“It’s my least favorite, too,” Gressa grinned. “We need to learn how to make it last longer. But I don’t know that it’s possible. It always feels so damn good; I can’t keep my body from racing to the finish.”
“You and me both.” Strian kissed her nose as he rolled away to lace his pants as Gressa did the same.
They had not noticed that the sun had set, no light shining in under the tent. Strian pulled the blanket free then covered them. The bare ground their only mattress. They pressed against one another, this time for the warmth the meager blanket did not provide. With no idea what time it was, and exhausted from the day, they both drifted to sleep within a few heartbeats.
Twenty
Strian awoke to the sound of rushing feet and bellowing voices. He looked down to see Gressa coming awake, too. He raised his eyebrows in questions, but Gressa only shrugged. They lay together as they tried to distinguish the sounds.
“They’re only a couple hours out!” A Scottish voice filled the air.
“Who? Ivar? The others?” Gressa’s lips moved still not risking making a sound.
“That’s my guess.” Strian’s lips hardly moved as he responded.
They ripped the flap open as a swarm of Norsemen flooded the entrance. They yanked Strian and Gressa from the ground and shuffled them out of the tent. It was the middle of the night, the stars the scant light. Only a couple of cook fires still burned, but men were smothering them. Gressa recognized a bowman hurrying by. She called out to him asking him what was happening.
“Your friends will be here far too soon,” the man threw back over his shoulder.
Strian and Gressa surveyed the surrounding scene them. It did not look like a warrior camp preparing for battle. Just the opposite. They scrambled to disassemble the camp to prepare for retreat.
“What’s going on?” Gressa no longer tried to remain silent. “Why are they taking the time to break down camp if they’re about to go into battle? If they don’t fight here, which we already assumed, why not lead our forces away from here to a place where they might have a chance?”
Strian shook his head just as confused as Gressa. They had been left standing in the wide open.
“We should run,” Gressa spoke aloud Strian’s thoughts. “In this commotion, with no one guarding us, no one’ll catch us. We could meet the others and prepare them for their attack.”
Strian swept his eyes over the bedlam that had overtaken the mixture of Norsemen, Highlanders, and Welshmen. Grímr was nowhere in sight. He paused before shaking his head.
“Not yet. There is something really not right about this. I don’t think they’re just packing up to retreat further inland. I think they will make a run for their ships. They’re tearing down the tents but not packing them. I don’t see anyone even trying to gather the larger supplies. They will abandon them. I think they only lowered the tents to make the camp less visible perhaps to buy them a little more time.”
Gressa stared at a group of men who had just yanked the stakes from the ground, and as the tent collapsed, they moved on to the next one.
“He’s fleeing to their ships.” Gressa realized. “He’s going back to Wales.”
“But why? He has no more money to recruit mercenaries, and he’s back where the land he wants to steal lies.”
“I don’t know. I don’t understand this at all. I can’t imagine what is in Wales or even Scotland that would draw him back.” Gressa spotted Grímr’s son who bore an uncanny likeness to him from a distance even though he was Strian’s uncle Einar’s bastard. “Unless he wants to live more than he wants the land or vengeance. I’m sure he fled hours ago, but,” she pointed to the young man, “he left his son behind. He’s the one he uses as a decoy. He’s going to let his son take the brunt of the fight, hoping that our forces will attack only seeing who they think is Grímr. He’ll sacrifice the man for his own life.”
“That part comes as little surprise. Do you think Dafydd will give him sanctuary?”
“As long as a battle doesn’t show up at his door.”
“Then we have no choice but to follow. We can’t let Grímr live. It might take him years to rebuild an army, but he will be back. If nothing else, the man can be patient and holds a grudge with the best of Norsemen,” Strian mused.
“Then we climb into the trees to watch a little longer. With Grímr gone, no one will follow us or even care whether we get left behind. Let’s make sure they are traveling towards the coast.”
Strian nodded, and they began to pick their way through the camp, trying not to draw attention to themselves. They made it to the edge of camp with no one questioning or detaining them. Gressa chose one tree and Strian moved to another a few trees down. They scrambled into the branches and watched the warriors tear apart the last of the camp. Men who had horses mounted, and the foot soldiers pulled their satchels with their few belongings over their head and shoulder. They jogged behind the horsemen until there was no one left. While they had made their camp at the base of a mountain, they were less than an hour from the coast. They would sail within the hour. Gressa and Strian needed to run to intercept their tribe and direct them back to their ships.
Strian looked over at Gressa, impressed that she was still running at a steady pace after an hour. The route had been flat most of the time, but they had covered several miles. Gressa halted, and Strian worried she was hurt or could go no further.
“Listen,” Gressa turned her head as though she could hear better. “Horses. It must be them.”
Strian heard it once they stopped. He nodded his head, and they took off again. It was only a quarter of an hour before the first horses came into sight. They jumped from the path and lay on the ground to observe the approaching riders until they were sure Bjorn was at the front of the group.
Strian and Gressa stood in the center of the path as Bjorn, Tyra, Freya, Erik, Leif, and even a very pregnant Sigrid who sat in front of her husband approached.
“About damn time we found you two,” Bjorn snarled. “Do you have any idea how much you worried my aunt?”
