up to the walls in the wee hours, in time for first light.”
Brody glanced at Veris, who grinned back.
“When are the engines to begin moving?” Brody asked calmly.
“As soon as they will get to the wall in time for sunrise!” the captain replied, wringing his hands.
Brody held up his in a ‘stop’ position. “That is at least nine hours away. Even moving slowly, the engines will take three hours to roll up to the walls from here. We could all get five hours’ sleep, an hour to eat and still meet our required deadline. Please explain the reason for the panic?”
The captain licked his lips. “I don’t rightly know, my lord,” he said at last. “I guess…I didn’t know the sun was that far away.”
Brody nodded. “Pass the word along, would you? Have someone start an hour candle so we know the time here, instead of waiting for the time crier. And have water and food sent to my tent.” He indicated Veris. “This is Sir William. He will be joining the household as my advisor and knight at arms.”
The captain nodded and held out his hand. “Sir William. I’ll have someone take care of your horse for you.”
Veris handed over the reins. “His name is Freyr and he’s worked hard tonight.”
The captain nodded. “We have some oats tucked away somewhere. I’ll spare a handful.”
“That would be appreciated.”
Brody held the tent open for Veris and Taylor. “See to the food and water,” he told the captain. “And see that we’re not disturbed. This panic is meaningless. Everyone needs a decent rest. They’ll need it for the morrow.”
“Yes, my lord!” the captain replied, deep relief in his voice.
* * * * *
Candles were still burning from the few short minutes they had spent in the tent before going in search of Veris, making the tent seem even warmer to Taylor than the still air outside. She tried to ignore the heat. In here was a precious, hard-to-find privacy.
All three of them stood in a loose circle, staring at each other.
“You’re a mess,” Brody told Veris.
Veris laughed.
Taylor plucked at Veris’ Selkirk tunic. “You should take this off,” she said firmly. “I’m sure Brody’s tunics would fit you well enough for now. They’re all so oversized, anyway.”
Veris glanced at Brody, who nodded. “She’s right. Take it off. Go naked for all I care, or wear mine. It’s up to you. Tomorrow, you’ll have to wear the Norwich shield. Tonight, do what you will. You’ve earned it.”
“I didn’t earn anything,” Veris replied, dropping his hands to his belt buckle. “Taylor did it all.” He glanced at her, his blue eyes searing her in one sweeping glance. “What
did
bring you to that spot just then, at such a perfect moment?”
Taylor shook her head. “Guilt. For messing up your life in the first place, back in old Norway. If I hadn’t been there, then you wouldn’t have had to deal with Davina at all tonight. Selkirk wouldn’t have been such an issue for you. I wouldn’t even be here. I thought about that and couldn’t lie on my bed and let you deal with it alone. And Brody wouldn’t let me go to you alone. So we headed out for Selkirk’s camp in the dark, on foot, because that was the stealthiest way we could think of. Then we came upon you and Davina. It was really that simple.”
He shed the filthy tunic and lifted his arm to look underneath. He was checking the wound in his side. The skin showed pink and healthy, like a newborn baby’s might. In a while, she knew, it would look as it always did.