Ravished by a Viking (24 page)

She took it as assent and ran after him to the end of the dock and the last skiff.

“I’ll steer,” he said. “You cling to the bow. When we fly past them, offer your hand.” With his sword, he cut the ropes cradling the boat. It fell onto gritty powder, and he dug his heels in and pushed with all his might to slide it out onto the ice.

Honora followed closely, unwilling to let him leave her behind, and managed to jump onto the bow when the skiff glided free. She clung to handholds as he dropped the sails, and the craft lurched and skimmed crazily across the ice until he steered with the ropes wrapped around his back and flowing through his hands.

Honora’s hood blew back in the wind, but she didn’t care. She didn’t want her sight obscured. “There,” she cried triumphantly, and pointed as she spied Dagr and his contingent skimming on their feet across the ice just ahead of the men running for their lives on loud cleats behind them.

“The sound attracts them!” she called out to her fellow sailor, and he flashed a smile. “Won’t our noise attract them as well?”

He laughed and jerked a chin toward the crowd. “They are far louder.”

Honora watched the horror unfold. Sea beasts lifting the ice, crashing down over men, large mouths opening to clasp around their waists and carry them under the blue water.

Consortium soldiers ran until they were isolated on broken floes, then lay pressed against the ice, some with hands over their heads to shut out the screams, some sitting and firing over the edges at the beasts circling below them.

The Vikings stayed ahead of the front rank of ground fighters. Before long, some of them realized the trick that had been played and raised their weapons to fire at Dagr and his men.

Faster boats skimmed across her skiff’s path; spears sailed, slicing through the air, arrows winging in delicate arches to thud into soft necks and eyes left vulnerable when the men threw down their shields in their helter-skelter run.

Once she saw a skiff closing in on Dagr, she shouted to the man behind her. “Get me closer to the front line! This has to end.”

When he drew near enough to be heard, she stood, one hand on the mast of the small skiff. “Put down your weapons! You can’t save yourselves without our help! Put down your weapons!”

Skiffs had already carried their own back to shore, but turned back to pick up soldiers who threw down their weapons.

In the rear of the scattered formation stood Arikan, his back straight but unmoving. He’d figured out what attracted the beasts. Had he bothered to tell his own men or had he let them draw away the beasts’ interest to save himself?

Her companion skimmed along the edge of the unbroken ice, careful not to slow their pace because dragons streaked beneath them, their brightly hued bodies curling and then shooting toward another hapless victim.

Open water separated her skiff from the rear of the battalion and the commander’s own guard.

His eyes blazed, promising retribution. Then a portal opened behind him. He and those closest to him hurled themselves toward it, barely beating one giant serpent whose head followed them through only to be cut off when the light blinked out. Its body slipped slowly into the water.

She had only a moment to wonder at the uproar the beast’s head would cause aboard the ship. A blast of light streaked toward her, too fast to avoid. The mast splintered beneath her hand, and with a shout, she was tossed overboard onto the ice, skimming facedown on the slick surface and watching a blur of orange swim beneath her.

Twenty-one

Just as his skiff crunched against the rough edge of the beach, Dagr jumped to the ground, then spun to see how the battle fared. What there was left of a battle, anyway. The action was mostly a retreat—an ignominious run for safety. He counted heads quickly, assuring himself that every one of the men who had accompanied him had made it.

Frakki ran to his side. “Shall we save the bastards?” he said, disgust flavoring his tone. He nodded toward the Consortium soldiers doomed to die if the Vikings didn’t mount a concerted rescue.

Odvarr loped toward him, his chest heaving, his face creased with worry. “Dagr, your woman!” he shouted, pointing toward the open waters.

A woman was on the ice! Dagr turned in time to see a slender figure pitch over the side of a skiff and slide on her belly perilously close to the edge. He didn’t bother asking what Honora was doing there, or, more precisely, what she was doing on the frozen water. He broke into a run, heading for the closest boat, Frakki on his heels.

They both swung up, Frakki taking the steering ropes, and Dagr balanced on his feet at the raised nose of the small craft. He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Stay still, Honora,” he shouted, although the wind, the hollow roars of the beasts, and the screams from the remaining soldiers drowned out his voice.

He ignored the slashes of laser light that pounded the ice around him, dared the soldiers sure to die a gruesome death to kill him because he wasn’t turning back. If the goddess Hel herself reached up from her frozen kingdom to drag him down, he’d fight her.

“Dagr ...” Frakki said quietly, dread in his voice.

“I know.”

Beneath them a dozen sea serpents, blue, green, and orange, swam, tracking them like prey, spiraling, shooting away for a few feet, then circling in closer.

One tapped beneath the hull of their small craft, and the ice groaned and crackled.

Behind them came the scraping sound of more skiffs joining them on the ice. His men were skilled with the boats, often skimming just offshore. Just far enough to drill into the ice to fish, but close enough to the keep that the guard on the wallwalk could give them fair warning. None of his men was as skilled as he at escaping the beasts because none dared travel the open seas.

Still they followed him, shouting and hitting the ice with the points of their pikes to draw the beasts away.

In the distance, Arikan’s men continued to fire, shredding the solid surface beneath their feet in their panic, drawing the creatures who banged their heads from below to crack the ice, then shoot upward, mouths agape to catch the men before diving deep to devour them.

Dagr could worry about only one Consortium officer, who now lay on her belly on the ice, her face turned toward him, her eyes beseeching. That she was terrified was evident by the paleness of her skin and the roundness of her eyes. And by her silence. Honora was rarely silent.

When their skiff drew near, Frakki slowed only a fraction, just enough for Dagr to jump off the boat. He rolled, leapt to his feet, and ran for his woman, brandishing his sword and hoping that another of the boats was close enough to retrieve them once he had her before the dragons burst through the ice.

He prayed as never before—to Thor, who’d blessed his fathers’ sword. Prayed that, just like Thor who’d felled the giant Hrungnir with his mighty hammer, that his sword and his will would be enough to save the only person who’d ever made him feel complete, the woman who held the other half of his heart.

Honora lay flat on the ice, her head raised, watching Dagr draw near. As her muscles contracted with cold, relief and abject fear for him warred inside her.

He threw down his cloak, his furs, never slowing, running full out, his dark hair whipping behind him, his expression so fierce it took her breath away.

A loud thud sounded beneath her.

Honora couldn’t hold back a scream as the ice cracked and lifted, splintering into large pieces like a jagged puzzle. She scrambled for a handhold, sliding gloved fingers over one raw edge.

A serpent pushed up, its dark orange head lifting the shardlike section of ice she held tight to, pushing on one edge with the end of its nose and tilting her toward the water. With her arms stretched, her body swinging, she cast a glance toward Dagr, sure he would be the last thing she saw in this life.

Dagr was close, and not slowing, although the ice broke beneath his feet. He took one last step and leapt onto the serpent’s head, landing hard, and gripped his knees on either side of its wide skull.

Their gazes met for a moment, Dagr’s filled with love and regret. Then the beast pulled down its head, dislodging the icy shard she clung to and sending it sliding across the ice, away from it and Dagr.

“No!” Honora screamed, watching in horror as the beast shook its head, trying to dislodge Dagr, but he held tight, the hand not holding his sword gripping horny spikes atop the beast’s sawtooth brow.

The creature flung back its head one last time, and then tucked its head down, preparing to dive.

With a roar, Dagr let go of the spikes, turned his blade upside down, gripped the pommel in both hands, and plunged it downward, piercing the beast’s translucent blue eye.

The creature let out a loud, hollow squall, then crashed down its head, slamming the ice and breaking it. Water closed over it, submerging the beast and taking Dagr down with it.

Desolation clawed at her chest and Honora screamed again, shoving up to her feet and running to the edge of the ice to peer deep into the water, uncaring whether another beast burst from the water. Her heart was already lost in the cold, cold depths.

Cold water closed around Dagr, shocking him for a moment, causing him to gasp and lose the little air he held inside his lungs. He had only a moment to save himself. The beast he rode thrashed in the water, heaving up and down. When its head tucked down again, Dagr knew it would dive and he’d be dead. With a surge of desperation, he got his knees beneath him, pushed against the beast’s head, tugged his sword free, then swam upward toward the gleaming opening in the ice.

When he burst through the surface, he dug his blade into the edge of the ice and dragged himself from the water. He pulled deep breaths of air into his lungs, fighting the enervating cold seeping through all the layers of his clothing. He pushed to his feet and forced his legs to move, running toward Honora, who gave a cry and started toward him.

“Hurry!” he croaked. Where one dragon bled, dozens more would follow.

“Dagr! Gods, Dagr!” Honora cried out, running, then falling to her knees and sliding across the ice toward him.

Glancing back to gauge the nearest boat’s speed, he ran past her, grabbing her arm and swinging her behind him. “On my back. Hold tight.”

For a second, he relished the weight of her body against his; then he was running, awkwardly now, weighed down with Honora’s arms crossed in front of his neck. The boat skimmed closer, and Dagr saw Odvarr on the bow, twirling a rope in the air.

When the boat cut in front of them and turned, Odvarr sailed the rope toward him.

“Don’t let go!” Dagr shouted to Honora, grabbing the rope and winding it around his arm a second before the slack was taken up and he was pulled off his feet. He landed on his belly, both hands holding tightly now to the rope.

Every sharp edge and bump in the ice beneath his body cut and bruised him, but the shoreline was in sight.

His men ran up and down the beach, cheering and shouting encouragement. Until at last Odvarr swung them toward the edge and men rushed onto the ice to surround them, throwing cloaks around their shoulders and grabbing them up to carry them.

Odvarr came running up, Frakki on his heels. “He slay the beast! Dagr slay the serpent!”

All turned to gaze out to the water lapping at the edges of the broken ice. The long, ridged back of a large sea serpent bobbed listlessly in the opening.

Dagr turned to look, but couldn’t really care. Fists thumped chests; his Vikings roared. The sound encouraged him, but Honora’s teetering smile was what warmed him through and through.

Honora glanced around her at the stragglers, the remnants of the Consortium’s mighty army, scattered in the snow rimming the beach. They stared at the wild barbarians, awe and fear causing their faces to pale.

If her cheeks weren’t frozen, she’d have laughed. Instead, when Dagr held open his arms, she moaned and fell against him, rubbing her cheek against his chest. His familiar scent calmed her racing heart.

Odvarr clapped his shoulders, a huge smile splitting his face. “I’m going to fashion a tale, milord. A new chronicle.
Dagr and the Serpent
.”

Dagr grunted and his gaze lowered to Honora. “I have a finer tale, one fraught with many dangers, and a woman ...”

Odvarr barked a laugh while Honora ducked her face to hide her blush. Seemed she did a lot of that these days.

His dark eyes flashing, Dagr reached inside her cloak, gripped Honora’s waist, then bent to kiss her. The biting cold, the dozen little bruises on her back and belly, even the loud roar of his men faded in the splendor of his perfect kiss.

When another round of toasts began and Dagr’s back was turned, Honora slipped quietly from the table in the crowded hall.

The prisoners had been secured in the dungeon beneath the keep. Men were dispatched to King Sigmund’s keep to relay the Wolfskins’ demands for ransom to Commander Arikan. Dagr’s brother and the other missing men were part of the terms.

Whether the Consortium dragged out the negotiations for months or not, Dagr felt at least hopeful that this tack might work. He worried over Cyrus and Birget’s mission, and what Sigmund would say about his daughter leading an expedition to Helios.

Honora watched and listened while all the arrangements were made, feeling useless and abandoned, knowing she’d lost her place, her purpose. But what had she expected? She’d served her purpose and was done. The clan-lord had more important matters to attend to.

Still, Tora and Astrid had quietly moved down Dagr’s table to give her room beside him. She honestly didn’t know how she felt about their tacit acknowledgment that she’d supplanted them or she might have told them they needn’t bother. She was numb. Frozen through and through.

So much had happened in such a short span of time. Her life turned upside down, violently so. Even now, she felt as though she still gripped the edge of the ice, dangling, trying to hold on for dear life.

Outside the hall, she plucked a thick, furry cloak from among the many hanging from hooks along the wall and wrapped it around her before heading outside.

With leaden steps, she trudged through gritty fallen snow toward the stairs leading up to the wallwalk, ignoring the guards she passed. She didn’t stop until she reached the spot she’d stood earlier that day when the advancing army had been spotted. Moonlight gleamed on the mended ice and reflected off the snow-covered beach and cliffs. There was a rugged beauty to this world, one she hadn’t noticed the first time she’d been here. But now, she finally had a moment to really see, and the view was breathtaking. Cold and unforgiving, yes. However, the moon overhead shone like a smooth-faced, pale sun. Moonlight refracted on crystallized snow clinging to the edge of the wall like a rainbow. And other than the scurrying of frozen snow and the thin wail of the wind over the ocean, it was quiet. Peaceful.

Which only increased her sense of loneliness and impending doom.

Tonight, the Vikings might celebrate, but she knew the war was far from won. Helios would never concede the mines. Although why her people wouldn’t find another solution, one that didn’t require them invading this frozen, inhospitable planet, she’d never understand. A different breed of people were needed to thrive here. She wasn’t sure she was cut out for the harsh life, and she had one really big incentive to try to make it work.

If the Wolfskins’ ruler truly wanted her.

A cloud crossed the face of the moon, darkening the night. The thick, furry cloak wasn’t enough to keep the cold air from seeping through to her skin. She shivered and turned away from the view to return to the hall, but stopped in her tracks.

A tall, dark figure blocked her way. When the cloud drifted, moonlight shone. Dagr’s closed expression, eyes glittering darkly, square jaw tightening, forced her to remember who and what he was. A Viking—a barbarian with a dangerous reputation. If he’d played her, used her to get what he could, and was now done with her, there was nothing to stop him from tossing her over the wall to the beach below. She swallowed hard.

As his gaze narrowed on her face, his head canted. “Are you afraid of me?”

Honora cleared her throat. “I disobeyed you. My people, with the lone exceptions of myself and Turk, are prisoners in your dungeon. I suddenly wondered if that wasn’t where you thought I belonged too.”

His expression hardened like the water freezing, one feature at a time.

A sudden wariness crept over her, and she backed up a step.

“Do you intend to jump?” he said, his voice tight and dangerous.

“Should I save you the bother?” she quipped, then glanced behind her to see how close she was to the edge.

When she swung back, he had her, his hands closing around her forearms. She tugged to free herself, but his fingers tightened like steel manacles. “You’re hurting me.”

“You confuse me,” he whispered furiously.

She froze, confused herself by the heat simmering now in his angry gaze.

His grip eased, and a thumb soothed the skin he’d nearly bruised. “Odvarr tells me you thought my people would need warning. He thinks it’s amusing, but you’ve won a champion in him. He wouldn’t be happy if you pitched over the edge.”

But what did Dagr think? Would he be happy if she was out of the way? She raised her chin. “So I’m a funny little thing to you all now.” One side of Dagr’s mouth quirked, but she couldn’t tell if it was the start of a smile or a snarl.

“He thinks you’re small, but have a heart worthy of a wolf. He thinks you should be bred.” The lines at the sides of his eyes wrinkled. “He offered.”