Stunned, she reached blindly for her carryall on the ground and grabbed a handful of tissues and Wash ’n Dries to clean her face. Glancing about, Rain gasped and quickly closed her eyes to escape the overwhelming horror that surrounded her.
Slowly, reluctantly, with a dull ache of foreboding, she unshuttered them again, dreading what she would see. Some way, some crazy, convoluted, humanly impossible way, she had landed in the middle of her dream—at the Battle of Brunanburh in 937 A.D., more than one thousand years ago, just the way it looked in the museum painting.
She looked down and saw that the mail-clad man who’d covered her face and chest had his head half-severed at the neck. That accounted for all the blood. A man near her feet—a handsome youth whose body was protected only by a tightly fitted helmet and a thick leather vest over a thigh-length tunic and leggings—had a sword still stuck in his chest. His open eyes—a pale, pale blue—stared up at her.
Nausea churned Rain’s stomach and rose to her throat. Bending over, she vomited repeatedly until only bitter bile remained. She threw her blood-stained blazer to the ground and used the rest of her tissues to wipe her mouth, then turned stoically to view her surroundings.
Thousands of men lay dead and dying about her on the plain. Weondun, the museum card had called the flat-topped volcanic plain, or “Holy Hill.” More like “Unholy Hill,” Rain thought, recalling that it had once been the site of some heathen temple.
If ever Rain felt justified in her pacifist views, it was now. Everywhere she looked, she saw evidence of man’s inhumanity to man. Some soldiers had succumbed instantly from quick thrusts of a sword or battle-ax; others were grotesquely mutilated and missing body parts—arms, legs, heads.
Rain retched again, then picked up her shoulder bag and moved gingerly through the fallen warriors. She slipped often in spots slick with the vast quantities of lost blood and human viscera.
Although the battle appeared to be a decided Saxon victory, judging by the disproportionate number of large, Viking-clad soldiers in their conical helmets and mail tunics who lay on the field, death had taken its toll indiscriminately among the thousands that day. Fair-haired Norsemen, English-looking Saxons, dark-eyed Welshmen, Scots in their clan plaids, and Irish in their saffron trews—all fell, side by side.
Rain wanted desperately to believe that this was all a dream…a nightmare, but the stark reality surrounding her told another story. Despite her resistance, Rain was beginning to believe she had traveled back in time—just as her mother had claimed all those years.
Rain’s misery weighed heavily on her shoulders. Why was she sent here? What could she possibly do?
Considerable distance separated her from the savage hand-to-hand combat still taking place among hundreds of soldiers on the far side of the once verdant plain. Rain could see the Saxon troops with their shield walls as they moved with deadly force toward their foes. The Viking companies fought valiantly in a defensive wedge formation, with chieftains at the point and the lower ranks spread out fan-like behind them.
For some reason, she wasn’t frightened. Just disgusted.
A soft nicker drew Rain’s attention, and she turned to see a large horse standing at the edge of the field, its saddle empty and its reins trailing on the ground in front. The destrier nudged the bloodied, mail-clad chest of the knight who lay before him, then raised its soulful eyes to Rain, as if she could help its master rise.
Rain wiped her nose and turned back to the battlefield with a sob. So many needed her medical skills, far more than one doctor could handle. And the wounds required more than the basic medical items she carried in a compact emergency kit in her carryall. She shook her head in despair.
With a deep sigh, Rain began to inch her way along the edge of the battlefield, stopping wherever she felt she could be of some help. She applied a tourniquet to the upper arm of one pleading Scots knight with a deep cut at the elbow, using a strip of leather lacing torn from his shoes. She didn’t know if it did any good. He’d lost so much blood.
Rain moved on to dozens of men, uncaring of their nationality, stanching wounds, pulling out swords, holding a hand, closing dead eyes. She stood finally, arching the kinks out of her aching back. The hopelessness of her efforts overwhelmed her. She started to back away from the field, then shrieked as she bumped into a hard body. She giggled, almost hysterically, as she realized that the horse had followed her around the battlefield. Rain put her arms around its neck and laid her face against the warm white mane. “Oh, horse, what should I do?”
As if in answer, a roar of loud curses and clanging metal erupted behind her, and Rain realized that she’d moved unconsciously closer to the fighting.
Then she saw Selik.
Oh, God above! The poor, forsaken Viking stood alone and outnumbered, trying to defend himself against a dozen well-armed Saxon knights intent on killing him.
Many companies of men still fought in hand-to-hand combat around the field, wielding swords, battle-axes, and long pikes. Selik stood alone among the fallen Vikings in his troop, bellowing out his rage at the Saxon attackers. Holding his shield with his left hand, he swung a sword expertly with the other, felling one by one the Saxon soldiers who tried to overtake him. Finally, exasperated by the slowness of his efforts, he pulled the fitted helmet from his head, releasing his long blond hair. He threw his shield to the ground and picked up a long-handled lance with a pike and a battle-ax on the end.
In a fanatical rage, he took the offensive. Heedless of his own mortality, Selik pursued the remaining Saxons to their bloody end, oblivious of the carnage he reaped. A few of the soldiers backed away, eyes rolling in fear, but Selik gave no mercy. Using both hands, he leapt forward, cutting right and left as he cleared a path to the Saxon lad carrying a banner emblazoned with a golden dragon. He sliced the banner pole with one swift slash of his ax, then dispatched the youth with a stab of his pike to the neck. Blood gushed from the severed artery of the poor boy’s throat.
Rain shuddered with horror at Selik’s butchery. This man had haunted her dreams for years. Some link had connected them through the centuries, but how could she possibly be drawn to such a brutal beast?
Finally, only one of the enemy remained in Selik’s immediate vicinity—a Saxon prince, by the looks of his highly polished mail and helmet embossed with the same insignia that decorated the banner lying at his feet.
“Say your prayers, Saxon cur. Today you meet your god,” Selik snarled in a harsh, raw voice as he and the Saxon knight exchanged thrusts of their weapons. They seemed evenly matched in expertise.
One thrust went into the Saxon’s leg, but he ignored the wound. “Nay, you bloody pagan! ’Tis you who join Odin, though ’tis more likely a fiery underworld awaits your black soul.” He parried Selik’s next thrust and got home one slice through Selik’s armor above the waist.
“Tell your god today that ’twas Selik the Outlaw who sent you on your final journey.” A grim smile thinned Selik’s lips cruelly, as if he enjoyed this deadly exercise.
The Saxon blanched, as if recognizing the name of the notorious Viking. Then a crafty grin split his face. “Didst thou know, whoreson, ’twas my brother Steven who killed your wife and child?” he taunted maliciously. “And ’twas sweet meat the maid was, so Steven claimed, as he spread her thighs afore her death and—”
His words died on his lips as Selik exploded with superhuman strength fed by his fury. He thrust his lance clear through the Saxon’s chest and up through the neck, heaving him high on the blade. Then he stuck the base of the pole in the ground so that the young nobleman died on spear point in plain view of his horrified comrades in the distance.
Selik staggered over to pick up his shield and sword, wiping the bloody blade on his hose. Appearing momentarily stunned, he turned pain-glazed eyes to the carnage around him, realizing for the first time that he stood alone. He scanned the field solemnly in tortured disbelief, taking in the overwhelming defeat.
Then, standing on widespread l
egs, he raised his sword and shield to the sky in outstretched arms, crying out his desolation in a raw and primitive manner. His pale hair blew softly in the wind while tension-coiled muscles bunched under his mail-covered tunic.
“Odin! All-Father!” he keened. “Take me to Valhalla. Do not forsake me.”
Rain heard a loud noise and realized that some angry Saxons had left the skirmishes still going on at the other side of the plain and had gathered forces to come after Selik. He needed help—desperately.
Swallowing a harsh sob, Rain yelled, “Selik!” But he didn’t hear her, even though she stood only a few yards away. “Selik!”
Still no response.
Rain turned frantically, searching for some means of escape, and saw the faithful horse behind her. Thank God! She rushed back and grabbed the reins.
Rain hadn’t ridden a horse in twenty years, since her days at summer camp, and this was no pony. Desperation gave her courage. “Come on, honey,” she crooned to the skittish animal. “You’ve got to help me.” After several unsuccessful tries and some choice swear words directed at the shifting horse, she climbed clumsily onto the destrier’s huge back and guided him carefully over to Selik.
“Selik, come with me. Hurry!” she ordered loudly.
At first, he just lowered his shield and sword and stared at her in confusion. His burning eyes reflected the tortured dullness of his soul in the aftermath of his berserk fight.
“Hurry! We’ve got to escape,” Rain urged, holding out her hand to him.
Suddenly alert, Selik’s head swung to the fast-approaching enemy warriors and took in the peril at a glance. Swinging up behind her with lightning agility, he grabbed the reins and set the horse quickly into a gallop. They soon lost the Saxons who pursued on foot, but Rain knew others on horseback, implacable and murderous, would follow soon. They didn’t have much time.
For more than an hour, they rode swiftly in silence. As they passed other escaping soldiers along the way, mostly on foot, Selik shouted out in a brusque, deep-timbred voice directions to their eventual meeting place.
The rough ride bruised Rain’s bottom and chafed raw the inside of her widespread thighs within her linen slacks, but a part of her reveled in the odd comfort of being in the cradle of Selik’s arms. An aura of peace came over her, transmitted by the strength of Selik’s body, and her despair lessened under the indefinable feeling of rightness. Despite the horrendous cruelty she’d just seen him display, Rain sensed that this ferocious Viking held the key to her future and the reason for her journey back in time.
Rain tried to speak several times, but her voice came out garbled and breathless due to the jolting of the horse’s swift movement and her inability to turn and ask Selik her questions. She had a tough enough time holding on to the horse’s mane. Selik’s silence erected another barrier to conversation.
So Rain leaned back against the Viking’s massive chest, feeling his strong heartbeat, even through the flexible mail coils of his armor. Ripples of unexplainable pride coursed through her when she watched the corded muscles of his forearms flex as he moved the reins to direct the destrier through the seemingly impenetrable forest they were now traversing.
Selik finally stopped to rest their heaving mount. His huge body slid easily off the horse, which he drew to the edge of a secluded stream. Then he deftly removed his mail garment, under which he wore a sweat-soaked tunic. Dropping to his knees, he drank greedily of the clear water before dunking his face, then shaking his head like a shaggy dog. Then he sluiced water over his forearms up to the short-sleeved garment. Rain watched, fascinated, as muscles rippled enticingly across the back of his tightly fitted garment. Her pulse quickened when he stood and stretched his powerful body, then sank with easy grace to the ground. He leaned his head back against a wide tree trunk, closing his weary eyes.
Not once did he look at Rain or offer to help her from the horse, which grazed lazily at the water’s edge. She might as well be invisible. Rain dismounted clumsily with a soft curse and knelt. The ice-cold water she carried to her mouth in cupped hands tasted like nectar. She drank her fill, washed her face and hands, and dabbed some bloodstains off the collar of her blouse with a water-dampened scarf. Then she turned to Selik.
Despite his exhaustion, Selik radiated a magnetic vitality. Her feelings for him defied reason, but Rain understood perfectly her physical attraction. He was about thirty years old, her own age, but taller—at least six-foot-four. And muscular! Criminey, he looked as if he could bench-press a bus. His long, pale hair lay sweaty and lank down to his shoulder blades, but Rain knew it would be beautiful when clean.
Pain had carved harsh lines into his face. His nose appeared to have been broken at one time. Ugly scars and purpling bruises, old and new, marred his sun-bronzed face and arms and legs, wherever flesh was exposed, including a particularly gruesome, long-healed white line that zigzagged from his right eye to his chin. Exquisite wide bracelets encased his massive upper arms, barely visible beneath the sleeve of his tunic, bespeaking some wealth or status.
He raised a hand to rake his wet hair off his face, and Rain gasped as she noticed the word rage carved into one forearm. The raised white scars had to have been made with a sharp knife long ago. What did it mean?
Rain looked back to his face. His arresting good looks totally captivated her, even though she recognized that many modern women would consider him too rugged and muscle-bound—not hesthetically correct.
Selik must have sensed her perusal. He opened his eyes lazily, and Rain could have easily drowned in their changeable grayish-green depths. But no emotion emanated from their coldness, just a soulless lack of interest.
“Who the hell are you?”
Some welcome!
But at least Rain could understand his language. She’d been worried that she wouldn’t be able to communicate with these primitive people. Actually, Selik should be speaking some form of medieval English, Rain realized with a frown. Hell, he probably was, but God, or whoever the mastermind of this fiasco was, had given her some built-in translator. If it was a dream, the lack of a language barrier was understandable, Rain reasoned. If it was time travel, language was the least of her concerns.
She shook her head to clear it and answered his question about her name. “Rain. Rain Jordan.”
“Rain? What manner of name is that?” he scoffed disdainfully as he looked her over slowly, insultingly, from head to toe and back again. “Why not snow or sleet or mud?” Then he added scornfully, “Or tree?”
Tree! Hey, it was one thing for a little boy who didn’t know any better to insult her about her height, but a screwed-up, vicious Viking whose life she’d just saved? No way!
“You ungrateful bastard! I just saved your life.” She blinked to stem the tears in her eyes.
Selik rose and stretched his arms wide to remove the kinks of his long ride. “’Tis no favor you did me, wench,” he commented flatly. “’Twould be far better if I had died. This life holds naught for me.”
Rain glared at him angrily, uncaring now if he saw her humiliating tears. “How dare you value life so little? Do you know how many men you killed today?”
“Nay. Dost thou?” he asked in a bored tone of voice as he put his mail armor back on. “Didst thou keep a death tally?”
Rain felt blood rush to her face. “No, but I’ll bet it was hundreds. Don’t you feel any remorse for your butchery?”
“Nay. Why should I? They deserved all they got and more.”
“How can you say that, especially about the young boy with the banner you killed near the end?”
“I killed a boy?” Selik tilted his head questioningly, obviously trying to remember the incident. How could anyone kill another human being and not remember? Rain wondered sadly. Finally, Selik shook his head as if it didn’t matter. “Every Saxon is my enemy, man or boy. So the runic words say on the scorn pole erected I against King Athelstan long ago.” Then he looked at her suspiciously. “Are you perchance one of Athelsta
n’s camp followers?”
“Camp follower!” Rain’s cheeks burned with an unwelcome blush. “No, you jerk, I’m not a whore—or a Saxon.”
Rain realized then that Selik had mounted the horse and was preparing to depart. Without her!
“Wait! You can’t leave me here.”
Selik arched one eyebrow in a haughty, just-watch-me attitude, and started to turn the horse. “Can I not?”
“That’s my horse,” she fabricated quickly.
“Liar,” he countered with a maddening smile.
“Come back here!”
“Nay, I will not do your bidding, harpy.” He grinned. “But fear not, ’tis certain other hesirs will pass by. Mayhap one of those soldiers will be more overcome than I with the bloodlust of battle and offer his protection in return for a hot cellar for his manroot.”
Manroot! Rain bristled with indignation. “You insulting pig. I wouldn’t be a root cellar for any man—let alone a damn barbarian like you.”
Selik just laughed, flashing a dazzling display of straight, white teeth, a sharp contrast to his deeply tanned skin.
The shock of his imminent desertion held her immobile for a moment. Rain panicked then as Selik proceeded to leave the clearing. Icy fingers of despair clawed at her composure.
What would she do in this strange time and place without Selik as her lodestone, loathsome as he was just now? She racked her brain for a solution and came up with only one idea.
“Selik!” she shrieked desperately to his departing back. “What would your old friend Thork think of your abandoning his daughter like this?”
He stopped immediately.
Uh oh! Rain’s heart began to hammer wildly as Selik spun in the saddle and pierced her with icy gray eyes. He walked the destrier slowly back to her, and Rain was tempted to turn and flee.
Not only had the question not brought out his protective impulses, Selik looked as if he might kill her. Muscles bunched tensely in his arms from clenched fists to massive shoulders. His full lips thinned to a compressed white line of fury. His eyes glittered with threat. Reaching for the dagger at his belt, Selik glided off the horse smoothly and walked purposefully toward her.