“Where?”
“Hulda, where do you want us?”
“At the gate. Ivor is there. But we do not want to be cut down as attackers. When you go in, cryMurtray. Murtray! Do you understand?”
In a howling mob, they ran.
*
The battle hadnot gone well. The four longboats had swooped in soon after dawn, the Norsemen once more pouring over the sides like a dark tide. Quarrie thought his defenders were ready. He had a stand of archers on the rise, and they took out a number of the attackers as they hit the rocks of the shingle. But once the fighting there became hand to hand, it was too risky to shoot.
They fired on the longboats instead.
Aye, at first Quarrie thought they were holding their own. Keeping the battle to the shore, cutting the invaders down. He saw Borald wounded—along with far too many others of his men—but his captain fought on.
It emerged, however, that the Norse commander had not yet brought all of his men ashore.
The second wave, when they came over the sides of the longboats, drove the defenders back from the shore. Up the rise, fighting and dying every step of the way.
Now Quarrie and what was left of his defenders stood at the very gate. Behind him, more Murtray warriors stood ready to keep the Norse out, if he fell. Others occupied the walls, firing down what arrows they could aim with accuracy.
One of the Norse boats was aflame, struck with burning arrows earlier. Quarrie just hoped those ships had no more warriors to vomit up.
His back to the gate, he had his eye on the Norse leader, prominent in the knot of howling men that faced him. Aye, thevery man he recognized from the deck of the longboat where he’d been held captive.
Ivor.
The brown-haired Norseman had wanted to kill him before Hulda put him over the side of the longboat. Had wanted revenge for Jute’s death.
He did still.
By the way he fixed his half-maddened gaze on Quarrie, he wanted to be the man to kill him.
Mayhap he would.
And if Quarrie died here, if he spent his life with his back pressed against the oaken boards of the gate—it would be well worth it, so long as these savages did not gain admittance. Surely he had been born to defend this place. A warrior’s ancient skill flowed through his veins. So long as he killed that bastard who wanted his head before he died.
But that meant he would never see Hulda again.
Borald, bleeding heavily yet still fighting beside him, gasped desperately, “Chief, I donna think the gate will hold.”
The Norse came at them with axes. The damage they could do to wood—and to flesh—was prodigious.
Quarrie pushed forward. “Fall back,” he told Borald. “Behind me. If I fall, do no’ let them in.”
That was when he thought he saw Hulda. A vision surely, a gift here before he died.
She appeared like a warrior, all in her armor, pale braids flying. She came with a group of others, attacking the Norse from behind, a single cry tearing from their throats.
Murtray!
There amid the fighting, Quarrie’s gaze met hers. And time itself stood still.
Chapter Fifty-Six
As soon asHulda saw Quarrie there among the defenders at the gate, her mind narrowed to a single thought and a single intention. He was hers. Hers to save. She did not think then of the past or even the babe inside her, whom she, ja, did risk. Only of standing at her lover’s side. Of fighting with him.
For one glorious moment, their eyes met. Then, with an unlikely war cry tearing from their throats, her impetuous young warriors went to the slaughter.
