Rune King

Don't go any faster, Deirdre prayed. Whatever happened, everything would be fine if they could just keep going slow. Slow meant there wasn't any danger. Slow meant everything kept going as expected.

Slow meant that Gunnar had been wrong about what was waiting for them in the trees.

She looked nervously to see what sort of signs she could see. If she was lucky, then she had all day to herself, and then in the evening she'd be taken away. If she wasn't lucky, she had at least an hour before trouble was going to start. She didn't feel lucky, that much was certain.

The time gave her plenty of space to think about the night before. About what had happened—the first thought to jump into her mind brought a heavy blush to her cheeks. She blinked the thought away.

He'd said something else. Asked her about the poppies. If she believed him, then he had seen someone putting up flowers that marked their trail. But it hadn't been her. She still had all of them—well, those she hadn't used.

That meant that either someone had been trying to leave a trail for Gunnar, or for someone else entirely. Deirdre wondered at it for a long moment. Eirik, Ulf, and Balgrouf—they were certainly Gunnar's allies. She couldn't consider them helpful to her, but they had at least both wanted him to make it back.

But she couldn't just let herself think that things were going to be alright. That would be all well and good, but it wasn't remotely safe.

Could it be that they marked the way for someone else? Every friend that the Northmen had was in that camp right now. Even Gunnar was dubiously friendly. Anyone else, they wouldn't be following to help out.

She couldn't know for sure, but it seemed unlikely that they had someone else coming along for backup. Gunnar certainly hadn't thought so.

The wagon lurched hard, nearly sending Deirdre sprawling onto the floor, and they kicked into higher speed. No luck after all, she thought frustratedly. It was a good thing that she'd known to expect it, or she might be afraid.

Gunnar had warned her that they were going to find an ambush. He hoped they'd circle around, but she didn't find that likely. The next best outcome would be that they broke through without too much fighting. From what Gunnar said, there was no hope that they were going to fight to a victory.

Deirdre knew Valdemar, though, and she didn't have any illusions. More than likely, he thought he alone could fight the battle—and win. It would be an ugly realization that even if he did, his men most certainly couldn't.

The Northmen, who had continued pretending injury through the morning, sat themselves up and braced against the sides of the wagon. Seeing them moving so easily brought the blush back to her face when she realized that if anyone heard her the night before, it was those two.

If they had heard, they gave no indication of it, holding on tight to the seats and the front-side of the cart and waited to see what would happen. Seeing them holding on so tight, Deirdre realized that they had exactly the right idea. If the wagon were to tip, or flip, she'd be in a world of hurt.

And then the cart bounced hard as it went over a large stone. Deirdre's view out the back immediately told her that her assessment had been wrong. That wasn't any sort of rock. An English soldier lay on the ground, his head caked with bright-red blood.

He wasn't moving.

She had a moment to worry as the cart slowed, and then stopped seemingly on its own. Fighting was going on all around them, on all sides. It was a strange place to choose to put a cart, she thought at first, until she realized that whoever had been running the team had likely either died or jumped off to join the fight.

A young-looking Northman, brown hair worn long, went down under the attack of a pair of English soldiers who seemed to then decide that their pairing hadn't been as much use as it seemed, and split off.

One of them saw the tent and seemed to realize what it meant. She had to hope that he was going to be intercepted before he arrived to ruin her last hopes. As she felt the wagon dip to the rear with a man's foot, she knew that her hopes had been in vain.

As he came in Deirdre pressed herself back against the canvas side, trying to get herself as far away as she could, but it was no use. He ducked his head and came through. He looked nothing like the others that Deirdre had seen. Nothing like the men back in Malbeck. This wasn't a farmer who had been handed a sword.

His nose looked twice-broken, and never set properly, and he had a scar on his cheek that she guessed wasn't left by an overzealous lover. His sword, though, was still a dull steely gray—no blood on it, yet.

Both the wounded Northerners started to raise themselves up to meet the attack. Seeing one armed, the soldier turned his attention to the other in the moment of surprise and thrust his arm out to catch him square in the chest.

A movement, almost reflexive, sent the blade wide into the younger Viking's shoulder. He might have been able to respond, if not for the English boot that came down hard on his head, sending him back to the ground. The blade didn't miss a second time.

The one with the knife—the one Deirdre hadn't disarmed, she thought glumly—gave him a little more trouble. By the time he'd dealt with the other, the English soldier had a fight on his hands. The knife-wielding Northlander had made his feet, and his blade was streaking towards the Englishman's face, left uncovered by the metal cap he wore.

A quick duck back and the blade was past. The English abandoned his blade in the dying boy's chest and planted a steel-clad fist into the Viking's nose, which came away pouring blood onto his face.

To his credit, the Northman didn't let up. He pulled the knife back in and made another stab, this one trying to arc wide before darting into the Englishman's armpit. The Englishman stepped in and jabbed his forehead into the man's face again. This time he couldn't keep his footing and stumbled back, then hit the bench and fell onto it.

Deirdre felt the movement, felt it jar her back to reality, and remembered the knife that she had kept secreted, reached for it with her tied hands and hoped that she wasn't seen doing it.

The Englishman took the opportunity to pull out a little dirk of his own, more suitable for the close quarters of the wagon. Another thrust missed badly, the Viking's vision completely ruined by the repeated hits to the head. The Englishman didn't miss his own riposte.

Last he turned on Deirdre. She had the knife in her hands, now, tucked to hide behind her arm.

"Please don't hurt me," she begged, her panic very real.