Loki's Daughters (2 page)

Yet Vikings never came alone, for one man could not sail a longship. It made no sense.

"Nothing," she said. "Perhaps we can make the cavern."

Standing in the doorway, she blew three long blasts on the horn. The sound brought women and children pouring from their cottages, running toward the rain-soaked cliff behind the village
 
that contained their cavern, the only hope of safety for those who could reach it in time. If any raiders made the mistake of entering the cavern, those who did not fall into the concealed pits would be pelted with stones by the women who had climbed to high ledges.

"Come, Birgit. Hurry."

Birgit threw a shawl over her shoulders and tucked the last of a wedge of cheese into its folds, then grabbed a blanket for Liam as she tugged his hand.

The sky darkened even as Arienh watched, and large globs of cold rain slapped at her face. Arienh took Birgit's hand even though it was not yet so dark that her sister's dim vision could not make out the muddy path. Arienh lifted her nephew onto her hip and following the stream bank, steered Birgit through muddy rivulets that fed the swollen creek, until they arrived safely at the cavern.

Arienh looked back again across the darkening, rain-obscured valley. Still no alien raiders had come.

"Did you see them?" Mildread asked of Arienh as she reached down her hand to help Liam into the safe haven of the upper cave.

"Only one." Arienh paused for breath and sat, resting her back against dark rock. "I killed him. He's by the stream near our cottage. Perhaps they won't come, now that we're warned."

"Perhaps he was alone," said Mildread, folding her arms with a shudder.

"Perhaps they turned and ran," said
 
Elli. "They are really cowards, my father said."

"They do not know we have no men to fight them," Selma added, nodding. Her pretty blue eyes searched Arienh's face for reassurance that Arienh could not give.

Mildread frowned as she pushed her brown braids back over her shoulder. "Are you sure it was a Viking, Arienh?"

"I know what Vikings look like. It was a Viking."

Old Ferris, his black eyes gleaming like jet beads in the torchlight, clasped his wrinkled hands together. "Then we'll keep watch. Perhaps the rain has merely delayed them."

Selma shuddered. "They will kill us when they find him."

"Nay," said Elli. "The heathens abandon their dead."

Either could be true, and they all knew it. Perhaps it depended upon the importance of the man she had slain.

But only the storm came down upon them. Sheltered within the cavern's lip, they collectively regretted the need to go back out into the soaking rain.

"Perhaps he was alone, lost from his band," Old Ferris suggested. "Perhaps he alone survived a shipwreck in the last storm."

Whatever it was, there were no Vikings. The day grew late, and everyone knew Vikings did not come in the dark. They liked to strike swift, hard, unexpectedly, then escape to the sea.

"The Vikings will not come now," Mildread pronounced, as if she had reached the conclusion alone. "But what about the flood, Arienh?"

"Aye, will it flood, Arienh?" The question came from all around her.

In the face of a danger more immediate, she had nearly forgotten the greater one. "I could not tell. I had no time to check the snow pack, so I don't know how fast it is melting, but the river is far too high. We should prepare."

A grim murmur spread through the gathered women. Each one accepted her task; hard work made even harder by the freezing rain, but they could afford no more losses.

Still, Arienh knew them well. If they went to all that trouble to move flocks and fodder from the lower valley, and then the waters receded without event, the entire village would grumble at her. Arienh was used to it. They always expected her to know such things, as if the stones should somehow tell her, for they didn't understand the stones the way she did. But no matter how much they complained, she would do what must be done, or the Celts in this valley would not survive. Sometimes she just had to accept the blame.

"But what if the Vikings come tomorrow?" Selma asked, still wide-eyed with worry.

And well they might. "Then tomorrow we will deal with them. For now, it will be enough to keep watch while we see to the flock."

Elli's eyes glittered a silent demand as she pulled her heavy shawl over her shoulders. She took her grandfather's horn from him, and planted herself squarely before Arienh. Arienh studied her friend, knowing what was in her mind. She would be thinking of her father's violent death in his own forge, at the hands of a raider while his only child hid behind the ricks of wood. She would be remembering how the red-bearded giant had looked straight at her, then inexplicably turned and left.

Arienh nodded as if Elli had spoken aloud. "We will do what makes most sense. If there are others, they are still here, and if they come, it will be tomorrow, when the storm abates. Take the watch in the lower valley at dawn, Elli," Arienh said, "but stay away from the river and climb the hill where you will be safer. We will all watch until nightfall as we move the flock."

In the unreal calm that followed, Arienh trudged with Birgit and Liam along the valley path toward the lower cottages and their sheepfolds. Old Ferris and Elli gathered disquieted sheep from separate folds to drive to high ground, while other women and children bundled precious necessities to carry uphill to the upper cottages. Even Birgit bundled fodder in her shawl and slung it over her shoulders, for only her eyes were weak.

Repeatedly, Arienh scanned the slope of the distant mount that flanked the estuary until the rain grew so heavy she could not see it. But now that the last light of day was fading, she knew no Viking would roar down its slopes. She searched the turbulent river, knowing no pitch-blackened, dragon-headed longship would dare its roiling ferocity, nor would blood red sails face the raging sea beyond the estuary. Her fears eased.

Up on the hill beside the stream, the Viking still lay in the mud. Was he dead?

As Arienh adjusted Birgit's bundle of fodder, the sky opened, split by a sword of lightning. New torrents of cold rain soaked the already sodden villagers as bolt after bolt of lightning illuminated the clouds.

Shouts penetrated through the howling wind. Arienh spun around, squinting to search past slanting rain. At the river's sharpest curve where it swung east toward the estuary, the bank crumbled. Sheets of thin mud spread out, fanning out over the flat
 
valley, in moments swirling around their feet, eroding the mud beneath their feet.

With a yelp, Birgit slipped to her knees. Fodder spilled
 
and spread across the surface of the water like a writhing blanket, folding under and back onto the surface. Arienh scooped up Liam onto her hip and gripped Birgit's hand to steady her as, knee deep in icy water, they forced each treacherous footfall through the flow. Hard, jerking shivers raced through her body as Liam wrapped his lanky arms and legs tightly around her and buried his face into her shoulder.

Collective bellows of the flock blended with the din of the storm as unhappy beasts struggled to high ground. The flock would be safe, but they'd see a new channel cut for the river by morning.

She reached Mildread's hand, extended to help them from
 
the turbid water.

"Are you all right?" Mildread asked, wrapping her shawl around Liam.

Arienh could only nod, for it almost seemed to be colder out of the water than in. She had strength for little more than shivering as other women herded bedraggled beasts into three abandoned cottages for the night.

She took Birgit's hand and trudged toward home, shivering against the storm that blew through her soaked shawl and kirtle. Her exhausted feet throbbed painfully and slipped beneath her as she walked.

"I am a burden to you," Birgit said, her head bowed to the storm.

How hard it must be for Birgit, who could hardly see where to put her feet. "Nay, Birgit, we need each other." Arienh did not lie, for however hard life might be, it would seem futile without Birgit and Liam. But Birgit, engulfed in all her losses, could not understand that.

By the cottage door, Arienh stopped to strain her gaze out over the dark field. Silhouetted, black against growing darkness, the Viking lay where she had left him in the field, his back to the freezing rain, face to the mud. The flooding stream rose and soon would swallow up his body. Was he dead yet? Like a writhing shadow, the black shape changed, thickening as it rose on hands and knees.

Fear invaded her again. Was he a berserker, to rise and kill in merciless fury even as he died? Cold shudders rushed through her. Arienh gripped her dagger, slogged grimly across the open field and planted herself between him and her village.

With an agonized groan, the Viking pushed himself up to sit, leaning heavily on his arms. Great jerking shivers from the cold rain wracked his body. Mud streamed down his face. The eyes that had been so startlingly blue had deepened, dusky dark in the twilight, wrenched with pain.

She shuddered. He must be as cold as she.

Arienh clenched her jaw, shutting down the surge of pity. He was a Viking, a merciless, brutal killer. She felt nothing for him.

"I wonder what you did to your victims who were as helpless as you are now, Viking? Did you run them through? Or just cut off their hands and feet to watch them bleed?"

With his dark gaze fixed on her, his hand trembled on the buckle of the leather strap at his waist. She sprang back. Only a quick throw of a dagger, and he could have his revenge. The strap fell free, and his long sword clanged to the stony ground. Shaking, he pulled a knife from its scabbard and held it out to her.

"Kill me."
 

The Celtic words from his heathen mouth startled her. Behind him, lightning split the sky, and in its flash, she saw, not the Viking, but the image of her brother who had died in her arms. As sharp as the brilliant bolt, the torture of Trevor's dying agony stabbed through her anew. A Viking had killed him. Perhaps even this man, or his kin.

"Finish it," the Viking demanded.

Sudden rage filled her, aching to meet his challenge.

The knife shook in his hand as he swayed dizzily, and his breaths came hard as the dark, metallic daring in his eyes dissolved to anguished need. "Finish it. Or help me."

Help a Viking? Arienh snatched the knife from his hand. Strength shot up from the dark rage in her heart, flooding through her like shafts of iron. Fury lifted her arm and vengeance powered it as it raised high for the downward stroke.

Viking! Hideous, filthy, murdering Viking! She saw the wild-eyed, toothless villain whose axe cut down her father, the red-bearded giant whose sword hacked Trevor to his death, the fiend who raped and brutalized Birgit. Violent tremors coursed through her.

Help him? Dark, sad eyes waited patiently for her blow.

He was Trevor. He was her father. And he was the strange Viking boy who long ago had come from nowhere to save her, then vanished; like the boy, his eyes were the same brilliant blue. Spasms shot down through her arm and wrapped around her chest in a suffocating band.

Kill him.

Kill him? It had been easy before, to strike back in fear, but to cut down a wounded man? Even a filthy Northman?

"Nay."

The dagger fell, clattering against a stone. The Viking once more collapsed. A moan faded to silence.

Arienh dropped to her knees beside the wounded man, her gut wrenching, and her hand came within a finger's breadth of touching his before she jerked it back. He was going to die, not quickly, as Trevor had gone, but in slow, merciless agony. In the cold, in the rain, in the mud. In pain, with no one to comfort him.