Cenric shot a glance to the line of Tullia’s men.“If they take you…” He couldn’t say it.
Hróarr had no such reservations.“If they take you, they’ll take turns raping you before ransoming you back to your uncle.”
That was the way things had been done in war for centuries.Brynn might be spared the worst of the abuse if they realized her value as a hostage, but Cenric did not dare think she would be spared entirely.
Brynn didn’t even flinch.“It won’t come to that.”She was just a little too calm.“They’ll have to kill me.”
They wouldn’t take her alive, that was what she was saying.When he’d realized they were trapped inside the great hall as it was being burned down, Cenric’s only thought had been fear for Brynn—the horror that she was going to die with him.Now he wasn’t just facing the thought of her suffocating in front of him, but a gruesome death at the end of a Valdari spear.
They stood no chance.Even with Brynn, they stood no chance.Cenric didn’t want to die, but that was the way of a warrior’s life.Someone else would become alderman of Ombra and the world would move on, but Brynn…she deserved better.
“I won’t ask you to flee,” Brynn said.“You’re a warrior and you need to fight, I understand that.But I need to stay.”
“Brynn—”
“You die when you run,” she interjected, quoting the old warrior’s saying.
The bloodiest part of a battle was always after the shieldwall broke and the losing side ran.It was said that to run was to die, either by loss of honor or loss of life.One could still die facing the enemy, but at least it would be a courageous death.
Cenric hated the thought of Brynn in danger, but she was right.She was no stranger to war, and she knew exactly what she was choosing.Brynn was choosing him even unto death.“Stay between Hróarr and I,” he ordered.
Hróarr made a sound of protest, but it died in his throat.
“I will try.”From her wry tone, Brynn knew that might become difficult once the fighting started.
Go, Snapper.Cenric couldn’t make his wife leave, but he could save his dog.Find Vana.
Vana?Snapper cocked his head to one side.
Protect Vana,Cenric ordered.
Vana!Snapper whined, looking back in the direction they had last seen her.Cenric?Brynn?
We’ll follow you,Cenric promised.Stay with Vana.
Barking, Snapper rushed into the darkness, seeking Vana and the other Valdari women.Hopefully, the dog would be safe.
Cenric wondered how much of war Brynn had seen.He knew she had fought for her uncle alongside her sister.Unlike a thane, Brynn didn’t boast of her time bloodletting.She seemed oddly ashamed of it.
Ovrek’s men were outnumbered.Tullia still had at least one hundred to their paltry band of survivors.
“Enough of this.”Tullia drew a sword, leveling it toward the bedraggled group of survivors before her.
There would be no shield wall on their side.This would be plain and simple butchery.
Cenric and Hróarr had weapons, but only a few of the other men did.Most of them had been forced to leave their weapons in the antechamber at the front of the hall and the weapons were now out of reach and far too hot to be wielded.
Below in Istra, fires had caught.Whether by accident or malice, storehouses, barns, forges, and homes blazed like torches in the night.It appeared that even some of the ships were on fire.Tullia hated Ovrek enough to waste good timber?
“Ovrek!”chorused the men around them.“Ovrek!”
Cenric and Hróarr fell in beside the king, joining the ranks that gathered around him.Brynn crouched at their backs, her presence warm and steady.Cenric hated that he couldn’t protect her, but he had to trust her to protect herself.Somehow, trusting her with her own life was harder than trusting her with his.
Few of them had shields and that meant Cenric and Hróarr ended up out front.
Other men who had shields fell in around them, but only two or three as best Cenric could tell.Some fifty had escaped the burning hall, many lay dead,
“Ovrek!”their line roared.“Ovrek!”
