To Find a Viking Treasure (Norse Series Book 2) (20 page)

The Dane rolled them, yelling, “
Seize him!”

Beefy hands clamped his arms, jerking him upright. Panting, he strained with all his might for Sestra. She stood, crying, both hands covering her mouth.

“Put a rope around his neck,” Gorm ordered, swiping off his trousers.

A warrior tossed a rope around Brandr’s neck.

“No!” Agony wrenched Sestra’s tear-stained face. She lunged for him only to be caught short, her head snapping back from the cruel warrior holding her by her braid.

Rough hemp scratched his throat. White pain came with the stinging feel of a rope around his neck. The last time was in Sousse.

The warrior holding the rope chucked harshly, kicking Brandr until his knees hit the dirt. His head jerked in time to harsh hands pulling behind him, hands fashioning a knot, cinching it tight against his nape.

Sestra’s eyes rounded. Her gaping mouth moved as if she tried to speak but couldn’t. She shook from head to toe worse than when cold mist and the stout warrior assaulted her on the island.

The woman he loved looked into his eyes and she knew.

This was the end.

The canny warrior who’d tested the cauldron hefted
Jormungand
. Sunlight gleamed off the bronze etching. “A fine sword.”

Gorm wrapped linen around his arm. “It’s yours.” Blood seeped wide and vivid red on the white linen.

Brandr eyed the sword. Its loss hit him in the gut. The cost of his foolish warrior’s choices. He’d failed Odin’s test, but Sestra would pay the highest price and be counted of little value. Women always faced this when warriors, good and bad, played their battle games.

His chest heaved. “You have the sword and the treasure. Let her go.”

“Let her go?” Gorm laughed, stretching his arm out for one of the warriors to tie a knot. “I can’t do that. Mabon is upon us. Harvest End. Tomorrow night. We’ll need many to serve in the feast hall. Haven’t you heard? I’m leading Uppsala in the ninth year sacrifice.”

Hooves thundered from the pasture. Heads turned to the noise. It was the rest of Gorm’s men. He used the split second to slug the warrior on his left. Brandr’s body swiveled right, ramming his elbow into the other warrior.

Both doubled over. The warrior behind him yanked the rope around his neck. Air thinned inside him. Both hands flew to the rope. He tried to tug it. Pain screamed inside his neck.

A retch built in his belly, but he slammed a fist on the warrior’s instep behind him. He felt and heard the satisfying crunch of bone. The warrior yelped in pain, dropping to the ground.

“Would someone
pl-ease
contain him?” Gorm’s voice dripped with long-suffering irritation.

Four men stood over him. Two kicked him. His back. His cheek. His shoulder. His thighs. His arse. Again and again. The tang of copper mixed with the salt of his sweat. Clouds of dust billowed around him, and he’d swear ibn Dawla’s laughing black eyes flashed in the haze.

The fight yard…defeat.

“Kill him.” Gorm’s voice rose above the noise.

“No!” Sestra’s scream rattled him.

He’d take his fill of her one more time. She screamed again, iron shining in her hand. Her arm arced wide slashing the fighter’s hand gripping her braid. Blood spurted and the long, red braid fell to the ground.

“I said kill him,” Gorm commanded.

Jormungand
shined overhead. Brandr tried to move, but boots pinned his wrists to the yard and one drove a boot on his ankle. White hot pain jabbed his ribs, his legs. His cheek in the dirt, the sun blinded him when he lifted his head. The men laughed cruelly as he moaned.

Another warrior held the viper sword high to deliver the ultimate dishonor, a blood eagle death by a warrior’s own sword.

A soft, feminine body launched on top of him.

“Sestra…” Dry dust and blood coated his mouth.

One eye pinched from flesh swelling fast, but she pressed her cheek into the earth, facing him. Red curls blossomed around her face, her hair shorn around her shoulders. Tears washed over freckles he’d once kissed. She used her body to shield him. The ache of her will to sacrifice for him cut to core.

She tried to save him.  His brave
Sif
….

Dirty fingers snatched her by the shoulders, pulling her off his body. Another hand wrenched the knife from her fist.

His throat thick dirt and defeat, he opened his mouth to say he loved her. Her wails pierced the air as
Jormungand
flashed high.

“Wait.” Gorm raised a staying hand. “Tomorrow night is the Feast of Mabon. Don’t we need a ninth man to sacrifice to Odin?”

Chapter Fourteen

“You still don’t know who bought you?” Ella dragged a pitcher through ale.

“You think I’m concerned with who bought me?” Sestra hissed under her breath. “When Brandr’s about to face
that
?” She nodded at a table draped with white linen stretched before the king’s chair, a freshly forged knife gleaming in the middle. “I won’t let it happen.”

The king’s great hall hummed with House Karls and shield maidens, highborn men and women, their children nestled close. The hall’s oak doors were thrown wide to show a small green field lit by blazing torches. An ancient gnarled tree reigned; its tangled branches spread high and wide.

Inside the Dane held court, having spared nothing for Mabon, a minor blot for Vikings, but for him the grand pronouncement, he was King of Svea.

Gorm sat on the king’s ornately carved chair with two Norse hammers crossed at the handles on the wall above his head. Beside him, stiff as the ice-queen many claimed her to be, was Lady Astrid of Uppsala, former wife of Lord Hakan.

Lord Hakan. Sestra’s mouth twisted bitterly as she filled more pitchers with ale. Brandr had done everything in his power to fulfill his oath to the chieftain. And his reward? Gorm’s men dragged Brandr away to live one more day in an outbuilding in Uppsala, separated from others because he was Lord Hakan’s prized scout.

At midnight, Brandr would be sacrificed on the pristine table, and his body taken to hang upside on Uppsala’s great tree.

Ella set a calming hand on her arm. “I’m sorry. I’m just as frightened as you by all that’s happened.”

Frightened? Fear mingled with nerve-rattling anger. Despite her servitude today, the woman who kept her mouth and stayed out of the way was long gone. A heavy weight lodged in her stomach. She couldn’t eat, couldn’t drink because her mind was consumed with how to save Brandr.

She refused to sink into despair. The Viking bahadur wouldn’t have. He’d patiently work a solution.

Elle wiped her eyes, a red welt blooming on her cheek. The young thrall was alone and scared. Lady Henrikkson had fled Uppsala, and now Ella was under the rule of an unkind matron from Hedeby.

Sestra wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to frighten you.”

“These are frightening times,” Ella said bravely. “I want to help.”

“I can’t ask that of you.” She eyed the shield maidens sitting shoulder to shoulder with the men. Thralls bustled around tables set end to end around the longhouse. Hundreds of feasting revelers crammed the hall.

The midnight sacrifice was a few hours away.

Ella squared her shoulders and tossed back her black braid. “Someone has already asked me to help.” She ducked her head close. “I have a message from Emund, Lord Hakan’s warrior.”

Sestra’s head turned sharply. “What? Where is he?”

“He grabbed me when I went outside to gather more fire wood. He’s waiting for you in the trees behind the feasting hall.”

“Now?”

“Yes. Now,” Ella hissed, jerking her head at the back door.

Her breaths came fast and shallow. She rubbed high on her chest where hope blossomed painfully. There’d been too many horrible disappointments. She was ready to take matters into her own hands.

“Finally the chieftain’s here,” she muttered.

“And you will let me help.” Ella set a firm hand on Sestra’s arm, her blue eyes brittle. “Even if it means death.”

“I’ve a plan,” she said snatching her cloak off a peg on the wall. “And you won’t have to die for it.”

Ella glared at the tables where boisterous laughter rose. “Anything to rid Uppsala of these invaders.”

“Good. Can you get men’s trousers and a tunic? Both in black?  Bring them to me behind the feasting hall with a pitcher of ale and two drinking horns.”

“What if Emund wants to take you to safety? Will you flee?”

“Not until Brandr’s safe.” Her mouth firmed.

Sestra raised the black wool hood high on her head. Three rips in the cloak were all that remained of Brandr using it as a weapon on the island. Another thing she’d learned from the Viking bahadur: everything was a weapon for the mind smart enough to see the possibility.

Now it was her turn to use her cunning.

Ella donned her cloak. “You
do
love him. But you’re no warrior. You’ve never touched a sword a day in your life.”

She smiled grimly at the throne. “There’s more than one to win a fight.”

 If the plan didn’t work…she set a quelling hand on her belly. She wouldn’t think of that. She’d take her chances on this last hope. It was all she had left.

Chapter Fifteen

Flames guttered as Sestra darted past the last torch staked in the ground. The strong resin smell followed her as she climbed a knoll and walked into the pitch black forest behind the king’s hall. Leaves crunching underfoot, she slowed her steps to let her eyes adjust to the dark.

Music drifted from the hall, and she halted mid-step to listen. Goat bone flutes trilled deceptively light-hearted notes, preparing revelers for the awful hour sacrifices would begin. When drums pounded, it’d be time for the men.

She clutched her skirts and picked up the pace to find Emund. Her mind raced with the bold plan. If every part didn’t fall into place; if others didn’t follow through as expected….

If. If. If.
What would worry get her?

A tall, cloaked form slipped from behind a tree ahead, and she froze. Hands pushed back the hood, revealing carrot orange hair.

“Emund?” she whispered.

“I’m  here.”

She scurried deeper into the line of trees and Gunnar popped out from behind a bush. He too was cloaked. Emund scanned his surroundings, and satisfied they were safe, he started pulling her behind a tree.

She grabbed his arm. “Wait. Ella is coming.”

“Gunnar,” Emund notched his head toward the feasting hall. “Go wait for Ella and bring her to the stone clearing.”

Emund led her uphill further into the woods to a place with two sizeable rocks. He bid her take a seat, and he did the same beside her. Through the trees, smoke billowed high and thick from the hall’s smoke hole. Torches burning around Uppsala’s ancient tree glowed beautifully like shining amber pieces on black cloth.

The warrior’s eyes glittered sadly in the moonlight. “We waited for you at Lord Hakan’s farm.”

“Not long enough.”

He looked away, suitably chastened. Brandr was a respected fighter of notable skill. Emund’s young shoulders drooped under his cloak as if he alone bore the burden of responsibility. If he’d been there, Brandr would have gone safely away from Uppsala instead of sitting tied up, waiting to be sacrificed.

She shuddered. Vikings could be beautiful and fierce yet so brutal.

And because Emund wasn’t waiting for them, she had another night with Brandr. Her rough bahadur declared his love for her, and she for him, but the gift of more time together came at too high a price.

Emund scrubbed both hands through his hair. “Everything fell apart after you left. One of Sven’s Aland warriors turned out to be a spy for Gorm.”

“I know. The one with the red beard.”

“Einar.” He sighed. “Suddenly everyone tried to flee Uppsala. It was chaos, trying to help people escape. Gorm came with all his men and set fire to much of Uppsala. What was left, he gifted to his followers who arrived from Jutland today.”

“The plan to divide his forces didn’t work,” she mused, her fingers holding back the side of her hood.

From this place in the woods, she viewed the charred remains of what once was Uppsala’s market place where foreign traders pitched tents to hawk their wares. Homes of Viking craftsmen were gone. Frosunda known for fashioning the finest elk bone needles, the silversmith, the glass maker who formed beads of every color, all manner of goods and people…lost.

Foreigners vanished at the first whiff of trouble. Not Uppsala’s merchants. They were either dead or gone, their homes and livelihoods scorched in the Dane’s grasp for power.

“Gorm stole many ships to stop people from leaving.” Emund pointed deeper into the forest. “He stores the vessels in the north inlet belonging to Lady Astrid. Gifts for the Black Wolf’s men when they come.”

She pushed off the rock and marched to an opening in the trees. Facing north, she spied scattered outbuildings. “And despite his efforts to stop the Dane, Brandr’s tied up.”

Emund stared at the moonlit harbor. “Waiting to die.”

“He won’t die,” she said, sharply. “And you’re going to help him escape.”

“How? Lord Hakan won’t be here until dawn.” He nodded at the harbor where a moonbeam split the blackness. “That’s when Sven arrives with ships and reinforcements from Aland.”

Sestra drummed her fingers on the tree trunk, keeping an eye on one building in particular. Emund was a gentle soul who always followed orders. He was entrusted to care for her and Helena on Lord Hakan’s ship when they journeyed as thralls to Uppsala. A newly minted warrior, Emund had served the chieftain for little more than a year. The young Viking likely didn’t know about Brandr’s rescue from a galley ship years ago.

Nor did he know he faced a rebellious woman who’d risk all for the man she loved.

“For now, the harbor is empty of rescuers. No one else is here but us.” She pivoted on her heel to face him “We’ll follow my plan to save Brandr.”

“How?”

Footsteps brushed through leaves from Gunnar and Ella trotting fast. Gunnar carried the pitcher and two drinking horns.