Rune King

Gunnar could easily wait all night, wait until it happened and use the diversion to slip in without a lick of trouble. But without knowing what might be happening, he couldn't afford that risk. It was possible that what Gunnar had feared had exactly happened, that the band had split internally.

It didn't take long to put together a list of the men who would be upset to see him left behind, add to that the forced marches and the fact that as far as most of them knew he was injured for the first time they'd known of.

Then take the ones who wouldn't think that way, Valdemar's lackeys, and… the sides weren't hard to figure. Not at all. If that was the case, it wasn't hard to believe that Valdemar might find the opportunity to apply pressure in just the right place. A knife might find the right throat in the darkness.

He couldn't keep waiting, not any more. Gunnar kept himself low, and moved slowly. Painfully slow, through the grass. It was only twenty yards from the treeline to the camp, but it took him the better part of ten minutes to cross the gap.

Taking care was important. He couldn't afford to be caught before the time was right. Not before he'd warned Leif of the danger lurking ahead of them, and even then being caught was only a last-resort effort.

He took a deep breath and started moving again, having to force himself to move with an aching, unnatural slowness. But when he made it past the distracted guards, he already had his reward.

He heard the sound of footfalls from around a tent, coming towards him. A patrol? Suddenly the time for slow moving was gone in an instant, and he had to take a few quick, loping steps until he was around another tent.

With luck they wouldn't have been listening for him and they'd not take a quick jag over to where he now crouched, waiting. The question of which tent he wanted hadn't crossed his mind before, but now that he waited for the footsteps to pass by, he realized that he had no idea.

They weren't marked, after all. Everyone knew, because you saw the man set it up. But not Gunnar. He cursed himself for the oversight. Most men would still be in the middle of camp, of course. The drinking and relaxing, what little they had of it, would go on for a little while longer at least.

But he couldn't risk showing himself there. Perhaps a peek would at least tell him if he was right to worry. A quick glance to either side told him that no one watched him at the moment, and then he was across the way, and a short few seconds later he had a good line of sight.

Not as many as normal, he decided, but it didn't take more than a moment to realize that he was only looking at half of them. All of these were Valdemar's loyalists. A quick look around showed nothing of those who would chafe under his leadership.

It was too odd, and yet he hadn't seen any sign that the other half had split off. They'd just all, in a bunch it seemed, gone off to their tents. Gunnar listened closely for a minute to see if he heard the sound of stirring in the tent beside him.

Then he moved on to the next, and the next. Some sign that someone occupied it. Finally he caught one, and ducked down to look inside through the bottom edge, but—nothing. Magnus wouldn't have the authority to help him, but he sat on his bedroll, legs crossed and his sword leaning against his shoulder.

He looked ready for a fight.

Then Gunnar did the same again, listening then looking. A second wrong guess, but on the third he was lucky. He pulled the bottom up a bit and slipped himself inside. It made ple

nty of noise, but by the time he was in Leif had already realized who it was.

"Gunnar!" He whispered. The surprise wasn't hard to hear in his voice.

"Back from the dead," he answered, though the jest didn't touch his expression.

"Very much so! What's happened to you?"

"That's not important, right now. You have to know. There's an English ambush waiting for you. A hundred strong, at least."

Leif cursed under his breath. "You are sure?"

"I've seen them myself." He touched his thigh where they'd grazed his leg, but it hadn't healed yet. He didn't have time to worry at it right now, he had important things to take care of yet.

Leif nodded silently. "You should join us," he said after a long moment. "Tonight, we rid ourselves of a thorn in our side. Valdemar has a plan to ambush him, but we've tricked him."

"How have you tricked him?"

"Your witch gave him false information, or so she says. We've got more men waiting. When things get ugly, we give the signal, and nearly a full score of men descend on his little ambush."

Another question that Deirdre would have to answer, he thought. She'd been a busy little bee since he had been gone. If it wasn't already certain, his next stop had just been decided for him.

Gunnar shook his head. He had things to take care of.

Twenty

Deirdre laid with her eyes closed and tried to sleep. Her ears strained to hear the noises outside, the sound of the Northmen speaking their strange Northern language. It distracted her, made it harder to sleep, but she couldn't stop herself, either.

Any minute, a shout would go up. Surprise and alarm, it would overtake the camp, and then everything would go to hell. She'd been too lax. She'd let things follow the course that everyone else wanted and now that she wanted to play she found boogeymen in every dark corner.