CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“Eastern approach is cut off.” Freyr fell into step beside him at a near-run. “Four groups confirmed. Maybe five.”
The smoke above the tree line was already churning black, a rolling column of thatch crackling and popping with the flames of hell. Ragnar swept the courtyard in a single pass—thirty-two mounted, twenty on foot, three trackers already pressing against the gate.
“How many?”
“Twelve counted. More in the smoke.”
Douglas has come out tae play.
“Freyr, north flank moves first.” He took the reins from the stable hand without breaking stride. “Split ‘em at the creek crossin’ before they consolidate. Leif, take seven men tae themill road. Push ‘em toward open ground, where we can see the bastards.” He swung up into the saddle, his still-healing shoulder protesting with a spike of pain that he ignored. “The rest of ye ride wi’ me.”
Freyr turned to bellow orders, his voice booming across the courtyard.
“Ragnar.”
He recognized the voice before he turned.
Isolda was already crossing the courtyard toward him. Not hurrying, not scrambling, simply moving with that contained, purposeful directness she carried everywhere, as if the black column thickening above the tree line was an inconvenient detail rather than a catastrophe.
Liv kept pace two steps behind, healer’s satchel already buckled over her shoulder.
“Nay,” Ragnar said.
“Liv cannae manage alone. Ye ken what’ll happen if the tent’s overflowin’. I can?—”
“Absolutely nae.”
She stopped at Tðrmr’s shoulder, which put her at eye level with his knee, forcing him to look down at her.
Clever little wolf.
“Ye know as well as I dae,” she said, quietly so that his men wouldn’t catch it, “if ye ride out without givin’ me somethin’ useful tae dae, ye’ll spend the whole time wonderin’ whether I’m actually listenin’.” Her chin lifted, just fractionally. “That means ye’ll be distracted and?—”
“Reckless?”
“I was goin’ tae say slower. Someone will put a blade in ye.” A pause. “And I’ll have tae stitch ye up. Again.”
He hated that she was right. He pressed the horse one step forward and leaned down.
“Ye stay close tae Liv.” He said. “Dinnae leave the tent. Dinnae follow the wounded outside it.” His voice dropped low. “And if ye hear two long horns and one short?—”
“I run. I come back. I get inside the walls.” She waved a hand. “Now go, husband.” The impatience softened just slightly, but something raw underneath it. “Our people need ye.”
He held her gaze one beat longer, long enough to note the steady grey-green of her eyes and the exact curve of her mouth before he wheeled the horse around and rode off.
The village was worse than the smoke had suggested.
It rolled thick and low between the buildings, the particular grey-black of burning thatch, and Ragnar let it take him. He’d fought in worse—longships alight from stem to stern, raids on moonless nights where vision meant nothing and survival depended entirely on instinct
Three cottages were already gutted to their bones, thatch sheeting down in burning strips, the heat off the nearest wall pressing flat against his face from twenty yards out. Around him, villagers scrambled and fled in scattered groups while Douglas’s men worked the lanes with torches in pairs, their movements methodical, unhurried.
Hired hands.
Ragnar knew it in the first ten seconds by the loose formation, the wide spacing between pairs, the absence of any command position anchoring the line.
Douglas’s men had expected panic, scattered villagers and warriors scrambling in all directions, too many fires and not enough hands to fight them—chaos doing their work for them.