Season of the Sun (Viking Era 1)

“By Odin, look at that hair—’tis magic, that color. Let me touch it.”

“Nay,” Orm said. “Let us away from here. If we are quick about it, we will be back to our camp by this evening.”

“She is gone,” Eldrid said again.

Magnus was shaking his head. No, it couldn’t be true.

“Two days ago. She simply disappeared. It was after a storm and she left the palisade and none saw her again. I am too frail for this, Magnus. The girl is flighty and wounded. Leave her be. Aye, perhaps she will return on her own.”

Magnus wanted to strike the old woman. He turned on his heel and went to Hollvard, the old man who had guarded the palisade gates of Malek for two decades.

“Aye, Magnus, I watched her leave, her head bent, deep into her thoughts, I remembered thinking. It had rained so hard that all of us were annoyed with each other, all of us just wanted to be outside, and so it was that she left the palisade and walked down the path to the water.”

“She had nothing with her?”

Hollvard shook his head.

“Then someone took her away by force.”

“Aye, perhaps.”

He heard the doubt in the old man’s voice. Hollvard believed, as did all the rest of his people, that she had killed herself or simply walked away into the woods, there to be killed by wild animals. Magnus didn’t believe it for a minute. Zarabeth was a fighter. She would not destroy herself.

He called all his men together, and another search began. None of them said a thing, merely searched as they had for Egill. It was Ragnar who found a ragged piece of her gown on a bush some twenty yards into the pine forest.

Magnus studied the piece of cloth and the bush. “She was being carried,” he said at last, standing. “Over a man’s shoulder, a man nearly of my height. She was taken from Malek.” He wanted to yell with the relief he felt at their discovery, but it was quickly quelled.

She had been taken. By whom? Was she still alive?

Eines, a small man who was a superb tracker, came forward. “This way, Magnus. There are still prints, vague, but enough for me. Thank Odin that it hasn’t rained since that day.”

Eines, Magnus thought, falling into step behind him, had no shortage of conceit. He prayed the man was right and not bragging to hear himself speak. They came upon the camp late in the day. It had been abandoned, Eines stated, some two days before.

“What do we do now, Magnus?”

He turned to Ragnar. “We arm ourselves and prepare for stealth and cunning. I know who took her and I will have the bastard’s blood.”

22

Zarabeth felt a stinging slap on her cheek, then a dash of cold water in her face. She sputtered with the shock of it and opened her eyes.

Ingunn was kneeling beside her, an empty wooden cup in her hands. “So, you’re not dead. Orm was worried that he had struck you too hard. But I told him that I would wake you quickly enough.”

Zarabeth said nothing. Ingunn sat back on her heels, her eyes narrowing suddenly as Orm strode over to them. He came down on his haunches, leaned over, and took Zarabeth’s face between his hands. He studied the bruise on her jaw. His touch was gentle as he traced the now-yellowing flesh.

“I hadn’t meant to strike you so very hard. You have been unconscious for a very long time.” Then he grinned at her. “You won’t ever fight me again, though, will you?” Again he touched her jaw. Not so gently this time.

Pain shot through the side of her face, but she didn’t make a sound. She looked at the man who had taken her from Malek. “Where are we?”

He smiled widely, but it wasn’t a pleasant smile. She braced herself for another blow, but he didn’t touch her. “I told you before that I dislike shrill questioning, particularly from women.”

“I am not shrill. I am merely questioning.”

“She makes a mockery of me, but I’ll forgive her imprudence this time.” Orm grinned at Ingunn, whose face was tight. He said to Zarabeth, “Not far from Malek. No, not far at all. Now that you are awake, you will make yourself useful. We must be gone soon. Ingunn, see that she obeys you.”

Orm touched his fingers to Zarabeth’s hair, his gaze so intent it frightened her. He then rose, hands on his hips, to look down at her. “B

e about your tasks now.”