Enthralled: Viking Lore, Book 1 (17 page)

Madrena didn’t need to
finish. They all knew it would be a mass slaughter of the women, children,
elderly, and sickly who were hiding behind the towering mountain walls.

“I’ll stay,” Alaric
panted. Like Madrena, his face was partially obscured by his helm, yet Laurel
could see the weighty look that passed between the siblings.

“We both will,” she
replied.

“Nei, sister. More
warriors are needed in the village. Go!” With that, Alaric shoved Madrena hard
in the direction of the village square. She didn’t look back, but a battle cry
ripped from her throat as she dove into the fray once more.

Alaric grabbed Laurel’s
elbow and pulled her down the narrow path toward the hidden meadow.

“Where is Eirik?” he
snapped, just as Madrena had done.

“He…he was shot. He was
trying to warn the village, but the attackers spotted him.”

“Does he live?”
Alaric’s voice was suddenly calm and low.

“I…” Laurel thought
back to how quickly he had begun to fade once she’d gotten him into the
underbrush. “I do not know,” she choked out, her voice thick and raw.

Alaric remained silent,
though his hand clenched reflexively around her arm.

As they emerged from
the trail into the field, dozens upon dozens of figures came into view.
Families huddled together in clumps around the meadow. A few children cried
softly as their mothers tried to shush them. The noises from the battle
underway in the village echoed eerily around the stone mountainsides surrounding
the clearing. Shrieks of the wounded and dying, clashing metal, and battle
cries filled the night air.

Alaric released her arm
and turned to face the entrance to the practice field, weapon poised. He would
be their last line of defense should any of the attackers find the path. He was
only one man, yet at least the narrow opening to the meadow worked in his
favor, providing a funnel only wide enough for one person at a time to pass
through.

Time stretched as the
battle raged on. Laurel fell to her knees and whispered prayers for the fallen
men and women who had begun to accept her as one of their own, for the safety
of those gathered in the field, and for Eirik. She may have rejected the cruel
ways of the nuns and monks at Whitby Abbey, but she would never abandon her
faith.

She shifted on her
aching knees and looked up to stretch her neck. The sky had lightened
considerably from pale blue to the thin yellow of early dawn. It would still be
only a couple of hours past midnight, yet the northern summer sun was already
spreading its light.

Laurel realized that
most of the battle noises had faded. She had no idea what the fate of the
village would be, but beyond the mountain walls, the battle had been
determined.

Just then she made out
the crunching sound of loose rocks underfoot along the hidden path. Alaric
visibly tensed in front of the opening, his knuckles white on his sword hilt.

Laurel caught a glimpse
of a pale blond head before Madrena fully emerged into the clearing. Alaric
lowered his sword with an exhale of relief.

“The battle is over,”
Madrena said loud enough for everyone in the meadow to hear. “We are
victorious!”

Those huddled in the
clearing sent up a brief and relieved cheer, yet the sobering reality was that
many of them had likely lost a loved one in the attack. And Laurel had seen
enough before retreating to the field to know that many homes had been
destroyed.

“See to your kin,”
Madrena said to the crowd. “And look to your homes for what can be saved.”

The villagers began
filing out of the field wearily. Laurel hung back with Madrena and Alaric as
they waited to ensure every last villager returned safely.

“What of Eirik?”
Madrena asked lowly. She was blood-stained and smoke-smudged but appeared
uninjured.

“He heard the ships
approaching,” Laurel replied. “He went to warn the village, but he was shot
twice. I…I tried to pull him to safety, but when I left, he was falling into
unconsciousness.”

“And how did you end up
in the village?” Alaric said as he re-sheathed his sword.

“I ran here to send up
the alarm that we were under attack,” she said.

Madrena and Alaric
looked at her for a long moment, and then exchanged a glance that seemed to
pass some unspoken communication between them.

“That was you?” Madrena
finally said. “You were the one who sent up the alarm?”

Laurel could only bob
her head. Madrena’s eyes glinted with respect and Alaric gave her a little nod.

“Without that warning,
we would have been slaughtered in our beds,” Alaric said. “The village owes you
its existence this morning, Laurel.”

Laurel’s vision blurred
with a combination of exhaustion and pride. Before she could speak, though,
Madrena motioned toward her hands.

“Are you hurt?”

Laurel looked down to
find that her hands and the left sleeve of her shift were covered in dried
blood. She lifted her shaking fingers to her face. “Nay. This is Eirik’s
blood.”

“We have to retrieve
him,” Madrena said to Alaric, who only nodded. “Take us to him, Laurel.”

Laurel fell in between
Madrena and Alaric as they wound their way back through the rock walls and into
the village. As she emerged from the trail, she froze in horror.

Bodies and blood filled
the village square. Most were their unidentified attackers, but many were the
villagers she was coming to know. Smoke still filled the air, stinging her
eyes, but the fires had been almost completely extinguished. The living moved
among the dead, looking for family members and trying to salvage what was left
of their homes.

“Who was it?” Alaric
asked as they strode through the square.

“They were from the
east, likely Jarl Thorsten’s men,” Madrena replied. “The survivors fled on one
of their ships, but the other two remain here.”

“Good,” Alaric said
darkly. Laurel could only imagine how much time and effort went into building
each one of the long, high-prowed ships like Eirik’s Drakkar. Capturing two
from their enemies must be an incredible prize. Compared to the lives lost,
however, it was little consolation.

As they hurried through
the square, Laurel’s foot snagged on something. She looked down to find that
she’d tripped on the arm of a dead warrior. Through the blood spatters, she
recognized the man called Haakon, the enormous red-bearded warrior who’d pulled
her hair and ordered her to pour him ale her first night in the village.

Laurel clapped a hand
over her mouth to stifle the cry that rose to her lips. The warrior’s eyes were
open, frozen in death. She had been terrified of him that first night, yet he
had proved harmless to her. He didn’t deserve to die.

“Leave him,” Alaric
said, taking her by the arm. “He died a warrior’s death. He’s probably already
riding with the Valkyries to Valhalla.”

She squeezed her eyes
shut, trying to get the sight of Haakon’s dead eyes out of her mind. Abbess
Hilda would say that the warrior was going to eternal damnation for being a
heathen. Yet in that moment, Laurel understood the comfort that the Vikings’
pagan religion could give in times like these. She let Alaric guide her away
from Haakon’s body and toward the trail that led to Eirik’s cottage.

“Take us to him,”
Madrena said as she stepped aside to let Laurel lead.

Laurel hurried down the
trail until she neared where she thought she’d left him. She slowed, scanning
the underbrush. When she spotted him, she fell to his side.

He was pale in the
warming sunlight. Blood had soaked most of his tunic and the right leg of his
pants.

“Eirik,” she breathed,
desperately pressing a hand to his chest in the hope of feeling his heart beat.

She felt the thump of
his heart, though it was weak and slow. A new wave of fear tightened her
throat. If he didn’t make it through…

She couldn’t let
herself think of such things when he clearly still needed help. She and Madrena
each lifted one of his arms while Alaric picked up his legs. The three of them
slowly shuffled back to the hut. Once they pushed their way through the
blockaded door, they set his limp body on the wooden table, which now sat askew
in the middle of the room.

Madrena immediately
moved to grab the small cauldron han
g
ing over
the kitchen fire. She disappeared out the cottage’s back door, presumably to
get water.

“Hold him,” Alaric said
grimly to Laurel. She didn’t understand what he meant until he wrapped his hand
around the arrow shaft protruding from Eirik’s leg.

She swallowed and
leaned her weight into his good shoulder, hoping she could contain his
thrashing if it came to that.

With one swift jerk,
Alaric removed the arrow from Eirik’s right thigh. He moved to Eirik’s left
shoulder, but frowned and muttered something Laurel didn’t understand as he
examined it.

Madrena returned with
the cauldron full of water. She stoked the fire and set the cauldron over it.

“What’s wrong?” she
said at Alaric’s muttering.

“This arrow is too
deep. We’ll have to push it through.”

“Won’t that hurt him?”
Laurel said, frantically looking between Madrena and Alaric.

“It must be done. He’s
likely too far gone into the pain to notice,” Madrena said flatly.

The siblings rolled
Eirik onto his right shoulder. “Steady him,” Alaric said. He quickly snapped
off the majority of the arrow shaft protruding from Eirik’s shoulder. Even that
small amount of motion drew a muted groan from Eirik.

Alaric and Madrena
braced themselves on either side of Eirik’s body. Laurel felt useless and
helpless, yet she took hold of Eirik’s head between her hands.

With a quick nod,
Alaric jammed the remainder of the arrow shaft deeper into Eirik’s shoulder.
Even in unconsciousness, Eirik thrashed and bellowed in pain. Laurel watched in
horror as the tip of the arrow emerged through Eirik’s skin on the other side
of his shoulder. Madrena took hold of the blood-slick arrow tip and drew it all
the way out.

All the while, Laurel
gripped his head, keeping him from thrashing and hurting himself more. “’Tis
all right, Eirik,” she whispered. “I’m here. You’ll be fine.” The words felt
hollow and meaningless, so great was her fear for him, yet she hoped that
somewhere in his agony-addled brain he took comfort from them.

“We’ll need to wash the
wounds and keep them clean,” Madrena said in a strained voice. “Let us hope
that a fever isn’t already setting in.”

Alaric and Madrena went
about boiling water, soaking strips of linen in it, and cutting away the linen
tunic and pants around each of Eirik’s wounds. They seemed to know what to do,
so Laurel stayed out of their way and remained by Eirik’s side. The two must
have seen their fair share of battle wounds and knew how to treat them, whereas
Laurel had done little more than treat splinters.

The hours slipped by as
they tended to Eirik, for the sun was high and hot by the time Laurel emerged
from the hut to see to her needs and rinse her hands in the stream. It wasn’t
until then that she realized she’d been comprehending and communicating with
Alaric and Madrena in their language. Eirik’s lessons had come to fruition.

A lump caught in her throat.
She wanted naught more at that moment than to be able to talk with him once
more, see his tanned face transform in a smile, feel his warm, lively hands on
her.

As she turned to
re-enter the cottage
,
she froze.

Grimar was coming up
the path toward her, his ice
blue eyes locked
on her.

“You survived the
attack,” he said, his cool eyes unreadable. “How fa
re
s
Eirik?”

“He’ll be fine,”
Madrena said, stepping from the cottage to stand between her and Grimar. “Just
a few scratches.”

Laurel’s mind worked
slowly to untangle why Madrena would lie so baldly to Grimar. Of course, Grimar
was a cruel, callous man. But why would Madrena need to maintain the appearance
of Eirik’s wellbeing? Was Eirik in some sort of danger? Was she?

Grimar eyed Madrena
calmly for a long moment. “My father has called a council meeting to asses
s
the damages of the attack on the village,” he said
finally. “Everyone who is able must attend.”

“Eirik is resting now,
but my brother and I will be there,” Madrena replied smoothly. “I assume you
don’t want this thrall to attend?” She casually gestured toward Laurel.

“Nei, of course not,”
Grimar responded dismissively. “The meeting is already getting underway. You
and your brother had better hurry.”

With that, Grimar
turned and strode back toward the village.

“What was that?” Laurel
said once he was out of earshot.

“It would suit Grimar’s
plans to have Eirik out of the way,” Madrena replied as she ducked back into
the hut.

“He would harm his own
cousin?” The thought was horrifying, yet Laurel should know by now not to put
anything past Grimar.