Rune King

There was a larger tent, toward the outside of the camp. Strange. It seemed important, yet it wasn't near the center. When she went inside, part of the question was answered. Her hands, to her great surprise, were freed. She could already begin to guess where this was going.

She'd dropped her knife in town, and now she wanted it more than anything. She wasn't about to let some Viking barbarian have his way with her. She'd kill him before she let that happen. She'd kill herself.

There was a roll intended for a bed, and what might have passed for a table. She had to remind herself that they were carrying all of this, and that sometimes comfort would be sacrificed for portability, because the tent, though large, was practically empty.

She heard the flap of the tent open, heard heavy footsteps coming up behind her. Deirdre tensed, ready to fight at any moment, but then he passed by her. The big man who had carried her out. Who had chased away the children. He was caked in blood, blood that she didn't want to think about.

Had he caught them? He had a blade in a sheath that he laid against the wooden crate against the tent wall, leaned a wooden shield against the other side, and turned. She wanted to run, wanted to escape, but something rooted her to the spot.

Every instinct in her body screamed out to fight that instinct, to run away. As he turned to face her, she finally found the strength to turn and start to run. With a long, loping step he caught her around the shoulder with one powerful arm, turned her round, and sent her tumbling to the bed.

She didn't like the way that he loo

ked at her. He wanted something from her, and she didn't have to wonder what it was. Men like that only wanted one thing from women like her, she knew. That was the way of the world. She wasn't going to let him have it.

A knife handle stuck out of his heavy leather belt, tantalizing. He caught her looking. She reached up to take it, but he was faster. The big man put a knee on her chest and kept her pressed to the ground with all his weight. Still, she could reach it. He slapped her hand away, the weight on her chest taking her breath. With it, her fight.

"Let me be!" She shouted the words, knowing that he spoke a strange language she didn't recognize. He shook his head.

"I need you."

"I'll kill you," she answered. She readied herself to grab at the knife again.

"You can't," he said. She reached for the knife again, and again he slapped her hand away.

Then, as if he were reconsidering, he pulled his weight back off of her. She gasped for breath. She definitely didn't like the way he looked at her. Then he pulled the knife free from its sheath. Deirdre felt strangely numb about it. What was the point of killing her now, if not before?

No, he wasn't going to. As he flipped the knife around and handed it to her, she frowned. There was a plan at work, surely. He'd stop her somehow. He stood and reached down a hand to help her up off the ground. She took it, but instead of standing she used it to pull herself into a lunge forward, pulling him in towards her.

When she stepped back, his knife was buried inches-deep in his stomach.

And then he did something that surprised her. He laughed. She gripped the knife again, twisting the blade, and he groaned out in pain. The laughter continued. She pulled hard, trying to carve a large hole in him.

He pushed her back off him, onto her back. The knife came free of his stomach easily, leaving a red mess on the white shirt he'd worn, beside the red bloody hole left by the spear that had gone through and through.

She couldn't have missed his guts, unless it was some sort of trick. It was absolutely impossible, absolutely. He would be dead, whether it took a day or a week, it was as sure as anything. So why did she feel so sure that he hadn't been the least bit effected?

The wound in his gut had bled badly—for a moment. Then, like most, it had closed up, and now, after a long day's march he wasn't sure that he felt it at all.

If he twisted hard, he could feel some tightness, he thought. But it could have been his imagination. He imagined himself to feel pain from most of his wounds, but few of them even left a scar for more than a week or so.

Gunnar sucked in a breath through his teeth, replaying the night before in his mind. What had he wanted when he had her taken to his tent?

He'd wanted what he had always wanted. He wanted to have the damn 'blessing' lifted. He wanted to live like his brothers, to take scars, like a warrior.

Yet, there had been a thousand other things in mind when he'd seen her there. He'd wanted—Gods above, he'd wanted something very different from her expertise as a witching woman. The way that her dress, torn from the morning before, had let just enough of her spill out when she was pushed onto her back. He blinked the memory away.

The primal feeling he'd gotten when he put his weight down on her, knowing that he could have taken whatever he wanted. The thought set him on edge. What he wanted had nothing to do with a woman's body. He was leader on this raid, and he wouldn't let anything distract him.

That he would never join his brothers in Valhalla, that concerned him. Concerned him enough that he had to see it rectified before another failed expedition sent him home alone, carrying only the memories of his comrades.

He refocused his sights on the horizon. There it was, another village. They were only a few miles out, now. Best to make camp here, where they wouldn't risk being seen. He stopped abruptly, letting the men behind him stop in their own time. Valdemar walked past, brushing shoulders with Gunnar.

It was probably intended as a slight, he thought. But better to ignore it than to let him see any chink in the armor. Valdemar had always been a gifted fighter, that much was without a doubt.

But he was too aggressive. He couldn't make the right decisions under pressure. He was clever enough, true, but he always raised the stakes too high. Gunnar smiled. He sounded as if he were describing himself. Dangerously similar. And if they were dangerously similar, Gunnar knew what would come next.

Did he want to stop it?