Rune King

He pushed the memory out of his mind. There was a time for that. There would be plenty of time in the future, when he brought her home. The question of whose home crossed his mind, but he dismissed it. What did that matter, in the long run?

Whatever happened, though, tomorrow was the last day. He'd been forced to lie twice to her already. Whether she would bear a third time or not didn't matter. He wouldn't stand for it from himself.

Gunnar swung himself back up into the tree, ignoring the pain in his leg that his vigorous lovemaking had only worsened. Stretching out, leaning back against the trunk, he settled in and started to watch the camp stirring again after their fight.

He couldn't afford to sleep, not yet and certainly not heavily enough to get much rest. There wasn't much chance that anything would happen early, but Gunnar couldn't afford that risk. He started to sing to himself, his voice low and soft.

A tune he'd learned from his mother, when he was little. The old memories threatened to come flooding back, but he held them back. No point in getting sentimental over nothing, after all. Thinking about his childhood, about his mother, only ever made Gunnar confused.

He didn't need that sort of distraction right now, not when he needed to keep focused. But without the song, without something to keep his mind and his body occupied, he would fall asleep.

So he tapped a rhythm on a branch of the tree that propped his arm up comfortably and hummed a song that brought back memories he didn't want to think about, and settled in to watch.

The moon was already more than halfway through its trip across the sky. In a few short hours, the sun's rays would start to peek through the trees. But until then, he had a long night ahead of him. And a longer day to follow.

Gunnar saw the camp moving before his brain knew what he was seeing. He'd let himself relax, and let himself slip into the twilight dangerously close to sleep as the morning started to break. Too little to do, too little to see, and he had barely been able to sleep more than a few hours a night the past week.

If he was lucky, then Leif had found a way to tell Valdemar what was coming.

&n

bsp; No, he mentally corrected himself. Leif was more responsible than he was petty. He'd have given the message if he'd had to do it with his dying breath. If he was very lucky, then they'd managed to subdue his old rival. But Gunnar knew better than that.

He took a deep breath and let himself down from the tree slowly, keeping himself in a good position to watch which way they went, tracking west until he was able to move alongside them.

The pace was easier than the one he'd taken to catch up. Moving at a slow march was more comfortable than he'd remembered, and he slipped into the old routine easily, even as he tried to keep himself hidden. Two hours.

The question wasn't whether or not the camp knew. That was no question at all. They knew.

The real question, the one that made Gunnar's hairs stand on end, was whether or not the knowing would help. Valdemar was many things, but subtle had never been one of them.

Half an hour out, Gunnar had started to have high hopes. They doubled their pace, then tripled, and then they were moving at a dead run, the horses cantering behind to keep up.

He'd long-since given up on the idea of going around the camp. There was no way of knowing which way was the right one, and they knew that they'd been seen. They could just as easily have decided that they needed to move, to maintain the surprise.

Or perhaps they would expect that the scout had gone back and reported. The English might expect them to go around, and circle around. Gunnar knew it wasn't likely, but he allowed himself some hope. If he was lucky, indeed.

If he weren't lucky, then the only option would be to punch through. There wouldn't be any winning an open fight, but if they had momentum, the Danes might be able to get past before they suffered losses too heavy to bear.

And Valdemar had built up the momentum well. If they ever stood a chance, then they did now. The English line came into view from where Gunnar stood, elevated and in a position to see as far as the thick trees would allow him.

Valdemar led. The distance was far enough that he couldn't make him out clearly, but the body language, the distance to the second place, the choice of weapon all left little doubt in Gunnar's mind.

But instead of punching through, the camp smashed into them, broke the defenses, and then…

Gunnar cursed. They should have known better. But then again, he should have known better, too. The chances of the men turning down a fight, even one that they couldn't win—Gunnar realized quickly how foolish he had been to hope against hope that they'd do what he wanted them to.

If he didn't get down there now, it would be a bloodbath. But worse than that—Deirdre was there. If he was lucky, then the English soldiers would recognize her as a prisoner. They'd let her go.

Gunnar had just seen first-hand, though, that he couldn't hope on being lucky.

At best, he would have to make his own luck. He put his hand on the unfamiliar English sword and let out a roar. He'd need all the strength he could get to cross the distance in time to make a difference in the fight.

And whether he made a difference or not to his men didn't matter, either, he realized.

He had a promise to keep.

Twenty-Four