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from the warm hall to Stieg who waited with
his destrier outside the longhouse. From the steps, Valdrik swung himself up
onto the large ash-colored horse.
    "Tell
Ragnarr to stay here and await the Jarl and his men and lead them to the camp.
We attack Aldar's forces there," he ordered.
    Stieg
nodded with a hard glint in his eye. "Aye." He gave the horse a slap
to the haunch that sent the animal into a trot and then a gallop.
    As
Valdrik rode past their walls, he thought of the battle to come. They had never
tried such a thing as Hadarr suggested. They had never been strong enough.
    Three
winters ago when he and his men had arrived on Hadarr's step half-starved and
homeless, the coldest of days already upon them, they had no shelter to look to
for warmth. Hadarr had been desperate for warriors and had gladly offered them
one and all a place amongst his people in exchange for their swords.
    Since
then, their population had steadily increased. They had gone to distant shores
during the summer, after Aldar raided—and had not been quite as successful as
Aldar probably wished, as his men had found their village more fortified than
once before. They had built up walls as soon as the ground had thawed, like
some Valdrik had seen the Romans use when he'd gone raiding with his father
years before.
    This
last spring, they had brought back new slaves to work and found men further up
the coast, their villages dwindling, willing to return to fight with them if
only for food alone.
    Aye,
this time they stood a chance.
    This
time would be different.
    This
time he would have the revenge he so dearly longed for.
    He
had a score of his own to settle with Aldar Leiknir.

Chapter Three
     
    A
ripe moon cast enough glow on the bank of the fjord so that the men sneaking
into the enemy camp could see their way without use of torch, making their
element of surprise all the easier. Sharp blades met with unsuspecting throats
as Aldar’s warriors slept on until at last a cry rang out amongst them, raising
alarm throughout the camp.
    Finna's
eyes flew open at the sound of a gurgled cry erupting in the still night. She
gasped as realization hit her, and she shot up to sit on her pallet, panic
racing through her. More shouts of alarm followed, and she immediately rose to
her knees, peering around the clump of growth on the bank she slept behind. The
sight that met her had her scrambling to her feet. She looked over the mound in
horror at the bloodshed before her.
    "Nay!"
she shouted. She uttered a curse when she spotted their attackers and the
number of her own men already littering the ground. Finna fell back to reach
for her helmet beside her pallet and quickly pulled it over her head, ignoring
her fallen braids as she grabbed her sword and raced up the incline toward the
fray.
    She
did not have to go far before her steel met with another Viking's and then
another's. She cried out fiercely as she threw a man off and struck again,
blindly working her way through the mêlée. There had been no warning, no sound.
No time to form a shield wall or any formation.
    Finna
swung her blade, cutting down her fair share of the foes within the next few
moments, but as she pulled her bloody sword from the gut of one man, a large
body blindsided her. With a cry of surprise, she swiftly found herself knocked
off her feet and lying on her side in the grass. The hard impact rattled her
senses all the more. Her face stung where her cheek grazed the stones and dirt,
but she whipped around, grasping for her sword and gaped at the man swinging
his axe above her with a fierce war cry.
    Finna
scurried backwards into the sand of the beach, her arms sinking in, and she
quickly rolled to the side to avoid certain death just as the axe sliced into
the bank and stuck there. With a grunt, she gave the man a solid kick to the
face, affording herself time enough to recover and gain her feet, then recoiled
as his blade met her own.
    Repeatedly,
steel met, and his heavy blows