Rune King

The noise of someone moving beside the wagon was soft. She almost didn't hear it, but with the tension of the night, her ears strained for even the tiniest sound.

And then someone came around, his face twisted in a mixed scowl of frustration and concentration. Deirdre couldn't keep silent as the wave of relief swept over her.

"Gunnar."

The cart wasn't hard to find. The prisoners were kept in the front wagon, with the medical wagon tied back behind. Not much different from how he had set it up himself, he thought. Good.

He kept himself low, even as he moved past them. Nobody would be watching, here. What was the point of guarding them closely? The prisoners were all spineless, and if they tried to escape then the perimeter guards would see them easily.

But if he were found before he was ready, Gunnar knew, he would be in a good deal of trouble. He turned the corner silently, came around, ready for whatever he saw but most prepared to shake Deirdre awake.

He needed his answers, and he was going to g

et them, regardless of whether it ruined her beauty sleep. Why had she betrayed him? Why had she then left behind the signal flowers? Why was he taking wounds again, and why had he been healing before?

When he saw her, though, he wasn't prepared for the feeling that shot through him. Relief surged through as he saw her face, as he saw that she was still sitting upright. She wasn't hurt, not too badly. He felt the frustration and the hardness fading away.

He wanted nothing more than to get his answers, and then he would move on. Painless and easy, no problems. He could hardly keep the smile off his face, but he forced himself to stay silent. As he put a foot on the buckboard and swung himself up, ignoring the pain of the cut in his leg and the soreness in his body, she spoke his name.

"What's going on here," he began. Simple, direct. It was the right way to go, he thought.

"Everything's gone crazy since you left," she said, her eyes frantic as she searched for the words.

He sneered at the choice of words. Since he left, indeed. The hard edge that he had felt waning sharpened again, reminding him what exactly he had been upset about. Yes, he had left. That was the right way to put it.

Why had he left, of course? Well that was another issue, nothing to be worried about. No, why would that be an issue?

"What sort of crazy?"

"Leif, Ulf, and Eirik, they have been planning something."

"That much is obvious," he whispered, tersely. "Tell me what they're planning."

He wanted to hear it from her lips, to see if it matched with what he'd heard. If she were playing a game, trying to keep both sides questioning what was happening, then she would like just as easily to him as she had to Valdemar, and more than likely as easily as she had to his comrades.

"They're trying to ambush Valdemar. I warned him where they would be, so that he would lie in wait. Tonight. But only after I told them first, so that they would be ready with an ambush of their own."

"He won't go quietly."

"No, I didn't think he would. Could he win?"

"I don't know. Can't ever be sure of victory. Or defeat."

He tried to think hard about what the next question would be. She was leaving things out, he knew that much. He hadn't heard enough to know for certain, not enough to challenge her on it. Nothing was a lie, per se, but the omissions were enough worry.

"Gunnar, take me away."

"How did you leave the trail for me?"

"Trail?"

The look, even in the low-light, that he saw in her eyes was clearly lack of understanding. She had no idea what he was talking about.

"Someone left a trail behind you. A line of flowers. The first I saw were red. You had some like them. I remembered the color."

Her brow furrowed and she leaned back, producing a single flower. "Like this?"

"That is the one."