To Find a Viking Treasure (Norse Series Book 2) (8 page)

“Is that your next question?”

She pushed higher up on her elbows, giving him a fine view of her cleavage. “I can’t believe you’re still counting my asking you to sit down as a question.”

“Another rule of gambling: no second chances,” he said, shaking his head. “Gives your opponent an opportunity.”

“And second chances are a bad thing?”

“Always. Only the weak need them.”

Sestra ripped the blade of grass in two and yanked up another. A pained light changed her eyes, turning the rich brown a paler shade. Their conversation struck new ground whether he wanted to or not. Sestra learned one of the hard truths he lived by, but they were here for the treasure, not friendship.

A fact his body resisted.

The richly embroidered hem of Sestra’s skirt slipped higher up her thigh, revealing pretty skin above her knee. Flesh the color of cream as it turns to butter showed between russet wool and the kid skin leather boots wrapped around her calves. Would the skin behind her knee be smooth to touch?

She followed the cant of his stare. “I see you’ve found something to your liking.”

He shrugged. “Caught me looking.”

Sestra tugged down her skirt, covering that fascinating strip of flesh where no freckles daubed her thigh. “You still owe me an answer to my second question.”

Her chin’s stubborn angle was noteworthy. So was the inward stony shield safeguarding his secrets.

“Where are you from? And don’t tell me one place,” she added. “I want to know everywhere you’ve lived from birth to finding your way here to Uppsala.”

“And here I thought you were going to improve my odds.”

She swished a new green blade of grass across her lips, her eyes intent. “Answer me first.”

He stared into the trees, the leaves and branches blurring. She was serious about this. Of all the questions Sestra could’ve asked, this one should be harmless.

It wasn’t.

The rock was hard at his back, a familiar resting place for men of his ilk. He stalled, not making eye contact. The answer formed in his head, truthful words carefully plotted to satisfy the red-haired
Sif
reclining in the sun. Surely the gods tested him today.

“Born in Trondheim. Left when I was a young boy and went to Estland by the Rus. I was there a long time.” He paused, crossing his arms loosely, watching her with equal interest. “Later, the Sousse seaport in the Abbasid Caliphate. From there, life on the Tigris River before I went to the Balearic Islands and then the seas…everywhere and nowhere, until I met Hakan eight winters ago.”

He kept his voice level, recounting the distant lands without emotion. Sestra was all doe eyes, big and soft, when he finished. Did she read his past when he named certain places?

“Long stays in far flung lands,” she said quietly. “That’s how you learned foreign words.”

His legs twitched, not finding his seat on the grass comfortable anymore. He hoped she wasn’t showing pity. He didn’t want it. Recounting simple facts, places of long ago left him exposed. Not even the sands of time could bury jagged memories. He’d told her more than he’d told the men he fought with serving Hakan.

Sestra’s silence rang loud in his ears, all the more powerful for the hazy roar of the waterfall. She wanted more of him, and he couldn’t give it to her.

His back drove back hard against the rock as her attention wandered over the stones around him. Her hunt for knowledge of him was at a standstill, though she pushed off the ground on her hands and knees, her braid swinging forward.

Was she going to touch him?

Arms dropping to his sides, he craved her touch. Wanted it badly. Sestra inched closer on hands and knees, hips and breasts swaying. Her hand slid along his thigh. She stretched out in the grass beside him and reached into the pile of rocks.

“Brandr, is this…” She winced, working hard, the breeze carrying her words.

Sestra wiggled against his leg. Her arm came out from the heap, the sleeve covered with dirt and broken bits of rock.

Her hand cradled a chunk of white stone marked with red.

Chapter Five

The deeper he dug, the less they found. Hours of back-breaking labor yielded coins, a necklace, two arm rings, and fragments of cut silver. A broken slab of rune stone slanted on the grass, a leather bag of middling size on top.

Sestra’s eyes had lit up at the treasure, a boon for a slave to touch. Bronze coins had jingled through her fingers, and she’d held up a necklace of braided silver to sunlight. Her delight fed him, made him shovel dirt until the pit was as deep and long as he was tall.

Though neither uttered the word freedom, its spirit was in the air. Sestra’s eyes sparkled differently the first moment he handed over the dirt covered bag. She’d hugged the clinking pouch and rolled in the grass, laughing with pure abandon. Her joy was the better treasure. Jaw set, he dug deeper until he stood in an empty hole higher than his head.

Sweat dripped down his temple. He jabbed the shovel into loamy soil, a faint chink of metal on metal sounding.

He dropped to one knee and his finger scratched free the last well-traveled coin. “This is the last of the loose pieces.”

Sestra stretched out on the grass above him, her chin cupped in her hand. Her thick braid dangled over the pit’s edge, a red ribbon against brown soil. She was richness like the earth.
Sif
. 

“The larger bag’s not here, is it?”

He swiped his sleeve across his face. Her spirit bolstered him, made him keep digging for the simple reward of her smile at unearthing a single coin.

“No,” he said, his thumb rubbing silver stamped with a roaring lion, a coin of Thrace.

“These loose pieces have to be from the larger portion. The smaller bag was tied up well.”

He balanced the Thracian coin in his palm. The rune stone was newly broken. Where the marker had been split, the rock showed clean and white.

“Could be Gorm decided it was too risky keeping the treasure in one place.” Standing up, he wiped the silver clean on his tunic before lobbing it into the open pouch.  

“What do we do now?”

“Take what we have back to Hakan.”

Sestra pushed up on her knees. “Shouldn’t we search the rest of the island?”

“It’s too late.” He upended his water pouch. A trickle landed on his lips.

A cool breeze blew the waterfall’s mist into the clearing. The sun hung lower over tree tops, signaling the day’s end. Shorter days meant fall’s frost would soon come and with Gorm burning farms, the land would yield no food. Winter would be starving time for many if the Dane had his way.

He’d hated only one man in his life. The Dane came close to making it two.

Sestra searched the dirt, hugging herself against the cold. “What happens if we return with this smaller portion?”

“Get a smaller reward? I don’t know.” He tossed the shovel to where his axe lay. His voice was hoarse. Weariness made his eyelids heavy.

“But we need to stop Gorm.”

He laughed softly at the fierce determination in her voice. “We’re not giving up. First, we take what we have to Hakan’s farm.”

She inspected her grimy palms. “And clean up.”

Dirt smeared her skirt and sleeves. The excitement at finding the rune stone had fueled them both to tear away stones big and small. Hours of shoveling sapped his strength. Sestra had to be just as weary.

She stood up, her face sweetly streaked with dirt. “I’ll get my cloak. Then we ought to go downstream and fill both water pouches.”

Aching in bone and sinew, he dropped down to get the other pouch. His brain worked the riddle: the trail signs, footprints by the stream, most of the treasure missing, some left behind.

Nothing made sense.

Odin was silent. Had been all day. The All-Father preferred cunning warriors who fought all-out battles, not men who scrabbled in dirt. Salty sweat stung his eyes. He squeezed them shut and wiped, resting in the pit. Despite his hot labor, he dared not take off his tunic. Sestra could never see his back. She’d ask more questions he didn’t want to answer. The redhead was growing on him; roots he’d have to sever.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. Beyond the pit, the waterfall roared, voices drifted closer, deep voices of men.

His eyes snapped open. “Sestra?”

The voices stopped.

Limbs locked, he knew. Balancing on the balls of his feet, he quietly reached over his shoulder for
Jormungand
. Grabbing air, he cursed under his breath. His sword lay beside his axe far from this hole, an error worthy of the greenest warrior. Earthen walls enclosed him. The dirt hole was the close in size to Christian burials, a fitting place for a Viking fool to die.

Smiling bitterly, he had the low ground, the worst place to be. He searched the sky above him, his ear cocked. Did they have Sestra?

“Br…Brandr…” Her voice cracked oddly.

Whoever was up there had her.

“I’m getting the water bags,” he called out, stalling for sacred seconds.

His gaze ricocheted around the hole. How to save her? His knife. He pulled the blade from his boot and folded the water pouches over it. A late afternoon shadow slithered over the pit. One warrior? No. Two. Moving closer.

He inched back on the balls of his feet, out of the strangers’ striking range and rose to full height. Two battle-hard men stared back. A bald, stout warrior gripped Sestra, his fat fingers digging into her arm. His other hand covered her mouth. Wide-eyed and pale, she struggled against the warrior’s grip.

A taller warrior sized up Brandr, a war hammer dangling from his fist. A flat smile split his greying beard before he stepped sideways, letting sunlight blast Brandr’s eyes. Brandr squinted and shaded his eyes. The taller one would die first, but he’d relish killing the stout one.

Thinking fast, he held up both hands in a friendly gesture, the pouches folded over his knife.

“When did Gorm send you to help us?” he asked, hefting himself out of the pit.

“Help you?” The tall one tapped his hammer against his leg. “Gorm didn’t say anything about others being here.”

“That’s because you’ve been in the north.”

The bald warrior sneered at Brandr. “Don’t play us for fools. We know you serve Hakan.”

“
Served
Hakan,” he said carefully. “I swore allegiance to Sven Henrikkson after Lithsablot. We all know he follows the Dane.”

Both men shot quick looks to each other.

“Sven sent us here on Gorm’s orders,” Brandr explained. “To bring back the hoard. Payment for the Black Wolf and his men.”

Winds shifted with the secret said aloud. Seconds passed, marked by ravens cawing overhead and the crash of the waterfall. The bald one dropped his hand from Sestra’s mouth, but he kept his manacle grip on her arm. She gulped air, her chest heaving from the effort.

The tall warrior cocked his head, his sharp scrutiny flicking from the hole in the ground to the broken rune stone. The larger piece was nowhere in sight.

Brandr took a casual step toward his weapons. “You can see I’m here with the Henrikkson thrall,” he continued. “She guided me.”

Sestra swallowed visibly, her eyes flashing split-second awareness. It was a huge gamble, hoping she sensed his plan and wouldn’t crumble from fright.

She frowned at the thick fingers clamping her arm, regarding the man like an insect. “And how displeased Lord Gorm will be that you’ve bruised me.”

The bald one sneered, “A thrall talking like a highborn lady.”

“I wouldn’t handle her so meanly,” he cautioned. “Gorm favors her when the Lady Astrid turns cool.”

“Lady Astrid is always cool,” the bald one said.

She took a deep breath, her breasts testing the limits of her bodice. “Why else do you think Sven Henrikkson suggested Gorm find his comfort with me?”

The tall, bearded warrior’s eyes narrowed on her. “I’ve never seen you with Gorm.”

“Because you keep account of all the women he beds?”

His cold eyes studied her, dipping to her bodice. “I’d remember you.”

Shoulders proudly back, she played to his lust. “Lord Gorm met me the day after the midsummer festival. He whispered to me of hiding his hoard here, told me he brought it that very morn with a white rune stone marked in red.” Her lips pursed. “How else do you think I know of this place and the stone?”

Wind stirred the leaves and the air grew colder from the sun slipping away. The older Viking’s weathered hand eased its grip on the war hammer as he gave his partner a nod. The stout one let go of her arm.

“I’ll keep the rest of his words to myself,” she said, her chin tipping high. “Same as I’ll keep quiet about your oafish hands on me,
if
you stop hindering us.”

She sauntered several paces away from the two warriors, rubbing her arm, her eyes rounding on Brandr. Both men followed the sway of her backside. Sestra was panicked, but what a clever woman catching onto his ploy. He gave her the subtlest nod, acknowledging her quick thinking. She managed to remove herself a safe distance with nary a drop of blood spilled.

He still had his vow to fulfill. The treasure.

“What about the larger bag?” he asked.

The tall one’s hoary brows slammed together. “What about it?”

“It’s not here.”

The tall one froze in place, a cool breeze twirling the pointed end of his beard. “Because it’s somewhere else,” he said slowly. Too slowly.

Cold sweat pricked Brandr’s scalp. The giant war hammer twitched against the tall one’s leg as if the weapon itched to crush bone. Brandr’s thumb pressed the knife’s elk bone handle hidden by the pouches. Loud cawing pierced the air. Two ravens perched high, late-day sun blasting the birds with orange light. Shadows waxed longer in the cool the clearing. Night was coming.

“Look.” Brandr nudged his chin high, his blood pumping fast. “Huginn and Muninn come to call.”

Gorm’s men looked up at beady black-gold eyes peering down from high above. A man’s life could change in the space of one look, one breath. Nostrils flaring, Brandr took his fill of island air and seized the chance Odin gave him.

Now!
The word bellowed in his head.