“How did you avoid killing me?” Grim asks. Kar perks up, too.
Sigvid grins, proud to bursting. “Azure Blooms.”
Kar throws back his head, cackling.
“Hear me out.” Sigvid raises his arms in surrender. “In large doses, they can sedate a berserker. But in small doses, can they affect an ordinary man? Put him into a deep sleep where even his heart beats at a pace slow enough to fool a buffoon like the Battlemaster?”
Kar’s jaw dropped, and it is Grim’s turn to laugh. “You fuck! You could have actually killed me!”
“Was that not the goal? You died either way. At least you can continue your life as one of my Drengr.”
“How did you get the Azure?” Kar interrupts them.
“A decent Arena guard named Godwyn. He just made more coin on his bet for Grim’s death than any of the rich fucks spectating combined. He was the one who ensured Grim was ruled ‘dead’ and the one to unlock the outside doors in the combatant holding level.”
“How did your men know to arrive?” Grim asks as he jabs a thumb in Kar’s direction.
“Godwyn smuggled a note out to a courier who delivered my instructions and a set of keys to my inner circle.”
Sigvid wasn't about to die in this shit hole. Not when someone has to answer for selling him there in the first place. And then there is his delicious new slave waiting for him, even if her fate at his hands is unknown.
Grim wraps his arm around Sigvid’s shoulders and growls, “When do I get to murder that bastard Samson?”
Sigvid conjures an image of his beautiful Avina with her curls blowing in the Salt wind. A part of him suspects his lovely new whore will lead them right to her cruel ex-husband’s cousin.
“Sigvid!”
They all turn to a young Drengr, pulling two riderless horses behind.
“Calder!” Sigvid greets his first Drengr mentee with a grin. Except their fellow warrior shakes his head.
“Hurry, there is a situation with Finn!”
Kar helps Grim to a horse while Sigvid takes the other, and they ride hard to the meet-up point.
The Drengr army forms a tight circle on horseback and appears transfixed on whatever transpires in the center.
“That’s odd,” Kar remarks.
“Quite,” Sigvid growls back.
Sigvid dismounts and shoves his way through the crowd, having an inkling of what he is about to discover. A rage builds in his chest while he elbows to the center to find Slode and Helga watching Finn. He bounces on his feet with a sword at his side.
Avina is clothed as the Prince commanded, although rope curls across her body in a frantic criss-cross, tugging her legs and arms behind her back. His stallion, Hest, bears her body.
The familiar fury associated with his berserker mode twists up his spine.
As Sigvid watches Finn raise a sword to his little Queen.
He withdraws an axe from his hip. The blade whirs through the air, striking the sword off balance and knocking Finn backward into Helga’s horse.
He roars, garnering attention from his Drengr.
Silence follows.
“Sigvid?” He can hear a breathy whisper from Avina that frustratingly tugs at his heart.
He dares not spare a glance at her twisted form upon Hest. Already this scum will feel the might of Sigvid’s berserker, and taking in her situation will enrage him more.
