6. Chapter Six
Chapter Six
The toll of the carnyx jolted Tor awake, and he became aware that his wife's body had him trapped in the bed. He'd have to carefully extricated himself so he wouldn't wake her.
Despite her adamant words, Brunhild's hand was curled trustingly against his bare chest. She'd thrown one of her legs over the bolster she’d placed between them, and it was now wedged between his.
As much as he wanted to rub her hypocrisy in her face, now wasn’t the time. He eased from the bed, pulled on his trews and leather breastplate and picked up his sword. When he reached for his hauberk and it clattered to the floor, Brunhild groaned.
His gaze slid to the bed as he secured his weapon, and he found her eyes fixed on him. “Where are you going?” She mumbled.
“The call to battle woke me. One of the watchmen just sent out a distress call on the carnyx, and it means there’s been an attack somewhere on the island.”
She threw her legs over the side of the bed and stood. “I’m coming too.”
He shrugged because he was well aware of her skill in battle. She'd proven her reputation by besting more than half his men during training skirmishes and he wouldn’t turn down her help.
She shimmied into her clothes, holstering her skeggoxes across her back, and hoisting her bow and a quiver of arrows over her shoulder. She slid a dagger into the sheath she’d buckled around her thigh, and finally grabbed her curved sword.
“Let’s go. We can’t let them get away,” she said as she briskly turned toward the door.
He gave her a curt nod and finished outfitting his own arsenal. They made for the door together.
They ended up jostling shoulder to shoulder, and would have been stuck in the doorframe if Tor hadn’t stepped back and allowed her to precede him.
She threw him a smirk over her shoulder that made him shake his head in fondness and exasperation.
“Shall we see who has the highest body count at the end of the battle?” She challenged.
Tor knew he would unfailingly have the highest body count at the end of a battle, because it was always so. If he was able to lure his foes into the waves and channel his blood fury into the teeth and hooves of his each uisge form, he was known to rend them limb from limb.
“Are you challenging me or inviting me to wager, Fireheart?”
“A wager, of course,” she clarified with a smug smile and a mischievous gleam in her gaze.
“I accept your wager. I’ll choose my boon of you when the dust has settled.”
“So sure of your victory,” she chided, clicking her teeth.
“I have reason to be. I earned the title of Storm King because my enemies fear my wrath and battle fury."
She raised a brow, and he knew she thought he was boasting.
“As I have justly earned my title of Cut-Throat Maiden. Men and women from Iberia to Erin have cowered before my sword and my fleet, and I am confident my skills with a bow and ax would put yours to shame,” she said as they reached the bottom of the stairs.
She had many titles and he was beginning to realize she'd earned them all. Berserker’s Daughter. Scourge of the Seas. Blessed of Odin.
“I never claimed to be an expert in the field of archery or ax throwing, but with a sword in my hand I am invincible, and what I cannot cleave with my blade will fall before my hooves and teeth."
“Hmm, we shall see,” she infuriatingly replied.
It took them nearly half an hour to reach the village. The melee was nearly over, the crofts crushed beneath kraken tentacles or washed away by the sea dragon’s flood.
A lone group of warriors stood in a circle, back to back, fighting off a band of sea wolves that was intent on sneaking beneath the protection of their shields and eviscerating them. There was no sign of the kraken.
Tor and Brunhild both ran forward, she with an eerie cry like that of an eagle sighting its prey, and he with a roar loud enough to deafen the waves.
They sliced their way through the horde. Her twirling axes were a blur, and his sword was like a scythe. When they finally reached the desperate, grim-faced warriors, she turned to him with a triumphant grin, her face splattered with blood.
Tor returned her grin, because he felt the exhilaration of battle lust spiraling through him as well. Her eyes widened, and before he could ask, she hurled her ax at him. He ducked, and after it sailed over his shoulder, he heard a sickening squelch and a thud as something collapsed behind him.
When he turned, a nearly headless sea wolf lay on its side at his feet, his mate’s ax buried in its neck.
“That will likely not be the first time you save me, wife.”
Her grin was feral. “Not only did I save you, I’ve won our wager as well. We were even until that,” she pointed toward her latest victim.
Her expression gave him no clues. What boon would she ask? If she asked for her freedom, or a release from their union, he would not grant it. He would not let her go.
He wanted nothing more in that moment than to toss her over his shoulder and strip her of her blood soaked clothes.
Someone behind him cleared their throat, breaking the spell that had stretched taut between them.
“Your majesty, we’ve dispatched them back whence they came.”
Tor’s captain of the guard, Corrigan, informed him as he walked forward into Tor’s line of sight.
“What of the women?”
Corrigan shook his head, his face bleak. “Gone, like all the rest. Kidnapped to be sold or bartered as slaves.”
“Are there any survivors?” Tor hoarsely asked.
Corrigan’s expression turned even bleaker. “A passel of children that escaped notice because they hid beneath a fishing coracle. All orphans now.”
“We will take them back to the fortress with us and see that they are clothed, fed and properly taken care of. They need each other right now and will rebel if we separate them,” Brunhild broke in.
She was right. “Heed my wife," he instructed. "Gather the children up, and if there’s a wagon available, deposit them in it. We’ll see that their needs are met.”
Corrigan nodded and strode in the opposite direction.
When he turned toward his mate again, she was frowning. “Are you going to rescue their mothers?”
Toran sighed and ran a hand down his face. “We don’t have the resources, and according to my spies, as soon as they’re taken, they’re bound for the south and the east, to be traded in the markets there.”
“Why would the krakens do this?”
“Their king has concluded that the fastest way to extinguish our kind, to make certain my kingdom falls under his control, is to take away those who are capable of replenishing our ranks. Somehow, he’s realized that each uisge can only produce offspring with their true mates.
Mortal women with the sea singing in their veins. ”
“So he’ll decimate you slowly, until there is no one left to bear children.”
“And then kill us off, one by one, slaughtering us when we are the most vulnerable to iron, right after we’ve transformed from each uisge to human and are trapped on land.”
Brunhild gasped, clearly horrified by his revelation. “And you believe my father’s ships can save you? That I can save you?”
“I’ve seen too much of my enemy’s treachery to believe our alliance will ensure victory. But our union has given me hope.”
"Let us pray your faith is not misplaced," she replied with a troubled expression.