‘Quite an amusing game we are playing, isn’t it?’ she remarked. ‘My turn again? Or are you willing to accept defeat?’
A bitter laugh escaped his throat. The Valkyrie was a better shot than he had imagined. And her planning had been exceptional. She’d known precisely where the arrow would land. A worthy foe indeed.
She jerked her head towards a bulky shape on the ground. ‘You don’t want to end up like that one. Do you still consider I need warriors to hide behind?’
A corpse with an arrow protruding from its throat lay on the floor a few feet from him. Moir whispered a prayer to the gods that it was not Bjartr. He’d given his oath to Bjartr’s father to protect him and, unlike Moir’s father, Moir kept such oaths. ‘You have convinced me. A woman like you has no need of warriors to guide her hand.’
‘Sense from a heathen. Will wonders never cease?’ She muttered something else, something he failed to catch.
‘Who?’ he asked in a hoarse whisper towards the jumble of bodies when the silence except for the buzzing of the bees became oppressive. ‘Who died? Can anyone tell me?’
Bjartr called out the man’s name from where he lay somewhere to Moir’s right. Moir breathed easier. Bjartr remained alive. He could still keep his promise to Andvarr.
The dead man was the one who had consistently undermined Moir’s counsel and had encouraged Bjartr in his more reckless acts, the one who had called Moir a coward earlier.
‘Drop all your remaining weapons.’ The Valkyrie’s ice-cold voice echoed around the hall. ‘You have more. I can see them.’
Moir pulled his eating knife from his belt and dropped it to the floor. ‘Will you kill us in cold blood? You have already captured all of us.’
‘You have surrendered. That is possibly enough for now.’ She nodded.
At her signal, someone brought in a smouldering torch. The light cast shadows over the tapestries which lined the walls.
He groaned. They were surrounded by a group of women, old men and young boys armed with swords, sticks and bows, not warriors. They all wore some sort of netting or thin cloth over their faces. One of the boys gathered up the discarded weapons. The torch was tossed on the fire, creating a thick smoke to subdue the bees.
He sank to the ground and tried to plan a way to escape. He might have surrendered for now, but not for ever. He would return his jaarl’s only son safe and sound. In doing so, he would finally erase the stain from his family’s name and regain the honour his father had casually thrown away.
‘You are our prisoners,’ the woman with the auburn hair said and her voice echoed ominously above the buzzing. ‘Keep your hands where I can see them, ready for binding. Unless you would prefer an early date of reckoning with your heathen gods like your friend here.’ She gestured to a couple of the boys, who came towards them with lengths of rope.
Moir and the others did as she asked.
‘Who is the leader here?’ she called out. ‘I will parley with him and him alone.’
‘I... I...’ Bjartr’s face was streaked with tears. He cradled his arm as if it were broken. He made no move to resist the ropes which were being placed around his wrists. ‘Moir Mimirson speaks for us, Lady Valkyrie.’
‘Do you intend on killing us eventually?’ Moir pressed, grinding his teeth. And he would remind Bjartr of his words later. Bjartr had issued his last command. Moir had no intention of releasing the responsibility Bjartr had ceded to him lightly. ‘Or merely torturing us?’
‘Interesting question.’ Her teeth shone white in the light. ‘I shall have to ponder it.’
‘Answer now,’ he insisted. ‘We deserve to know our fate. What are you going to do to us?’
The woman tilted her head to one side as if she was listening for something. Satisfied the bees were calm, she removed the cloth from her face. Her features were strong but regular. There was something in the way her jaw was set. If the Mercian army had had warriors like her, the Great Horde would never have won any land.
‘At the moment you and your companions have some worth to me—alive.’ Her lips curved in a predatory smile. ‘I have, however, been known to change my mind.’
‘Who are you? My friend swears you belong to the handmaidens of Odin, the ones who pluck worthy warriors from the battlefields.’
Shocked laughter from her helpers rippled around the room.
The Valkyrie moved her chin upwards in a gesture of defiance. Her eyes were almost catlike and an unusual greenish-brown. She might not be conventionally pretty, but she was striking, the sort of a woman who would haunt a man’s passionate dreams if he were given to dreaming.
‘Ansithe, second daughter of Wulfgar, the ealdorman of Baelle Heale manor where you have trespassed. And you are, Dane?’
‘Moir, son of Mimir. We are from the North country, not from Denmark, Lady Ansithe.’
There was no need to explain about Bjartr or his parentage, not until Moir was certain he could keep his foolish charge safe. Far worse enemies than the Mercian woman who stood before them lurked, waiting to pounce. This woman clearly sought to keep them alive...for now.
‘What are your plans for us?’ he asked, trying to wipe the remaining bees from his face with his shoulder. ‘Can you share them in more detail?’
She coughed, pointedly. ‘We intend to trade you to the commander of the Danes, Guthmann Ulfson.’
The helpers who had bound them stamped their feet in approval.
Moir’s heart sunk. Guthmann Ulfson, better known and feared as Guthmann Bloodaxe. After Moir’s interference in Guthmann’s ‘sport with the ladies’ as he termed it, Guthmann had demanded Moir’s head. Bjartr’s father, Moir’s overlord, had sought to diffuse the situation by sending him to act as steward to his only child as he toured the lands of Mercia to find the correct spot for the hall Andvarr planned to build, predicting Guthmann would have forgotten about their altercation by the time Moir returned. Privately, Moir had his doubts that Guthmann would forget the fierce slash to his face any time soon.
If he was going to get Andvarr’s son back unscathed, he was going to have to disappoint this Valkyrie made flesh. There would be no meeting with Guthmann Bloodaxe. No prisoner exchange. No wholesale torture followed by an agonisingly slow death.
He willed Bjartr to keep his fool mouth shut about his importance as a hostage. If this woman considered them unimportant to Guthmann, matters would be far easier.
‘What do you think you will get in return for us? What can this Dane, this Guthmann, give you?’ he asked, feigning ignorance of his arch-enemy. ‘Danes dislike parting with gold for no good reason.’
‘My father. My sister’s husband. They are being held hostage by him.’
A knife twisted in Moir’s gut. His fabled luck had finally run out. The Valkyrie had every reason to trade them to the Danish commander and Guthmann had every reason to end their lives or at least torture them until they were little better than dead men walking. Moir’s promise to Andvarr that he’d ensure his son became a leader was little more than a hollow boast.
He should have listened to his instinct, rather than permitting a few jibes about his courage and relationship to his jaarl to goad him into inaction. He should have forced Bjartr to relinquish the command of the felag to him days ago when the guide vanished and they’d become lost in the woods.
He clenched his fists and the ropes dug into his wrist. He could not undo the past, no matter how much he might wish to. He had learnt that lesson well years ago.
‘Are