If anyone was going to stop that soft Saxon heart from beating, it would be me.
My berserker lost all control. In any normal fight, I would’ve become one with her, surrendering most of myself to let her vicious speed and strength prevail. She still tried to channel all of it into me, but I couldn’t access the power she was offering. It just built and built like a volcano that might destroy me.
“Who’s next for Valhalla?” I growled through gritted teeth.
They cocked their heads in an inhuman way…and all attacked at once.
CHAPTER TWENTY
BASTIAN
Something was wrong.
A clanging carried down the hill from the direction of the maze, a noise that took me back to the first time I’d stood across the battlefield from the Vikings.
But there couldn’t be an army here, and it wasn’t loud enough to be one. My ears were playing tricks on me.
I wasn’t the only one. Every man there who’d known battle began to shift uneasily and search for the source of the sound.
A scream suddenly rent the air, then was cut off just as abruptly.
Something was definitely wrong.
I eyed the racks of practice weapons, wondering if we had enough real swords here to do anything if this was the precursor to an attack.
“Alert the castle,” I shouted to a sentry.
“Alert them of what?” Elric glared, looking around. “If Vikings had breached the outer wall, we’d have been alerted. Perhaps it’s simply your wife?”
I ignored him. “Arm yourselves! Godric, get your bow and pick a dozen strong archers to do the same. The rest of you, swords and shields!”
For a moment, no one moved, but Godric barked, “Your prince issued a command.” Whether it was due to the reminder of my rank or the tense silence that had followed the thumping, they all sprang into action, retrieving weapons.
I scanned the top of the hill, realizing we were in an impossible position to face an attack from higher ground. “Knights of the realm—to me!” I waved my sword, signaling the royal guard to follow me up the hill before we were trapped. The men formed up in uneven lines, led by the older warriors amongst us.
Movement caught my eye.
Eleanor ran down the hill from the maze like the hounds of hell were chasing her. My feet moved into action before I’d begun to make sense of what was happening.
“Sigrid!” she shouted breathlessly, her hair falling from its tidy bun to billow behind her in waves. “Sigrid!” She could barely get the word out around her terror as she gestured wildly towards the maze.
Sigrid tried to harm her?
Even as Eleanor stumbled and landed in a sobbing heap on the ground, I wanted to deny that Sigrid would hurt an innocent.
I reached Eleanor in the space of a dozen frantic strides and slid to my knees in front of her, checking for injuries. She appeared unharmed, which didn’t make sense. If Sigrid had tried to hurt Eleanor, she would’ve completed the task.
Maybe Sigrid had simply done something to scare her, her idea of a joke that had backfired.
Eleanor was crying and breathing too hard to get a coherent word out. “S-Sigrid…Sigrid!” was as much as she could manage.
One side of her face was bruised.
“Did she hurt you?” I asked, taking her by the shoulders.
Eleanor shook her head frantically. “Vikings with no eyes! She killed one!”
No eyes? My mind reeled. “A Banamaðr?”
