He turned to head toward them, turning his sword to its deadly purpose. One after another. Mechanical, trained, and easy. He barely had to think about it. Even still, the more that he cut down the more seemed to appear, every one of them committed to making sure that neither of them were able to leave.
He jerked his blade free of another English corpse, his head swiveling to keep an eye out. Magnus called out to someone for help, but the call came from too far. At the same time, an Englishman with a shiny brass signet called out orders from atop a horse, at a safe distance.
The fight seemed as if it were going in their favor, but the way that things were going there was no way to win it. The realization was there, and he couldn't figure a way that it was wrong, but he couldn't make himself care, either. If he hadn't made the promise, he had to admit, he would never leave here.
But he had to, and he couldn't afford anything else. The look of recognition on Ulf's face was followed by an instant of surprise. An Englishman took the chance to marshal an attack, but Ulf knocked it away before separating the man's head from his body. Trained, quick, and getting quicker by the minute.
A voice from far away cried out, and Gunnar ignored it, like he ignored all of them. He had a job to do. It took him a minute to realize that it was his name being called. He turned, not stopping his retreat, barely pausing in the fight with the ambushing soldiers.
Valdemar stood, a half-dozen or more English bodies almost in a heap at his feet. His shoulders heaved with the effort of breathing under the weight of his heavy ax.
"Gunnar! Come back here and fight me!"
Gunnar turned back, jerked his hand free, and turned to the next one.
"Coward!"
He ran the point through the man's gut until it showed on the other side, and then pried it free again. He had something to do. Had a job to perform. Deirdre didn't belong on a battlefield. It was too dangerous. They were all dead men, after all, if they stayed. He couldn't let Deirdre face that fate. Not after he'd sworn to protect her.
He cut his way free. The word rang in his head. Coward. He had a duty to perform. This was a priority. Nobody would doubt his courage, nor his valor, simply because he protected a defenseless woman. Never trained in fighting, lighter than the pack he carried on his back.
No, he had to go. He looked out. He'd made the edge of the fight, finally. It was a short run through the forest, and then they'd be on the other side of the ditch and free and clear. Who would follow them, with the battle still raging?
They were free. The word rang out in his head. Coward.
This was all he'd ever wanted. To strive and slay, and at the end, to be able to tell his stories forever in the feast-halls at Valhalla. And now he ran away, because—because what? Because he needed to nanny a woman grown?
His hand went to the blade at his waist without thinking. He pulled the scabbard free entirely, and held it out to Deirdre.
"Go."
Her eyebrows furrowed. She looked pretty, Gunnar thought. "You're coming with me."
"If we go together, they might follow. I can give you time to escape."
"If you're with me, then you can protect me."
He felt frustration flaring up, fought to stifle it. "When I'm certain no one will follow, then I will join you. I'll be right behind. Go, hide. I will find you."
She didn't like it, he could see it in her eyes. But she did what she was told. She took the knife, and then, as fast as her unsteady legs could carry her, she ran. Gunnar gripped the sword, turning it in his hand. Feeling it's weight.
He was no coward.
Twenty-Six
She didn't want to stop. Didn't want to think at all about what was happening, other than to keep moving. She was away. Gunnar would follow. She had to believe him. If not, then she… Deirdre struggled to figure what she would do. She would have to figure something out.
But for the first time in months, she was completely free. She enjoyed the feeling of the wind in her hair, enjoyed knowing that no matter what happened, no one would stop her. She let out a long breath and kept moving. She needed to keep moving, no matter what happened.
Her bare feet ached and stung with each step as brambles and pricks jabbed her, but she kept moving. Her legs steadied themselves as she moved, as she got more and more used to the idea.
The feeling of freedom was strange, and it mixed in with other feelings that she didn't want to have to confront right now. What had she done in that camp? She'd killed a man, and not a Viking. Not a man who she had any reason to hate. He'd called her 'whore' and threatened to kill her, so she'd killed him first.
Was that what she was now? Someone who killed without a second thought? The thought made her double over and vomit.
Keep moving, she told herself. Don't think about it.
She looked back in the direction she'd come, still trying to move as fast as she could, and stumbled over a tree root. There was nothing the way she'd come. If she remembered, she was heading… east? Should be toward the sea.