AVAILABLE FILE FORMATS: HTML for the standard computer, PDF for Adobe Reader, Rocket for the Rocket and REB1100, MS Reader for the PC and Pocket PC, FUB for eBookMan, Mobipocket for Palm Pilot, Pocket PC, and eBookMan, and KML for hiebook

CHAPTER ONE

Cumbria, 9th Century, A. D.

She had not been to the stone circle in a sennight, and Arienh yearned to escape to its quiet serenity. But rain had fallen long and hard for six days, and the river lapped threateningly at its banks. In the high mountains the deluge melted the snow, and if the slopes lost their white coats too quickly, disaster loomed for her narrow valley at their feet.

Arienh paused in the doorway of the little stone cottage, glancing back and forth between the gathering dark clouds and her sister's pale green eyes. Beside the hearth, little Liam sat with his lower lip protruding in an exaggerated pout, for he had already been told he could not go.

"Do you go to move the stones?" Birgit asked.

"Nay. There is no time before the next storm. The stones will have to wait." As if she had no worries at all, Arienh stopped to watch in fascination as Birgit reached into the willow basket beside her and pulled out a skein of brown wool to wind on her shuttle. In the cottage's dim light, Birgit's failing eyes probably could not even see the colors of the patterns she wove, yet her work was always perfect. Arienh shook her head. Birgit could tell the color of her wool just by the texture the dye gave it.

Birgit smiled lightly, her pale eyes brightening at Arienh's unspoken question. "From Mildread's old ram," she said, fingering the brown skein. "He gave the softest wool. I will miss him."

"The ewes will miss him more. I will not be long, but I must climb the low mount near the estuary to look at the mountains. Perhaps I can tell if the snow melts too fast."

Arienh closed the door, hearing the latch click into place. Already the wind had shifted, blowing stiff, cold, and damp from the sea, so she knotted her shawl and strode briskly across the valley. When the slope steepened, the path deteriorated into a slick, muddy rivulet, then ended abruptly. Grabbing a handful of soggy brown bracken, Arienh hoisted herself up past jutting rock faces. If she avoided the mud slides, the climb was not difficult. Yet after a winter's inactivity her heart raced faster and her breaths came more quickly. It felt good.

A lone, slender ash tree drooped down a branch, and she grasped it and tugged herself up onto the next ledge. Already she longed for the rough weather in her face at the top of her climb, and the view out over the grey, churning Irish Sea, and inland to the high peaks with the snow on their slopes that worried her. She looked up to find her next hand hold.

Terror slammed into her.

Her gaze slid swiftly up a huge masculine form, past alien boots, legs stout as tree trunks, broad chest and husky arms, and screeched to a stop at startled blue eyes.

Viking!

Her gasp burst into a shriek. The Viking lunged for her as she twisted away, hurling herself down the way she had come. His steps crashed behind her. Arienh dashed along a ledge, leapt, landed on a mud slide and skidded down the rock-strewn slope. She scrambled to her feet, clambered over jutting stones to another slide of mud, ignoring bruising rocks and snags that tore at skin and cloth as she hurtled downhill. Behind her the Viking shouted in his heathen tongue.

Arienh hit the valley floor hard, stumbled, lurched to her feet and ran, dodging around boulders, forcing her legs as fast as they could go. Her lungs burned as she gasped, commanding herself, run faster! Faster!

The Viking caught her hair, yanked her backward. A huge arm ensnared her waist, cutting short her breath. Jerking her dagger from her waist cord, she stabbed backward, and felt the sickening give of flesh beneath the blade. The raider dropped his hold, staggered back, astonishment flooding his wide blue eyes.

She stared, stunned. Surely this was not hers, but some alien blade, that was gripped in her hand, dripping bright blood. Inside herself, she screamed at her legs to flee, but they rooted into the mud like house posts.

The giant man fell to his knees, hands lacing over the bloody wound in his gut. He pitched forward, arms suddenly swinging to catch himself, then his blood-slick hands slipped on the boulder before him. His head cracked against it, the sound muffled by a sudden, quiet gasp, cut short.

He was dead. -- He was, wasn't he? Arienh inched closer.

The Viking moaned. Blood oozed from the side of his head as his eyes rolled open, closed, open. His hand groped toward her. A silent word formed on his lips.

Her scream stuck in her throat as she ran across the rock-strewn valley to the safety of her cottage. She slammed the door behind her and threw the bolt.

Birgit startled at the noise and dropped her shuttle. "Arienh! What?"

"Vikings! They're back!" Arienh leaned against the barred door, gasping for breath, horror still pounding in her chest with the frantic thumping of her heart.

"Vikings! Where? Have they overrun us?"

"No, I saw only one, but there must be others. Up on the mount behind the house."

"Liam," Birgit called to her small son. "Come quickly!"

Already rising, the boy tossed his brassy mop of hair.

"Hurry, Liam! Can we make the cavern, Arienh?"

"I don't think there's time. Oh, Birgit, I did not even raise the alarm. The others will be slaughtered, and it is my fault. I thought only of myself!"

From the peg in the stone wall, Arienh lifted the horn her father had made, then grabbed for the bolt across the door.

Birgit's brows lifted high. "You're not going out there."

"I've got to warn the others."

"Arienh, you're no match for Vikings. They'll kill you."

"Bolt the door behind me."

"Check the window first."

"Aye." Arienh rushed to the narrow slit in the stone wall that faced the near slope. If they came, it would be from over the mount, beyond where the Viking lay in the muddy field.

He was surely dead, now. But no sign of his comrades.

Yet Vikings never came alone, for one man could not sail a longship. It made no sense.

"Nothing," she said. "Perhaps we can make the cavern."

Standing in the doorway, she blew three long blasts on the horn. The sound brought women and children pouring from their cottages, running toward the rain-soaked cliff behind the village that contained their cavern, the only hope of safety for those who could reach it in time. If any raiders made the mistake of entering the cavern, those who did not fall into the concealed pits would be pelted with stones by the women who had climbed to high ledges.

"Come, Birgit. Hurry."

Birgit threw a shawl over her shoulders and tucked the last of a wedge of cheese into its folds, then grabbed a blanket for Liam as she tugged his hand.

The sky darkened even as Arienh watched, and large globs of cold rain slapped at her face. Arienh took Birgit's hand even though it was not yet so dark that her sister's dim vision could not make out the muddy path. Arienh lifted her nephew onto her hip and following the stream bank, steered Birgit through muddy rivulets that fed the swollen creek, until they arrived safely at the cavern.

Arienh looked back again across the darkening, rain-obscured valley. Still no alien raiders had come.

"Did you see them?" Mildread asked of Arienh as she reached down her hand to help Liam into the safe haven of the upper cave.

"Only one." Arienh paused for breath and sat, resting her back against dark rock. "I killed him. He's by the stream near our cottage. Perhaps they won't come, now that we're warned."

"Perhaps he was alone," said Mildread, folding her arms with a shudder.

"Perhaps they turned and ran," said Elli. "They are really cowards, my father said."

"They do not know we have no men to fight them," Selma added, nodding. Her pretty blue eyes searched Arienh's face for reassurance that Arienh could not give.

Mildread frowned as she pushed her brown braids back over her shoulder. "Are you sure it was a Viking, Arienh?"

"I know what Vikings look like. It was a Viking."

Old Ferris, his black eyes gleaming like jet beads in the torchlight, clasped his wrinkled hands together. "Then we'll keep watch. Perhaps the rain has merely delayed them."

Selma shuddered. "They will kill us when they find him."

"Nay," said Elli. "The heathens abandon their dead."

Either could be true, and they all knew it. Perhaps it depended upon the importance of the man she had slain.

But only the storm came down upon them. Sheltered within the cavern's lip, they collectively regretted the need to go back out into the soaking rain.

"Perhaps he was alone, lost from his band," Old Ferris suggested. "Perhaps he alone survived a shipwreck in the last storm."

Whatever it was, there were no Vikings. The day grew late, and everyone knew Vikings did not come in the dark. They liked to strike swift, hard, unexpectedly, then escape to the sea.

"The Vikings will not come now," Mildread pronounced, as if she had reached the conclusion alone. "But what about the flood, Arienh?"

"Aye, will it flood, Arienh?" The question came from all around her.

In the face of a danger more immediate, she had nearly forgotten the greater one. "I could not tell. I had no time to check the snow pack, so I don't know how fast it is melting, but the river is far too high. We should prepare."

A grim murmur spread through the gathered women. Each one accepted her task; hard work made even harder by the freezing rain, but they could afford no more losses.

Still, Arienh knew them well. If they went to all that trouble to move flocks and fodder from the lower valley, and then the waters receded without event, the entire village would grumble at her. Arienh was used to it. They always expected her to know such things, as if the stones should somehow tell her, for they didn't understand the stones the way she did. But no matter how much they complained, she would do what must be done, or the Celts in this valley would not survive. Sometimes she just had to accept the blame.

"But what if the Vikings come tomorrow?" Selma asked, still wide-eyed with worry.

And well they might. "Then tomorrow we will deal with them. For now, it will be enough to keep watch while we see to the flock."

Elli's eyes glittered a silent demand as she pulled her heavy shawl over her shoulders, took her grandfather's horn from him, and planted herself squarely before Arienh. Arienh studied her friend, knowing what was in her mind. She would be thinking of her father's violent death in his own forge at the hands of a raider while his only child hid behind the ricks of wood. She would be remembering how the red-bearded giant had looked straight at her, then inexplicably turned and left.

Arienh nodded as if Elli had spoken aloud. "We will do what makes most sense. If there are others, they are still here, and if they come, it will be tomorrow, when the storm abates. Take the watch in the lower valley at dawn, Elli," Arienh said, "but stay away from the river and climb the hill where you will be safer. We will all watch until nightfall as we move the flock."

In the unreal calm that followed, Arienh trudged with Birgit and Liam along the valley path toward the lower cottages and their sheepfolds. Old Ferris and Elli gathered disquieted sheep from separate folds to drive to high ground, while other women and children bundled precious necessities to carry uphill to the upper cottages. Even Birgit bundled fodder in her shawl and slung it over her shoulders, for only her eyes were weak.

Repeatedly, Arienh scanned the slope of the distant mount that flanked the estuary until the rain grew so heavy she could not see it. But now that the last light of day was fading, she knew no Viking would roar down its slopes. She searched the turbulent river, knowing no pitch-blackened, dragon-headed longship would dare its roiling ferocity, nor would blood red sails face the raging sea beyond the estuary. Her fears eased.

Up on the hill beside the stream, the Viking still lay in the mud. Was he dead?

As Arienh adjusted Birgit's bundle of fodder, the sky opened, split by a sword of lightning. New torrents of cold rain soaked the already sodden villagers as bolt after bolt of lightning illuminated the clouds.

Shouts penetrated through the howling wind. Arienh spun around, squinting to search past slanting rain. At the river's sharpest curve where it swung west toward the estuary, the bank crumbled. Sheets of thin mud spread out, fanning out over the flat valley, in moments swirling around their feet, eroding the mud beneath their feet.

With a yelp, Birgit slipped to her knees. Fodder spilled and spread across the surface of the water like a writhing blanket, folding under and back onto the surface. Arienh scooped up Liam onto her hip and gripped Birgit's hand to steady her as, knee deep in icy water, they forced each treacherous footfall through the flow. Hard, jerking shivers raced through her body as Liam wrapped his lanky arms and legs tightly around her and buried his face into her shoulder.

Collective bellows of the flock blended with the din of the storm as unhappy beasts struggled to high ground. The flock would be safe, but they'd see a new channel cut for the river by morning.

She reached Mildread's hand, extended to help them from the turbid water.

"Are you all right?" Mildread asked, wrapping her shawl around Liam.

Arienh could only nod, for it almost seemed to be colder out of the water than in. She had strength for little more than shivering as other women herded bedraggled beasts into three abandoned cottages for the night.

She took Birgit's hand and trudged toward home, shivering against the storm that blew through her soaked shawl and kirtle. Her exhausted feet throbbed painfully and slipped beneath her as she walked.

"I am a burden to you," Birgit said, her head bowed to the storm.

How hard it must be for Birgit, who could hardly see where to put her feet! "Nay, Birgit, we need each other." Arienh did not lie, for however hard life might be, it would seem futile without Birgit and Liam. But Birgit, engulfed in all her losses, could not understand that.

By the cottage door, Arienh stopped to strain her gaze out over the dark field. Silhouetted, black against growing darkness, the Viking lay where she had left him in the field, his back to the freezing rain, face to the mud. The flooding stream rose and soon would swallow up his body. Was he dead yet?

Like a writhing shadow, the black shape changed, thickening as it rose on hands and knees.

Fear invaded her again. Was he a berserker, to rise and kill in merciless fury even as he died? Cold shudders rushed through her. Arienh gripped her dagger, slogged grimly across the open field and planted herself between him and her village.

With an agonized groan, the Viking pushed himself up to sit, leaning heavily on his arms. Great jerking shivers from the cold rain wracked his body. Mud streamed down his face. The eyes that had been so startlingly blue had deepened, dusky dark in the twilight, wrenched with pain.

She shuddered. He must be as cold as she.

Arienh clenched her jaw, shutting down the surge of pity. He was a Viking, a merciless, brutal killer. She felt nothing for him.

"I wonder what you did to your victims who were as helpless as you are now, Viking? Did you run them through? Or just cut off their hands and feet to watch them bleed?"

With his dark gaze fixed on her, his hand trembled on the buckle of the leather strap at his waist. She sprang back. Only a quick throw of a dagger, and he could have his revenge. The strap fell free, and his long sword clanged to the stony ground. Shaking, he pulled a knife from its scabbard and held it out to her.

"Kill me."

The Celtic words from his heathen mouth startled her. Behind him, lightning split the sky, and in its flash, she saw, not the Viking, but the image of her brother who had died in her arms. As sharp as the brilliant bolt, the torture of Trevor's dying agony stabbed through her anew. A Viking had killed him. Perhaps even this man, or his kin.

"Finish it," the Viking demanded.

Sudden rage filled her, aching to meet his challenge.

The knife shook in his hand as he swayed dizzily, and his breaths came hard as the dark, metallic daring in his eyes dissolved to anguished need. "Finish it. Or help me."

Help a Viking? Arienh snatched the knife from his hand. Strength shot up from the dark rage in her heart, flooding through her like shafts of iron. Fury lifted her arm, vengeance powered it as it raised high for the downward stroke.

Viking! Hideous, filthy, murdering Viking! She saw the wild-eyed, toothless villain whose axe cut down her father, the red-bearded giant whose sword hacked Trevor to his death, the fiend who raped and brutalized Birgit. Violent tremors coursed through her.

Help him? Dark, sad eyes waited patiently for her blow.

He was Trevor. He was her father. And he was the strange Viking boy who long ago had come from nowhere to save her, then vanished; like the boy, his eyes were the same brilliant blue. Spasms shot down through her arm and wrapped around her chest in a suffocating band.

Kill him!

Kill him? It had been easy before, to strike back in fear, but to cut down a wounded man? Even a filthy Northman?

"Nay!"

The dagger fell, clattering against a stone. The Viking once more collapsed. A moan faded to silence.

Arienh dropped to her knees beside the wounded man, her gut wrenching, and her hand came within a finger's breadth of touching his before she jerked it back. He was going to die, not quickly, as Trevor had gone, but in slow, merciless agony. In the cold, in the rain, in the mud. In pain, with no one to comfort him.

But horror snatched her back. He was a Viking. How could she pity the vermin? Arienh jumped to her feet and fled across the field.

Once again inside her cottage with the door securely barred, she breathed again, long, precious breaths. She kicked off her soggy boots, pulled on an old brown kirtle, and sat next to Liam by the hearth, wrapped in her blanket.

She squeezed her eyes closed and still she could see the Viking's eyes, agony interlaced with entreaty. Stunningly blue as bright skies that had darkened like a summer storm, they watched her hungrily, as if they were everywhere, following every move she made.

Nay, she could not kill him. How could she have thought she could? His eyes would torment her forever.

Drawing back the rawhide that covered the cottage window, she searched the night's moonless darkness as it deepened with the growing ferocity of the storm. Icy, wind-driven rain slammed past at a vicious slant. She could see nothing, not the Viking, nor the scattered stones of the field where he lay. But she knew without seeing it that the stream rose and spilled over its banks, lapped at his feet. Covered his body.

He's going to drown.

She should not care. He was a Viking. Her father's blood was on his hands. Yet. Arienh was drowning in his pain.

"Come away from there, Arienh. You can do nothing."

"It's so horribly cold out there, Birgit. No one should have to die like that."

"It's not your fault. You don't go about pillaging and murdering. In any event, he would have killed you."

Her eyes strained against the darkness, and she shivered at the chill blast of wind whistling through the tiny window slit. In her mind, she saw the frigid mud congealed in the Viking's hair and oozing down his cheeks, sliding into those incredible blue eyes.

"Aye, I know. But he isn't dead."

"Then go back and kill him."

"I can't."

"He's a Viking. The kind that killed our father. They destroy everything they touch. They don't deserve to live."

"Perhaps not. But they don't deserve to die this way."

"If any do, a Viking does."

He's going to drown!

"But not of my doing. I can't leave him like that." Arienh yanked on her wet boots and threw her damp shawl over her shoulders.

"Come back!" Birgit shouted. "Don't go, Arienh!"

Arienh shoved up the bolt and yanked open the door. Fierce wind slammed her backward, stopping her breath in her throat. Tightening the shawl around her body, she struggled out into pellets of sleet, across the field. With each step, the mud nearly sucked her boots from her feet.

The spot that compelled her, where the Viking lay, seemed to be as far off as the next valley, but she struggled on against the screeching wind until once again she stood beside the swollen stream.

The Viking was gone.

Buffeted by the howling wind, a shrill scream pierced the storm.

Birgit!

CHAPTER TWO

The Viking had reached the cottage. But how?

Arienh whirled into the flailing wind and tore across the field, summoning up long- faded strength, whispering urgent prayers. How? The man had not even been able to rise to his feet, much less cross a muddy field.

Memories of bloodied corpses of family and friends slashed apart by godless Vikings rose up like gorge. If he harmed Liam or Birgit, she would flay him alive, and cut off little pieces...

She ran faster, faster, slipping, falling, rising to run again. Gasping, she reached the door and shoved, praying he had not thrown the bolt. It yielded to her weight.

Behind the open hearth, the Viking crouched, using the fire like a shield. A dagger flashed in his shaking hand. Brown mud caked his hair and trickled down his forehead, into his eyes in rivulets, and the soft leather of his jerkin and breeches alternately sagged and clung to his skin. Fierce shivers convulsed his body. His eyes, hard and dark like a wounded badger, dared her to attack, yet in an odd way, entreated her.

What did he want? Warmth?

She glanced at Birgit, whose pale green eyes flashed both fire and fear as she huddled Liam behind her in the corner by her raised bed. "Go to the door, Birgit. Take Liam and go."

"And leave you here? Nay."

Of course she wouldn't. Birgit could not find her way in this dismal night, nor would she ever desert her sister.

"Tell Liam to go." Keeping Birgit and Liam safely behind her, she fixed her gaze on the Viking.

"Nay," said Birgit, her voice icy calm. "There could be more of them out there. Don't go near him, Arienh."

"He's just cold, can't you see?"

"Cold? He'll kill you."

"Then you would be dead already. Nay, he's dying and he knows it. He just wants to be warm." Arienh sidled to her raised bed and pulled off its woolen blanket.

"You don't think he wants revenge? Don't be a fool."

Arienh knew what she must do, and something in the knowledge of it eased her fear. He might kill her, but Viking or not, she could not leave him to die so cold. Yet she must also protect Birgit and Liam. If she could just get him calmed and warm, he might die quietly, but as he was now, he was far too dangerous.

His knife flashed, hard iron reflecting the fire. She flinched in spite of herself. Dangerous eyes studied her, then glanced beyond her shoulder at Birgit and back to Arienh. He leaned forward and set the knife down by the hearth, giving a grim nod of submission.

With her toe, Arienh pushed the knife out of his reach. As she held out the heavy wool blanket, he snatched it and with one hand tugged it over his shoulders.

Arienh flinched, her heart leaping into her throat. She tamped down the fear that quickened again with each sudden move he made.

"We must get you dry," she said calmly. "All the blankets we have cannot help if you are wet. Birgit, bring some rags and Papa's old tunic."

"You are not going to give him Papa's tunic."

"Papa doesn't need it. Hurry, please."

"You have taken leave of your senses, Arienh."

"Just do as I ask."

Beneath the raised bed that had once belonged to her parents, Arienh had stored all the things that had once belonged to a large family, in the bleak hope that the cottage would someday ring again with voices. She pulled out the pallet stuffed with wool, which had been her bed less than a year before. Unrolling the mat, she showed the Viking that she meant it for his use.

Birgit approached, a loathing sneer flaring her nostrils, and dropped the pile of rags and the old linen tunic to the dirt floor beside Arienh.

Kneeling before the man, Arienh raised a rag to his face. At her touch, his wariness softened to wistful sadness. Did he think of a love lost forever? Perhaps there was a sweetheart, a wife, whom he thought never to see again. Then his hungry longing gave way to a sigh and the wisp of a smile.

She dabbed at his cheek. "How did you get here?" she asked.

"Crawled."

"Why?"

Pain flashed across his eyes. "You know."

She did. It was not death, but cold that was unbearable.

"He's addled, Arienh," said Birgit. "Beware."

Arienh ignored her. With gentle strokes, she wiped the mud and water from his face and hair, and away from the swollen knot on the side of his head. Blood came off on the rag, old blood, dark and crusted, along with new, bright red and fresh.

"Let me see it," she said in a low tone.

For a brief moment, he returned a frown of pain, but then quietly tilted the side of his head in her direction. She laced her fingers through his dark, wet hair, assessing the hard knot and the broken skin over it. Well, at least his skull was not cracked.

She had not noticed the darkness of his hair before. As wet as it was, she could not be sure, but it looked even darker than Mildread's brown braids. It seemed unusual for one of his kind, as did the shadow of a dark beard that bristled on his cheek. et in his brilliant blue eyes and enormous, raw-boned body, his Viking blood was unquestionable.

"Your clothes must come off," she said.

"Arienh!"

"Be still, Birgit. Take off your jerkin," she told him.

"Nay."

"You must."

"I cannot raise my arm," he said. The Celtic words sounded strange, coming from his foreign tongue.

Of course. Raising his arm would put an unbearable strain on the wound in his gut. "Then lift the one arm from the sleeve. I will help you with the other."

The sleeves were loose, but the wet leather clung to him as she pulled it free of his right arm, then worked the jerkin over his head and down past the left arm. Beneath it lay a blood-soaked linen tunic, with interlaced embroidery in bright yellow and red, The soaked fabric almost transparent against his skin. She lifted it carefully, baring his chest.

He was breathtaking, both in his rugged immensity and form, his body broad- shouldered and lean, with muscles rippling like mountain ridges and sculpted valleys. Even sitting hunched over by her fire, he was intimidating.

She dried frigid skin, quickly covering him again with the woolen blanket. The hard shivers that coursed through his body eased as his skin lost its bluish tinge. As she dabbed gingerly about the wound, he winced but made no sound. It was bad. It must have bled heavily, but now a trickle oozed from the wound, diluted to pale pink by the water from his jerkin.

Through the gaping hole she could see corded tissue the color of raw meat, with a slash cleanly cut in it. Beyond that, she could not tell. Perhaps the blow had not penetrated into his vital organs, but that was unlikely. She knew little about such things, only that people did not normally survive gut wounds.

He would not live. He knew it, and she knew it. Their eyes met with the knowledge.

Guiltily, she looked away. "Best to leave it alone," she said.

Gently, Arienh drew her father's tunic over the Viking's head and onto his arms, then lifted the blanket back into place over his shoulders. A hint of a smile curled at one side of his mouth, and the dark fringe of lashes around his blue eyes merged with a crinkle of lines at their corners, lines that said he was a man who laughed hard and often. She had to work to break away from his fascinating gaze.

Arienh turned to his boots, and unbound and pulled each one off, along with the woolen hose. She dried his feet as she had his body, gently, thoroughly, and massaged the puffed and wrinkled skin to warm them.

"Bury me in my clothes, little Celt."

Startled at the deep voice, she glanced again at the blue eyes and once more caught her breath at their brilliance. A shiver coursed over her, feeling like the summer's first warm breeze against skin too long chilled by winter.

Arienh readjusted her composure to renew the strange battle of words. "It is hard enough to get them off. And you want me to put them back on?"

A wry smile formed on his pale lips, seeming to turn both up and down, a sensuous mouth, generously curved, expressive. His intense, masculine beauty tugged at her heart.

She sighed. "Not that you deserve it."

"Perhaps you will take my boots, then?"

He teased her, that was it. Perhaps he expected her to misconstrue his feeble attempt at humor.

"Little good they would do me," she retorted. "I would have to tie the toes about my waist to make them fit. Nay, not the boots, but perhaps that fine linen tunic."

"You would have to mend it."

"Aye, a shame. But it is a fine piece of work." She wondered where a Viking might get such a thing.

"My mother."

"Vikings have mothers? What a surprise. We thought you were hatched in snakes' dens."

"Born like all men. She is a Celt, like you."

From behind her, Arienh heard her sister's haughty sniff, but drawn by her curiosity, Birgit leaned around Arienh and studied the Viking with narrowed eyes. "Pity the Celtic woman who must give birth to the likes of him."

The Viking's eyes crinkled at the corners, and he cocked his head. "I do not think she minded."

"Ha." Birgit wrinkled her nose to emphasize her snarl.

"The breeches must also come off," said Arienh.

His gaze met hers. A wicked grin twisted at the corners of his lips, forming a blatant implication that sent a ripple of fear through her. He fumbled with the cord at his waist, but the wet knot was swollen tight and eluded his still-trembling fingers.

She gulped and shoved the fear deep inside where he could not see it. He was a little too eager. She decided to amend her statement. "So that you may dry off, of course. It will be easier if you lie down."

The man chuckled almost silently as he eased himself down onto the wool pallet. She dug her fingernails into the knot, freeing it one fiber at a time. Then she eased the breeches down past his hips, and she saw why he laughed.

Not possible. He was surely half frozen. But then he was a Viking, and they were legendary for such things.

"I see it is true, what they say about Northmen," she said.

"What?"

"That their lust is unending."

Wickedness danced in his eyes. "That is true. Will you dry all of me, little Celt?"

"I will help you with your breeches only. You seem well enough recovered. Dry yourself."

"Nay, I cannot." He gave a pathetically helpless sigh.

Arienh grumbled at his arrogance and picked up the rag, for it had to be done. With gentle strokes that belied her pique, she wiped the damp skin on his legs, her eyes carefully avoiding the obvious sign of the man's unwelcome arousal.

"You've missed something." Laughter danced in his eyes.

"Then perhaps it will freeze and fall off."

"Lie down with me."

"Nay!" Arienh sprang back.

The massive hand lashed out and captured her arm, and a smile of beguiling sweetness gleamed on his face. "Lie down with me and keep me warm. You are cold too, little Celt. I will not take your blanket and leave you none."

"Nay." Arienh pushed futilely against his grip.

"Don't let him touch you, Arienh. He'll kill you."

"It's not dying I'm worried about at the moment, Birgit," she said, still straining against his surprising strength . "He seems to be healthier than I thought."

A fraudulent snarl rumbled from the Viking, competing with an oddly cajoling smile. "Tell her I won't kill you. Only her."

Despite herself, Arienh chuckled at Birgit's outraged huff. Birgit's hatred of his kind went much deeper than hers, but her sister was right, and the sweetness she saw in his eyes only masked the evil of his race.

"I did not mean you harm," he said.

"You did not?" she retorted with a sneer. "And for what did you chase me down the mountain and half across the valley?"

"Perhaps I meant to take you home with me." The Viking pulled her toward him.

She jerked against his grip. It was like being pinned in the branches of a huge, gnarled tree. "You did not think I might object?"

His lips crinkled upward. "You would like it there."

Did he deliberately provoke her? He was coming close. She set her jaw, determined not to fall into his trap. "You lie. What are you doing here if you do not come to raid?"

"I came for you."

"Ha. Vikings come only to raid. And they do not come alone. It takes more than one man to sail a longship."

"Aye."

"So you are not alone."

"Not right now." With a sharp yank, he wedged her tightly against him, his arm wrapped about her like an iron band. She could only free herself by hurting him where he was wounded, and she couldn't persuade herself to do that unless she must.

And she didn't want to make him mad.

Vikings were strange that way. They had no fear of death, and could summon up inhuman strength when they needed it, in just the way he did now. If he went berserk, as she had seen some do, there would be nothing human about him. She must placate him until he died, for Birgit and Liam would be helpless against him.

"Arienh, get away from him!"

Get away from him. Just how was she supposed to do that? What she needed was to keep her head about her, not dissolve into uncontrolled panic. But he couldn't keep this up. Sooner or later he must weaken and sleep, and then she could slip away.

His laughing blue eyes suddenly winced, as the ropy muscles of his body stiffened minutely. Then just as quickly she glimpsed his pain as it ducked back and hid once again behind a winsome mask crinkled with lines of laughter.

Her heart wrenched. She melted inside. He was only a man, no different from any other, more like a small boy seeking his mother's love to soothe his pain, yet unable to say so.

Lie with me and keep me warm, he said with words, yet she knew he could not speak of what he really needed. What man could? Not even Trevor, dying in her arms, had been able to ask of her what she had understood he needed most. Why should a Viking be any different?

Aye, he was going to die. She saw it in his eyes, saw the brutal pain he could not quite disguise behind his brash humor and laughing blue eyes. Comfort me, his eyes said. Care about me, care that I will soon be gone. Be my lost love for me, just for a little while, let me believe I have my love again.

He's a Viking.

He's a man. Just a man.

"He will be gone by morning," she finally replied. "Where's the harm? He can do nothing to me without doing worse to himself."

The man laughed, a short, clipped sound. "It would be a good way to die, but I will not hurt you."

He was teasing! How could he be teasing? He was dying!

What did it hurt her to give him comfort? He was not so beloved of her that she would grieve his passing. Perhaps only a little. Because she was at fault.

Nay, the fault was his, whether or not he meant her harm.

And he did not, she could see now. But he had come to her for help, having nothing left to lose. She should hate him. Rage, rage should be engulfing her, rage for the father and brother slain by his kind, fury for the brother stolen away and enslaved, for the torture Birgit had endured. But she saw only agony, and the loneliness he struggled so valiantly to hide.

She could no more abandon him than she could a dying child. She would hold him close to her until he died, just as she had done her brother. It no longer mattered if he was marauder or simply adventurer. He was simply a man in pain, dying.

She ceased her struggling and lay next to him, surprised that he already seemed warmer than she. Beneath the heavy wool blanket, she laid a hand atop his chest, which he wrapped in his own. A broad, strong hand that could easily crush her bones.

"You should sleep," she said at last.

"Nay," he said with his sweet smile. "I do not want to sleep. I do not want to lose any of what is left. Talk to me, my little Celt."

"Talk about what?"

"Tell me of your family."

"I have none. Only Birgit and Liam. All others are dead, or stolen, taken as slaves." She did not want to talk about them. Most times, she did her best to forget.

"Birgit is your sister. And the boy? Liam? Her son?"

"Aye."

"Where is his father?"

"No one knows. No one cares. Do not talk of it."

"A Northman, then?"

Arienh shook her head in warning and touched a finger to his lips. "No more," she said.

Despite his struggle, the Viking's eyes soon drooped closed and he slept, his good arm locked around her. Arienh lay still, resolving above all not to wake him. Now and then he stirred and moaned, but he did not wake. It would not be long now, she knew. Regret tugged at her.

Arienh also drowsed, yet she could not sleep, for that wild pounding in her heart would not quite be soothed. She wondered if his grip would still be so firm when the time came that she would have trouble dislodging herself.

And just what would she do in the morning with a dead Viking in her home?

***

He could not open his eyes. His body felt as if it floated, then as if he rose from it and looked down where it lay beside the girl whose golden hair sprung loose like newly sheared fleece.

He was within himself once again, and still his eyes would not open. Pain pounded like Thor's hammer inside his head. The throbbing agony of his wound would not cease, and his body preserved the memory of the chilling rain, bone deep, almost as if he still lay in it. The warmth of the fire, the scratchy woolen blanket, even the heat from the girl beside him could not chase away the chill. He did not want to sleep, not when so little time was left, but his eyes would not open.

He stood at the prow of his longship. As his ship raced forth out of the churning sea, Hel waited on the promontory before him, one crooked, craggy finger beckoning. Her face, half black, half blue, leered with a toothless grin. Her table beyond, within the cavern that was the Afterworld, boasted bones, split and marrowless, upon its platters, while her minions, no more than skin over bones themselves, scrapped over them.

Beyond the headland, his mother. Her voice silenced by the screaming wind, she held forth her bronze Celtic cross for him to take. He reached out to her futilely, but Hel drew him nearer, compelling him into her skeletal arms.

Nay.

The girl with fleece-like golden hair called to him, her green eyes beckoning. As his ship plunged out of the sea, he reached for her. From nowhere came the silver flash of the blade, and searing pain. Pain. She turned away.

And Hel's clawlike hands grasped his arms, tugging him downward, down.

Nay.

His heart raced. His body jerked. His eyes popped open.

Startled, the Celtic girl, her golden hair dried into coiling ropes, raised her head and frowned with an odd interest. Perhaps she thought him ready to depart the world at last.

With a shudder, he drew the girl tightly against him, for his skin was warm but the chill still ached deep within his bones. He shook away the dream that mixed with pain and cold and his confused medley of wants and hopes and fears.

She had grown so beautiful. The moment he saw her, he knew he'd found her again, and in the sudden shock had forgotten they were mortal enemies. To have dreamed so long, to end like this!

He did not want to die. He wanted to live. He wanted to hold her in his arms forever. Never mind that she did not remember him. If only the gods would favor him with more than these few moments of pity and comfort she gave him.

"You are in pain?" she asked, her hand seeking his forehead.

She did not fool him with her tenderness, for he knew the hatred her kind had for his. She only sought to shield her family from danger. Yet he would take what she gave.

"It is not so bad," he said. "I did not want to sleep."

"Your dreams trouble you."

"'Tis Hel that calls me."

"Hell is where all heathens go."

"Hel," he said, knowing she misunderstood him. "'Tis Loki's daughter, and she opens the Afterworld to me."

"I thought Vikings went to Valhalla when they died."

He smiled at her, drinking in the night-darkened beauty of her eyes, as if somehow he might take the memory of them with him into death. "Aye, if the Valkyries choose them. But they do not choose a man who has been bested by a small Celtic girl. So 'tis Hel who calls me. But I will not go. I will stay with you."

Ignoring the wrenching pain, he rose onto his elbow and leaned over her. Her dark green eyes widened with fear and her body constricted, but he didn't care. His palm cupped her cheek, and his lips descended to capture hers as he trapped her with his body. At her startled gasp, he parted her lips and invaded, exploring, memorizing, savoring. He drew her snugly against him, touching from chest to thigh. Her squirming ceased. Perhaps she accepted his advances only out of fear, but if he must die, he wanted the taste of her on his lips when he went.

"Stop it!" she demanded with a whisper, pushing against him, and she threw a wild glance at her sister's bed.

He knew what she was thinking. It was not the kiss that disturbed her, as much as that her sister might see it. And he would cherish that as much as the kiss.

"You are mine," he whispered.

"Never."

"You belong to me. Never forget that, my Arienh."

"Then I have only to wait until tomorrow."

"Aye, if it is so. But if not, then you are mine. I will not let you go."

Agony regathered, swamping him, rolling over him in great, dark, twisting swells. He fought, a drowning man against a violent sea of pain and oblivion, feeling his life force slip from him as surely as if he slid beneath the waves. He fell flat against the wool pallet, still gripping her tightly, lest she escape him before Hel's clutch pulled him down to the Afterworld. With the easing of the tearing pain, his eyes closed and an unexpected contentment engulfed him.

CHAPTER THREE

"Well? Is he dead?"

"Nay. Unless dead men smile."

"What would he have to smile about, Arienh?"

Arienh caught the sharp edge of Birgit's taunt like a lash across the face. She doubted Birgit had slept any more of the night than she had, and her sister's keen ears had surely heard all that had occurred between her and the Viking. "Perhaps he is merely happy to know he is alive."

She disengaged from the Viking's arm and rose off the narrow pallet, stiff from remaining so still for so long. Although he had maintained his fierce hold on her throughout the night, he now lacked the strength to stop her.

He followed her with his eyes as if she deserted him, with a gaze that rippled a shiver on her arms. Turning away and grumbling to herself, she tackled the dried tangles of her hair with her bone comb. Never before had she lain down at night with her hair in such disarray, and now she paid the penalty.

Her gaze landed guiltily on the wooden tablet she used to keep track of passing time. In all the time since she had been appointed keeper of the stones, she had never failed to record a day, but the Viking had so distracted her from her obligation that she had forgotten it. But if she did not make a mark for every day, she could easily lose count, for she could not go to the stone circle very often. From the time the circle had been built by men now long forgotten, no keeper had ever failed his duty, and she did not mean to be the first. She picked up the slab and scraped a mark on it with the point of her knife.

The Viking still stared, as if his eyes held her in an eternal grip. Her heart tripped twice as his gaze roamed over her like a dangerous caress. She turned away, looked back, glanced down again at her tablet, until she could no longer bear his silence.

"I wonder where your friends are, Viking. Will they come looking for you?"

Despite his weakness, a sort of triumph gleamed in his eyes, as if by his very will he had forced her to speak. "They will not know where to look. And when the tide is high in the estuary, they will sail back to the Green Isle."

"Without you? Why?"

"That is what I told them to do. We did not come to raid."

"Why, then?"

"I told you, I came to see you, Arienh."

"You lie."

The Viking smiled.

Arienh tied her knife to her waist cord, then tossed her shawl over her shoulders, grumbling to herself that it was still damp. "I shall see for myself where the others are, and this time, soon enough to raise the alarm."

"Tell them to come for me, then."

As if he thought she might. "You said they would be gone."

"When the tide is high."

"I will not go near them. You will have to do without them, unless you plan to join them on your own."

"No one need fear that," he replied ruefully.

She felt a featherlike tug at her skirt. Liam pressed close to her side. She smiled at the boy.

"Will you come with me this morning, Liam?" she asked, but looked to Birgit for the answer.

"Aye! Please? Can I go?" The boy already bounced in his eagerness.

Birgit's pale green eyes held an odd, uninterpretable message as they often did, but her sharp nod was decisive. Liam could go.

Arienh opened the door and breathed relief when she saw no horde of marauders descending the slopes beyond the field. The sky was clear and bright, patched with bulbous clouds that spelled another coming storm. New rivulets cut through the fields, and filled the swollen stream with muddy brown energy, surging toward the equally distended river.

As she had expected, the river had cut a new course through the valley. Debris littered the sodden earth, interspersed with shallow standing water, glistening in the bright sun. They had survived this time, but a flood was easily as dangerous as a Viking raid, and could mean the end of Celts in this valley.

With Liam to risk, she resisted the impulse to get closer to the Vikings for a look, so she walked down the valley where the river poured between two low mounts to join the estuary. From there, she could see the great sandy banks and salt marshes that flanked the bigger river as it met the sea.

Liam bounced about like an energetic puppy, alternately speeding away from her and returning to hold her hand. Winter had cramped the boy immeasurably. Sometimes she forgot the extent of his frenetic vigor, for inside the cottage he was always quiet and kept himself useful. It was good for him to get out.

"Who is that man, aunt?" the boy asked during one of those quieter moments when he walked beside her.

"I don't know. I did not ask his name."

"He is a Viking, isn't he?"

"Aye."

"Vikings are bad."

Arienh said nothing, feeling her throat tighten once again with the muddled mix of rage and tenderness, wishing him both dead and living. How could she explain the welling up of hatred from the very core of her being, or the way it inexplicably tangled with compassion? It was like being hot and cold, all at once.

"Is he bad, aunt?"

"I don't know, Liam. Right now, he is hurt too badly to be any trouble."

"But will he kill us when he gets better?"

"I don't think so. He may be kinder than most of his sort."

"Is he going to die?"

"Perhaps not. It is hard to tell."

The early spring air was cold, brisk, and fresh, almost stinging as she breathed it in. Already water birds were settling into the marsh. For a while, she stood with Liam on a small hummock where they could be concealed, yet still watch the birds search for nesting places.

Beyond the marsh, still soaked from the storm, the ash trees stood like black skeletons against the crisp sky. Between flat, silty shores ran the turbulent river, and on it sailed a Viking longship with its blood red sail and swan's head prow.

"Is that his ship, aunt?" The boy's eyes shone with the brightness that revealed his Viking kinship.

"Shh. Aye, I think it must be. Sit down behind the rushes so they will not see you."

Tension stiffened the boy's body, betraying his urge to run out onto the sand, to wave and shout to the strangers that passed in the graceful ship. Arienh watched him struggle to contain himself, and sit behind the brush as she demanded. The night before, she had noticed his fascination with the Viking and had thought it born of fear. Now she saw it was also something else.

His own kind. Liam knew he was different.

When the ship had sailed farther downstream, Arienh took Liam's hand and climbed the low hill that looked out over the Irish Sea. They watched as the ship put out to sea, going west.

"Where are they going?"

"To the Green Isle," she said, pointing. "If you look closely, you can see it, far away over the water."

"It doesn't look green to me. Why do they call it the Green Isle?"

"Because most times it looks green, from the sea. But it is winter still. Perhaps nothing is green there in winter."

"It should be the Grey Isle. Why are they leaving him, aunt?"

"He told them not to look for him if he didn't come back."

"They shouldn't leave him. Will they come back for him?"

"Perhaps."

"Is he like my father, aunt?"

She studied the boy's bright blue eyes, so full of hungry curiosity. Viking eyes. "Nay."

"That's good. I like him."

Arienh wished she had better answers for the boy. She wished he did not know the horrible truth of his origins. But their village was tiny, too small to keep from him what everyone else knew. Liam was her delight, and Birgit's life itself, but they could not give him what he most needed. And what he needed most was a good father, not a wretch of a raping, marauding Viking.

As they returned along the path by the churning brown waters, Arienh saw Mildread bending over in the field beyond Arienh's stone cottage, her brown braids nearly touching the ground. Mildread straightened, holding the Viking's sword, retrieved from the spot where the man had dropped it the night before. With a hand gripped on the hilt, she awaited them.

"The Viking," said Mildread, almost impatiently. The furrow in the middle of her brow echoed the concern in her voice. "Where is he? Did you not say you killed him?"

"He is not dead, but I think he soon will be," Arienh replied. Mildread was not going to like this. "He found his way to the cottage last night."

"You let him in?"

"Nay. He did that himself. I had naught to say about it. But he is very weak now."

"Not so weak as he ought to be." Mildread's brown eyes darkened with accusation. "And you have left him with Birgit."

"Aye. I do not think he can harm her."

"Why did you not finish him?"

"He is weak. But he could still be dangerous when he holds a knife in his hand. He is best appeased for now. It was not right to let a man die in the cold rain, Mildread."

"They are animals, not men."

"But we are not animals. Give me the sword. We must hide it in case he should recover and try to take it back."

"We should throw it in the river."

"Then we would not have it for our own protection later. Nay, let us hide it in the thatch at the eave by the sheepfold."

Mildread's skeptical brown eyes narrowed, but with a glower, she handed the weapon to Arienh as they walked to the cottage.

"You will regret it when he kills you," Mildread grumbled.

"The ladder, Liam," Arienh said, ignoring the impossibility of Mildread's warning, and she watched the boy fetch and raise the wooden ladder to the stone wall. Arienh climbed the ladder and wove the sword into the thatch near the eave. She leaned back to survey the thatch, and, satisfied, climbed down.

"I do not think he meant to kill anyone, Mildread." She stepped off the ladder. "He did chase me, but he never did unsheathe his sword. He only meant to stop me from raising the alarm, I think."

Liam tugged on Mildread's skirt. "I saw the ship, Aunt Mildread. It sailed away and left him."

Dark anger lurked in Mildread's brown eyes, the hatred all Celts harbored toward Vikings. "I do not like this, Arienh. Father Hewil would tell you to kill him. I have heard he is coming. If he tells you to kill the Viking, you must."

With a clipped nod of her head to drive her point home, Mildread walked away from the sheepfold to the muddy path that led down toward the river. Arienh noted Mildread had made no mention of doing the task herself. Mildread had always been good at knowing what others should do.

Arienh turned back to the cottage. Ahead of her, Liam's bright hair gleamed like polished brass in the sunshine as he bounded through the door and ran to his mother.

"Mama! I saw it! The Viking ship! It had a big red sail, and it was going down the river to the sea!"

Arienh, directly behind the boy, nodded. "You were right," she told the Viking grimly, for she knew what it must mean to him to be left behind. "They have gone. We watched them sail away."

***

For two days, the Viking lay on her raised bed where she had moved him, with a fever raging through him. He mumbled strange things in his foreign tongue, threw off the blankets, tossed like waves pounding the sea cliffs in a storm. He called her name, begged her not to let him go.

Then he slept, so quietly, so still that she returned again and again to his side to reassure herself he still breathed.

Now and then, she got a few spoonfuls of water or broth past his lips. Sometimes he took enough of the willow bark tea that the fever seemed to subside. Then it would rise again.

For nearly a day now, the fever had seemed not quite so fiery hot. Yet it had continued, and he was running out of strength to fight. She could do nothing.

"Perhaps I should not have stitched it."

"Why?" Birgit asked her. "How could it have harmed him? You can see the wound heals, despite the fever. How can you care, Arienh? If he dies, he dies. You have one less burden."

Arienh shrugged and mopped beads of sweat from the Viking's brow with a dampened rag. "But he did so much better before. I should have left it alone, as I first meant to do."

"You blame yourself too much. That he has lived at all is beyond belief. He improves even now, despite my prayers."

She understood Birgit's hatred, but her own rage mingled with a memory from long ago, of a scrawny, ragged boy who had come with the Vikings, yet had hidden her away from his own kind.

It had happened too fast for her to remember much. When the horde had poured into their village, she had been too far away to escape to the cavern, so she ran up into the hills. While her attention was on the hulking Viking chasing her, the boy surprised her. She glimpsed only his light hair and a flash of blue eyes as he pushed her into a small hole hidden by boulders. With a quick, hard hiss to hush her, surely a sound understood in any language, he ran off, luring the marauder away. Her pursuer never found her.

Though this man's hair was far darker, his Viking eyes reminded her of the scrawny lad. She could not give him up until he breathed his last. She could never care for his sort, but she owed him that much.

"I will watch him," said Birgit. A strange flatness tinged her voice. Yet her pale eyes reflected the concern she felt for her exhausted sister. "Take Liam with you to the paddock."

"It is not your duty."

"You must tend the new lambs. I will watch the Viking."

"And give him the willow bark?"

"Perhaps I will do it better than you. Go. You have been inside too long, and so has Liam."

Arienh bit her lip, but it was best. She needed to walk in the sunshine. "Come, Liam, let us see to the lambs."

The bright sunlight stung her eyes as Arienh stepped outside the door, Liam's hand in hers. Clean air swept into her lungs, as delicious as fresh red meat.

Birgit was right, Arienh did need a distraction for a while from her obsession with the Viking's wound and her own guilt, for though her fear might excuse her, it was still her doing that he was wounded. And she couldn't get over the feeling that his wound would not have festered if she hadn't stitched it. The wound was healing and the fever was not as intense, but he was so weak that soon he would not have the strength to continue his struggle.

Mildread and Elli stood by the path, waiting. Arienh shooed Liam off to the paddock.

"Well, is he gone yet?" asked Mildread, with balled fists planted firmly on her hips. Elli placed hers exactly the same way.

"Nay, he lingers."

"You must kill him, Arienh," said Elli. Grim hatred gleamed like ice in her eyes, as cold as Mildread's brown eyes were furiously hot. "His kind are vermin."

Irritation flared in her. Every day they had said this, and she was weary of it. "Well, he is lying in there on the bed, helpless as a new kitten, Elli. If you want him dead, you may go do it yourself. Here, I will loan you my knife."

Elli's eyebrows shot upward.

"Not you? Mildread, then? Here, it is not so hard. Just hold it thus and stab downwards. He may find the strength to fight back and kill you, but I doubt it."

"You should never have let him live, Arienh," said Mildread. "It is your fault, and you should end it."

Arienh smiled with narrowed eyes. "But I chose not to do that. If you want it otherwise, you must change it yourselves."

Mildread spun away angrily and strode down the path. Elli followed, glancing back with a frown.

She could not blame them. Elli could not forget her father's death. Mildread's husband had been crippled in a raid and eventually died of the melancholy, leaving her to raise two daughters alone. And none of them would forgive what had been done to Birgit. But like herself, neither Mildread nor Elli could raise a blade to the Viking.

Arienh forced her thoughts away from them, back to her task, for she had too much to do as it was. Since the flood, the pasture beyond the untilled fields had begun to green, sprouts popping up faster than the flock could nibble them away. She counted the lambs, grateful that none had been lost. Some of them had better survive, for after this hard winter, there was not a single ram left in the valley.

Liam trotted beside her like a herd dog, prattling eager questions about the lambs, about how much they had grown since their winter births. Arienh picked up a lamb to show him how to inspect hooves and bodies for sores or disease.

The sudden blare of Mildread's horn sliced through the air. Her heart lurched and she nearly dropped the tiny lamb she held as she scanned the valley's lower end.

Running women screamed and fled up the valley toward the cavern in the hill beyond. Others, too far from the cavern, scattered up the nearest slopes that lined the valley's outlet.

Vikings! Vikings afoot, a score or more of them.

Yet no hideous howls for blood, no racing hordes in pursuit, not even weapons raised for the slaughter. The marauders strode up the valley as if they owned it, their metal clanging, leather squealing, feet tromping, the sounds of a moving army.

From the day the Viking had appeared, she had feared this. His people had come for him.

To order or learn more!