Even though, historically, the Saxons were the ones who had been attacked. So, theirs was, of course, the side where her sympathies should lie. But something deep in her bones told her things had just gone from bad to worse. Much, much worse.
Chapter Eight
Fin yanked uphis hide breeches and, leaving them untied, pulled on his boots.
“What is it?” the woman asked, sitting up from her bed in her cottage a half a mile north of the camp.
“You do not smell that?” he asked her, rushing to the window again. “Smoke.”
This time, he could see it rising from the camp. His blood froze. He snatched his sword from where he’d set it down in his belt and bolted for the door.
Without a word to the woman in whose bed he’d spent the night, he left the cottage. He ran through the forest bare-chested, but he didn’t feel the cold.Shewas there and Wolf expected him to keep her safe while he was away from camp. Fin had stepped away from his post. What would his brother do to him for it? The chief would need to show the other men what became of disobedient sluggards who left their posts.
Fin’s chest burned as if someone set fire to it. He huffed and puffed and leaped over tree roots. The closer he got to the camp, the thicker the smell.
He came bursting through the trees and stopped dead at the sight before him. Danes lay dead on the cold ground, their blood soaking into the grass. Twenty men. His heart sank and thundered until he felt ill. They’d been attacked! The men were dead. Who was responsible? He would not stop until he found and killed everyone. He remembered the woman and ran to his brother’s tent. She wasn’t inside, neither was the child. But his brother’s foolish young follower, Akkar was there, dead on the ground, a hole in his chest. Damn it!
He left the tent, not allowing himself to mourn a young man he’d barely known, and searched among the fallen, hoping he didn’t find the woman. She caused him trouble when she was here. She might get him killed because she wasn’t.
He would admit she was pleasing to the eyes, but she didn’t know her place. She was going to make his brother look the fool.
Then again, it didn’t appear that she or the child were here. He could see that the women they had taken from the town were gone. Was she with them? He thought of Akkar. Had they been taken?
He saw a woman’s silhouette emerging from the flames. Was it…his heart accelerated…Camelee?
“Did you stop them?” her voice rang out when she saw him.
“Who?” he demanded. It wasn’t her. “Who did this?”
She paused for a moment, then told him, betraying her people. “The Saxons. They came and killed everyone.”
Fin wasn’t moved by the tears streaming down her face. She was a Saxon. Why would she give up her countrymen so easily? He asked her.
“We must find her. There is something about her that—”
“You are correct,” he agreed. What did he care why the older woman did what she did? “Wolf will return soon. Where do we begin looking?”
“I have been searching. I do not know what else to do, but you should know. You are the commander.”
“You are a Saxon.”
“You are the Danish sons of wh—”
“Slave!” His voice overrode hers.
“Barbarian!” she shouted just as loud. “They killed your young friend. Do you truly wish to stand here bickering with me when they might have them?”
“Where did they take her?” he demanded.
“I do not know. One of them struck me and I do not remember anything after that. But…”
“But what?” He looked around. He needed to find Wolf’s woman. This woman was wasting his time.
“One of them was staring at Camelee and the girl with dark intentions just before I demanded to know what was going on and was struck from behind.”
The knots in his belly were growing tighter and tighter “We must find them.” He began to turn away to continue his search. They might have struck Camelee and left her here among the bodies. But it was getting harder and harder to see.
“I have told you I have searched,” the woman told him. “They are not here. I fear they have been taken captive.”
