Viking: Legends of the North: A Limited Edition Boxed Set (74 page)

“And that,
I
swear, Lord Rurik of Novgorod!” Zora vowed fiercely, even as her skin still burned from his touch. She rubbed her arms where he had grabbed her, but the unsettling feeling would not disappear.

“I take it the wench will no longer trouble us?”

Standing in the prow, Rurik did not turn his head at Arne’s approach. He continued to stare into the deepening dusk. “Not if she’s wise.”

Arne left him then, clearly sensing Rurik’s mood. His heart was still pounding so hard that it threatened to drown out the sounds of the night coming alive around him, every thunderous beat driving home a realization that made him all the more impatient to be rid of his rebellious captive.

Kjell had been right about Zora, and if there hadn’t been truth in his bold accusation, Rurik doubted that he would have become so angry. Yet it was much more serious than that.

He didn’t just have an eye for her…he was becoming consumed by her. Clenching his fists, he wondered how long it would take him before he would stop shaking.

Shortly past noon the following day they reached Smolensk, a fair-sized trading town, but Rurik gave no orders to stop. They continued on for another few hours, abandoning the Dnieper to veer north along a smaller water route, and only then did he command his men to lower the sail.

“You will stay on board.” Rurik’s gruff command was the first words he had spoken to her since the previous evening. “And if I don’t?” Zora glared at him as he turned his attention back to his men, dismissing her. “Maybe I, too, would enjoy a chance to walk on dry land again.”

“Don’t try me, Princess,” Rurik muttered as he moved away.

This new threat echoing dangerously the one he had hurled at her yesterday, Zora knew that she would be a fool to press him further. The last thing she wanted was to encourage another incident like the one in the tent. The very last thing.

After the boat was rowed to the shoreline, she watched disgruntled from her perch on the prow as Rurik and his men jumped overboard. Yet her annoyance became amazement as the thirty-foot vessel was hoisted bodily onto log rollers with much grunting and cursing—Kjell and Arne heaving near the front while Rurik and Leif pushed from the stern— and propelled along the short portage trail until they came to another narrow river.

Marveling grudgingly that the combined strength of her four captors accomplished such a massive task, Zora wondered if they might make camp for the night before moving on. Her mouth watered at the thought of freshly cooked meat. And such a stay might afford her an opportunity to elude them.

But when the boat was shoved without delay back into the water, she was keenly disappointed. From Rurik’s determined expression as he hauled himself over the railing it was clear he aimed to press onward to Novgorod. No doubt he wished to deliver her as quickly as possible to her uncle.

Her time to escape was ebbing away.

Kjell seemed distant, rarely affording her even a sideways glance. He must have taken Arne’s grim warning to heart, and perhaps feared that Rurik might very well raise his sword against him if he took her part again.

In fact, no one seemed to pay her much heed, especially Rurik, although despite his obvious efforts to avoid her, she was convinced from the tense set of his shoulders that he was acutely aware of her presence. He avoided her gaze, too. But whenever their eyes did chance to meet, she never failed to shiver at the forbidding coldness in those vivid blue depths.

He hated her, she was sure of it, which was no less than she felt about him. And when she overheard him talking to Arne that evening about a second portage within another three days journey, she knew it might be her last chance to win her freedom before they reached Novgorod.

She began to make preparations, what few she could. First tearing a strip from her blanket and fashioning a pouch for provisions. Then she started to take all her meals in the tent, eating only a meager third of her dried, salted fish and by now stale bread and stashing the rest.

She would need food once she escaped, enough to last her until she reached the nearest town where she planned to seek refuge at the parish church. Surely the presiding priest would help her return to her father. Tmutorokan was the leading see of the Orthodox faith in Rus, the site of some of the earliest conversions from paganism to Christianity, and Mstislav’s lavish support of the Church was well known among the clergy. She could always argue that for the priest to refuse her aid could bring censure upon him from the patriarch of Constantinople, a threat only a fool would take lightly. So she watched and planned.

When they finally reached the portage by midafternoon three days later, her pouch was full. Again, Rurik wasted no time in ordering his men over the side. Zora was ready, too. When he commanded tersely that she remain aboard, she retreated to the stern and sat obediently upon a rowing bench, in false meekness. Inside she was a raw bundle of nerves, her heart hammering.

Be still and be wary!
she chided herself, clasping her hands tightly to contain her nervousness.
Watch for the right moment and then seize it!

She averted her gaze as Rurik stripped down to his trousers, focusing instead on the chirping birds fluttering in and out of the dense trees flanking the portage. But Rurik’s bare chest was so bronzed and massive that she couldn’t help peeking at him out of the corner of her eye.

It was a good thing she was soon to escape, considering how attractive she found him. Then, she remembered all too well the pressure of those powerful arms wrapped around her, the sleekness of his skin over hard muscle. She frowned, growing angry with herself.

“Excuse me if I’ve offended your sense of modesty, Princess, but the afternoon sun is warm,” he said sarcastically. Zora swallowed the tart response that flew to her lips. In a concerted effort to appear as amenable as possible, she offered him a smile.

“It is your ship, Lord Rurik. I would suppose that you can do whatever you like upon it.”

Studying her for what seemed an interminable instant, his eyes alight with suspicion, he finally muttered, “So I can.” Then he swung his legs over the railing and joined his men in the shallow water.

Zora exhaled in relief. She was finally alone! She waited until Rurik and his men were absorbed in pushing the vessel from the river and lifting it onto the log rollers before she hurried into the tent and grabbed the pouch, stuffing it down the front of her tunic. The dried fish was pungent and she wrinkled her nose in disgust. She hoped that she reached the church quickly. Surely the priest would feed her well.

Hastening back outside, she was about to retake her seat when the boat suddenly tilted dangerously to one side. She barely caught the railing in time to prevent herself from falling. Rurik’s sharp commands filled the air, and as Leif rushed around to help right the vessel, leaving only Kjell on the starboard side near the bow, Zora knew instinctively she had found her chance. The boat was barely level before she had clambered over the side, her feet landing upon a huge log.

“My lady, what are you doing?” came Kjell’s astonished voice.

Her heart racing, Zora ignored him. She jumped to the ground and ran for the trees. It seemed that within seconds she had reached their safety, but she plunged on, prickly brambles scratching at her, the thick forest before her nearly as dark as twilight.

The brittle sound of branches snapping caused Zora to gasp in fright. Someone was crashing through the woods behind her. Oh, God, Rurik? She began to run faster, her panting breaths tearing at her throat and her legs pumping furiously as she dashed through the trees.

“Princess Zora, stop! It’s not safe out here!”

Relief flooded her that it was only Kjell, but she knew that Rurik might be close behind him and she ran all the harder.

“My father has great influence at Yaroslav’s court, my lady! You don’t have to run away. Come back and I promise that he will help—”

Kjell’s words ended so abruptly that she imagined from his sharp inhalation of breath and the dull thud that followed that he must have tripped and fallen. She even dared to believe when she heard no more heavy footfalls behind her that no one else was even near to catching her. As she came to a small clearing, she paused for the barest instant to catch her breath and she shot a glance over her shoulder.

What she saw made her heart lurch. Kjell was lying facedown upon the ground some thirty feet away, a bearded, disheveled man leaning over him. She almost retched when the stranger yanked a bloodied axe from the middle of Kjell’s back, then he straightened and grinned at her.

“‘Tis a good thing you ran into the forest when you did, Princess,” he called out in a strange, guttural voice. “If you’d stayed with the ship a second longer, you would have been attacked along with the rest.”

Rurik and his warriors…under attack? Was that why he hadn’t come running after her with Kjell? It was then that Zora heard the distant sounds of shouting and the ominous ring of metal against metal echoing through the trees. Her gaze, widening in horror, moved from the stranger’s face to the dripping weapon in his hand.

Holy Mother of Christ, what sort of men attacked passing ships without first determining if they were friend or foe?
Could it be that they held no allegiance but to themselves…cared about nothing but their own gain as any ruthless marauders might…?

Zora thought no more, realizing with chilling clarity that she, too, was in grave danger. She spun, only to come face-to-face with four more bedraggled men who had sneaked up behind her. Before she could flee, the closest one grabbed her cruelly by the shoulder and twisted her around in such a way that her back came up hard against his stomach, a knife suddenly at her throat.

“My lady, is it? Princess?” he said in her ear, his breath smelling of rotten eggs. “You’ll have to tell us more about yourself, wench. If it’s true what the Varangian called out to you before Yurik caught him with his blade, we’ll have nabbed a lot more for this day’s work than any gold we find on the ship.”

“Aye, but what I want to know right now,” piped up one of the others, “is why she stinks of fish?”

“It’s my provisions! I—I stuffed them down my tunic.” Her legs weak with fear, Zora tensed when the man holding her began to grope at her chest. “I was running away!” she added hoarsely. “I—I’m a princess, just as you say…Zora of Tmutorokan. The Varangians were taking me against my will to Grand Prince Yaroslav’s court in Novgorod. My father is Mstislav, his brother—”

“Silence, woman! Your bawling is making my head ache!” As her captor held the cold edge of the knife more firmly to her throat, he grabbed the collar of her tunic and ripped downward, her pouch tumbling to the ground. “Aye, that’s what reeks,” he announced. His large, dirty hand slid over the sash binding her breasts. “I’d wager the wench is as sweet-tasting as she looks.”

“No!” Zora cried as the sash was torn from her body, baring her breasts to their hungry eyes. She crossed her arms protectively in front of her. “Please, I told you I was a princess. My father has offered a thousand gold grivna for my safe return!”