Kathleen Kirkwood & Anita Gordon - Heart series (26 page)

Their
gazes clashed, and Lyting found himself staring into two obsidian pools — bottomless wells of death.

»«

A chill prickled over Ailinn’s skin, setting the fine hairs on end. A faint breeze? Strange, she had not noticed one, and the day itself had grown unusually warm.

Lyting and the others should be returning soon, she calmed herself, feeling a knot of tension tighten in her stomach. The many hours had crawled past snail-like, fraying her nerves and racking her soul. Was he all right?
Did he fare well?

She listened to the rushing of the river. All seemed so quiet, as though the sun
’s heat had lulled nature into a drowsy half-sleep.

Ailinn cast her gaze over the captives with whom she sat, about twenty in all, she herself the last of the line. Rhiannon rested beside her, brows drawn together, but whether to shield her eyes against the intensity of the sun or to brood upon some new scheme, Ailinn could not say.

Skallagrim stood guard next to them, sweat trickling in little rivers from beneath his iron helmet, coursing down over his flushed cheeks and into his beard. Uttering something she thought to be a curse, he gestured for Ailinn to assist him with his shield.

Rising, Ailinn relieved him of the round wooden buckler as she had done many times already. Skallagrim removed his helmet, uncovering matted, dripping hair. He then caught up the skin of water at his side, poured it over his head, dribbled it over his face, then into his mouth. Revived, he ran an eye over the landscape and, detecting nothing amiss, returned the skin to his belt and donned his helmet.

Ailinn held forth his shield. As Skallagrim’s hands closed on its thickness, he suddenly jerked his head back around to the right, something drawing his attention. Ailinn felt him pull on the shield, but before she could release her grip, three arrows rooted in his chest.

Ailinn screamed as Skallagrim purpled and pitched forward, dragging her with him to the ground, both still clutching the shield. The chieftain fell partially atop her, but Ailinn shoved and pushed free, dragging herself from beneath him. She collided with Rhiannon at the same moment an arrow whizzed overhead. In unison they threw themselves to the earth.

A deafening cry went up as barbarous tribesmen flooded the area, seemingly from nowhere. Ailinn twisted to see, then looked with horror upon the warrior-horsemen of the Steppe.

They came riding, their long ebony locks flowing, and their dusky features obscured beneath heavy beards. From belts of silver hung bow cases, sword scabbards, and metal-crowned clubs. Ropes looped the pommels of their saddles, and they bore small circular shields and javelins in their hands. Spurs glinted on their heels.

Petrified, the women shrieked wildly, clutching their heads between their arms and hands. Ailinn observed Jorunn taking up an ax, but did not see her daughters.

Rhiannon shoved her urgently.
“Get the keys!”

“
Ní hea
,” Ailinn protested as Rhiannon crawled forward and grabbed for the ring of keys at Skallagrim’s belt.

Ailinn pulled at her arm, trying to stop her, but Rhiannon wrenched away and turned to hunch over the locks that secured her wrist cuff. Rapidly she fitted one key, then another into the
mechanisms. One lock sprang free, releasing her from the chain that bound her to the other captive’s ankle iron.

Spying the keys, several women snatched for them, but Rhiannon snarled and hauled Ailinn apart with her, a chain yet joining their wrist cuffs.

“Rhiannon! We
must
remain with the others.” Ailinn struggled against her hold. “Lyting said — ”

“
Forget what he said,” Rhiannon snapped, pulling Ailinn along with her, behind another nearby boulder. “He’s no help to us now, is he?”

Rhiannon peered around the rock, marking the center of the conflict where the men raged and then the immense plain that awaited with its cloaking grasses. She leaned back and worked quickly, thrusting the last of the slotted keys into the lock and disengaging the piece.

Wresting the cuff from her wrist, Rhiannon tossed down the keys and left the manacle and chain to dangle from Ailinn’s arm. Shouts drew their attention. When they looked up, they saw a horseman whipping his horse toward them.

“
Come!” Rhiannon seized Ailinn and dragged her up with her, forcing her into a run.

The man closed in fast upon them, a fierce gleam in his eyes. As he broached the final distance, Rhiannon shoved Ailinn into his path, then veered and ran apace, away from the heart of the battle, and headed toward the grasses.

Pain grated Ailinn’s arms and palms as she jolted against the ground. The horseman swerved his mount and came alongside, but Ailinn gained her feet and broke into a run.

The horses
’ hooves pounded in her ears as the barbarian bore down upon her. As he pressed his advantage, Ailinn grabbed up the chain that dangled from her wrist and struck out at his leg and thigh. The horse skewed, but the man reined him back in an instant. With a growl he bent from his saddle and snared her about the waist.

Ailinn screamed in terror, twisting in his grip and scratching at his hands as her feet left the ground. His arm suddenly stiffened as he jerked upward, arching his back. A moan escaped his lips and his arm slackened.

Ailinn toppled back to the earth and stumbled to her knees. A heartbeat later the man dropped from his saddle and landed with a “woof” right before her, an arrow projecting from his back.

Ailinn scrambled backward, her heart in her throat. As the horse moved away, she saw additional Norsemen pouring into the clearing.
Among them came Lyting, running toward her, his bow in hand!

“
Get down, Ailinn! Down!” he shouted, knocking another arrow in place and targeting an onrushing tribesman.

He felled three more scarcely before she could draw a breath. Exhausting his supply of arrows, he slung his bow to his back, drew on his sword, and fought his way toward her.

Prostrate, Ailinn dragged herself back behind the boulder. Squeezing her eyes shut, she gasped for air and began to shake. Bootsteps rushed forth, and she started. Flinging herself back against the rock, she scrabbled upward and prepared to flee. Just then, Lyting came into view, and sweet joy sang in her breast.

“
God’s mercy, stay down, Ailinn!” he shouted again, his sword singing out as he met the blade of a Petcheneg. He moved apart, raining blow after blow on the enemy’s shield and saber.

Fear cl
aimed Ailinn anew as she thrust herself to the ground once more. She lay there invoking the heavens in a rush of prayer. Most desperately did she implore God’s protection for Lyting.

The roar continued in her hearing
— the clash of metal, furied shouts, shrieks of pain, and screams of death, and the hysterical wails of the shackled women.

Ailinn swallowed deeply and looked out from
behind the rock. All appeared chaos at first, then she realized that the Norse closed steadily in like a wall upon the outnumbered foe, choking off pockets of tribesmen and brutally devouring them. Others, seeing themselves outmatched, retreated, yipping in parting, which proved a signal for the others to withdraw.

Heaving for breath, Lyting stabbed his
blood-mottled blade into the ground and dropped to his knees beside Ailinn.

“
Elskan mín
.” He drew her against him and buried his face in her auburn hair.

Remembering himself, he loosened his hold, though he did not fully release her. Brushing back the tumble of fiery locks
from her face, he touched her cheek briefly, then helped her to her feet.

No sooner did they step free of the boulder than a bellow went up in the distance, drawing both their gazes. They looked as one to see a fleeing horsemen lean out from his mount and
swoop down, reaching into the grasses. He came up with a struggling figure. A woman. Rhiannon.

Ailinn started, but Lyting held her firmly against him. Rhiannon
’s shrieks reached them as she kicked and thrashed and clawed at her abductor. Unfazed, the Petcheneg threw her across his saddle and spurred his horse across the plain.

“
There is naught we can do, Ailinn,” Lyting stressed, his tone solemn.

Stunned, benumbed, Ailinn leaned against his chest. Together they watched as the tribesmen bore Rhiannon across the shimmering expanse. Dwindling to a speck, the warrior-horsemen vanished into the immensity of the Steppe.

Ailinn squeezed her lashes tight against the image and turned to Lyting, her head sinking forward against his chest.

Lyting
’s arm encircled her at once. He returned his gaze to those of the convoy in time to see Hakon stride across the clearing and stand over Skallagrim’s lifeless body.

Withdrawing his helmet, Hakon wiped the sweat and blood from his face and knelt beside his uncle. A scant moment passed before he directed his interest to Lyting.

Their eyes met and held, then Hakon’s gaze slid to Ailinn. Lyting felt as though a cold, steel blade passed straight through him. With Skallagrim’s death, everything had changed.

By the Law Code, Ailinn
now belonged to Hakon.

Hakon intended to kill him.

‘Twas in his eyes.

But counter to his nature and with little subtlety, Hakon bridled his impulses and bided his time.

Lyting could hear the chafing in Hakon’s soul.

He would not long restrain his hand, Lyting knew. Hakon wanted Ailinn. Badly. Thus far, he withheld himself from her, evidently anticipating that the moment he sought to deal her a harm, Lyting
’s steel would be there to stay him. Permanently.

Hakon was right.

Much had changed since Aïfor and Gelandri. Even if it had not, he’d see Hakon in the fiery realms below before he would allow him to violate Ailinn.

Lyting plied his strength to the oars as the convoy made its way downriver. He ill-liked his position in the fore of the boat, Ailinn situated behind and Hakon astern, plotting at his back.

In truth, he had expected Hakon to make his move at the previous, fifth rapid, Baruforos — “Wave-force” — but then, everyone in the convoy, including the captives, were preoccupied with the possibility of another attack.

But the attack never came, and now they gained on the sixth rapid, Leanti
— “Seether.” Again, they were to pole the vessels through as at Baruforos.

Lyting
sensed that Hakon intended Leanti to be his grave.

And so he waited, keen to every sound, every movement within the boat, his concern for Ailinn weighing heavily upon him.

»«

Ailinn
’s gaze touched Lyting’s back, then drifted out over the waters, seeing yet not seeing, her thoughts thick with memories of the last days and bound with fresh cares.

The boat jarred and pitched as the waters roughened about them, and they approached yet another rapid. Hakon shouted past her ear, motioning Lyting to row toward the bank at a point slightly downriver.

Lyting turned to attend Hakon’s words, affording Ailinn a view of his clean profile. His brow flickered downward briefly, as though Hakon’s charge gave him pause, but he then fixed his gaze to a place ashore and dipped his oars.

The craft rocked and plunged through the choppy waters, the din of the rapids increasing as they pressed on. Glancing past her shoulder, Ailinn saw the other vessels of the convoy begin to angle toward land, one by one, none continuing so deep into the currents as they.

Ailinn started to reach to Lyting and alert him, but the boat suddenly heeled to the right, a weight shifting inside. Before she could utter a sound, Hakon shoved her hard aside and into the hull, coming forward with an ax upheld in his hand, aimed for Lyting’s back.

A scream scaled Ailinn
’s throat, but even as it did, Lyting wrenched aside, twisting back in the same motion and coming up with a length of chain from the bow. In a blur of movement he entrapped Hakon’s wrist and ax and yanked him forward, pulling him through on his own momentum and propelling him to the bottom of the ship. The ax blade lodged solidly in the wood.

Without pause Lyting seized Hakon by the back of the neck and hair and slammed his head into one of the sea trunks stored in the bow.

Hakon grunted as though dazed but quickly snaked back his free hand and slipped a knife from the top of his boot. Driving upward, he stabbed for Lyting, but in an instant Lyting snared his wrist.

“
Get back!” Lyting called out to Ailinn as he vied with Hakon, the menacing blade wavering directly above her.

Ailinn gasped, staring up at the knife
’s sharp tip as it danced over her breast. She dragged herself backward, grasping hold of the lashings that secured the goods aboard.

The boat continued to toss and heave, swamping as the waters buffeted it from without and the men
’s struggle caused it to rock from within. Ailinn felt a damp cold spread along her spine and legs as the flooding soaked through the back of her gown.

Lyting and Hakon strove on against each other, their strengths pitted, Lyting still hampering Hakon
’s right hand with the chain while staying his left with the force of his own grasp, the knife flashing between them.

Seeing Hakon
’s side open beneath his raised arm, Ailinn lay hold to the abandoned oar beside her, hauled it forward through the back oarlock, and struck for his ribs.

Hakon snarled and jerked to the right, taking Lyting slightly off balance. Kicking back, he caught Ailinn in the waist and chest and thrust her into the stern. Swiftly he recoiled, pulling apart from Lyting enough to draw up his leg and boot him in the hip and stomach, breaking the hold and hurtling Lyting over the trunk in the bow.

Hakon freed himself of the chain as Lyting clambered upward. Together they launched themselves at one another, the boat tipping madly, Hakon’s knife slashing through the air. Lyting impeded his assault once more. Grappling for the advantage, they fought to their feet.

The boat lurched, then smacked against a boulder and bounced off, hurtling the two onto the rail with Lyting pinned beneath.

The craft listed dangerously, taking on water, their weight and Ailinn’s loading the port side of boat. Hastily Ailinn scrambled to throw herself to starboard for ballast, but found herself tethered by her own arm, her iron wrist cuff caught on the goods and lashings.

Hakon
’s hand moved to Lyting’s throat, half-choking, half-pushing him out over the edge of the ship. Lyting countered, shoving his open palm up beneath Hakon’s jaw and pressing his fingers into his face while he straight-armed him and pushed back his head.

Meanwhile, the dagger hovered above Lyting
’s shoulder, clenched in Hakon’s iron fist. Their arms trembled, muscle locked against muscle. Hakon bore down with both force and weight against Lyting’s resistance. The blade descended slowly, turning toward Lyting’s neck.

Ailinn cried out from the stern, terrified for Lyting.

The sound of her voice renewed Lyting’s vigor. He held her before his mind’s eye as he began to compel Hakon’s arm out and away, over the boat’s side. At the same time he slipped his thumb down and around to the underside of Hakon’s wrist, then drove it into the flesh and bones there. Hakon growled above him, his fingers flowering open like so many petals and dropping the knife into the churning waters below.

Enraged
, Hakon ripped himself free of Lyting’s grasp, then lunged again, seizing Lyting about the neck with both hands and shoving him farther out over the side.

The boat rolled and dropped again as it moved deep into the heart of the rapids, the currents dragging it swiftly toward Leanti
’s treacherous, boiling descent.

Mindful of
the approaching hazards, Lyting reached over the side and felt for the foreward oarlock and oar to his left. Finding it, he grabbed hold. With his other hand he clutched the front of Hakon’s tunic, brought his knee up between Hakon’s legs and groin, and crossing himself mentally, flipped up, back, and over, taking Hakon with him overboard in a duel somersault.

Ailinn shrieked in horror as she saw Lyting disappear over the side, his hand slipping from the lock and skimming down the dangling oar as he dropped from sight.

She flung herself toward the rail, heart pounding. Straining against her trapped arm cuff, she anxiously scanned the fermenting waters.

Hakon surfaced at a distance, his eyes open and boring into her as the currents carried him toward Leanti
’s rising mists and thundering decline. His look froze her, as if to say even the rapids could not defeat him. He would have her still.

Lyting
’s bright head suddenly appeared toward the fore of the ship where he clung to the oar, holding it forced to an angle against the lock so it couldn’t slip through as he worked his way up. Grasping for the rail, he hoisted himself up enough to get one arm over it, but his weight caused the boat to heel and take on more water.

“
Ailinn. Pass me a line,” he gasped, lowering himself again, clinging to the oar and oarlock. “Anchor one end to something solid. We are going through the rapids, and I cannot get back on board.”

Frantic, Ailinn scoured the stern of the hull, and finding a heavy coil of line, she dragged it up.

“My hand is caught!” she shouted above the roar of the waters, unwinding the coil with her free hand, desperate because she did not know how she could possibly tie it with any security.

“
Wait!” she called again, hope quickening as she looked to the oarlock at the stern.

Ailinn forced the oar through the lock, letting it fall into the coursing river. She then threaded the line through the eye of the lock, a generous length, dragged it up again and threaded it through a second time.

Briefly she debated whether Lyting would need both ends of the line, but, deeming the remaining coil to be weighty enough and herself unable to heave it, she tossed him the unfurled length.

The line fell short.

Feverishly Ailinn pulled it back. Leaning forward as far as she could manage, she hurled it again.

Lyting stretched out, nearly losing his grip on the oar, but trapped the line. Immediately he pulled it toward him and secured it about his arm and wrist, then began to work his way along the side of the boat toward Ailinn.

Still, she leaned forward, her knuckles white on the rail. He began to call to her to draw back, but the boat jarred abruptly as the hull hit another boulder. His warning died in his throat as the vessel tipped precariously, losing much of the free board and toppling Ailinn over the side, into the water.

For a heart-stopping moment he thought to have lost her. But as the boat buoyed up and the surging waters retreated, he saw that she hung by her arm, the iron manacle still caught on something within the craft
— something that thankfully had been tied fast to the hull itself. Fearing the cuff would come free any moment, he labored toward her. As he looked to Ailinn, his heart stopped for a second time. Her head lolled and she appeared unconscious, a bright red patch spread along the side of her forehead, above the temple.

He redoubled his efforts, battling against the roiling waters and heaving craft. The moment became an eternity, but he fought on, single of mind, refusing to let
Leanti have her. Seconds later he reached her.

Wrapping his arm about her, Lyting caught Ailinn up, keeping her head above water as best he could while anchoring
her in his grasp. He endeavored to shield her with his body, taking the jars and jolts against the vessel himself, fearing that at any second they could be smashed against the rocks.

Ahead the mists loomed. Lyting thought to spy Hakon there, just as the racing currents bore him into the vaporous veil. Lyting braced himself,
holding Ailinn tight as they and the boat were swept forward and swallowed by the mist.

At once they plummeted as though the earth had been thieved from beneath them. Yet, still they rode the rapids, having never left the watery courseway, sweeping downward now along a steep, frothing incline, through a series of tortuous steps. Lyting tucked his head, gasping for air at intervals, holding on to Ailinn and the lashings with all his might as the ship dragged them on.

Many long minutes later Leanti spewed them out at the bottom of the run, and the currents slackened.

Amazed to have survived the rapids, Lyting thanked the heavens above, then used his legs to propel the vessel, crosscutting the brisk waters and guiding it toward shore.

The instant his feet touched the bed of the river, Lyting hefted Ailinn up into the ship and drove the craft aground. She looked deathly pale, her skin mottled and her lips and fingertips blue.

Tense and silent, Lyting worked
apace, raw emotion devouring him. In a trice he unsheathed the knife from his belt, sliced through the lashing that entangled Ailinn’s wrist cuff, and freed her. Scooping her up in his arms, he carried her onto shore and laid her on the bank.

At once he opened the neck of her gown and pressed his ear against her chest. To his relief, he heard a faint but rapid heartbeat.

Ailinn moaned, then took a shivery breath. Her lids parted over dark eyes that quickly found Lyting, but a fit of coughing suddenly seized her.

Lyting braced her up, aiding her as she choked
out the congestion from her lungs and throat. A spasm of shaking overtook her, and he pulled her across his lap and enveloped her in his arms.

Shouts reached Lyting from farther up the bank as members of the convoy appeared
— Ragnar, Orm, and a dozen more.

“
Hurry!” Lyting called. “I need blankets, furs, anything to warm her.”

Continuing to hold her against his body, he began rubbing her arms. Surely something dry could be found within the ship, for the goods had been carefully protected in waterproof ox-hide for the voyage.

He ignored the cold that seeped into his own bones and examined the wound on Ailinn’s forehead. Fortunately, ‘twas no more than a graze, and the bleeding had stopped. She would have a bruise, but nothing more. Feeling her shiver against him, he dropped a kiss to the top of her head and held her close.

“
Easy,
elskan mín
. Rest easy.”