A Heart of Fire (3 page)

She went to the table by her bed where a whalebone
comb lay and began brushing through her tresses, wincing here and there at a
tangle.

Dawn will be upon us soon
, she thought as
she carelessly tossed the comb onto her bed and began to braid the strands,
weaving her hair as tightly to her head as she could, out of the way. Come
first light, she and her men were due at the longhouse by her father's command.

This day had been most anticipated by all for some
time now. She was certain Jarl Hadarr—a Jarl despised by all in her
village—expected their coming, for her father's men attacked most often. Her
father’s plan to raid shortly before winter froze the fjord so a crossing would
be treacherous on foot was well known by now. The time between this raid and
the freezing winter would leave Jarl Hadarr scarce time enough to gather
warriors to come to his aid to retaliate. He would not be able to touch them
until next spring at best.

Finna smiled at that. Hadarr had not the men to defend
his people, not anymore. And they made a most appetizing target, for not only
did they have the best to loot from, but also they rarely retaliated—
and
Jarl Hadarr was her father's
younger, weaker brother. A man she rested her hate upon justly.

She could never forgive her uncle.

He had taken everything, even her mother. Her father
had told her stories of the day he had returned to find his brother in their
father's place, seated high on the dais. He told her of when her uncle had
banished him from their lands and how Hadarr had taken her mother and slit her
throat. Her father had tried to save her mother, as he had her, but he was too
late.

The woman cradling her in her arms as that broadsword
pierced the wall in her night vision, she oft wondered if that was her mother
and the dream was her only memory of the woman. She carried that vision with
her always, but especially as she readied herself for battle with her uncle's
people. The longing for the mother he had stolen from her quickened her blade,
sharpened her instinct, dulled her compassion.

To avenge her mother, that was why she had become a
warrior. Now she was prized as one of her father's best. Even though she met
all the men’s height in their village, even her father—the tallest of them
all—her slender build made her more lithe than the lumbering men in close
combat. Her skill in battle had brought her many things, but mostly Aldar's
respect. Especially now. He preened at sending her into battle with his brother
for the first time.

The day her father had announced that she would lead
this raid was most likely the happiest day of her life thus far. It thrilled
her to participate in any raid, but against her uncle—she closed her eyes a
moment, imagining what was to come, savoring the images her mind conjured—there
was no comparison to be had. She only hoped she came upon her uncle herself,
for her blade would sink deep within his belly should she lay eyes upon the man
who killed her mother.

Finna finished her hair and went to sit on her bed,
pulling her boots near and stuffing her feet inside, lacing them tightly before
taking her jeweled dagger from beside her bed and sticking it into the top of
her boot, just below her knee. She stood and found her leather vest and fit
herself in, lacing the front before she took up her fur cloak and swung the
long, dark mantle over her shoulders. The fur surrounding the hood tickled her
face as she pulled the ties closed and fastened the top with a gold clasp her
father had given her the year before, when she had begun raiding with the men.

Lastly, Finna grabbed her sheathed sword and swung the
strap over her head where the thick leather rested firmly across her chest. The
sword glided keenly into place across the center of her back, and she started
from her dwelling.

Something nagged at the back of her mind, and Finna
stopped at the fire. Something told her they had played the same game too many
times, using their terrain to
too
much advantage.

While Jarl Hadarr's numbers dwindled from all their
attacks in recent years, there was always a possibility...

Finna shook herself. It was unlikely Hadarr's defenses
were any better than they had been a few months before when the men last
attacked.

She sighed, holding her hands to the flame a moment.
Another cramp assaulted her belly then. Sometimes she wished she had been
raised differently and that she had had the chance to feel like a woman wholly,
at least once. To have had a gentle raising by a mother with a soft hand. Every
time her courses came, she noticed more and more about herself that made her
feel altogether too insecure in her femininity.

She was a woman.

Yet she was a warrior, too.

She reached for her whetstone and picked it up from
its spot on the hearth before turning and walking to the entrance. As Finna
opened the door, she silenced those thoughts of her mother and why she raided
her uncle with such hatred and bloodlust. She took a deep breath of the fresh,
damp morning air. Gray skies rolled low overhead, threatening more drizzle as
the day before. She bent to pull her dagger from her boot and began sharpening
the blade, looking out over their village.

Few were about at this hour, except for the many
thralls her father owned. She watched as they carried woven baskets and fed
animals kept in open pens outside the byres. The women carried in chickens
still flapping and screaming, dangling from the slave's hands by their feet.
The women came from the pens and went through the garden outside the kitchens
of the great hall to begin preparing food for the day.

In a way, Finna pitied the thralls. Her father was
fair for the most part, and had granted some freedom over the years, but their
days were long and hard. As for herself, she held no desire to keep slaves. She
would do for herself anything that need be done.

The rape of some of the thrall women was not something
she tolerated either, and all the men here knew of her disdain for those who
defiled women. Once, she had caught a man in the act and had cut him so badly
she had rendered him useless. Later, he had tried to kill her for what she had
done to him, but her father had run his sword through the man before he could.

Finna swiped the stone down her blade, the sharp grind
filling her ears. She pushed down the energy coursing though her, tamping away
those thoughts.

Across the path from her dwelling, Grahund caught her
eye as he stepped from his home and in turn, reminded her that not
all
the men were so bad. He was one of
the warriors she led and was perhaps the most comely of the lot. She smiled as
she admired him in secret, from under her lashes. She liked his strength
mostly, his demeanor, too. He was not like the rest. Sometimes, she
almost
desired his attentions. Almost.

Alas, her desires were neither here nor there, for he
already had a woman. Finna looked away, blushing as Grahund pulled his woman
into his arms on their steps and bestowed lusty kisses on her. His way of
saying goodbye, Finna supposed.

Mayhap had her nursemaid survived longer she would
have had a mother figure to lead her into womanhood, to tell her of the things
she should know. Alice had taken the fever when Finna was but five years, and
no other had ever dared to bring her to heel since. Indeed, her awkwardness had
increased tenfold when Alice left her, for she had been a stubborn child and
then became filled with bitterness at feeling so alone once she learned the
truth of her uncle's deceit.

With the lack of a mother or nursemaid, it hadn’t
helped that her father had cared little for her when she was young, barely
noticed her until she began practicing the arts of war and learning from the
men of raiding and killing a few years after Alice's death. She liked the
attention she had kindled from Aldar then and would have done anything to keep
his interest. Thereafter, he personally saw that she honed her skills to the
best of her capability—and she did.

Finna rested her gaze longingly on Grahund across the
slushy, sodden path leading up to the longhouse. She ignored the image of his
dark-haired woman in his arms. Though he had not taken this woman as wife, still
while
in the village, Grahund was
faithful to her. While they were away, he spoke of his woman much, yet Finna
did not really
know
her. Only that
his woman served in the hall. In fact, Finna knew very few of the women here.

And she held no wish to know them, either.

Finna sighed again, propping herself against her
dwelling with one foot braced on the frame behind her and stuck her dagger back
into her boot. She took her sword from its sheath to sharpen her blade to a
fine edge capable of cutting through bone.

It would be nice not to need to be so strong at times,
to be taken care of for once and looked upon with admiration of a gentler sort,
such as Grahund’s woman was receiving at present.

Gentle kisses and whispered words of love, whether his
words were true or not.

Though she admired Grahund, he did have one quality
that stopped her cold—he was unfaithful. His woman may not know of his
infidelity outside the village, and she herself would never tell, but Grahund
rutted with any woman he could find on their raids. He gave no thought to the
pleasing words he surely whispered in his woman's ear at present, only to come
home and start anew with a loving touch after having many other women. Finna
supposed that being privy to the men’s actions away from their village lent a
certain knowledge of men in general.

Even if she might want a man of her own, she could
never trust one in any sense. They were all lechers. If she had a man, she
would kill him for touching another woman.

Bah!
What could she be thinking? There was no man here who
could ever look upon her in such a way. They had fought alongside one another,
spilled the blood of their enemies together. And none of them could best her in
skill. Match it, aye, but not one of them had ever brought her down in training,
not since she had reached her full height and skill. Mayhap one day, if she
were to ever meet the man who could best her in battle she might consider….

But that was not likely, for on the field of battle,
as soon as she drew her sword, her enemy would lie at her feet within moments.
That
was no way to meet a man who could
possibly make her feel like she was a woman.

A fluttering of powerful wings caught her ear just
before the weight of Fang, her harfang owl, came to rest on her shoulder, his
claws hooking into the fur of her cape. Finna looked at him and smiled at her
pet as he gave her ear a nuzzle and crooned low at her.

"Good morn, my friend. How fare thee?" she
asked softly.

Fang twisted his head at her and clicked his beak. To
that, Finna laughed and turned indoors. She went to the table where she took
her meals and set down her sword and whetstone to take up a piece of dried meat
from a bowl and offered it to the owl. She lifted the meat above her shoulder,
and Fang shredded a strip away, swallowing the morsel whole as he did his prey.

"You have been out all night hunting and you come
home for food? Methinks you have become spoiled." Finna reached up to run
a finger over his head. Fang was small for his species, she suspected because
he had been abandoned as an owlet and removed from his nest. She'd found him,
surprised at his resilience, and handfed him until he grew big enough to hunt
on his own. They'd become inseparable over the last few years. Except for when
she left on raids. She never allowed Fang along for fear he might be hurt, and,
too, it was best he stay near his roost no matter his distress over her
absence. A girl named Hanna from the village took to his care whilst she was
away.

Finna crossed the room to set her only friend on his
roost. "Rest now. I must go." She gave him one last brush of her
fingers over his soft white feathers before retrieving her sword from the table
and slipping her blade into the sheath at her back.

As Finna left her dwelling and made her way up the
path—strength in her stride and an overwhelming sense that while she was not
the perfect woman for a man, at least she was her own woman—she sorely began to
feel the length of the day to come.

Chapter Two

Valdrik
Haraldson stepped into the longhouse. The billowing crisp wind caught the dark
tail of his cloak and fluttered it wildly at his back before a servant shut the
heavy, oaken doors behind him. He paused, taking scant notice of the
inhabitants of the room as he searched out his Jarl, and likewise, the men gathered
there did not seem to notice his entrance.

Yet
every set of female eyes turned his way, particularly a set of soft, powdery
blue eyes from nearest the fire where the women sat sewing near the warmth.
Her
gaze did momentarily snare his
attention, and the sight of the woman he coveted as his future bride lifted the
corner of his lips.

As
Valdrik started across the large room, he greedily looked the honey-haired
woman over. It had been days since he had seen her, as he had been with their
scouts, and his lustful needs coursed through him strongly. Geera was truly the
most comely woman in the village by far. No one could claim otherwise. Her eyes
were as soft and feminine as the woman herself, as gentle and calm as a stream.
Her golden hair flowed as soft as the silk he had seen on the distant shores he
had once traveled to in the east. Aye, he could go on and on about her beauty
all day, but there was something more desirable than beauty she carried with
her.