Page 41 of Her Viking Warrior (Forgotten Sons #2)

Chapter

Twenty-Five

M ist from Maiden’s Veil sprayed her cheeks.

Fog was gone and sun blasted her face, yet nothing could chase the chill camped around her.

She was numb in body, and her heart was worse.

Lonely. Cold. Adrift. Ilsa set her hand over her heart.

The organ had been reduced to stone. Eighteen faces, women she’d come to count as friends, couldn’t warm her.

Every time she shut her eyes, Bjorn appeared.

Cosseting her. Challenging her. Pushing her on the practice field, his ice-blue eyes ringed in iron.

She leaned against the dragon’s head and touched her lips. Never had she been kissed so thoroughly or so tenderly.

If she lived to be a hundred, no man would ever kiss her like that again.

Did her kiss brand him?

A fingertip to her mouth, she still felt Bjorn’s plump, sensual upper lip on hers, his beard tickling her chin, his warm breath on her cheek.

Her hand fell to her lap, the memory slipping away.

By now, Bjorn would’ve found out by now that she’d runaway.

This was half the problem; leaving him stranded without a ship was the other.

She squeezed her eyes shut. Her mind conjured him standing on Vellefold’s famed crescent dock, staring at Black Fjord. Furious, of course. Why wouldn’t he be?

He’d been deserted. Again.

This time by a friend.

Hot, salty tears stung her eyes. Each one fell, the cost of her betrayal.

Bjorn…

Love…was impossible.

No wonder he valued loyalty over love.

She set fingers to her mouth, more tears coming. A sob was welling up, and she would hold it in.

“Are you well, lady? You keep putting your hand on your mouth.” The voice was Alice. The woman looked askance at her. “You aren’t going to…you know—” she jerked her head at the sea “—lose the contents of your stomach, are you?”

“No.” Ilsa touched the dragon’s head, the wood wet on her palm.

The squat woman planted herself on the other side of the wooden beast. “You’ve got a sickly look about you. All pale and…well, pale.”

Alice had been years in Vellefold, but the Celt woman took to Norse with the same skill as Ardith.

“Lady Ilsa isn’t sick from the sea. She’s heartsick over a man,” Alana called from her spot on the first bench. “Probably wishes we’d left her in his clutches.”

Alana winked at her and wrapped a brown wool blanket tighter about her shoulders.

“You came for me, and I’m grateful for that.” Ilsa’s voice rose for the boat full of women. “And I’m glad for all of you.” She sniffed. “This is a glorious day—the first day of your journey home.”

The faded sail snapped overhead. Seas were mildly choppy with wind that couldn’t decide to drive them south or push them north. Ardith was at the rudder, making the best of stewing currents. Her freckled face knit with worry, mostly for Ilsa. Of all the women, she understood the cost.

Ardith…

Wind battered the Anglewoman’s short hair.

She was chewing a nervous lip at what they’d done.

Taking the ship was a bold move. Making enemies of the Forgotten Sons?

Terrifying. They were a ragged band of women, who would scatter upon reaching their homelands.

Would the famed warriors hunt all of them down? Likely not.

But the flaxen-haired Viking woman who’d tricked them?

Ardith’s worried stare flicked to the dragon’s head. Ilsa swiped her eyes and gave a reassuring nod. Leaving Bjorn cut deepest.

If he hunted her down, so be it.

She had nearly a year to find the best place to hide. Today, she had her blood oath to finish.

Women sat on benches, huddled under blankets and cloaks.

Hems were dirty and ragged. Ankle boots had been mended thrice over and those that couldn’t be fixed had been wrapped with cloth to hold the leather together.

They were a motley lot of survivors, the wind buffeting shorn hair growing longer.

They were free, and so was she. Enslavement was the ghost they left behind; Halfdan was hers.

Best of all was the brightness on their faces as if they saw the world with new eyes.

Quieter women knotted together, soaking up the sun. They were free. Finally free.

The lot of them knew they couldn’t survive another winter in her cave.

Despite a year of kindness, of hiding them in her forest, trust had come slowly.

She was Viking, and her people had bought and sold them.

The gift of blankets, food, and a listening ear helped.

During winter’s brutal cold, four of the women had shared tales of Halfdan forcing himself on them.

She’d listened, sickened at her blindness to their suffering.

She couldn’t deny their pleas for help. Like her, they all wanted to taste freedom again.

They’d made a pact over winter. She would return them to the Angle hamlet Ardith once called home. She’d leave them with the clothes on their back, a few days’ worth of food, and a silver coin. Then, her blood oath would be done. Now she sought a new home for herself.

She faced the sea. Sunlight was dancing on the water’s skin. Somewhere out there was her new life.

Banishment would’ve been the same. Leaving with the clothes on her back and little else. The taint would follow. No Viking settlement would welcome her. That is, if Jarl Egil decreed banishment. Shivering, she hunkered deeper into her mantle.

Death or banishment… None of it mattered now.

Carefully laid plans had shattered. The long rope wasn’t finished nor was it needed, not when Bodolf’s men hauled her away in chains.

Bleary-eyed, she’d been shocked when Ardith unlocked the fetters, insisting they leave immediately.

Her body hadn’t lost Bjorn’s warmth. Or his scent.

But it didn’t take long for Ardith to convince her, the time had come.

A fine fog had spread over Vellefold’s harbor.

Frigga had heard the pleas of the women on this ship.

The goddess had stirred mist so thick and tall, it reached the cliffs.

Under the veil of fog, each woman had slipped through the trees to the settlement, to leave as they’d come—through the famed crescent harbor.

Alice bent forward in a bid for Ilsa’s attention. “Your warrior friend, the one called Bjorn. Is it true? Is he Jarl Egil’s son?”

“He is.”

Alice was prim, patting her hand. “I can see that he makes you smile. I hope you get to see him again…someday.”

Ilsa’s fragile smile faded.

“Bjorn might hunt me down,” she said, wind tapping loose hair across her face.

“I heard he wanted nothing to do with Vellefold,” Alice said, hopeful. “Perhaps he will decide to be done with it.”

“It would make sense, him washing his hands of Vellefold…and me.”

The women listened to the exchange, heads ducking, some shifting on their benches. Each woman understood the risks she’d taken to help them.

“I’m going to find a man to make me smile.” Alana rose from her bench and sauntered over the creaking deck. “You wait and see.”

Alice and Alana had served the jarl. Both had heard plenty of stories about the banished hrisungr.

Traveling skalds entertained the hall many a winter night with stories of the Forgotten Sons.

Jarl Egil was especially generous with his coin when skalds brought news of Bjorn.

For years, she’d thought the tales embellished.

No man could be that strong, that big, or that honorable.

Her heart tumbled in her chest. Apparently, a man could—and she’d left him.

She swallowed hard. No. He had left her. In chains.

Yet his kiss refused to die. Resting her chin in her hand, she eyed passing cliffs. In the end, she’d saved herself. Her brief time with Bjorn, the chance to see him as a man once more, was fleeting. The gods had given her a taste of the man she’d known in childhood.

Ells of water would separate them, and both would go on with their lives.

They were passing a minor waterfall when low notes carried above the water’s rush. She sat taller. The lur horn? Low mournful notes sounded again. She shot up to the balls of her feet, an ear cocked to the land. Chatter on the boat picked up.

She raised a hand to shush them. “Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Alana asked.

“It’s the lur horn. The alarm.”

“I don’t hear it, lady,” Ardith called from the rudder. “It’s the sea playing a trick on you.”

Alice clutched her cloak, squinting at the cliffs. “No. I hear it too.”

“It is the lur horn,” Ilsa cried. “Vellefold is under attack!”

Another lur horn blasted, its echo lighter.

A third horn joined the low cry for Vellefold’s people to prepare for the fight of their lives.

With horns set on the highest cliffs, it was reasonable for the sound to carry this far.

Another healthy gust of wind, and her vessel would’ve been farther out to sea. They would’ve missed the alarm.

The sound came again, louder.

“All three horns are blowing.” Ilsa searched the cliffs. “Something is terribly wrong!”

She grabbed the rail, her knuckles translucent. Her mother. Her father. Frida. The children she’d held…

Had a ship sneaked into the fjord? With the fog, the noise of the waterfalls, and the width of the Fjord, it was possible.

Alana’s jaw set mulishly. “Let them blow, all day and all night.” She carried little tenderness in her heart for the Vikings she once served.

“You want to go back and help, do you, lady?” Elswith spoke up from her seat near Ardith.

“No. She doesn’t.” Ardith lobbed her words like rocks. “Because those people were ready to stand by and see her judged an outlaw.”

“Look at her. She wants to help them, the same as she helped us.” Elswith pushed to her feet. “Isn’t that right, lady?”

All eyes were on her. Curious. Vexed. Pitying. For all the hardship they’d faced, most of them did give themselves over to bitterness. Life was hard and short; goodness was a treasure.

“Lady, you cannot want to go back there.” Alana advanced on her, brown hair flying about her cheeks.

The gods help her, she did. She nodded, slow at first, the act increasing with her determination. Love for her home would not shed easily. Faces of those she cherished passed before her eyes.

Iduna, Valgerd, Kell, gruff Bodolf, Helge…

Is this why Aegir’s daughters messed with the currents?

She scanned the cliffs. A lur horn blasted, then it was no more.

“We have to go back.” Her voice was a hoarse whisper. “I want to go back.”

Alana and Alice were the only ones to hear it. Wind whipped harder. They were sailing fast in the wrong direction. The cliffs were stark, a sign they had gone far from Vellefold’s tree-green land.

She jumped when a hand rested on her shoulder. Elswith. The fair maid was beside her.

“Lady, you have done much for us. Ask them if they will go back. Ask them to help you fight for those you love in Vellefold.”

How bright and tender were Elswith’s eyes.

“It would be too much…” she said. “I—I couldn’t.”

Ilsa’s legs could be tied in knots. She was free to move since she wore her leather trousers and the same sea-stained leather tunic she’d worn on her last journey, yet her legs felt useless and her feet could be glued to the deck.

“Ask them, lady,” Elswith insisted.

Ilsa faced the ship, her feet heavy as though she’d trip over them. Stares pinned her. How could she ask these women, who’d fled the place that enslaved them, to go back?

“Will you go back and fight with me?” Her voice was even, a miracle that.

This scale on which she balanced herself had the power to destroy her. She’d never forgive herself for turning her back on the people she loved. But she’d never forgive herself for denying these women the right to have a say in their fate.

Women fidgeted on the benches. Faces turned shyly, others boldly, to each other. A low hum of discussion followed.

A bright and loud “I will, lady.” Elswith, the kindest of souls, tucked wind-battered hair behind her ears. “I will follow you, lady.”

“What would we fight with?” Alice asked, her nervous hands twitching. “You taught us some battle skills, but we’re hardly warriors.”

“Not warriors?” Her voice pitched with purpose. “You are the best and bravest fighters I know. Look at what happened to you. Yet, none of you gave up. You are survivors, seeking a better future.”

“Which you want to ruin.” Alana’s spiteful voice joined the discussion.

“I won’t force you to go back. Every one of us must agree. If we don’t—” she swallowed hard, checking the cliffs “—if we don’t all agree, then, we sail on. And I…”

She let her words trail. The roil in her belly wouldn’t let her finish them.

“You’ll do what, lady?” Alice peered at her, but the ship erupted in rapid chatter.

Voices rose, ever louder, arguing for and against their return. Sickened, Ilsa could only wait and listen. Half of them stirred from their seats. Valiant points were lobbed from one bench to another.

“What are we supposed to fight with? Our bare hands?” Defiant Alana was hugging herself against the rail.

“We have oars. We have bows and arrows and axes and knives in the hold.” Hope sprung lightly in Ilsa. “Think of the innocent ones. The children. The people who were good to you.” As a last effort, she said, “If you prefer, you can stay on the ship and fight from afar.”

Bjorn wouldn’t fight from afar. He’d be in the battle. Teeth to teeth, making sure he walked away. Her blood pulsed faster. A fierce urge rose inside her to make sure he would. She would fight for Bjorn because she loved him—gods help her—she did.

Seagulls perched on the cliff above them. The cliffs were barren with low scrub here. Ilsa eyed them, desperate. Straining, she leaned too far over the rail. Blinding, yearning foolishness made her want to dive into the water and swim back to Vellefold.

Chatter died out. The women were looking at her, resolved.

A nod here, another nod there. A wobbly smile from one woman.

Agreement cast a net on all. Even Ardith changed her sullen stance.

Alana was the last to grunt her assent. She rolled her eyes when plump Alice, who’d been a holy woman long ago, clapped her hands and held them chastely together as if in prayer.

“A battle, lady.” Alice was gleeful. “What would you have us do?”

“Elswith, Alana… Bring everything up from the hold.” She stood taller to call an order to Ardith, but the ship was already turning back.

The faded red sail puffed and snapped with all its might, whipping the serpent’s black threads in the wind.

Ardith rubbed her nose and shouted, “Your worthy heart is killing me, lady.”