Page 2 of Kiss of Wrath

Despite his heavy armor, Mordr ran like the wind across the courtyard, up the steps, and through the open double doors leading to his great hall, where the three hearth fires were cold, the logs long burned out. Tapestries had been ripped from the walls, benches and trestle tables wantonly hacked into kindling. Along the way, he jumped over the corpses of his housecarls and servants, male and female both. In the corridor betwixt the solar and the scullery, he found Dyna’s body, her gunna torn from neck to hem, her breasts bearing dark bruise marks, as did her widespread thighs. Mordr would warrant that many men had participated in the rape, if the bloodstains on her thighs were any indication.

His wife’s body bore similar signs of mistreatment when he found it in a storage room where she must have hidden, or tried to hide.

And no sign of his precious children.

With foreboding, Mordr vaulted up the steep stairs to the upper level of his wooden keep where there were three sleeping chambers. In the first one, he found Jomar, who must have been hiding, facedown, under the bed when he’d been found by the invaders. He’d been dragged out by the feet, and his skull cleaved almost clear through from the back by a broadsword. Mordr prayed gods that it had been a quick death.

He dropped to his knees and gathered his little boyling up into his arms, keening with grief. His heart felt shattered like glass, sharp slivers cutting into his soul. But he could not fall apart yet. First, he must find Kata. Laying Jomar carefully onto the bed, he spread his own fur cloak over the body, as if to warm him in death.

Kata’s nude, frozen corpse lay in the next chamber. No sword blow to her perfect body. Instead, from the quantity of blood pooled betwixt her thighs, he concluded with horror that she must have bled to death from her girl parts. From numerous swivings by beastly Hordsson males.

What kind of men killed women and children? What kind of men found pleasure in raping little girls? Why had they not taken women and children, or healthy males, as valuable slaves, a practice employed by even the most vile villains? The slave marts in Hedeby, and Birka, and Kaupang would have welcomed them in a trice. Had that been the case, Mordr would have had a chance of recovering his children, by ransom or sword.

This was an act of violence, of evil, pure and simple. Aimed at him. Monetary gain had not been the goal, leastways not totally.

Mordr stood, arms raised to tear at his own hair. The roar of outrage, “NOOOOOOOOOOOO!” that came from him could be heard even outside the keep and beyond, into the village. Some say that was the day that Mordr the Brave became Mordr the Berserker.

One

Hell hath no fury like a Viking wronged . . .

After being restrained by his men—it took Geirfinn, Atzer, and three other burly fellows to hold him down—and after being forced to drink horn after horn of uisge beatha, that potent, prized Scottish brew, Mordr fell into a deep, alehead sleep. When he awakened, the rage was still in him, but he restrained it inside himself in silent, cold fury toward the Hordssons. He began to plan.

No matter what he did—walk down the incline to check on the landed longships, eat a hunk of cold boar shank, bathe his filthy body, feel the warmth of the hearth fire—images of Jomar and Kata were ever with him. And those images were not of the laughing, happy children he had left behind at Stonegarth a year ago. Nay, all he could see was their bloody, defiled bodies and sad, frozen, tormented faces.

Their deaths, all the deaths at Stonegarth, must be avenged. Thus it was that, two days later, in his great hall, which had been cleared somewhat of the destruction, Mordr raised a hand high in the air and declared, “War on the Hordssons! To the death of every misbegotten cur bearing that name!”

A loud cheer went up from the men. There were no women or children present, of course.

Within a sennight, Mordr and his reluctant followers—reluctant only because winter was not the best time for warfare and his hirdsmen would have preferred a springtime march to battle—had razed the sorry keep and village of the Hordsson clan. Not a single Hordsson male over the age of ten survived the surprise assault. Some women, too. Mordr, even in the berserk madness that overtook him when fighting started, had no taste for killing females, but if they got in his way, they were fair targets, to his rattled mind. Never young children, though. Never!

For a year and more, he sought out Hordsson kin in other parts of the Norselands—Hordaland, Jutland, Vestfold, Halogaland. It did not matter if they had participated in the raid on Stonegarth; if they had Hordsson blood, Mordr decreed they must die. Then there was word of some Hordssons in the Irish lands; he traveled there and wreaked his still raging vengeance. Still others lived and died at Mordr’s hands in Northumbria where a Viking king ruled that portion of Britain. After that, he moved onto the Orkney Isles.

Hundreds of dead Hordssons lay in his wake of terror. Others shook in fright and changed their names to escape Mordr’s path of retaliation.

Though it had not been his aim, Mordr gained far fame for his berserk skill with a sword named Vengeance and a battle-axe named Fury. Every man with a speck of sense, even those not named Hordsson, avoided his path for fear of doing or saying something to set him off. ’Twas a well-known fact among fighting men that you never engaged a warrior, whether he was a berserker or not, who had no care whether he lived or died.

In truth, Mordr welcomed the road to Valhalla. Or did the Christians have the right of it? Followers of the One-God believed there was an afterlife where good deeds whilst living gained an entry into heaven. According to their Holy Book, after death a man could meet up with those who’d gone before him. If that was the case, Mordr was lost. He’d never been baptized, and too many misdeeds would bar him from the heavenly gates. Alas, he would never see Jomar and Kata again.

By then, many of his men wearied of the vendetta and went back to Stonegarth, with Mordr’s permission, led by Atzer. Mordr never returned to his home, though he had heard years later that the estate prospered as the men under Atzer took wives, had children, and drew villagers and cotters to newly built longhouses. Even his six brothers, who joined him at first from their estates scattered across the Norselands, gave up after a while. It was not their fight.

“Mayhap you need to swive a lusty maid, or ten, to calm your mind,” his brother Ivak suggested before departing.

“Ivak, you think every problem in the world can be solved with your cock.”

“Can it not?” his halfbrained brother asked, and he was serious.

Vikar, the oldest of the Sigurdsson brood, gave his usual sage advice, sage in his own not-so-humble opinion. “Your pride has been assuaged. Accept the wergild offered by King Haakon to halt your vendetta, and use it to start over again.”

“Dost think this is about pride? Dost think I care for bribe coins? Dost think I could truly start over?” Mordr stormed. “I can never replace my two children.”

That shut up Vikar . . . for a while.

His brother Cnut mentioned the widow whose prosperous lands adjoined his in Vestfold.

“Would that by chance be Inga No Teeth?” Mordr asked with growing impatience.

“Well . . .” Cnut stammered, then said defensively, “You know what they say about all cats being the same in the dark.”