Rune King

Then he turned and surveyed the battlefield. No casualties, he noted, on the Dane side. That was good, at least. But they all seemed to have their hands full, even as the English bodies piled up. He wanted to join them, wanted to take his share of the glory, but…

He turned his blurring vision on Deirdre. She could protect herself, he thought, smiling at the sound of the bottle coming down on the English head. But not if they had another pair of men come through. He would have to stay, to protect her. As he'd promised.

Thunder rumbled around him, as if in the same moment as the thought occurred to him. He had to get back into the wagon, to protect her. He put his hands on the base, then tried to step up to the buckboard, made it halfway on, and his foot slipped on the rain-slick foothold. Deirdre reached forward, grabbing at his shirt and helping him up.

"Thank you," she said softly. His vision was starting to dim, but he couldn't afford to pass out yet. He had more to do, there would be more men coming.

But more men didn't come, and Gunnar's vision dimmed. More and more, until he could only see for flashes. Thunder rumbled as Thor tore through the battlefield, and finally he could hear the cries of victory from a thousand miles away.

He had to find Deirdre, had to make sure that she was okay. Had to make sure she wasn't hurt. He had to have her, had to keep her safe. Thor had spoken, had told him that she was necessary. And she was important to him.

She was the key to his plans to retake the band from Valdemar. And, as the delirium took her, he added to himself—the most important woman in the world and the only thing that mattered.

Then the world was black and he cursed himself because he couldn't protect her. How could he protect someone when he couldn't even move?

The question echoed in his mind, and then exhaustion and pain wrapped him up and sent him spiraling into the land of sleep.

Twelve

The noise of battle faded long before Deirdre's heart stopped racing. She'd been in the battle before, but only far away. She'd left before she had really felt the effects of the last ambush, and every raid she had known to be happening, she had been far away from—tied to a pole, or stuck sitting in the wagon.

This was the first time that she'd really had to confront it, and seeing the violence only reminded her what she had already learned about Gunnar watching him fight Valdemar.

He wasn't anything like her, not the least bit. He lived somewhere she would never be able to go. Yet, how different were they? She'd hit that man over the head, and he'd crumpled just the same.

The scene in front of her looked all quiet and peaceful, but she knew that it was misleading. The English soldier at her feet could start to wake at any moment. Gunnar lay, delirious, on the floor. If he were to wake up, she wouldn't be able to rely on him.

The knife she had kept hidden kept drawing her attention, kept reminding her that it was ready to go, any time she needed it. But that would mean going against who she was, who she'd always been. She wasn't a killer, didn't want to hurt people. She would like to help people, if possible.

But that didn't mean that she was willing to do anything to save lives. It didn't mean she was willing to die for those ideals. When a Northman's face appeared at the rear of the wagon, making sure that neither of them had escaped, and the wounded were still alive, she was surprised how happy she was to see him.

After all, these were her captors, they were the reason she had suffered so much. But it freed her from the need to choose between death and murder. And the shaved-headed man seemed to put her more at ease than the others, seemed to understand what she was going through. It gave her a certain measure of peace, thinking about it.

He reached in and pulled the English bodies out, to the floor. The one she had clobbered groaned loudly at the treatment, but Deirdre was surprised to find that she couldn't have cared less. He deserved what he'd gotten.

Then the shaved man looked at her. "You are unhurt?"

"Yes," she answered, still breathless. "Gunnar… protected me."

"Is he hurt?"

"I don't—" she struggled to get the words out. "He was hurt, but he…" she looked at him, distracted, afraid, and more than a little bit out of her mind. "Right?"

"He's tougher than most," the Northman agreed.

"I'll take a look at him, though. That's what Valdemar told me to do."

"We were able to see this group coming—no bad casualties. These three, didn't do what we expected."

The apology, if indeed that was what he had meant it to be, wasn't a particularly effective one, but she had to take it. She had other things to do.

Turning Gunnar over was hard, harder than she had expected, and when the Northman came into the wagon to help he noticed the broken bench support, where Gunnar had been tied. He must have realized the implication immediately, that he could have run if he wanted. But he said nothing and between the two of them it was an easy task to lift and turn him.

Deirdre had seen the sword stick straight through him. It was as bad a wound as she'd seen him take, but she knew that it wasn't likely that it would last more than an hour. The way that she'd seen him heal before… She started preparing her poultices again.

The motion was easy and practiced and repetitive. She'd done all the hard work already, gathering and separating the herbs out, made all the decisions. Now she just had to do what she had to do. It was almost meditative.

But the time that she had now, to think and to relax, proved to be anything but thoughtful and relaxing.