Rune King

How could she know for certain that the loss of a handful of northmen would stop the rest from killing? Perhaps their deaths would only drive the group to greater heights, pushing them in their grief and rage to try to avenge their comrades' deaths.

But these boys lying in the wagon, she knew for certain. Without her help, they would die. Gunnar might make it without her, with his peculiar body. Then again, he hadn't healed from the wound in his side yet.

If they'd applied the poison liberally, he should be dead from that alone, but it seemed that his ability to survive applied to more than just spears stuck through his gut, or they'd been light on poison.

She had spent half her life learning how to use herbs, to help people. Not to kill them. Not to give their enemies weapons to be used against them. She straightened herself and tried to watch out the flap of the wagon.

She wasn't about to let three people die so that she could have a hope of getting home again. Not when she had no way of even knowing how to get there.

The sound of someone outside the wagon, though, sent a shiver down her spine. When an Englishman came into view, for a moment she hoped that he would save her. That he would decide to cut her free. She didn't have time to feel happy to see him before she realized how mistaken she'd been.

With a gleam in his eye he stepped up and into the back, his knife gleaming. It didn't take any magic to see where he was looking and know what he was thinking. He was reaching down to fiddle with his belt when a two-hundred pound blur caught him in the side, throwing him hip-first into the bench seat hard enough to hear wood splintering.

Gunnar was breathing hard, blood already starting to seep through the bandage further, trickling down his side. His hand flashed to his belt, reaching for a knife that had been taken from him. Too late, he saw the English reading his own knife, and he only managed to catch the man's knife with his forearm, turning aside what would have been a bad wound.

A heavy fist hit the man in the chin. Deirdre thought that she saw the man's eyes rolling around in his head, as if he were about to pass out, but after a half-second he had straightened up and another arcing stab made it around Gunnar's guard and the blade caught in his side.

The Northman grabbed for the other's arm, but the Englishman was too quick. He pulled back and attacked again, embedding the point deep in Gunnar's shoulder. The smile on Gunnar's face told the Englishman and Deirdre both what a mistake that had been.

He tried to pull his hand free, but it was no hope. Gunnar wrapped a thick arm around the knife-arm of the Englishman and then twisted with a sickening pop. When Gunnar dropped his arm, the Englishman still crying out in agony, the arm hung limply at his side.

Gunnar took that moment to pull the dagger from his shoulder, wincing just a bit as he pulled it free, and started to drive the blade home in the enemy's chest.

Deirdre watched with mixed amazement and horror. This was who he was, she realized. He wasn't a farmer who had been soldiering on the side. Not like the men that she had seen in her life. Not like the other prisoners.

Gunnar was good at one thing, and it was killing. She couldn't begin to say whether he felt bad about it, whether he thought about the lives he snuffed out. But he was better than a good fighter—if he had been uninjured, how much faster, how much stronger would he have been?

He pulled the knife free and kicked the Englishman back to the ground, sending him toppling. That was a mistake, Deirdre thought, but she didn't want to say anything. Couldn't afford to say anything, for fear that her premonition of someone seeing the body fall and coming to investigate would come true.

She realized a moment later, as two more men climbed the buckboard, investigating the wagon where their comrade had fallen from, how silly that thought had been. A body falling out was enough reason to investigate.

What did it say about how things were going outside, though, that three separate English soldiers had found time to investigate the wagons in the back?

She didn't have time to ask. The wagon was dangerously full, and all it would take was one bad turn for a knife to find her. Her mind immediately flashed to the bottle, the one that no one had come back to collect. She reached down, thankful that it hadn't rolled far.

Her hand wrapped around it, and she gave a silent apology for what she was about to do.

Gunnar's hand started to move, even the easy and practiced movement of stabbing sending a shock of pain through him that would have told him to stop if he could afford to. Then, before the knife hit home, a loud, high-pitched thump rang out and the man slumped to the ground as a wide-eyed Deirdre watched him fall.

The bottle of liquor in her hand fell to the ground and she pulled herself back away from the man's unconscious body, unable to take her eyes off him. Gunnar smiled to himself at the sight as he turned himself to the remaining Englishman.

Unlike the other two he had already pulled his sword free of its scabbard, and though the weapon would be unwieldy in the close quarters of the wagon it meant that he had a considerable amount more to work with when it came to swordplay.

He slapped away a thrust and put his elbow into Gunnar's gut, pulling the sword back again before the Dane could right himself. It would be hard to kill him, but only one good thwack with the blade would put Deirdre in the grave, and Gunnar's hopes of reclaiming command would be dead along with her.

He wasn't sure that he could afford the time to ready his knife again as the sword started to move, so Gunnar used his shoulder again, trying to dive out the back of the wagon before the rope that had been tied 'round his wrists came taut as he breached the outside.

Rain hit him, the drops bigger than they'd appeared from inside, and lightning crashed seemingly only feet away. Gunnar smiled. Thor had decided to join in for their glory, as well.

What could it have meant for the fight he was in now, though? Gunnar's shoulders strained, the twist and pull of the rope causing a bad ache. He could hear the wood straining to keep him up, but even still he tried to pull himself back into the wagon.

He was unable to twist back to face it, so his shoulders just kept pulling, tighter and tighter as he tried to either fall the rest of the way, or get back in. The wood splintered behind him and then with a pop he fell.

The fall itself wouldn't have been a problem, but as he took the drop the English brought his hands up defensively, sending the point of the sword through his shoulder, and Gunnar cried out in agony. The pain brought him back to the present, pushing away thoughts of what the Gods were thinking of the battle that he fought in.

Gunnar had no time to think about whether or not Thor supported what he was doing. The way that his vision danced in front of him, he might only have moments to finish the fight. With his hands tied, and the knife held between them, he brought it down hard into the English skul

l, bringing it down again and again until the enemy soldier stopped moving.