Page 13 of Her Viking Warrior (Forgotten Sons #2)

He gripped the rail, his knuckles pale. Dampness trickled down his cheeks into his beard.

They were gliding through otherworldly emptiness.

The vessel groaned. Water tapped her clinker-built sides.

They could be sailing off the edge to nowhere.

It was enough to unman the heartiest warrior.

Gods and giants kicked up storms, something a man could battle.

But drifting through fog? It was the gods forgetting a man existed.

Droplets crowned Ilsa’s hair like tiny diamonds. She could be a queen at court. Regal and serene was her manner. Her presence uncoiled tension eating his back.

“Look.” Hopeful, she pointed at gnarled greenery bobbing in iron grey waters. She called over her shoulder, “I see moss.”

The dragon slid over the fist-sized lump. Thunder cracked in the distance. Ilsa cocked her head as though she could pin the sound to the sky. “More will come,” she said vaguely.

“Moss? Or thunder?”

“Not thunder. A waterfall.” Ilsa’s arm was arrow-straight at a ridge draped in clouds. “Do you see that?”

Land slice through the top of a cloud. She yelled to the back of the ship, “Ardith. The Black cliffs.”

“I see them, lady.”

Jet-hued stone touched the sky. He squinted at it, doubtful. “How can you be so sure?”

The ship lurched into an easy turn.

“Oars in the water” was Ardith’s command.

The vessel swayed again. Ilsa’s shoulder bumped his. He could see a tiny mole on her ear lobe and feel the cadence of her breaths.

“Those cliffs, they are Jord’s Brows.” Jord, the giantess. Ilsa’a mouth curved prettily, teasingly. “Do I need to teach the famed warrior the art of northern seafaring?”

He grunted. “You may. After I tutor you on the art of warfare.”

Ilsa rested against the rail, her smile increasing. Jord was a giantess and a lesser earth goddess. Skalds said her brows were sea cliffs. Who was he to argue?

The dragon’s snout angled into the deafening roar. Fog thinned, and the waterfall blustered on the right side of the ship. Graceful froths fell off a steep mountain, the Maiden’s Veil—entry to the Black Fjord, the sea path to Vellefold.

His father was on the other end.

Standing upright, he sucked in wet air. A reckoning was coming. Ilsa must’ve felt it. She kept her nose respectfully forward. A new thread of kinship had formed on their journey, one he’d break. Her leadership at sea was honorable.

But she’d have to see reason. The woman had no business leading in warfare.

Behind him, Ardith shouted. Rhythmic orders ebbed and flowed from the servant. Oars dipped in time to her calls. Faster and faster, oak oars slapped water. Behind him were strains. Grunts. The heaves of men and women putting their backs into their labor in time to Ardith’s song.

It was time to ask difficult questions. He faced Ilsa.

“We haven’t talked about Vellefold.”

“No. We haven’t.” Water-spiked lashes fanned her cheeks. Her manner was quiet. Hesitant.

He guessed she liked the ease between them and didn’t want it to end. Oars stroked. Once. Twice. Thrice.

“Ilsa,” he said evenly. “Tell me why Jarl Egil sent you to catch men in a boat better suited for catching small fish.”

“Because most of our ships have been destroyed. You will see what’s left of them in the harbor.”

“The work of Aseral?”

“Yes.” A hip on the rail, she linked her arms over her chest.

He gusted a sigh. He’d had better luck extracting information from Chamavi fighters. This made no sense. The woman had moved heaven and earth to get him, yet was tight-lipped about the battles ahead?

High cliffs banded the vessel on both sides.

A flock of birds sped across tarnished skies.

Ilsa watched their ascent. Fatigue left faint lines under her eyes.

Agony wrote its story there too. Asking her for details of the raids meant digging through violence and death.

She stared off, a lost woman until her brows knit and mouth opened.

“Winter had broken. We had begun to speak of planting spring gardens. Everyone was abed when raiders came. It was midnight. They doused our torches, all the better to slaughter us,” she said bitterly.

“By morning, our roads were littered with the dead. Mostly, the jarl’s hired fighters, a few farmers, and warriors born of Vellefold.

” She dragged in a ragged breath. “I thank the gods, no children.”

Her mouth was a tormented line. And her eyes…

Bleak pain dimmed her.

He felt his own eyes widen. He’d not asked if she was a mother.

The image of a child in her arms pricked the shield wall he’d carefully constructed. His gaze swept heather and moss-covered cliffs. A herd of deer munched greenery. Air was crisp, made clean by misty streams toppling over the sharp drop. It was a brutal Viking paradise.

“The enemy left no one behind?” he asked.

“None at the first raid. No ships were sighted in the Fjord or the Eiken River. It wasn’t until the next raid when they came at dawn that we knew it was our neighbors.” She hesitated. “That’s when Halfdan died.”

“Halfdan?”

“My husband.”

He pushed off the rail, the deck uncertain. He didn’t know the man, but Ilsa must feel deep hurt from his death. War ate ravenously, taking one life, sparing another. No order to it. Violence thrived on chaos.

“May you find comfort in your mourning,” he said at last.

Her mouth pinched. “I have found none.”

Did she hunger for revenge? Ilsa was statue-still, her mantle’s fur teasing the high curves of her cheeks.

The woman he met in Rouen was cool and determined, a lady of few words.

Her mourning would be no different. He was tempted to cosset her and ask about her husband.

Wisdom bade him to take a different path.

Ilsa gave him facts scrubbed clean of feelings. He’d do the same.

“If you’d like to wait?—”

“No.” She was abrupt. “Ask your questions.”

He’d met warrior women over the years. When tragedy struck, they wore a stoic mask, the hurt stuffed down because another battle was often coming. Ilsa might not be trained in the art of war, but she’d lived its consequences.

A solemn nod and he went on. “After the first raid, did anyone think Aseral was behind the attack? They are the closest settlement.”

The village was north on the Eiken River, an important waterway that spilled into Black Fjord. All else were humble rivulets.

“Everyone deemed them small and weak,” she said.

“Because Jarl Egils kept them under his thumb.”

Her nod was slow. “He did.”

Feet shifting, he quoted Viking wisdom, “ A hungry wolf is bound to wage a hard battle .”

Confusion shaded her features. “But Aseral has nothing. They cannot possibly win.”

“Yet, they nearly toppled a powerful jarl. I have seen it often in my travels. Oppressed people make the toughest enemies. The people of Aseral…” He hit his fist over his heart. “…fight from here. Not for fame or coin or king.”

By her silence, Ilsa appeared to test his wisdom and find it sound.

“I pleaded with the jarl last summer. I asked him to let them trade in our port. It made sense to work with them, to create a bond between our people and theirs because they grow so much flax.” She hugged herself against the cold. “He never told me why he rejected my idea.”

“A woman would think of doing something different.”

Sea-green eyes studied him intently. “That almost sounded like a compliment.”

“It was.”

He liked this back-and-forth with Ilsa. It glued certain thoughts in place: the way to win her heart was through her mind, not useless flattery or pretty trinkets.

A thin line etched itself between her brows. She contemplated the waters slipping past them.

Bjorn watched the waters with her. “The Jarl Egil I remember had them under iron-fisted control the moment he took his chieftain’s seat. Why should he alter his ways? Vikings build their bulwarks and guard them jealously.”

Serving in southern lands had changed him.

Men there hoarded power like misers. They pushed boundaries and fought wars.

But there was a difference. Northmen were greedy with minor lands while southern principalities and caliphates took half a season to cross, a benefit of a few open-armed leaders and wider trade.

“What did you mean about a woman thinking of doing something different?”

Her stare pinned him. Ilsa was hungry for his words. He would have to remember how he snared her attention because he wanted to do it again. His backside on the rail, he planted both feet wide, bracing his hands.

“Women are life-bringers. Bearing children, seeing them through one season after another. They live in flux. They adapt.”

Lashes low, she clutched her mantle under chin. His huntress mulled over his words. The deck was calm. Ardith talked with Thorvald and Thorfinn. Audr and Valgerd giggled like young maids, their voices pitching excitedly at being close to home. Pressure to ferret more facts pressed Bjorn.

“So, you pleaded with Egil on behalf of Aseral, and he refused to listen. What else do I need to know?”

Her gaze rose swiftly to his. “Do not think harshly of him.”

He canted his head a fine degree. What was this? Ilsa defending the jarl?

“Tell me about the last raid.”

Chin high, she was emphatic. “You will see that he is different. A better man.”

“A dying man trying to preserve his fame.” His words were sharp, each one harsher than the next. “I’m here to save Vellefold, not tend to the whims of an old man.”

Molars grinding, he’d not give an inch. Oh, he understood Jarl Egil. No Viking wanted what he’d built smashed by an enemy. That same thirst to keep Vellefold strong had cost the jarl his hrisungr son.

“Is there no tenderness in you? The boy I knew?—”

“—is gone.” He was unmoved. “Don’t spin tales honoring the man who exiled me.”

Rebellion sparked in her eyes.

“Tell me about the second raid,” he said in a tone he used with slouching housekarls.

Ilsa stiffened. She’d have to get used to taking orders.

“Why is it so important? A raid is a raid.”

He barked a laugh. “And you know this from all your experience in battle?”

Ravens cawed overhead. Ilsa’s jaw worked but she saw reason, giving a curt explanation. “They came at dawn, setting fire to homes, ships, killing our animals, destroying our food stores. We didn’t know where they came from, but this time, Aseral’s people were among the dead.”

A different raid than the first…but this he kept to himself.

“Could they have hidden their ships upriver?” he asked. “Then hiked over the Eiken Mountain?”

“It’s too high,” she scoffed. “You couldn’t have forgotten that.”

He hadn’t, but he had to ask. A narrow slice of solid stone bordered the Eiken River and Vellefold as if the gods sheared a mountain-sized stone in half. A natural western boundary, only the heartiest goats climbed it.

“Did they swim the river?” he asked.

She shook her head, emphatic. “No. Their clothes were dry.”

“You saw them fight? On this second raid?”

“Yes, at the lower shielings behind Vellefold. After they set fire to homes and ships, they ran to the lower pastures. I was there with bow and arrow.”

“But not in the fight.”

She glared at him. “I took children and our old ones to a safe place. Once they were hidden, I ran to the battle.”

“After this second raid, where did Aseral’s warriors retreat?”

A raven flew in front of the vessel, its caw carried on the wind. Ilsa’s upset melted into confusion.

“No one knows. Fog was thick. It came off the mountains. They just…disappeared in the mist.”

“Like changelings.” He mocked.

“I—I don’t know.”

Superstitious Norse. They loved curses and strange tales. No matter how learned Ilsa was, she was cut from the same cloth as Valgerd tossing her coins into the sea. He honored the gods because they honored men of action, but few things in life were outside the realm of solid wood and sharp iron.

The place of Aseral’s foggy retreat needed exploring.

The more he dug, asking his questions, the less he knew. But he’d ask one that perplexed him.

“No one in Vellefold thought to raid Aseral in retaliation?”

Ilsa answered, agitated. “A killing fever came. It nearly wiped us out. My hands were full tending our people.”

His brows shot to his hairline. “ Our people?”

She gripped the dragon’s neck. “A slip. I won’t let it happen again.”

He almost felt sorry for her. Years Ilsa had never worried about defending her home.

Jarl Egil’s fierce reputation had been enough.

Had he put too much trust in paid warriors?

Coin bought shallow allegiance. Men fought best for home and freedom.

The Danes had herred and Uppsala’s people had hund —words for the gift of land for a warrior’s loyal service.

Jarls of Norway had no such custom. Land was a blood-won prize in the fjords.

And his father was paying a high price to bring his bastard son home.

Why?