Royce went after him and grabbed his arm, but was thrust aside. Durwyn saw him coming and leapt to his feet, but to no purpose. Selig was on him, his hands closing around his throat. It took five men to pull him off, and he let go of Durwyn only long enough to throw off those restraining him, which he did right quickly.
It took his father to step in front of him and push him back when he went for Durwyn a second time. “Are you mad?” Garrick demanded.“What has happened that you cannot wait to end him properly?”
“He has taken Erika,” Selig replied furiously. “He threatens her life if I do not retract the challenge and claim I was mistaken in accusing him.”
“But he has not left this hall,” Garrick pointed out.
“He does not have to. He has men aplenty with him to do the deed.”
At that moment Durwyn rallied sufficiently to cry, “What does the heathen accuse me of now?”
Selig didn’t understand him, but Garrick did and rounded on the man. “You should have taken your chance at fighting my son, because you prove your guilt by taking his wife to tie his hands. And if he withdraws his challenge because of it, be apprised that you now have one from me.”
Durwyn said nothing at first, was staring in horror at King Alfred, who was near enough to have heard every word. Then he yelled, “’Tis a lie! All of it! If someone has taken the Viking’s wife, ’twas not done by my order!”
At that point Royce pulled Selig away and pushed him toward the front of the hall. “You will get nothing out of him,” he hissed. “The bastard will die swearing innocence. But you were a fool to attack him, proving his guilt. You should have closed the gates first. Whoever works with him has now been given the opportunity to leave—and to carry out his threat.”
Selig was running toward the door before Royce had finished speaking, though Royce kept up with him. They both stopped, however, upon reaching the bailey and seeing the gates already closed and Turgeis standing in front of them, his own horse and Selig’s at the ready.
“At least someone was thinking with his head instead of his heart,” Royce said wryly. “Go ahead. It will take me a few minutes to send out my men in a wide enough sphere that a call can go out and be heard as soon as she is found—and to make sure only my people leave.”
There was no longer a need for such tearing haste, now that Durwyn’s henchmen were contained within the walls, except to get Erika freed the sooner. And that was all the reason Selig needed to continue with all speed.
He did spare a moment to say, “Thank you,” to Turgeis when he reached him.
The giant merely said, “You were too fraught with emotion to think of it. Did the lord tell you where she is?”
“Nay,” Selig replied bitterly. “But he has men camped somewhere near here. That much I already knew. Royce is gathering his men now to spread wide the search. Whoever finds the camp first will call out.”
“They can call out, but I will not,” Turgeis said as they both mounted. “I will see to the matter myself.”
“Then I ride with you.”
Chapter 46
THE CAMP WASeasily seen from a distance. No effort had been made to conceal it, though a woods was right there and could have been used. It was even in the first logical place to look, west of Wyndhurst, the direction from which the king’s party had come.
Turgeis spotted it first and galloped in that direction. Selig, so anxious to have Erika rescued and safe again, overtook him. Unfortunately, the way they both charged into the camp gave every indication of attack, and not one man scattered or tried to run, but drew his weapon instead. There were twenty against two. Durwyn’s men considered the odds too high in their favor to lose, despite the size of the Vikings. So they attacked en masse.
For Selig and Turgeis, that meant every blow they struck had to be a killing blow, with none wasted, which had not been anticipated, but was the only way to keep from being felled themselves. Selig would not have killed them all, yet it looked like they might have to. He tried to locate Erika in the camp, but there was no opportunity to see beyond the next swordthrust. Yet until they were assured she was there and not taken elsewhere, someone had to be alive to answer questions when this was done, but the bodies were already piling up.
He shouted to Turgeis, who had an equal number of men coming at him from all sides. “Leave at least one alive to tell us where she has been taken.”
“You see to it,” Turgeis called back. “My Blooddrinker does not leave wounds that might heal.”
Not long after that, Selig cut down two of the last three men attacking him with a single lucky stroke. The third man, realizing that he now stood alone, started backing up, terror in his eyes.
“Tell me where the woman is and you can go free,” Selig promised him.
The fellow didn’t understand a word he said, turned to flee, but one of his downed comrades tripped him up and he fell face-forward. Selig moved in swiftly to apprehend him, prepared to beat the information out of him if necessary, but the man didn’t get up. When Selig turned him over, there was a spiked mace embedded in his forehead. He would be answering no questions.
Selig looked immediately toward Turgeis, but the giant had already finished off his share of the attackers and was wiping his great ax on one of the dead bodies lying next to him. Selig then quickly scanned the area, his heart starting to beat harder than the battle had caused it to, but Erika wasn’t there. No one else wasthere. There was not even a cart she might be hidden in.
He groaned, and started checking bodies for signs of life, yelling at Turgeis to do the same. Minutes later he gave up hope and dropped to his knees, his belly gripped with fear and rage. Too much hate, too much lust, now too much fear. Everything he felt for this woman was in the extreme, and now he knew why; now, when it might be too late.
“What did they do with you?” he shouted at the sky.
Erika heard him. She had been screaming already, repeatedly. Her efforts to twist out of the ropes had dislodged dirt on her head and shoulders. Bugs now crawled on her, what kind she didn’t know, but her throat was raw because of them. Yet she yelled again, yelled with what strength she had left. Still, whatever sound got past her gag would not penetrate the wooden plank and grass above her head. Selig was there, he had come for her, and yet he couldn’t hear her.
