Rune King

She had left to go and die, or to find someplace else to live entirely. Seeing someone who looked very much like her teacher, five years older but still the same woman, and seeming to head towards their old home—it tore open old wounds that Deirdre didn't want to think about.

Why had she left in the first place? That was the real question. If there was no way of knowing, there was no reason to worry. But what if Deirdre thought wrong? What if there was very much a reason to worry? She couldn't let herself get distracted.

She needed to get to Norwich and see what she could do to help Gunnar. He had done so much for her, protected her so many times, that she couldn't just abandon him. Not even if it was what he'd asked her to do. She couldn't believe he was lying there on some battlefield.

But even if she hadn't cured his immortality, what happened to a man who healed his wounds quickly, if his head were separated from his body? The answer seemed obvious. No need to ask herself. She took a deep breath. This wasn't a time for worrying or a time for panic.

Did Brigid have some part to play in all of this? If so, why had she left? Why was she coming back now? And why had she left in such a hurry? The questions were too many, and the answers—there weren't any answers at all.

There was one person who knew the answers to all the questions she had, and she had just walked out the door. If it had all been a big mistake, and that woman was nobody at all, she wouldn't have left like she did. Nobody in the place looked dangerous. Rather, they all had a very stable air of people who came here all the time.

She was the only change, and though it was a bit of a leap to assume, she had to guess that she was the only reason someone would bolt out of the place.

She could follow after. Even on horseback, she could easily guess which way her teacher would have gone. After all, it seemed as if she were going straight back where Deirdre had just left. It would only be a little while, and then she'd be able to ask, straight to Brigid's face, what had happened. Why she'd left.

Deirdre dropped a shilling on the table, knowing she'd overpaid. Time was of the essence, after all. A second realization hit her as she walked out the door. She couldn't do both. She had to be in Norwich if she wanted to help Gunnar. Or she could head in the opposite direction and confront her teacher. Ask why she'd left her, why she had just abandoned her.

She frowned. There wasn't any choice to be made. One of them was more important. She stepped back up onto the horse, adjusted her skirts, and got the horse moving again.

The entire atmosphere was electric. Even the feet walking past seemed to have doubled, and the noise of hammering the scaffolding together wasn't going any more. Unless they were going to be released for good behavior—not likely—there wasn't much time left. Perhaps none at all. Perhaps they had waited too long.

But the guard had become more and more serious about his job as time went on. As the finish line approached and he started to show signs that he might actually have some sort of future. There had been debates about what to do when he managed to stay sober tonight.

They guessed that there would be a moment where their chains would be struck off, and in that moment they would make their escape. Instants before the executioner's ax fell. But it was not exactly the sort of contingency plan that anyone wanted to test. After all, it assumed that the English were fools.

They had done their best to marshal defenses up to this point, but nobody had the resources to fight back. These city soldiers, though, they had been led well, and they had planned well. There wasn't any hope that they might slip up at the last minute, because they hadn't slipped up before.

But the last moment is when everyone slips up, Gunnar thought. He looked over at the guard. He was alone, the thick doors barred shut. He led the scrawny teenage sneak-thief back into his cell. Or carried him, more like, since the boy seemed to be having trouble walking.

A blue bottle came out of the cabinet, and suddenly every eye was on him. He might be able to keep himself sober enough to be afraid. But the night before they were executed? He wasn't going to get another chance. They let themselves hope that tonight would be the night that he looked drunk and stupid enough to risk entering the den of lions for a little bit of his sadistic fun.

He took a drink, then another. Gunnar sneered. The man drank as if it were his job. No time to enjoy his liquor, nor revelry to join it. Just a man hurtling toward drunkenness. Tonight would be the night, whatever happened. He could already see it, and the others with him could see it as well.

Just a matter of time, waiting and choosing when the moment was right. He stood up, the bottle hanging loosely in his hand, and walked the wall, inspecting each cell. As if he were looking for something, but Gunnar knew from looking at him that he was trying to intimidate them.

Magnus seemed to recognize it, as well. No one signaled him to begin as far as Gunnar saw, but he began wailing out, a loud and particularly bawdy Danish drinking song. Magnus was no songbird, either. If he had to provoke the man's ire, that might be the right way to go about it. If Gunnar could get himself free, he might have put the beating on the boy himself.

The guard shouted, his words already a little slurred. "Shut yer yap!"

Magnus knew his game, though. No, he wouldn't begin to do that. Not until he'd gotten what he wanted.

The guard rose from his little stool, his eyes screwed up and squinty in a way that he must have thought was intimidating. "Why, if you don't stop that—"

He rapped the billy-club against the bars hard, as if to show what was going to happen to Magnus. That he didn't immediately start fumbling for his keys when he said it was a sign in itself that he felt something was off. That he realized deep down that he was out of his depth with these Nords.

But after draining the bottle, every man in the prison was ready to have Magnus put on a spike, and the sadistic streak that gave the guard what little motivation he had started to spark. Perhaps just a little beating, Gunnar whispered to him. Just for a moment. After all, they're all chained up.

He reached for the keys that hung at his belt and started flipping through them. His fingers fumbled a little with the slowed reactions of drunkenness, but it didn't take more than a few moments to find the key. It opened with a satisfying, well-oiled click, and the door swung open easily.

Gunnar turned his head to check. Valdemar's hand clutched the ring that held their shared chain to the wall, and he had as much slack as he would ever have. He reached out, and with a surge of adrenaline and elation, he wrapped his free arm around the man's neck and yanked him back away from the door.

"Turn him to me!" Valdemar was already reaching for the keys at the man's hips, before Gunnar could do anything more. He twisted the man roughly away to set him off-balance, and just as Gunnar had hoped he braced himself against it.

The rapid switch in the other direction caught him completely off-guard, but to Gunnar's disappointment he stayed on his feet. A hard tug from Valdemar and the keys pulled free with a loud pop as the ring tore away.

The guard had started to fight back already, and Gunnar covered his mouth. It would only take a moment to kill the man. But he needed a grip on him, needed to catch him 'round the throat, and the way that he twisted to get free, with only one hand…

If he cried out, it would all be over. So he gripped with all his might on the man's mouth, using his chained arm as best he could. Valdemar tried keys desperately beside him, finally freeing himself and giving Gunnar use of his chained arm. He rapped the man on the head, hard. With a little luck, they'd be free and clear. If he hadn't hit hard enough, though, the man would be up and awake.