Chapter 22 #2
When he came to her at last, she writhed and thrashed in a fierce fury of desire that enwrapped him with his every movement.
She clung to him more tightly each time he thrust within her, and each time he thrust, he felt himself move deeper, harder, faster.
He closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, staved off climax until he could stave no more …
it burst upon him, sweat beading his shoulders, his brow, the seed that burst from him draining him as if he were suddenly left lifeless, rendered helpless, as his very soul seemed to slip into her.
His heart thundered, his blood rushed, and a feeling of sweet, saturating ecstasy swept over the length of him.
Her nails curled into his shoulders, she cried out, and lay still.
At his side, she shivered. He drew her against him, taking his surcoat from the ground where it had been strewn and cast it over her as a cover against the sudden chill.
She curled against him, and lay in silence for long seconds.
Then she asked softly, “Must you go into Stirling with Peter and—his sister?”
“Aye. We will go into Stirling with them.”
“We?”
“Aye.”
She seemed pleased with that. She shifted, looking up into his eyes. “Waryk, I wrote to Daro and Anne, telling them that Vikings attack us—and accuse Daro. They remain just outside Stirling. I want to meet with them and the king, and let Daro proclaim his innocence.”
Waryk frowned, suddenly uneasy. He shifted to an elbow to better see his wife. “You told them that you were coming to meet me?” he asked.
“Aye.”
“I don’t think that was wise—” he began, but even as he spoke, Mellyora suddenly screamed, looking over his shoulders.
“Waryk!”
He rolled, just in time. Where he had lain, a battle-ax thudded into the earth. Mellyora flew to her feet as he did, but they were parted by the width of the copse then, and Waryk suddenly found himself facing four men.
Vikings … Normans?
Two blond and bearded; two reddish. They wore full beards. Their bascinets or helmets appeared to be Viking; their long, plated chain mail seemed more Norman. But looking at one man among them, he knew that he had seen the battle gear before.
On Daro Thorsson. Aye, and it was Daro’s banner being carried by another of the men.
Four of them. One wielded a mace, two carried axes …
Daro wielded a blade.
And he was naked as a newborn. His sword was ten feet away, his wife …
Clutching the surcoat to her breasts, she stood staring, frozen and transfixed.
Stunned?
He could not help the suspicion that crawled into his mind. Was she so surprised? She had just told him that she had written to Daro, telling him they would meet with him, warning that his name was being cast about …
But why tell him?
Why not?
Just as Peter of Tyne took extreme care with the way he surrendered to the Scottish king, maybe she watched her every step with him. Maybe she pretended not to be involved in any moves against him, because if he won the battle, she would be lost …
“At last, Waryk!” one of the men spat out.
“The king’s great champion, the boy murderer!
Well, here we meet at last. And look, sir, there you are, milord, naked as a fish, without so much as a sword.
How cowardly! We should give you a weapon, a fighting chance.
But I think not! You may die like a dog, sir, cowering down in the dirt! ”
The first man strode toward him, ax swinging. As he came Waryk dived in a roll forward, leaping to his feet across the copse again.
“Waryk!”
She was beside him suddenly, thrusting his sword into his hand. His father’s claymore. Double-handed, he started forward, swinging at his enemies.
“Get behind me, Mellyora.”
“Waryk, I can—”
“You can’t fight without a weapon!”
One of the men with the axes took a swing. Waryk sidestepped and brought his claymore crashing down. The sound of crunching flesh and bone was terrible, but the second man let out a sound like a berserker, rushing forward.
He took longer to kill. Waryk lunged and retreated, lunged and retreated—spun around when he felt the man with the mace behind him.
He was a fool. Threatening with his swing and harsh taunts, he forgot to watch for his own vulnerability.
Waryk stepped swiftly forward, swinging.
He sliced the man across his midsection, deeply enough to kill with the single motion.
Yet he barely turned back to his other opponent quickly enough.
He missed the man’s ax blow by a hair; in fact, he felt shaven down the arm, the blow came so close.
Yet he reacted quickly, bringing his sword up to catch the man from groin to throat, knowing full well that if he didn’t kill then, and kill quick, the man’s next move would crush in his skull.
But the man lay dead. Waryk spun quickly, expecting the fourth man to rush him. But he did not.
He spun again.
No one rushed him. The fourth man was gone. Along with Waryk’s wife.
Daro. Daro was gone …
And he had taken his niece with him.
She had gone for the ax. That had been her mistake.
Bending to retrieve the weapon, she had found herself scooped up from around the middle. She had screamed in pure surprise as well as panic, but Waryk hadn’t heard her, because two men had been trying to kill him at that moment.
Her fingers had reached out ….
And missed the ax. And she had been grappled, and dragged, and thrown over a man’s shoulders, and taken swiftly atop a horse.
She was tangled in her husband’s surcoat, and she couldn’t fight her assailant because he was clad in plates and mail.
She wouldn’t release her husband’s surcoat; it was the only cover she had.
Her only relief was in seeing that one man fell, and Waryk was swinging at the other as they disappeared from view.
They rode hard. Very hard, and very long. The night seemed unending. The wind grew colder. They came at last to a copse, near to the sea, and she realized they had come closer to Blue Isle. She was, in fact, now far closer to her home than to Waryk’s camp.
The horse came to a halt, and she was dragged back over the man’s shoulder.
Because of his mail and plate, her flesh was scratched and bruised.
He slid her to the ground, nearly dropping her, before dismounting from his horse.
She clutched Waryk’s surcoat with its flying-falcon emblem to her and backed warily away from her captor.
He wore Daro’s helmet, Daro’s emblem.
She narrowed her eyes, staring at him. “Who are you?”
“Daro.”
She shook her head. “You are a coward, a liar. You’re not my uncle.
Do you think that I don’t know my own uncle, my own kin?
You bastard, how dare you use him, how—” she broke off, suddenly thinking that she did know the man.
She didn’t know his name, or why he was so relentless, but she did know him.
“It’s you again. You think that you will convince Waryk that it is my uncle who is so determined to pillage, rape, maim, and kill our people. Well, he’s not a fool. He knows better. And he will catch you, and find out who you are, and—”
“You’d best shut up, Lady Mellyora. Neither your uncle nor your husband is here, lady. Your husband is quite possibly dead already, and if not, he will never reclaim what is his.”
She stared at the helmeted, nameless man who was her enemy and felt chilled. She pulled the surcoat more tightly to her.
“My husband is not dead.”
“Oh? And why not? He killed one of my men, but two remained to kill him.”
She shook her head, not wanting to tell him that she was certain his men had fallen.
“He has his father’s claymore. He will not be defeated,” she said.
“Well, other men carry their fathers’ swords, my lady, and that does not keep them alive,” he said sourly.
“But no matter. We will reach Blue Isle before your husband—or his men, or the king’s men, if he is dead.
And you will order the gates opened to admit us.
We’ll have met with the rest of my men and Lord Renfrew’s forces, and once we’ve entered Blue Isle …
well, it will be a Viking fortress again, my dear. You should be quite glad.”
The man’s plan was easy to understand—enter Blue Isle, and the walls were so formidable that the fortress was almost impossible to take.
But for him to believe that, even if Waryk were to be killed, he could reach the fortress without the king’s men coming for him was insane.
And how and why he had plotted so relentlessly seemed equally insane.
When one idea failed, he seemed ready to go to another, no matter how foolhardy or reckless.
“We’ll never reach Blue Isle.”
“We will, but even that will not matter, as long as I have you. I want the isle, of course. But there are things I want more.”
“What?” she asked warily.
He leaned toward her from his destrier. “Revenge, my lady.”
“Against me, my father, Waryk—”
“Ah! There you have it.”
“Why?”
“He killed my father, and worse. He killed Lord Renfrew, who would have made my family’s fortune, and given us position for all the years to come.”
“Your father fought Waryk?”
“You didn’t know your husband was a murderer, eh, lady?”
“I don’t believe that he is. I’ve seen him avoid bloodshed whenever he could. He’s reasoned when many a man would have drawn a sword. He’s not a murderer.”
The man suddenly drew his sword and pointed it at her throat. “I tell you he’s a murderer.”
She shrugged, trying to ignore the blade. “Kill me, if you think that it will hurt him. He didn’t choose to marry me.”
“But I understand that you’re carrying his child.”
She started, wondering how anyone could have known such an intimate detail. Angus? She felt sick suddenly, wondering if Angus, whom Waryk had trusted with his life and hers, could be a traitor to him. Everyone, it seemed, had Viking blood.
She tried to lie, though she had become more certain every day. “I don’t believe so.”