Chapter 16
Cenric
Bad thing, Snapper sent to Cenric . Bad thing coming.
Cenric had no doubt. He glanced over to Brynn, kneeling beside Tolvir. “Can you sense them? How close?”
Brynn didn’t look up from her work. “Close.” Her voice shook. “I expect just a few hundred paces from the edge of the town.”
Cenric adjusted the spear in his grip, watching the dark line of trees.
Hróarr let off a hearty string of curses. “Egill’s men are heading this way, too.”
They were grievously outnumbered, and it was about to be worse.
“I need an axe!” Ovrek bellowed. He would not let his enemies take his blood without a fight.
Tolvir scrambled up beside his father, wheezing even as he tugged away from Brynn. She let him go.
Cenric spotted Hróarr speaking with Vana before pushing her away. At Cenric’s feet, Snapper whined, attention still on the darkness of the trees.
“One crisis at a time,” Cenric sighed. If Egill’s men had returned to finish them off, they might not live long enough to worry about the monsters.
“Draw up!” Ovrek bellowed, taking control. “There are weapons on the dead men at the front of the hall. On your feet!”
The surviving men gathered around Ovrek, following him in the direction of the corpses Brynn and Cenric had killed. By unspoken agreement, Brynn and Cenric trailed after them.
They gathered before the burning hall that had been intended as their pyre. Cenric and Hróarr drew up beside the other men, carrying shields and whatever other weapons they were able to salvage. Brynn hovered at their backs.
Some twenty or thirty of them faced the much better armed and better prepared hundred or so marching up the hill. This group seemed to be in no hurry. They marched in as much of a formation as the uneven slope of the hill allowed, coming to finish off the work of their fellows.
“Egill!” Ovrek bellowed, stepping forward. “Where is that coward?” The king wielded an axe with a long handle, resting it at the ground by his side. “Egill!”
“He’s dealing with your men in the town,” shouted a familiar voice. A figure stepped forward, a shining helm glinting by the light of the burning hall.
Cenric was sure he had seen this war gear before.
The twisting shapes of entwined beasts decorated the helm and cheek pieces.
Small overlapping metal plates, each no bigger than two fingers, covered the wearer’s torso and formed a skirt around the upper thighs.
It was lamellar armor, like the style Ovrek and some of his veterans had brought back from across the sea.
“Tullia?” Ovrek stood face to face with the truth Brynn and Cenric had tried to tell him. “Tullia?” He blinked as if this might be a mirage or some sort of trick.
“These are my men.” Tullia gestured to the warriors around her. “As are Egill and Dagrún.”
“You?” Ovrek still didn’t seem to believe it.
“Sweyn was my man as well,” Tullia said. “And the others you killed for siding with him.”
Sweyn—Cenric had seen that armor on Sweyn. Tullia had come to kill her father wearing her dead husband’s war gear.
“You tried to kill me!” Ovrek bellowed. “You killed your own mother!”
“She sided with you,” Tullia shot back without a hint of remorse. “We have tolerated your insults, your demands, your cruelty, and your greed for long enough,” she cried. “Not even the Grandfather Yew was safe from your avarice.”
At that accusation, Tullia’s men let off a clamor of agreement. Jeers rose, cast toward Ovrek.
“And so you chose kin-slaying?” Ovrek roared. “What manner of vile creature are you?”
Father and daughter continued casting accusations back and forth.
Brynn edged closer behind Cenric. She rested her hands on his arms. He didn’t feel anything happening, but her touch was featherlight, delicate. She was weaving magic, he was sure of it, trying to protect him.
“I can’t create mail,” Brynn whispered. “And I can’t stop the force of blows, but that should keep most things from cutting through your clothes.”
Cenric cast a glance over his shoulder to Brynn in the dark. “You can do that?”
Brynn squeezed him gently. “It’s not very strong, especially against direct hits, so try not to get hit.”
Cenric would take what he could get in this situation. “Can you do the same for everyone else?”
“If we have time. I’m not sure we do.”
Cenric had to agree. Ovrek and Tullia talked in circles, speaking of broken oaths, honor impugned, and past crimes.
Hróarr lumbered close to Cenric’s side. He spoke to Brynn. “When the killing starts, go to the boats with Vana. You might be able to get out of here.”
Brynn ignored him, giving no sign that she had heard.
Cenric nudged her. “Go, love. Find Esa, Kalen, and the rest of our men.” He gestured to the dog at his feet. “Take Snapper with you.”
The dyrehund whined, hearing his name. His attention remained on the dark forest. Bad things, Cenric.
Brynn answered softly, yet firmly. “I stay with you.”
“Brynn.” Cenric wanted to touch her, but one hand held his spear and the other the shield. “Go. It’s alright. I’ll join you when this is over.”
Hurt flashed across Brynn’s face. “I thought we agreed not to lie to each other.”
Cenric shot a glance to the line of Tullia’s men. “If they take you…” He couldn’t say it.
Hróarr had no such reservations. “If they take you, they’ll take turns raping you before ransoming you back to your uncle.”
That was the way things had been done in war for centuries. Brynn might be spared the worst of the abuse if they realized her value as a hostage, but Cenric did not dare think she would be spared entirely.
Brynn didn’t even flinch. “It won’t come to that.” She was just a little too calm. “They’ll have to kill me.”
They wouldn’t take her alive, that was what she was saying.
When he’d realized they were trapped inside the great hall as it was being burned down, Cenric’s only thought had been fear for Brynn—the horror that she was going to die with him.
Now he wasn’t just facing the thought of her suffocating in front of him, but a gruesome death at the end of a Valdari spear.
They stood no chance. Even with Brynn, they stood no chance. Cenric didn’t want to die, but that was the way of a warrior’s life. Someone else would become alderman of Ombra and the world would move on, but Brynn…she deserved better.
“I won’t ask you to flee,” Brynn said. “You’re a warrior and you need to fight, I understand that. But I need to stay.”
“Brynn—”
“You die when you run,” she interjected, quoting the old warrior’s saying.
The bloodiest part of a battle was always after the shieldwall broke and the losing side ran. It was said that to run was to die, either by loss of honor or loss of life. One could still die facing the enemy, but at least it would be a courageous death.
Cenric hated the thought of Brynn in danger, but she was right. She was no stranger to war, and she knew exactly what she was choosing. Brynn was choosing him even unto death. “Stay between Hróarr and I,” he ordered.
Hróarr made a sound of protest, but it died in his throat.
“I will try.” From her wry tone, Brynn knew that might become difficult once the fighting started.
Go, Snapper. Cenric couldn’t make his wife leave, but he could save his dog. Find Vana.
Vana? Snapper cocked his head to one side.
Protect Vana, Cenric ordered.
Vana! Snapper whined, looking back in the direction they had last seen her. Cenric? Brynn?
We’ll follow you, Cenric promised. Stay with Vana.
Barking, Snapper rushed into the darkness, seeking Vana and the other Valdari women. Hopefully, the dog would be safe.
Cenric wondered how much of war Brynn had seen. He knew she had fought for her uncle alongside her sister. Unlike a thane, Brynn didn’t boast of her time bloodletting. She seemed oddly ashamed of it.
Ovrek’s men were outnumbered. Tullia still had at least one hundred to their paltry band of survivors.
“Enough of this.” Tullia drew a sword, leveling it toward the bedraggled group of survivors before her.
There would be no shield wall on their side. This would be plain and simple butchery.
Cenric and Hróarr had weapons, but only a few of the other men did. Most of them had been forced to leave their weapons in the antechamber at the front of the hall and the weapons were now out of reach and far too hot to be wielded.
Below in Istra, fires had caught. Whether by accident or malice, storehouses, barns, forges, and homes blazed like torches in the night. It appeared that even some of the ships were on fire. Tullia hated Ovrek enough to waste good timber?
“Ovrek!” chorused the men around them. “Ovrek!”
Cenric and Hróarr fell in beside the king, joining the ranks that gathered around him.
Brynn crouched at their backs, her presence warm and steady.
Cenric hated that he couldn’t protect her, but he had to trust her to protect herself.
Somehow, trusting her with her own life was harder than trusting her with his.
Few of them had shields and that meant Cenric and Hróarr ended up out front.
Other men who had shields fell in around them, but only two or three as best Cenric could tell. Some fifty had escaped the burning hall, many lay dead,
“Ovrek!” their line roared. “Ovrek!”
With the burning hall at their backs, their enemies were illuminated in stark relief before them.
“Tullia!” the traitors cried. “Tullia!”
Cenric caught himself gritting his teeth, as they braced for impact, a bad habit Berdun had always tried to break.
The enemy formed lines in front of them, drawing up in a wall of weapons, shields, and armor here and there. Somewhere in that line might be Tullia herself. Further down the hill, Cenric could see the warriors from the beach fighting the second force of Tullia’s men down the slope.
If those men could get through, Ovrek’s men would have the advantage of numbers, but for now, they had to fight from weakness. The battle could still go either way. So often, that was all war was—a toss of the sticks and a prayer of favor to the gods.