Page 1 of Kiss of Wrath

Prologue

The Norselands, A.D. 845

When men turn beastly . . .

Mordr Sigurdsson, best known as Mordr the Brave, led his battle-weary men up the steep incline from the fjord to Stonegarth. His wooden castle and the surrounding village sat atop a high motte, a massive, flat-topped earthworks mound in the Frankish style, rising high above the surrounding area.

He’d already anchored his longships. Later, but not too much later, the ten vessels would be brought ashore to winter. Already, ice crusted the edges of the narrow waterway leading to his aptly named grim estate in the far north where naught grew except boulders and hardy evergreens, which was fine with him. He obtained all he needed to subsist and prosper by trading, serving in the army of one grab-land king or another, or going a-Viking. A good life!

He and his men had been gone nigh on a year now, longer than he usually spent away from his homeland. In truth, they’d waited too long in trying to outrun winter for their return voyage, having to crack thickening ice ahead of them in many places, but that one last monastery to plunder had been too tempting. As a result, they were not only exhausted but cold to the bone, with frost painting their fur cloaks and hats, not to mention beards and mustaches. Like Norse ice gods, they were. Their breaths froze into snowflakes on leaving their mouths, and below their noses snot formed icicles into miniature tusks.

They were home now, though, and he for one intended to dig in for a long stay.

As if sensing Mordr’s thoughts, his hersir, Geirfinn the Fearless, said on a frosty breath, “My Aud best have the fire stoked for my arrival because I intend to burrow in ’til the spring thaw.”

Atzer Horse Teeth, one of Mordr’s hirdsmen serving under Geirfinn, guffawed from his other side. “Which fire would that be? The cook fire, or the fire betwixt your wife’s thighs?”

Mordr and other hirdsmen close by laughed, causing more frosty cloud-breaths.

“Did I not mention burrowing?” Geirfinn replied with a grin, hardly visible through his huge, walrus-like, ice-crusted mustache. “I do my best work beneath the bed furs . . . burrowing.”

More companionable laughter. Ah, it was good to be home.

“First off, I want a horn of ale, or five,” Mordr declared, joining in the levity. “A warm bath to wash away the battle filth.”

“And lice,” someone called out behind him.

Lice were ever a problem for fighting men ofttimes forced to bed down in unclean places and unable to take their customary baths. Norsemen did tend to bathe more than other men. ’Twas one reason women of all lands welcomed them to their beds. That, and other reasons, Mordr thought with silent humor at his own jest.

“Then I want a hearty meal in my great hall,” Mordr went on to encourage his men onward. Many of them wore heavy hauberks of chain mail. Plus swords and battle-axes and shields added to the weight on the climb upward. “Yea, you are all invited to my welcome feast . . . after your burrowing.” He smiled before continuing, “Then a long night betwixt the thighs of my favorite concubine, Dyna.”

“Dyna of the big bosoms?” Atzer teased.

“Precisely,” Mordr said. “Forget a long night. Mayhap I will need a night and a day afore I am sated. I might even favor my wife, Gulli, with my attentions if she is not in her usual nagsome mood.”

There was much nodding. They all understood the pain of a shrewish wife.

But, nay, Mordr realized belatedly, there was something more important than all those appetites. Most of all, he yearned to see his children, Kata and Jomar. Though only one year apart, being six and five, respectively, his little mites were naught alike in appearance or personality. Kata had pale blond hair that would no doubt darken over time into dark blond or light brown like his own. She was a saucy wenchling with an impish grin, always up for some mischief or other. Jomar, black-haired like his mother, Gulli, was more serious but always willing to participate in Kata’s childish adventures.

Yea, that is what he had missed most about Stonegarth. His children. He pictured himself, first thing, tossing Kata and Jomar into the air, giving them huge bear hugs and playful tickles. Was there aught more glorious to a man than the giggle of a child, especially when the boyling or girling was fruit of his loins?

He’d brought Kata dozens of ribands, all the colors of the rainbow, and for Jomar, there was a miniature sword crafted of hard wood with its own belted scabbard, so small it would fit around a man’s thigh. Mordr couldn’t wait to see their joyful appreciation. Also, both of them would delight in an intricately carved board game of hnefatafl with silly game pieces . . . giants, and trolls, and such rather than the usual king, his defending soldiers, and the opposing foemen.

His first clue that something was amiss came with the realization that none of his housecarls, or even any villagers, rushed to greet them. The second clue, which had his comrades-in-arms unsheathing their weapons, was no smoke rising from the roofs of his keep or any of the longhouses and outbuildings that comprised Stonegarth on the flat-topped mountain. Always there should be hearth smoke, even in the summer months, from cook fires, if not for heat. The ominous silence had them all on alert.

And then they came upon the first of the macabre scenes. In the outer courtyard lay the dead bodies of his guardsmen, frozen into stiff, grotesque postures, eyes open, mouths agape in horror. The cold even preserved the blood of their wounds in splotchy patterns. Which gave Mordr evidence that the attackers must have come just afore the more recent freeze. No more than three sennights ago.

“Was it Saxons?” someone asked.

“Those cowards would not travel this deep into our territory,” another soldier replied. “Mayhap Huns.”

“Nay! ’Twas Norsemen. Look at this sword. Pattern-welded in the Viking style,” Atzer pointed out.

“Hordssons!” several men concluded as one.

“Those slimy outlaws do not merit the name Viking. They have lurked about for years, waiting for a chance to attack,” Geirfinn said. “Damn them all to the fires of Muspell.”

Mordr heard these remarks through the roar that was growing in his ears. “Kata? Jomar?” he cried out even as he began to sprint toward the keep. The other men began rushing in all directions, swords aready, though, from the state of the frozen corpses, it appeared the invaders were gone, for days, if not weeks.