Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
SIGRID
“Close the gap! To me! To me!” The stunned Saxons had taken some coaxing to move the back lines and form a circle closing in the Banamaer, but they’d stayed resolute and brave in the face of these nightmares.
With satisfaction, I looked across and saw that we’d formed a full circle, enclosing the monsters within.
They sensed my presence on this side, and they twisted to face me. They didn’t care if they died. They were dead men regardless. They only wanted to make sure they killed me first.
They crashed into the shields in front of me, fighting with frenzied desperation.
I shifted behind the line around the circle, causing them to twist again and follow me.
They’d never before faced an army. They weren’t trained to fight so many at once because they were deployed with stealth and speed to execute a single target.
Their heads whipped from side to side with sinister otherworldliness, sensing my presence behind the wall but recognizing the threat that enclosed them from all sides.
Bastian’s side surged forward, stabbing at the fiends, then stepping back before they could turn and attack. At least one of the Banamaer suffered another grievous stab wound. How many did it take to bring one down?
The other side saw how effective Bastian’s tactic was and did the same, closing in and inflicting as much damage as they could, but stepping back before they sustained heavy damage themselves.
I continued shifting around the circle, taunting the Banamaer as I broke their focus. They’d given up on their cheap parlor tricks and continued to appear as themselves as they searched for me.
They screamed their frustration, driven relentlessly by the imperative to kill their target.
“Bastian!” I yelled over the din. He looked up over his shield at me, and I signaled my intention. He nodded, immediately understanding in a way that usually only my brothers did.
As I ran to the opposite side from Bastian, luring the Banamaer in that direction, Bastian moved his side of the circle forward again, but this time he didn’t immediately retreat.
Bastian stabbed one of the Banamaer through the back of the neck, and his sword protruded from the assassin’s throat.
My husband was shirtless and covered in blood, and the same ferocity that roiled within me was mirrored in his eyes. He’d never been more beautiful.
Three soldiers simultaneously stabbed the assassin that was missing a hand as the one Bastian had stabbed fell to the ground. Two more of the Banamaer lay dead.
The one who remained fought like a predator in its death throes. He slashed and shoved, knocking Saxons off their feet with his brutal strength. Bastian fell to the ground with the others, and the Banamaer loomed over him, ready to strike.
My berserker…snapped.
She didn’t care about the pain she was inflicting on me.
She didn’t care if I died, killing her too.
She couldn’t channel her powers to me through the king’s magic, but she was compelling my body, and I launched myself over the Saxons, using their shields like footholds, to bring my sword down in a sweeping arc, taking the head of the last Banamaer.
His severed head dropped to the ground beside Bastian, and I kicked his body over, adding it to the carnage.
A shout of victory went up from the soldiers, but I was in a place beyond reason, a place where celebration didn’t make sense.
I couldn’t stop my berserker’s rage. There was no outlet, and because she hadn’t been unleashed, she still thought we were in danger. She’d gone too far to simply retreat into herself. Her urges were my urges, and right now my every urge was to destroy.
Agony like I’d never known seared my very bones as I fought an essential part of myself. She couldn’t fight my enemies, so she was fighting me, unable to understand why I’d hold her back.
Surely, no one can survive this.
I’d escaped the Banamaer only to be torn apart by my own berserker.
It wasn’t a warrior’s death. I’d be banished to Niflheim with Axel, and there would be no saving me.
Through the haze, Bastian’s voice reached me, distorted at first, but clearer as I recognized it. My berserker settled a little at hearing it but then redoubled her efforts, now convinced he was in danger again.
“Get away!” I begged him, but it came out as a vicious snarl.
I couldn’t reason past the screaming instinct that there was a threat. He tried to take me by the shoulders, and the second he laid his hands on me, my control shattered.
My fist connected with his jaw, and his head snapped back.
Seeing him hurt, my berserker surged again.
When he dared to right himself and reach for me, I struck him once more. “Don’t come near me! I’ll hurt you!”
Even in the fog of pain, I made out the curve of his smile. “I’m not afraid of you, Sigrid.”