Rune King

Thirty-Three

For a moment the world stood still as Deirdre fell to the ground, the weight of her body jabbing the blade into the guard in front of her. To her surprise the pair of them sent the other guard to the ground as well. Then everything started happening again.

Gunnar turned and kicked a guard away from her, the movement awkward with his hands shackled behind his back. Someone in the crowd screamed, and then people started to run in a mass around her, away. She looked up at Gunnar, who kicked roughly at the guard beside her.

He looked as controlled as a man could without the use of his hands. As if he had known all along that she would come, and had been preparing to respond. But she hadn't been sure herself if she would. So he obviously couldn't have known, could he?

She tried to look through the crowd as it streamed past, to see what had scared them so, and saw a tight mass of Northmen. She knew the sort of havoc they could wreak if they set their minds to it, and knew that if there was time to run then it was because they were more interested in the guards than in the peasants.

It was time to go. She couldn't be here when the city-folk cleared out, or there would be a reckoning. Her face on wanted posters, the whole thing. She needed to be gone now. She gave another glance to Gunnar, but she would have to find him later. Then she jumped up and was in the crowd before she could change her mind.

She turned back, the press of the crowd moving her whether she wanted to or not, hoping to catch a glance of what was happening. In an instant the giant, Ulf, had come up to Gunnar and dashed off his chains, the messenger-boy striking Valdemar's off as well, and the battle had begun.

They had been hopelessly outnumbered when she had finally made her escape, but now they seemed prepared for it somehow, as if they were better-equipped somehow. She wanted to stay, wanted to see what would happen. Wanted to make sure that Gunnar would escape alive. But she couldn't afford the time, nor the risk. She had to be gone and she had to go now. The crowd continued to press, though slower now as they pressed through the eastern castle gate.

The last thing she saw before she turned to follow the crowd was a tight mass of soldiers pulling together to block the gate. They should have closed the portcullis, she thought. But they would learn that before it was too long.

Then she was being pulled further away as the people tried to press through her, to get as far from the fighting as possible. These people had the right idea, and without her knife she shouldn't have considered staying for even a moment. Her hand automatically shifted to her pouch, felt the sheath there, but no knife. She had left it buried in the man's chest.

Yet still something in her heart pulled her back to the fight, to hoping that she could see for herself that Gunnar made it out alive. Feelings drifted through her, feelings she didn't understand and couldn't explain. She had to accept her feelings about Gunnar.

They were connected by more than she wanted to admit, and she was never going to be able to ignore that completely, but now too many questions ran through her mind about why Valdemar had stayed. Questions she didn't remotely want to have to answer, but questions that she couldn't ignore, either.

The fact that the others had come back… she couldn't reconcile the idea of the Vikings as the bloodthirsty killers she had known them to be, and the men who came back into the thick of enemy territory to fight impossib

le odds to recover only two men.

She turned and ducked her head, trying not to stand out too much. Her fire-red hair would not make it easy for her to hide, but she had to hope that nobody would care enough to investigate a poor wretch in the middle of a crowd fleeing madly through the streets until she was far enough away to deny any involvement.

The people around her were dispersing slowly, each intersection taking a few who decided to turn, but she wanted out of the city. Needed to get out, as quickly as she could. She took a jog left along with a dozen others when a building blocked the straight street. The new road curved out and she turned right to re-straighten the path.

Her breaths were coming sharp and hard, but she couldn't stop. Couldn't slow down, not even for an instant, or she risked being seen by the guards. It was a miracle that no one had pointed her out already, that nobody had accused her of being involved.

She fancied herself a perfectly good liar, but there was a wide gulf between being able to lie, and being able to deny the obvious. She was the one who had killed that guard, yes. How could they be so sure? Well, she had blood on her hands and the same bright red hair of the woman who everyone had seen try to help that awful Northman, so it stood to reason that maybe they could take a guess this once.

Finally the outskirts opened up around her, allowing Deirdre a better view of the chaos that had overtaken the city. She let herself slow, turning back to see what was happening. She could hear fighting, very far away, but otherwise the city was oddly still. Those who had fought to flee the city and go back to their homes had been able to find plenty of time to do so; she was, after all, one of the last.

Those who lived in the city were likely now huddling in their homes, hoping that the Northmen and the guards both decided to leave them alone. She took a deep breath. Where could she go from here? She wanted to reconnect with Gunnar, but where would he go? She couldn't remain in the city, that much she knew.

She would have to search for him, but at the very least she knew that they wouldn't stay nearby either. She had to leave, and they were so much more wanted than she was. Deirdre turned back, pulled a cloak from her backpack, and pulled it across her shoulders. The chaos of the crowd and the fighting had warmed her up, but now as she calmed down the chill was beginning to get to her.

She started walking out, careful to keep herself calm and collected. To keep her red hair hidden beneath the hood of her cloak. She was just any person, walking through the streets. Trying to get back home. She wondered briefly where the blue mare had gotten to.

At the stable, still, she thought. But Deirdre knew nothing about horses. She should have just sold the girl. At least she might be kept properly if Deirdre never went back. Not that she could afford to go back into the city to get her. No, she needed to stay about as far away as she could. She would stay just long enough to get Gunnar.

Then she would be on the road back to Malbeck, back to the answers that Brigid owed her.

The mood had never been worse around the Danish camp. Always, someone had been drinking and telling stories in the middle of camp, away from the tents. People talking, getting ready for whatever was to come.

Now they seemed to all be deflated. No one particularly spoke, and certainly no one drank. They wouldn't have if they had anything worth drinking. It had been lost, and there was not going to be any effort to go and get more. Not until they'd recovered from the madness of the past days.

Where they had gotten away cleanly the first time, thanks to Gunnar and Valdemar slowing the English down, not everyone had made it cleanly out of the city this time. Some were cut badly, but thankfully few. Others had superficial wounds, bad bruising. A few bones that might have been broken.

And the excitement had them all tired out. The general atmosphere seemed to be one of everyone just wanting to go home as soon as the opportunity arose. Gunnar felt the weight on his chest again, the weight of leadership and of knowing what needed to be done. The weight of knowing that it wasn't what you wanted, but it was the right thing to choose.

They would have to go soon. He lay on his back, looking up at the stars that were starting to dominate the sky as the sun dropped below the horizon. This was the first time they hadn't had kit to sleep under. It was oddly nostalgic, reminding him of other expeditions. They hadn't been planned as well, and they hadn't turned out as badly as this one.

One in four of his men were dead, and they wouldn't get a proper send-off. The men who survived were exhausted, and they had lost all of their loot. They would be lucky to get back to the coast with their lives, and then it would be a long trip back to Denmark. A trip in which none of them would want to discuss exactly what had caused such a catastrophe.