Page 86 of The Blue Viking

“How the hell would I know?” Rurik snapped.

Everyone glanced at Maire again.

She shrugged sheepishly. “I don’t know. They all look the same from here.”

Rurik could already see the dreamy verse-mood expression passing over Bolthor’s face. It said, silently, though loud and clear just the same, “Saga coming.”

If Rurik and his men were staring, gape-mouthed with astonishment, the MacNabs were frozen in place, no doubt wetting their braies with fright. Then they attempted to flee for their lives.

At a quick signal from Rurik, he and his men moved forward in an aggressive assault. In a matter of minutes, the MacNabs were pinned in by Vikings and Campbells on one side and witches on the other. With much cursing and some struggling, but only one more death, the MacNab clan soon surrendered.

Maire looked at Rurik then.

And he looked at her.

They both smiled.

He had told her just a short time ago that the only thing that could save the day was a miracle. It was a miracle.

It was over.

Finally.

All of it.

And no one was happier than Rurik, who sat alone an hour later on a boulder contemplating the empty, bloodstained battlefield, which had earned its name this day … Devil’s Gorge. Well, empty except for the lone body of the MacNab, which he’d ordered left behind, exposed to the vultures and animals of prey to feed on… a most appropriate end for the vermin he had been. Soon Rurik would travel to the loch on the other side of the knoll and wash off the red weapon-dew soaking his tunic and braies. And he would clean his sword, which still carried the life fluids of his prime enemy of the day—Duncan MacNab.

Duncan was by now prowling the depths of the earth on his nine-day journey to the lowest level of all the nine worlds, Niflheim, Land of the Dead. Ruled by Hel, Queen of the Dead, Niflheim was said to be a gloomy place of ice, snow, and eternal darkness. Surely a perfect place for the evil Duncan to pay for all his misdeeds.

Or perchance he was strolling through the fires of the Christian hell, with Satan’s pitchfork poking his seared skin.

Rurik shrugged with indifference. Either way Duncan was now paying for his mortal sins … just as the miscreant had paid with his life under Rurik’s wrath.

And pay Duncan had … with his life, in the heat of battle, engaged in one-on-one combat with Rurik… which was as it should have been.

Rurik had known Duncan was a nithing, a less-than-nothing of a man, when he had first viewed Maire hanging in a cage above her ramparts. True men did not attack women in such a way. His opinion had been reinforced when he’d learned how Duncan intended to force Maire into marriage and a presumed early death after that. Even his needless torture and killing of dumb animals had been an indication of Duncan’s tainted personality.

So, from the beginning, Rurik had decided that he himself would inflict punishment on the evil villain. When Old John had tentatively broached the possibility of mercy for the old laird, Rurik hadn’t hesitated in his refusal. That kind of man would never give up. He would come back with a vengeance greater than before.

Therefore it had been Rurik who stepped forward to challenge the MacNab in that final battle, and they’d both known it was a fight to the death. Thank the gods, Rurik had been the victor.

To Duncan’s credit, he had not pleaded for mercy or screamed in agony when the Raven came to take him to the Other Side. A groan at the final thrust of Rurik’s blade and the clenching of his fists had been his only concession to what he had to have known was impending doom, then a stiffening of his body before the final death tremors had overtaken him.

Punishment to the remaining MacNabs had followed soon after. Two dozen of the fiercest soldiers, all red-haired, had been dispatched to a secure holding barn on Maire’s estate. On the morrow, they would be escorted on the long trek to Jorvik in Britain, where they would be sent as slave gifts on long-ships to King Olaf of Norway. ’Twas not the worst fate. If these men were good workers, they could secure their freedom in time, and even return to the Highlands, if that was their choice, though many slaves grew to like the Viking way of life, and took blond-haired Norse women to wife.

Finally, Rurik had made a tentative pact with Douglas MacNab, a twenty-year-old nephew of Duncan … already the father of three young daughters. Douglas was also red-haired, and something about all this red hair was starting to trouble Rurik, though he could not fathom why. He’d put that puzzle aside for the time being. The final terms would have to be decided by Maire, but Douglas appeared willing to live in peace with the Campbells and make reparations for years of abuse.

So, all is settled, Rurik thought now as he pondered the empty battlefield. My mission here is done.

His blue mark could be removed, even as soon as tonight, with the help of the other witches. Surely, one of them would know how.

What then?

Ah, that was the question, and also the reason why Rurik sat staring dolefully at the scene that should be filling him with triumph. He should be off celebrating, filled with glee. Instead, a crushing weight pressed down on him. And deep down, he sensed the reason why.

Now that his work was completed here in Scotland, he had a wedding to attend.

And it was not to Maire.