Viking Sword: A Fall of Yellow Fire: The Stranded One (Viking Brothers Saga Book 1) (10 page)

The errant thoughts drifted through her mind like a falling snowflake. She felt herself blush and blinked the foolish distraction away. His looks would not stop him from killing her if he did not like her answer.

“Talon believes he loves me. He would come first to rescue me, and only then seek retribution.”

He angled his head and looked at her down the length of his nose. Ice could not be colder than his regard. “This man cares for you, but you ran from him?” His tone conveyed marked skepticism. “Why did you not cry out, call him to you? Did you fear his death would be on your hands? Do you have feelings for him in return, or wish to wed with him?”

“I do not wish to marry him, or to be left in his hands. Talon is a good man, but he…smothers. What I face as your slave is little different than that which I would endure with him. I cannot breathe when he is nigh, when he looks at me. Though he would not treat me ill, to belong to Talon would be a return to lifelong bondage, more restrictive than slavery.” She sighed. “Lady Eadgida believed a match between us would be good, but ruled the decision was to be mine. I said no.”

And now, more than before, I must continue to hide my decision, such as it is, to leave this man.

“Yet you chose to embrace thralldom to journey with us. I do not understand this, Lissa Brandr-thrall. Your words seem a contradictory falsehood, or are you merely a foolish maid who knows not her own mind and holds no thought for any but herself?” His eyes narrowed. “Do you seek to pit me against this man to satisfy some woman’s game? If so, you will not find the outcome to your liking.”

She felt herself flush. “I sought only to give you fair warning. Make use of it or not!”

At her tone, he raised his hand as if to strike her. She tried not to cringe. “I am sorry! I ask your patience. When I was freed, I was encouraged to speak my mind and have grown accustomed to it. I will learn.”

From beneath her lashes, she saw him throw a glance at Sindre. “Why did you wait until now to speak of this?”

“I would have told you sooner, but when your friend said we would meet your ship this day, I saw no need. Talon could not have started after us until the following morn, and though Wat, their tracker, is very good, he could not lead them so quickly as we traveled. I believe they remain at least a half-day behind us, if not more.”

“So then. This explains the soldier I had to dispose of at the hollow tree, and Sindre is not my friend. He is my father’s brother.”

Both Sindre and Lissa exclaimed at the same time. “What soldier?”

He looked at his uncle. “While the two of you slept, he came nosing around our position. I gave him a trifling tap on the head, and left him for the others to find.”

“Why did you say naught, and why did you not kill him?” Sindre sounded put out, as if annoyed he had been left out of a game.

“It was not necessary. None followed him before we left.”

His gaze switched to her. “I also wished to know if you would tell me of your own accord that you knew those men. That soldier was not simply scouting the area. He came straight to the tree. He knew of the hollow, and looked for someone from the village to come there.”

The blood that earlier flooded her face now fled. The fear returned. He
had
known of her deception.

“Be thankful, Lissa Brandr-thrall, you gave me honesty before I demanded it of you.” The threat in his deep voice shot her through with little thrills of fear. “Had you not, you would find the consequences not at all to your liking. Never lie to me again. How many follow?”

The switch in subject confused her. She floundered for a moment before she realized he referred to Talon’s men. “Two and ten. There were two and ten in the patrol when they set out.”

“Hair of the troll! I must think on this.”

He walked away, the big víkingr following. She heard Sindre say, loudly, and in her tongue, “I told you she could not be trusted. Kill her now and be done, or tie her to a tree and leave her for them to find.”

She could not make out Brandr’s answer. She wrapped her arms around her middle and took deep, slow breaths, seeking to ease the racing of her heart. The gloom beneath the trees chilled her, and she badly needed privy time, but feared they would not let her out of their sight.

She closed her eyes. Brandr would listen now to Sindre. His uncle. Family. The big warrior’s counsel would be a powerful influence, and she had just damaged her standing in Brandr’s eyes, how badly she could not guess. What chance now they would keep her with them? Worse, if they left her to fall into Talon’s hands, her fate would be sealed.

Brandr had stopped beneath a tree some little distance away. She still felt the anger in him and it deadened the lift in her spirits that had sustained her this far. In truth, she rather thought he would at last agree with his uncle that
their
chances of survival were better with her dead. Like a heavy, suffocating fur, the fatigue fell upon her again. This time, she did not try to fight it. She dropped the húdfat to the ground and slipped to her knees, unable to care if it brought forth Sindre’s killing wrath. She curled into a ball and knew no more.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Brandr stalked from Lissa’s vicinity. Both his head and the wound in his side hurt abominably, and he feared the pain would snap his precarious temper if he stayed nigh her, though his anger was less for her than for her mistress. He did not enjoy terrifying his new thrall, but it was necessary to impress on her the danger of disobedience and disrespect. Among his people, such behavior from a slave was not tolerated. Did she offer either to any free man or woman when he was not around to intervene in her behalf, she would be beaten or perhaps killed. Surely, as a former slave, she must know of this. He could only think her mistress had been too lenient with her. His lip curled. A master who allowed wrong behavior in a slave did that one no favors.

Sindre stopped beside him. “You seek to protect her. Why?”

Mine!

The word popped into his thoughts, startling him.

She is mine.

He set his jaw and ignored it. He had no answer to his uncle’s question, at least none that made sense, so he kept silent.

“Brandr, what are you planning?”

“She says the first marshal cares for her. A man in love does foolish things. If we slay her, this Talon may hunt us down to avenge her. We would have to eliminate him and his men, and that could well set another, larger force on our trail. I would as soon keep our contact with the Saxons to a minimum.”

“Then leave her behind. They will soon catch up to her.”

“You forget the gold. She might convince them the war party took it, but we cannot trust her to that extent.” He released a frustrated sigh. “I do not wish to be followed all the way to Guthrum’s lands, but unless we forfeit both the female and the treasure, I see no other recourse. There is also another consideration. I swore to return to my father with slaves and wealth. By good chance, I have obtained both, and they will redeem my failure in my father’s eyes. I would leave neither behind.”

Sindre scanned the darkening sky. “It is evenly between mithr aptann and náttmál. We had best leave, and do what we can to hide our trail.”

“Hiding our passage completely will not be possible.” Brandr met his uncle’s considering gaze. “But we can throw them off for a time to allow us to gain ground. We will search for a wide stream and follow it as long as possible, then seek to cover our trail when we leave it.” He pressed the heel of his palm against the continuing ache in his head. “This new development means there will be little time to hunt or fish. We will have to take whatever we can find as we travel. We may hope those who follow will soon realize their hunt is fruitless, and abandon the effort, though I admit that is unlikely.”

He spun on his heel, but as he went, he threw a considering look over his shoulder. “By the way, Uncle, did I mention I am grateful for the
detour
you made?”

He clearly heard Sindre’s snort as he stared at the motionless figure curled in slumber at his feet.

Sindre came beside him. “She is weak. Gold, thrall or no, you are a fool to persist in keeping her.”

“Perhaps so. We camp here for the night.”

∞∞§∞∞

“They have moved much more swiftly than we expected, leóf. They are far ahead.” Wat swung away from the cold ashes of the fire. Nose nigh to the ground, as if he could smell those they followed, he paced in an ever-widening circle around the small clearing. He disappeared into the trees, only to quickly return. “A day, maybe more. They move south and east, perhaps toward Swanwich. They may have ships waiting somewhere along the coast.”

Talon slipped off a boot and shook out a pebble. “Then we will increase our speed.”

The morning after the raid, he had split his small force in half, sending Dalmas, his new second, and five men to trail the war party, while he followed Lissa and the Danes with the rest. With the exception of the detour around the bog, the three had followed the cliff top since leaving Yriclea. They had covered ground more quickly than expected and his patience with Wat’s pace was sorely tried. But pursuit could not be made in the dark, for they might miss an unexpected movement by their quarry in a new direction.

He accepted the fact that if they reached a waiting vessel, Lissa would be lost to him forever, as would the gold, if indeed they had it. But he knew of the increased number of ships the king had ordered to patrol the coast, and chances remained good that waiting Northmen would be forced to abandon any position they might hold. Then his prey would have to turn inland, and he would follow. He would not give up until all hope of reaching her was lost.

∞∞§∞∞

The next morn, the third after leaving Yriclea, the víkingrs, with Lissa between them as now was clearly their wont, left the coastal cliffs behind. Brandr had said they would not push so hard this day and she looked with gratitude to an easier pace. The woods began to thin as they trudged inland. Relieved that Sindre ignored her, and Brandr seemed disinclined to do anything unpleasant, Lissa focused on their surroundings. She had slept deeply and long, and felt refreshed. The stiffness that lingered from the difficult march of the previous day dissipated as her body warmed with activity. Inhaling deeply of the clean, cool air, she gloried in the fresh beauty of the surroundings. She loved summer, and though these lands were new to her, they differed little from her own home and she found the passage through them pleasant. Wildflowers and butterflies abounded in the open woodlands. The infrequent views of tiny hamlets, farms, fields and pastures from atop the rolling hills bespoke peaceful industry, though they met no one, and saw no one except from a distance. Bearing in mind Brandr’s order, she foraged along the way, finding greens, mushrooms, wild onions, and blackberries to supplement their rapidly dwindling food supply. Though the activity slowed them, neither man made complaint.

Soon, they came across a well-traveled path along a woodbank. Though it angled off in a different direction than they had previously traveled, and they ran the risk of meeting others, Brandr led them down it for some time.

Then the track passed into a more heavily wooded area and he turned to her. “Go exactly where I go.”

Curious, she nodded. He left the path and began to walk as if following some sort of track that led first in one direction, then another, then returned to a straight line. As they continued in this odd pattern, she noticed Sindre had fallen behind. Rather far behind. He walked bent over, as if searching for something, and frequently appeared to pick up small things from the ground and throw them aside, or more strangely, turn them over. Baffled, she turned to walk backward and watched as he scratched at the ground behind him with the point of his sax, then brushed or dabbed at it with a small branch and sprinkled dead leaves and other detritus over it. Other times, he seemed to be trying to fluff up the grasses they walked on, or he would stop to readjust a bent branch. He would do this for about the length of a field, then he would straighten and hurry to catch up to them.

“He hides our tracks!”

Brandr glanced back at her exclamation. Spread across his face was the first true smile she had seen from him. It transformed his whole countenance. The set of his body relaxed. They stepped through a patch of sunlight filtering through the trees and little lights danced in the intense blue of his eyes. She caught her breath, and felt as if she had walked, unaware, into fairie dust.

I have never known so handsome a man.

“Some of them, já,” he said, in answer to her question. “It is not possible to eliminate them all, but our efforts will slow the tracker. It is why we risked following that oft-used path. Watch, now.”

In front of them rushed a shallow, fast-flowing stream. Brandr removed his boots, secured the footwear to his belt, rolled up his trousers, stepped into the water and gestured she should follow. Their wet road flowed, as had the path, in a direction not the one they wished to go, but they did not leave it until they came to a place where several large, deeply buried rocks clustered along the bank. Brandr lifted her to the flat top of one of them and climbed up beside her. Then, to her astonishment, he jumped for a solid branch over his head, swung his feet up and hung there like an oversized squirrel. She clapped a hand over her mouth to hide a giggle.

Once firmly straddling the branch, he held out his hand.

Her mouth fell open. “You cannot mean that I should come up there?”

“You will, or be left behind.”

“But I have not climbed a tree since I was a child.”

The argument ended when Sindre rose from the water to stand behind her. She squeaked with surprise when he lifted her high. Brandr, with one hand braced around a nearby branch, swept his other arm round her waist and with easy strength, brought her the rest of the way up. She clambered onto the surface, alarmed at how it swayed when Sindre followed. Their course then was a simple, if sometimes hair-raising scramble through the treetops.