Season of the Sun (Viking Era 1)

He reared up to position himself. She lurched up, her fists pounding into his face. Her nails scored his cheeks and she felt the flesh tear away, felt his blood well over her fingers. He roared with anger and pain. His hands were around her throat and his fingers were squeezing hard and harder still and she felt pain in her chest, building and building, and she knew she would die now. He was cursing her and there was madness in him and now the madness was him.

Suddenly his hands fell away from her throat and air surged into her lungs. She coughed frantically, sucking in air.

“Hurry, Zarabeth!”

It was Ingunn. She stood over an unconscious Orm, his sword in her hand. She had struck him hard from behind with the sword handle.

“Is he dead?” Her voice ripped out, a curious croak, and the pain of it made her shake.

“No, no. We must hurry.”

Zarabeth pushed him off her and jumped to her feet. “I’m naked,” she said, staring down at herself dumbly.

“Here!”

Zarabeth caught Orm’s tunic. She pulled it over her head. It came to her knees. It smelled of him.

“Horses, Ingunn. We must get the horses, else we won’t have a chance!”

“Nay, Kol is awake, as is Bein, and the horses are kept close, you know that. We will go on foot. We can hide. Hurry, else he will awaken and catch us!”

Zarabeth wanted to kill him. She stood uncertain for a moment, then quickly gathered together the leather cross-garters he’d ripped from his shoes and tied his hands behind his back. Then she tied his ankles.

“Hurry!”

She stood over him for a moment, staring down at him. “He is mad, Ingunn.”

“I care not, come along! He will kill me as well as you if he catches us.”

Ingunn grabbed the leather belt and shoved the sword back into its scabbard. Then she stared at it as if it were a snake to bite her. Zarabeth grabbed it and wrapped the belt around her waist and cinched it. It hung low on her hips, but it held there.

She had no shoes, but it didn’t matter. She ran, Ingunn at her side. They were deep in the forest before they halted, each holding her side.

“A moment,” Zarabeth said. “A moment, Ingunn.”

Zarabeth leaned against a tree, the pain sharp in her side, air ripping painfully through her throat, and she felt light-headed. Her stomach cramped from hunger. She r

aised her head to see Ingunn on her knees, her head lowered.

“Why did you save me?”

Ingunn sucked in great gulps of air.

Zarabeth waited. She could hear her own breathing, sharp in her ears, and Ingunn’s as well, both harsh and ugly in the stillness of the forest.

“Why, Ingunn?”

“I came to realize that he had changed. I had refused to believe my father when he told me of the things Orm had done. You see, I thought I knew him, and I loved him.” She shrugged. “Whenever I met him he made me believe in him, even though I began to guess that something had happened to him. I don’t know what it was. But he used to be so . . . happy and gentle in his ways, at least toward women. He changed, Zarabeth.” She rose then and looked back the way they had come.

“He will come after us any moment now. To kill me. To kill you as well, after he has raped you. If you want to live, we must hurry now.”

Zarabeth staggered forward. It was dark now, finally, and they were running across a narrow strip of swampland that gave into another thin forest of pines, then stopped at the edge of the viksfjord.

“Faster,” Ingunn said from behind her. “He will find us, by all the gods, I know it.”

“Nay, we will beat him.” She prayed as she ran, prayed to her Christian God, to each of the Viking gods in turn. The pain in her side was unbearable, but she merely ran hunched over, holding herself, her breathing hoarse, her throat burning.

They stumbled in the boggy ground, falling several times, helping each other up, only to run and stumble again.