God's Eye (The Northwomen Sagas #1) (20 page)

Groaning, he brushed her hair from her face. “It doesn’t hurt you, to lie like that?” She was on her side, propped on an elbow.

“No. Only tightness, not pain. You worry too much.” As she spoke, her hand moved over him, tightening and loosening, as if she meant to milk him.

“I worry the proper amount,” he sighed and relaxed, letting her have her way.

~oOo~

He rose before Brenna and dressed in the grey dawn light, keeping a frail hope alive that she might change her mind now that the day was upon them. But she woke as he was preparing to leave the room.

“You did not mean to sneak away, I hope.” Her voice was light and teasing, but her eyes were sharp on him.

“Of course not.” He went to the bed and kissed her forehead. “I’ll see to it that Freya is saddled, and I will be waiting for you.” He wanted to ask if she felt well, but he knew how poorly the question would be received, so he contented himself with a survey of her color and deemed it acceptable. For days after their son had died, her complexion had been a ghastly, terrifying grey. On this morning, pale roses bloomed on her smooth cheeks. He kissed one of them and left her to her preparations.

Once in the hall, he helped himself to a bowl of barley porridge from the cauldron hanging over the fire. The commotion in the room was familiar in a way that made Vali feel homesick. They all prepared for battle. They had turned villagers into warriors. There were even two young village women who had braided their hair and donned breeches like shieldmaidens. Astrid had trained them both.

So the hall was full of men and women filling their stomachs with warm food and then gearing up for war. The air in the room was heady with the high spirits that came before a fight, a combination of relief from hardened warriors looking forward to the release of the fury that pent up in them when they were idle, and of anxious anticipation from tenderfoots who knew not what they faced.

Vali, a hardened warrior who carried a burden on his heart and mind too heavy for high spirits, finished his porridge and slid his axes into their rings on his belt. He wore a heavy woolen tunic for the ride, but he left it loose over his belt so that he could shed it quickly when the fight came. Even in the chill of this new thaw, he would fight bare-chested, his body unrestrained.

Then he cloaked himself in the skin of his wolf.

Prepared for battle, he went out to the stable, to ready his horse and his wife’s.

Leif was there already, leading his saddled horse, a black stallion as big as Vali’s bay, toward the open doors. Seeing Vali, he stopped and nodded.

“She is coming?”

“You’ve known her long. Do you think even I could dissuade her?”

“As I thought,” Leif chuckled. “We will all watch out for her. One of us will be at her side always.”

“
I
will be at her side.”

“Vali, you lead with me. You cannot be sure not to be drawn from her. But she will not be alone.”

“I will be at her side, and she at mine. She will have her revenge. And I mine.”

The two friends stared at each other, and then Leif nodded. “As is right.” He tugged lightly on the reins and moved his horse out to the castle grounds.

When Vali had his horse and Brenna’s saddled and out of the stable, he mounted his and waited, staring at the castle doors, holding Freya’s reins.

Brenna had named her horse; he did not think any other of them had. She had small, unexpected sentimentalities like this—to name a beast of burden, to dangle string for the near-feral cats and kittens who fed on castle pests, to teach the villagers’ children little games and songs. She sang when she cooked. He knew this only because he had walked through the kitchen one afternoon while she was working there. Her voice was frail but true, and of a higher pitch than he would have thought. She had been round with his child then, and he thought she’d been singing to the babe.

Vali swallowed down the hard stone of grief that filled his throat at the memory.

Brenna came out of the castle, and pride pushed his grief and his worry aside. She stood straight and strong, dressed in her boiled leathers, her hair braided in the elaborate way she favored for battle. Her longsword and shield were strapped on her back, and her dagger was fixed to her thigh.

She had lined her eyes thickly with black and had drawn rays around her right eye. The God’s-Eye. When she fought, she embraced the name that had been imposed on her.

His shieldmaiden, ready to bring down the justice of the gods on those who had dared to hurt her and those she loved.

All around them, people prepared to ride off—adjusting saddles, tying down supplies, mounting their horses. But when Brenna God’s-Eye walked onto the grounds, everyone stopped and watched. They all knew, of course, how she had been hurt, what she and Vali had lost, and they all knew that she meant to fight.

Vali thought that her legend would grow tenfold on this day, especially were they successful. If she rode back to the castle with her vengeance done, then she would be as famous and revered as Brynhildr herself.

She came between their horses and held up her hand for Freya’s reins. He handed them down to her. Neither smiled, this was not the time for smiling, but their eyes met and held, and with that look they said all they needed to say of their pride and love and devotion.

She mounted smoothly, with no sign of discomfort. None but the twitch in her right eye. Vali had seen it, he and no other, and he knew it had hurt her to hoist herself into the saddle. But she was a mighty shieldmaiden on a righteous mission, and her pain mattered not.

“Side by side, shieldmaiden. We stay together.”

She nodded, and then gave him an almost imperceptible smile, just a tick up at the corner of her mouth. “We save each other. We are destined for it, I believe.”

“Indeed we are.”

He urged his horse forward, and Brenna did the same, and, with Leif, they led the raiding party through the castle gate.

The day had broken clear and cold, but the rising sun brought true warmth with it. As Brenna rode between Vali and Leif, she could smell the change of seasons finally coming. The winter had been unduly long and hard, but summer was at last shaking off its heavy cloak.

Banked snow during the harshest days of the winter had risen at times to more than Vali’s height, and drifts had topped the second windows of the castle, and even now the raiders trudged on horseback or foot through snow as high as the horse’s knees. It was melting quickly on this day, however, the third in a string of warmer days, and the warmest yet.

By the time they stopped to rest and feed the horses and themselves, they were moving through heavy mud.

Vali jumped from his horse and came to her. When his hands caught her hips as she dismounted, she sent him an irritated glance over her shoulder, but she didn’t resist as he set her gently on the ground. Truly, she was sore and struggling. Hours in the saddle, rarely at more pace than a quick walk, and her chest ached enough that every breath caught in her throat. Of more help than simply bringing her to the ground was the comfort of his strong, loving hands on her.

He turned her to face him and then stroked her cheek. “You’re pale again, my love.”

Rather than deny it, Brenna caught his hand in hers and smiled up at him. “I need this, husband. The power of the need will sustain me.”

Searching her eyes, he finally nodded. “Take this time to rest. I will bring you food and drink.”

“Thank you. First I need to walk off on my own for a moment.”

Understanding that she had personal care to attend to, he nodded again and then bent his head to hers. Standing at Freya’s steady flank, Brenna looped her arms around her husband’s neck, ignoring the pinch and stretch in her ribs, and kissed him with abandon.

His hands gripped her bottom and pressed her close so that she could feel him grow against her belly, even through their furs and leathers. For that moment, Brenna forgot everything except their love, physical and spiritual.

The kiss ended gradually, with Vali’s tongue sweeping over her lips. She sighed and opened her eyes. “I love you.”

He touched his forehead to hers. “You hold my heart in yours. Keep it well.”

~oOo~

After they ate salt cod and leiv bread and drank water, the mounted raiders tended to their steeds, feeding them grain and cleaning the mud from their hooves. When Brenna leaned on Freya’s rump to urge her leg up, a shadow fell over her.

Leif stood at her side. “Let me.”

“My horse, my care.”

He put his hands on her shoulders and moved her aside. “I am the one who taught you that rule, thus I can break it.”

Vali, tending to his own horse, stood and considered them both, then nodded a thanks at Leif.

Brenna thought for a moment on that exchange and then turned to Leif, who had Freya’s hoof in his hand. “I believe the two of you are conspiring.”

“To protect you from your foolish fire? Indeed we are.”

Olga had called her foolish as well. It seemed everyone was in agreement about the loss of her reason. But she was surprised that Leif would not see her way. “You understand, Leif. I know you do. More perhaps even than Vali.”

He set Freya’s clean hoof on the ground and walked around her rump, keeping his hand on her as he went. Brenna followed, wanting the talk to continue.

Leif had only a few years more than Brenna did. He was no older than Vali, and he seemed younger, with a heavy, long mane of golden hair, a smooth, fair brow, and a full but trimmed beard. Only in quiet moments did his blue eyes take on an older, darker light. She knew his story not because they had been confidants before they’d come to Estland—until Vali, Brenna had not had, nor been, any such thing—but because his tragic story was known all over Geitland, their jarl’s seat.

He had been wed young, not long after he’d gotten his arm ring, in the manner that was typical of their people. He had not much known his equally young wife before their marriage, but they had gotten on well, and she had borne him six children. Three had died as babes. A daughter and two sons survived. A fever had taken his daughter just at the cusp of her womanhood. One son had drowned. His wife and their unborn seventh child had been killed by the raiders that had nearly killed Jarl Åke’s wife and young children.

Of all his family, only his son Einar had survived. Einar, who had been killed brutally by Prince Vladimir and turned into a horror as a twisted jape at their expense.

If anyone knew loss and the need for vengeance, it was Leif Olavsson.

As he picked up Freya’s other rear hoof and began to clean it, his head down, Leif answered, “Yes, Brenna, I understand. I also understand your man, and what he would feel to live without you. It is a kind of wound to one’s heart that can never know ease.”

“I think I would leave him in a harder way if I had been left at home. I could feel myself dwindle even in these past weeks. I do not know how to give up action for waiting.”

Leif set Freya’s hoof down and stood straight. He was nearly as tall and broad as Vali, and Brenna tipped her head back to stay face to face with him.

He smiled. “Then we shall see to it that you find what you need.”

~oOo~

The sun had moved into the west but was still high enough to give them ample light for battle when Leif and Vali, as one, surged ahead. Brenna had been seeing signs of population in the woods they traveled—most prevalent, a hard pack and grey murk of snow that had been trodden by man and beast alike. They were crossing into the patrolled area.

Leif raised his hand, and the riders and walkers stopped. At another signal, Hans and Bjarke rode up, bows in hand. Leif and Hans turned in one direction, and Vali and Bjarke the other. Brenna knew what they were doing—scouting for the two-man patrol. It would be the archer’s job, whichever team came upon the patrol, to kill them quietly.

At the same time, Orm rode up alongside her. “Vali told you how we took your plan?” He spoke quietly.

“Yes. Three groups. The archers and villagers make a fourth, coming from behind. We split now?” With the chance to fight so near, Brenna’s body shook off its pain and fatigue. She could feel the drum of the fight already beating inside her chest, making her strong and full of fire.

“Yes. You ride with the main, to the gates. Astrid and Harald lead two groups on foot over the walls. When the scouts return, Hans and Bjarke will join with Sten and Georg and will ride into the woods to group with the villagers.”

Behind her, several of the mounted raiders jumped to the ground. Their wide-wheeled cart at the back shed itself of a score more fighters. They grouped with those already on foot, and all divided into their raid teams, as Astrid and Harald commanded.

As she turned and surveyed their force, it did not seem so large, now that they were separating into groups.

“It is a good plan, Brenna God’s-Eye.”

Brenna turned back to Orm, surprised to hear that name after months away from it. The sound of it didn’t grate at her the way it used to. It had become something else during these months at the castle, among her first friends, her first love, her first home. No longer was she everything that people believed her eye was, and nothing else. Now she was Brenna, who was also, when she bore her sword and shield, The God’s Eye.

She found that the name fit comfortably now.

The cart driver and his boy collected the riderless horses and led them off into the deeper woods. They would wait for the raiders’ return.

They all awaited the scouts’ return.

Leif and Hans were first back, bringing their horses nearly face to face with Brenna and Orm’s.

“No sign of the patrol. All is quiet eastward.”

Waiting for Vali and Bjarke to return, Brenna felt a tightness in her chest that had nothing to do with her injury. Each breath, each heartbeat seemed an infinity.

And then she saw him, and she was dizzy with relief. He rode up, wearing the heavy scowl and snarl that was his battle face, but it softened into a smile as he pulled up his horse. “The patrol was three. We came up behind, and Bjarke took all three down before they could turn.” He reached over and punched the man’s arm. “I will tell that story all my days, my friend.”

Bjarke grinned shyly and then turned, headed toward the other archers. When the four were together, they nodded at the leaders and rode off. They would ride to the woods, staying mounted for the superior coverage that height would offer.

It was time. Leif and Vali sent the teams off on foot, then took their positions at the head of the line of riders. Again, they put themselves to either side of Brenna, and Orm lagged back to the second row. Vali had shed his tunic, and his massive chest rippled with readiness.

No one spoke as they came onto the road and approached the castle gates. Those who had shields pulled them forward. Brenna found strength in that, too, in the familiar and secure heft of her shield.

The gates creaked open, pushed by four men, and a force came through on foot. One rider, in splendid armor, led them all. Brenna scanned the top of the wall for archers but saw none. She did not for a moment think that they had no archers to guard the wall, only that they had been, as planned, caught unprepared. Their task would be to keep the archers from rising to the top of the wall—that was part of the plan for the villagers.

The sole rider spoke, but Brenna’s struggles with the Estlander language impeded her full understanding. She thought she heard the word
tulid
, which she knew was a form of ‘come,’ and his voice had lifted at the end, as for a question, so she guessed he’d asked why they had come.

Leif gestured subtly with one hand, and to her right, between her and Leif, a spear flew past her head. It sank into the mounted soldier’s throat.

They had not come to talk.

As the soldier fell, the raiders jumped from their horses and sent them away from the fight. Brenna turned Freya and gave her a sharp slap on the rump, sending her off with a loud, strident
Ha!
The mare ran swiftly with her fellows. In this way, they saved the resource of the horses and ensured that they would not be obstacles in the battle. A horse made good transportation but a terrible weapon.

Then Brenna pulled her sword forward and charged into the fight.

They drove the soldiers quickly back into the castle grounds, and as the raiders cleared the gate, Brenna saw that the villagers were already teeming over the rear wall, jumping onto the straw-covered ground bearing pitchforks and tree limbs, hammers, shovels—the tools of their lives now purposed as weapons for the fight of their lives.

The archers stayed atop the wall and fired down and across the grounds. On either side, Astrid and Harald brought their teams over the walls, all of it timed as if the gods orchestrated from above.