Blood Eagle: A riveting historical thriller Page 4

  Able to remove my gaze from him at last, I turned and looked at all the men inside the great Assembly hall. The blank expression on their faces told me they didn’t know whether to be happy or disappointed with this unexpected turn of events. On the one hand, Bjorn Jarlabanke’s benevolence to let my father decide the ultimate sentence seemed to have impressed yet surprised everyone. My foster father was even grander than his reputation claimed. On the other, most of the people here today had come with the expectation of this trial ending with a date set for a bloody execution. They must feel a bit cheated.

  The men’s momentary dumbness soon ended and they began exchanging words with each other instead, pointing and looking at me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that Ragnar had left the bench and his family. He strode toward me, his face so dark red it looked like it suffered from severe sunburn. There was a crazed gleam in his deep-set, blue eyes. I was convinced he had come to kill me, driven mad by the Law Speaker’s ruling and our fathers’ mutual decision to keep me alive. I expected to see the glimmer of a knife in his hand. Because I wanted him to finish me off, I did nothing to protect myself; I didn’t even raise my arms to shield my body. But to my utmost surprise, Ragnar just stopped in front of me, his arms hanging limply at his sides.

  6

  “Well,” Ragnar hissed through clenched teeth, his chin raised in a poor attempt at matching my height. Saliva splattered my cheeks as he continued, his face scarlet. “I might not have succeeded this time, but believe me, Leif, you’re still as good as dead. You will never again be back in Karlsby. My family will never pardon you. Thora is mine now, just like she should have been right from the beginning.”

  I stared at Ragnar, not sure what he was talking about. I might not have succeeded this time…. Succeeded doing what? What had he tried to do? And why wasn’t he trying to kill me? Thora is mine now, just like she should have been right from the beginning… What did Thora have to do with anything? But before I got an opportunity to ask about any of the thoughts going through my mind, Ragnar had already turned around and left.

  Then, as suddenly and as completely as a downpour from a sky full of rain clouds, I understood at last what was going on, what Ragnar was talking about:

  I didn’t do any of what I am accused of. Thora has everything to do with it. What’s worse, Ragnar is behind it all...

  By Odin, how could I not have seen this earlier? Why, it was just so obvious! My foster brother and supposed best friend set me up to get rid of me – so that he could have my wife.

  Feeling someone looking at me from above, I turned my head toward the Law Speaker’s table and saw how the wrinkly, white-haired man was staring at me right as two Assembly guards came up, one on each side of me. Had the Law Speaker heard Ragnar’s words? I never got a chance to ask. The burly men took a hold of my arms and forced me to start walking, pulling me toward the Assembly’s main entrance.

  Stunned by Ragnar’s revelation, I barely noticed how men spat on me and cursed me out as I was dragged along the long aisle that separated the crowds. Soon, the guards and I had reached the tall double doors. Without a word, they opened them and we went outside. Rain whipped the gravel-covered yard in front of the Assembly building, the sharp drops feeling like needles against my face. Letting me go, the men gave me a rough push forward.

  As I was stumbling to regain my balance, the harsh rain cleared my mind. Even though I knew I had the right to gather my personal belongings and get myself into safety before anyone could legally make an attempt on my life, I knew I had better get out of there immediately if I wished to stay alive. And stay alive I now very much did; Ragnar’s revelation had seen to that. With eyes on the forest that began at the other side of the wide yard, I took off running as fast as my legs would carry me.

  No sooner had I crossed the yard than I heard men exiting the Assembly building. Slowing down, I threw a glance over my shoulder. At once I realized what was going on, even before I heard Ragnar scream from where he stood right outside the entrance, his blond mane flying in the wind as he pointed at me: “Kill the murderer before he will kill and rape your sisters, too! We have to kill him!”

  I turned back toward the thick line of trees and picked up my pace. Blood pulsing in my ears, I flew over what remained of the slippery, gravel-covered yard and entered the forest. The pounding footsteps of all the men coming after me spurred me to move my legs faster than I had ever thought possible. It was as though a gigantic hand pushed me from behind through the thick undergrowth. I barely felt the sharp branches cutting the skin on my hands and face, barely felt the wet leaves getting in my eyes and sticking to my cheeks.

  Bolting deeper and deeper into the woodland, my knees slammed into boulders that suddenly appeared beneath thickets. My renewed will to live quickly erased the pain the many collisions caused. I barely noticed tripping over a protruding tree root that made me tumble down hard onto the ground; I just stood up and continued running, my legs having a life of their own. I didn’t care how my need for more air burned like nettles in my chest, how the rain whipped my face harder and harder, how I could taste blood that must leak from cuts on my skin. All that mattered was that I kept running far away from all the men.

  A sudden, sharp pain in the middle of my back told me that someone had hurled a stone at me. I gasped for breath but kept on running. Another stone missed me, plunking down right beside my boot. A third just barely missed my arm and a fourth bounced off an oak trunk, dropping heavily to the ground. I must run quicker… I pushed myself to move faster, the fear of someone taking me out with a well-placed stone throw giving my legs even more power.

  Miraculously, I managed to expand the distance between me and my many persecutors. The sound of their movements died down and the voices became fainter. Fewer and fewer stones reached me until finally none did.

  I was getting away.

  Relief washed over me and I allowed myself to slow down to catch my breath. No sooner had I done so when, out of nowhere, what sounded like a horse galloping reached my ears. The blood in my veins froze. Are they chasing me on horses also? The sound quickly grew stronger. Yes, it was most certainly the sound of a horse’s hooves. A large horse’s hooves. I would never be able to outrun a horse like that, not to mention several of the animals.

  The sound grew stronger and stronger. Whoever was on that horse headed in my direction and would soon catch up with me. Picking up my pace again, I mouthed a silent prayer that the horseman was smaller than me and that he was unarmed. Not that I knew of any man who ever left his house unarmed… I had better hide somewhere instead of keep on running. That way the horseman stood a smaller chance of finding me.

  Frantically, I looked around for a fir with thick enough branches to cover me and soon spotted one. I rushed up to the tree and squeezed in between its many dense boughs, the needles puncturing the parts of me that clothing didn’t cover.

  I peered in the direction of where I estimated the horseman to appear at any moment now, hoping that I blended in with the fir. I hardly dared breathing. Then, like I had expected, a man on a dark brown horse exploded into my line of vision. He wore an iron helmet and a large sword hung in its scabbard from his hip. He must be searching for me, for his head was turning in all directions, scanning his surroundings. Thankfully, it didn’t take long until he had passed me, continuing deeper into the forest and disappearing. I allowed myself to relax a little.

  I remained meshed in with the fir’s branches until I could no longer hear him, though. Then I stepped out, wondering if others had thought of hunting me down with horses. I could only hope this was not the case. Well, I thought in an attempt to calm myself. If they are, I am likely to hear them first—

  “Aaahggg!”

  The overwhelming weight of someone suddenly clinging to my back made me crash to the ground. I moved my hands in front of my head, just barely managing to catch myself from falling flat on my face in the wet grass. Flipping around violently, I pushed off the person who had throw
n himself over me—a sinewy, balding farmer that I had seen several times at the mead house. Who also happened to be Stina’s father.

  “You scoundrel!” he yelled at the top of his lungs, so out of breath he was nearly blue in the face. He must have caught up with me, spotting me right as I went into hiding, the sound of the horse’s hooves drowning out his running feet, and then waited for me to reappear. “I knew you were guilty, you darky. And I should have killed you when I had the chance! You low-class scum.”

  He stumbled to his feet and reached for the sword at his hip. But before he could remove it from its scabbard, I got to my feet and kicked him so hard in the groin that he fell backwards onto the ground. He grabbed his privates, rolling around and groaning from pain. I threw myself over him and pinned his elbows down with my knees, immobilizing his arms. The farmer glared at me furiously, still groaning between clenched teeth. Making sure he could go nowhere, I turned around and reached for his sword.

  When I looked at him again, his sword in my hand, he seemed to have recovered from the groin pain enough to say something for his lips parted, his face twisting with that same disgust as it had when he called me “darky.” Surely, he was about to hurl another insult at me.

  “I never raped your daughter,” I cut him off. Grabbing the sword with both my hands, I raised it high above my head. But even though it might have been wiser, I couldn’t make myself drive it into his heart. I had never killed a man. Instead, I flipped the sword around and struck him hard over the head with the hilt. He passed out instantly.

  I sprung to my feet, grateful that I now had a large sword with which to defend myself were someone else to attack. Adopting a fighting stance, I turned my head to left and right in search of other men. It seemed we were alone, though. I straightened my legs and loosened my shoulders. I’d better get out of there.

  Wondering in which direction I should head, I found myself momentarily unable to move. I couldn’t remember where I had come from when Stina’s father jumped on top of me. I also couldn’t see the sun and its position in the sky; the layer of lead-colored clouds was too thick. The sun would have given me an idea of my current location.

  Everywhere I turned, the firs, pines, birches, and elms looked the same. I listened hard, trying to catch the sound of men yelling or horses galloping somewhere. That would give me an idea of where not to go at least. But I heard nothing except for the rain that kept beating down on the forest floor and the occasional thunder from Thor riding through the heavens on his chariot. A fox sprinted by, a few steps away. Just as I decided that it was better if I kept moving in some direction than just remain standing there, something small and sharp hit the hand with which I held the sword. The pain was so intense I dropped the weapon onto the leaf-covered ground. Before I could bend down and pick it up, two men burst out from between the trees and headed toward me. The one with the slingshot in his hands stopped. He was a stocky man dressed in an expensive-looking tunic that clung to his sweaty body. He turned his head away from me and barked, “We found him! He is here! Everyone, he is here!”

  7

  Men that were farther away from us hollered something unintelligible in response to the sling shooter’s call, and I could hear the faint sound of tree branches breaking as they stomped through the woodland. I decided to forget about the sword and instead get out of there as fast as I could now that I knew in which direction to head. Not only was the sword a few steps away from me, but the weight of the big weapon would undoubtedly slow me down and I couldn’t afford that.

  I didn’t get very far before another small, sharp object hit my back. Nearly losing my balance from the sudden pain that radiated over my spine, I tumbled forward but managed to stay on my feet. I tossed a glance over my shoulder and saw the stocky man’s companion, a red-haired, younger man with a long torso and short legs, taking the slingshot. He loaded it and aimed at me. I froze.

  If he hits my head I could very well be done for…

  Instinctively, I crossed my arms behind my head at the same time as I took off running in a zigzag pattern away from the men, hoping that this would make it more difficult to reach me. Twice, small objects zinged by me, ending up on the ground next to me.

  The voices of the other men got louder and I could feel their feet hitting the ground repeatedly, telling me they were closing in on me and that there must be several of them.

  While running side to side helped me avoiding the slingshots, doing so would not matter in the end if everyone else caught up with me. It was only a matter of time before that happened considering my zig-zagging pattern. I had to take out the man with the slingshot, or at the very least get it out of his hands. I threw another glance over my shoulder and saw that the red-headed man and his friend were only about twenty steps away from me. Of course, if I attacked one, I would have to deal with the other. How would I take out two men who were both strong-looking and tall like I was? Surely they had daggers in addition to their swords.

  Well, I quickly decided. It was still my best option for survival, so I had to do it. If only I could come up with a way to debilitate one of them, I should be able to take down the other. Behind the trunk of a wide elm, I spotted a small anthill a few steps ahead. Suddenly I knew what to do. With some luck, I might take both of them out with the ants.

  Pretending to have tripped, I threw myself headlong onto the ground, right beside the anthill. Lying there, my face buried in wet leaves and pine needles, the two men ran up to me. I grabbed two fistfuls of anthill, all the while praying that red and not black ants lived in this particular anthill. Swiftly, I rolled over and threw ants, pine needles, earth, sand, and everything else the ants had gathered into the faces of the men. To my utmost delight, I did manage to hit both square in the eye, rendering them momentarily blind.

  “Ahhh, you scoundrel!!” the stocky one roared as he tried to pat himself free of all the ants crawling down his shirt neck. He stumbled around and then tripped over a root, crashing to the ground where he hit his head on a stone. He was out like a light. The ants crawling along my own arms stung me over and over. Yes, those sure are red ants, I concluded. Painful as it was, though, I didn’t mind because I discovered then that, as the man with the slingshot rubbed his eyes in an attempt to see again, he’d left his weapon free in the grass for me to grab. I jumped to my feet and threw myself at him. He fell backwards to the ground, with me over him. Sadly, he must have anticipated my action, for one of his hands suddenly grabbed a hold of the slingshot. I tried to wring it out of his grip, but it was too solid.

  “Let go,” I snarled at him. “Let go or I will beat you until you do.”

  “The hell I will!”

  Rolling back and forth with me on top, the man squeezed his eyes shut to avoid the ants from getting inside, all the while holding onto the slingshot with all his might. I could feel ants leaving him for me, joining the others that were already crawling inside my shirt sleeves. I grunted as they kept stinging me.

  Since it didn’t seem like I would get the darn thing out of the man’s hand before the others had caught up with us or his friend came to, I took the second-best approach: Making sure I had the top half of the slingshot in a firm grip, I twisted my hand backwards so hard I turned the weapon into two worthless pieces.

  “There they are,” someone shouted uncomfortably close to us. Pushing myself up from the ground, I glanced in that direction. A wall of angry-looking men about forty steps away were fast approaching. No matter how much anthill I threw at them, I would never be able to stop them all. I flew to my feet, swiveled around, and ran as hard as I could away from the men.

  I would never be able to outrun all, I thought, desperation squeezing my heart. They were too many. Still, I kept running, my legs carrying me forth faster than I had ever thought possible. Everything around me turned into a blur filled with tree trunks, sharp branches and needles, wet leaves, ants crawling and stinging me, hard boulders hitting my limbs. I felt as though I was running in a bad dream, flying th
rough the rainy forest, faster and faster, all the while hoping I would suddenly wake up and discover that none of what had happened since Bjorn’s birthday feast had ever been for real.

  I wasn’t sure at what point I stopped hearing the men yelling; I just kept running and running and running. All I knew was that, at some point, day turned into night and I was still running. You have to get away from all of them this time, Leif, a voice demanded inside me. All of them. Sometime, much, much later, my body gave in at last and I collapsed onto the ground. I fell into a deep, dreamless slumber.

  When I woke up again it was the middle of the night and a fire was burning close to me. I rubbed my eyes. Where was I? Had I been dreaming after all? Yes, it must have all just been a bad, bad dream. Firs rose high around me, looking like they were trying to touch the dark sky. Wind seeped through them, gently bending the towering trees’ dense branches. It seemed I was in a glade. Was I in the forest? Wait. What was I doing there in the middle of night if it had just been a dream… and why was a fire burning here?

  Fear gripped my stomach, and even before I turned my head, I knew I was not alone. A man sat on an animal pelt beside the fire, watching me silently. It was the man with the helmet on the dark brown horse that had passed me earlier. I reached toward my boot, only to remember that the dagger I always kept there had been removed when I was thrown into the cell.

  He moved his thin lips into a half smile. “Don’t even think of doing something, Blackhair. You’re going nowhere.”

  Two other men came up behind him, tall and strong-looking like the seated man, and both of them wearing helmets as well. They must be Thanes, I realized. The Thanes were men who had been given land by the King in exchange for military service. Each Thane was responsible for a district throughout Ostergotland and their primary function was to protect the people. If you wished to stay out of trouble, you paid them allegiance. These men seemed to be lower-level Thanes, however; the kind that would never serve as judges during a dispute at the Assembly. They were also always in need of money.