Conquering the Dark Axe
Read Conquering the Dark Axe Online
Authors: Amber Dane
CONQUERING
THE DARK AXE
By
AMBER
DANE
This is a work of fiction. Names,
places, characters, and events are fictitious in every regard. Any similarity
to actual events and persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Any
trademarks, service marks, product names, or named features are assumed to be
the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There
is no implied endorsement if any of these terms are used. Except for review
purposes, the reproduction of this book in whole or part, electronically or
mechanically, constitutes a copyright violation.
Copyright
©
2012 by Amber Dane
Cover Art:
ParaGraphic Designs
*Please keep in mind this is a work of
Fiction and some liberties have been taken to fit in with my tale. Hope you
still enjoy the novel.
Dedication:
To
the man who made Rourke possible- V.O.
Thank you, big guy. You will
always be in my heart
Table of Contents
1067 Northumbria England Winter
The golden-haired herculean knight sat brooding in
the dark corner of the boisterous great hall and did his best to ignore the
hushed rumors and innuendo that swirled around him. The dark whispers
were of him, of the devastation and slaughter he wrought wherever he went. The
manor’s hall had been brightly lit and swollen with nobles wall to wall just
the day before full of celebration and exuberance, now today the rooms were
steeped in heavy gloom. Finely clothed figures stuck close to the arched
alcoves, with their barely concealed scorn-filled expressions hidden by the
shadows. Most turned away in fright when his gaze fell in their
direction.
He had grown used to such behavior and talk over the
years and shrugged it off most of the time. Some stories were true, but out of
the mouths of the gossipmongers the tales had grown quite tall and with great
embellishment. However, this time their words…these people that had smiled and
drank merry with him just yester eve, pierced his defenses and wounded him
deeply. What was being said had been spoken of and bandied about all morn
since the terrible and tragic incident
.
With dusk settling in and the threat of a violent storm,
the golden-haired knight’s mood grew as dark as the ominous silhouettes dancing
eerily on the stone walls.
The raging father of his intended, his massive grief
too strong, sat erect in the high back chair on the raised dais and openly
stared death his way.
The great knight’s second-in-command watched him
from the side with a look of worry upon his face.
None knew what to do to attend to the most feared
man in this part of the countryside. His name preceded him. He had
returned from one of several hard fought and successful campaigns that still
arose a year later after The Conquest just the night before. Even with his
weapon still dripping with the blood of the dead, he’d morphed the next morn
into a man full of eagerness, joy and honor to join with and wed his
betrothed.
Although the marriage had been by the king’s edict,
it was seen as more than one of alliance. It was welcomed with great
anticipation.
She, a high born lady and the most beautiful for
miles.
He, a respected, favored and most merciless knight.
Far and wide a fine looking man descended from a long bloodline of the mighty
Vikings, blessed with their fine pleasing looks, herculean size and leonine
mane, had stolen one’s breath many times.
The union between the Norman knight and the beautiful
Saxon Lady Jacqueline was looked upon with zealous wonder to see wed
indeed.
After having spent close to nigh three months
courting his betrothed, the merciless knight had done the unthinkable.
He’d fallen in love with her. All within and out of
the manor were well aware of it.
They would have been the perfect match.
The morning of the wedding his betrothed asked him
for a word alone. With his heart on his sleeve, never would he think to deny
her aught, the great knight followed her to a hidden spot they had ventured to
often during their brief courtship. There in the quiet, under the canopy of
trees that shielded them, the lady had surprised him and after her words, left
him standing there a different and broken man.
By the time the great knight had found his way back
to the entrance of the grand hall a sentry had rushed through to his
betrothed’s father. The Lady Jacqueline had thrown herself from the
cliffs. The golden-haired knight had stood rooted to the spot feeling an
unbearable and deep grief down to his very soul. She had taken his heart
with her in her desperate plight to get away from him. Be free of
him.
Her words came rushing back to him and he knew they
would haunt him for the rest of his years. He would never forget them.
Anger and ice filled his veins, his heart. He vowed
that very day to never be twice a fool and make the mistake of falling in love
with a woman ever again.
FALL
1072 ENGLAND
They were all dead.
All of them dead.
Her sister, Lisbeth, had taken her last gasp
of breath in less than a sennight of falling ill and now her beautiful young
body lay beneath her feet in a freshly dug grave in that hollow and lonely
place of darkness waiting for the maggots and worms to feed upon her flesh.
Another soul taken away from her way too soon.
Alexa Barnett turned her head aside with a mournful
cry escaping her dry lips. The wind was the strongest up here in this
place of death and decay on the steep grassy knoll behind her home.
The family burial ground.
Her whole bloodline now lost to her forever lay
rotting in the world of ever after. She stood with her long lean legs
apart, her breeches and leather boots splattered with mud. A tunic sashed
at her waist and a hooded cape clasped at her throat, she still felt
cold. The cape billowed out behind her in the biting wind and whipped
across her slim figure. Her long amber colored locks, unbound, whipped
wildly about her head and face. Her ivory complexion rosy not only from
the bite of chill in the noon fall wind, but from the angry unshed tears she
bit back in sorrow over her sister’s passing. Her arms rested atop the
jewel-crusted sword stuck in the ground. A red and black strip of cloth,
tied just below the hilt blew in the breeze.
The last of the mourners, manor servants, a few
villiens and the blacksmith’s family, walked down the hill toward the stone
manor. Seeing their eyes filled with worry and sorrow only pained Alexa
further. They were a caring people and would miss Lisbeth almost as greatly as
she. Alexa cursed the heavens silently. Why not she?
Lisbeth was to have married in less than a fortnight
before her untimely death and now by order of the Conqueror, King William, she
was to marry her sister’s betrothed in her stead.
That thought raged through Alexa and she tore the
sword up and out of the earth with a loud anguished cry and pointed the
gleaming blade toward the heavens. She should have fled when the king’s
messenger had brought her the news that she was to take Lisbeth’s place.
All of England knew this man’s name and how he’d acquired it.
Fury mingled with her deep sorrow shot from her eyes
to the dark clouds above. Men. She spat a curse. They thought
women were simple beings to be bought and sold at whim. Like chattel,
bartered to form alliances and bring kingdoms together. All in the name
of peace and for the better good. Now by the king’s decree…he would never
be her liege…she was to marry the murdering and soulless Dark Axe.
Memory of Lisbeth’s soft, fearful whisper came back
to her warning her from her death bed to keep such hateful thoughts silent lest
they be overheard. If they were, Lisbeth had feared Alexa’s words would be
cause for her to lose her head. Alexa had not cared then, nor did she now. She
was the only living Barnett left.
She was all alone.
She, a proud Saxon woman being forced to marry some
forsaken landless Norman bastard was beyond outrage and further insult from
these murdering devils of Normandy. He was but a blood thirsty mercenary doing
whatever his liege told him, the tales of his reputation were no doubt
exaggerated, Alexa knew. The most infamous rumor thus far was the murdering axe
stood nigh eight feet long that his clubbed feet dragged when he sat a horse
and his head was the size of an ogre. Alexa scoffed. He probably
was nowhere near to that, albeit she believed he had to be large enough to
support the strength he had to muster in cleaving a man in two with his bloody
axe.
Full of brute strength with an ugly mug only a
mother could love, of that she was certain. For to be so vicious, savage and
mean, he had to be as ugly inside as out. And she was to marry such! God strike
her dead now! The Norman lowborn knight was coming for her and her lands and
there was naught she could do about it.
Marrying her would give him noble status, but
marrying her would not strip away what he could never change and that was the
fact he was and would always be the enemy. A Norman and a murdering bastard.
Alexa elicited another
cry with a sudden movement. Moving the sword in a circular swing of
strength and agility with her right arm, she brought the gleaming weapon down
hard, driving it back into the earth, halfway to the hilt at the bottom of the freshly
dug grave. Falling to one knee, she gave in to her grief for Lisbeth,
herself and her future fate. Yet the tears did not fall.
He sat obscured by high trees at the forest’s edge
astride his black steed, waiting. Horse and man stood so still, quiet
like stone, the man’s long black cloak blended in with the horse’s dark coat
nigh seamless if not for the silver glint of the small sharp knives fastened to
the knight’s large calves. Rourke Thorsson, Lord of Westlan rode free of
his helm. His leonine mane fastened in a tight queue at the back of his
thick neck. His face like stone as he tore his gaze from the adequate
size village of small huts, plowed fields of grain, a stretch of stables and
the dark looming shadow of the stone manor to the sound of an anguished roar
next to it. He squinted, not sure at first what he was seeing.