Page 74 of Lord of Fire and Ice

There was honor among the court of Asgard.

Anyone who took somebody against their will was no more than a beast that walked upright.

Her conscience pricked her. There was a balance ingrained in the fabric of the world, and she wondered if her own misdeeds had tipped the scales against her.

She’d been taken by Tryggr and his pack of ruffians because her brothers had taken Brandr.

But Finn and the others hadn’t abused him. They didn’t crush his spirit as the poor woman next to her was obviously crushed.

Katla’s chin sank to her chest.

Whom was she fooling? Finn had offered to geld Brandr and would have done it if Katla had given him the nod. She threatened to whip him the very first night.

She was no better than Tryggr.

It would serve her right if Brandr sailed on without her. She swallowed back a sob but couldn’t keep a tear from seeping from the corner of her eye.

“Will your man really come for you?” the woman beside her whispered.

Katla hoped so. It was her only chance. She swiped her wet cheek. “Ja. He will. He promised to protect me.”

“Mine didn’t,” she said. “After a couple weeks, Tryggr offered to sell me back to my husband, but he refused to take me. Said he didn’t want someone else’s leavings.” The woman’s mouth barely moved as she spoke.

“Didn’t he know you carried his babe?”

She shook her head. “Linnea isn’t his. She’s mine. Only mine.”

A hard knot formed in Katla’s throat. The woman had been held in these deplorable conditions for many months, and she clearly had no idea which of her captors fathered her child.

The woman was silent for such a long time, Katla assumed she’d fallen into exhausted slumber. Then her soft whisper came again.

“Can…can your man kill Tryggr?”

Katla nodded. Brandr would have to.

“If he does, I will work for you till my fingers bleed.” The woman sat up and turned haunted eyes on her. “I see kindness in you. Please, I beg you. Take us with you when you go.”

***

Tracking in the dark was no mean feat, but Brandr pressed on, going slowly lest he overrun a turn in the trail left by Katla and her abductors. Bent grass and broken twigs told their story. The indentations in soft earth showed there were three men, one of goodly size. After the initial scuffle at the top of the rise, he saw no more trace of Katla except in the deepening of the tracks left by the others.

They were carrying her.

Brandr hoped that meant she was only bound, not injured. Fury made his eyes burn, but he shoved the feeling down. Katla would not be helped by the out-of-control rage of a berserkr. He had to keep his head.

As he knelt to examine the snapped-off tips of a gorse bush, Brandr wished for his friend Orlin. Of all the men who’d gone with him to Byzantium, Orlin was the best tracker. Quiet but lethal, the hunter had been free with his knowledge of signs in the earth. Brandr had learned all the wood lore he could from his taciturn companion.

Then Brandr came across a long, indented ridge in the dirt between the tracks left by the men. There. Another.

She was struggling. She’d managed to drag her toe along the ground.

A grim smile lifted his lips.

Trust my Katla not to make things easy for them.

The sky was lighter over the next rise. A fire meant habitation.

He sank down and scrambled up the hill on all fours. Pressing himself flat on his belly, he peered over the crest, lest he present a void in the starry sky behind him and so warn a watcher of his presence.