Page 35 of Warrior Queen
My heart thudded and my breath came short and fast. The throbbing in my head made itself known again– the adrenaline of my flight had quite put it out of my mind. I winced, screwing up my eyes against the glare of the sun, trying to concentrate with a brain that could only foggily claw itself out of the well of pain.
I had to be about a quarter of the way down the western side of the walls, at the bottom of the deep ditch that surrounded the town. Another grassy bank rose between me and the water meadows. If I could get to the far side of that, I might have a chance of staying hidden.
My breath coming a little more easily, I crawled across the bottom of the ditch, which was still wet and muddy after all the rain we’d had, and began my climb to the top of the far bank. I had to claw my way up its steep side, digging my fingers into the soil, hanging onto tussocks of grass. And all the while I was doing it, a horrible itching in the middle of my back had me expecting at any minute to receive an arrow, or worse, an axe, between my shoulder blades.
I didn’t. I made it to the top unscathed and rolled down the far side, landing just a few feet from where the water meadows began, running down toward the sparkle of the distant, curving river. The calmly grazing cattle didn’t even glance my way, as though nothing could happen to disturb the regularity of their lives.
Flattening myself face down against the earth, I hung on with desperate fingers and toes as though it might buck me off. A deep shudder of relief shook my body, and I kept my eyes tightly closed against a new wave of dizziness.
Minutes ticked by. I rolled onto my side, my breathing steadying, the sun hot on my body.
A shadow blocked the light. I opened my eyes. The huge figure of a man towered on the top of the bank, staring down at me, the sun behind bestowing on him a gilded halo.
I stared back, mesmerized with fear. He must have been over six feet tall– or he seemed it from where I lay. Long red hair hung to below his shoulders in tangled dreadlocks, and a thick dark beard had been stiffly forked with limewater. His sleeveless leather tunic displayed the bulging muscles in his hairy, tattooed arms. In his hand he held a huge axe.
He grinned at me, showing large, yellowed teeth, and spoke a few guttural words.
I didn’t understand.
In one bound, he leapt down off the bank to stand over me, legs apart, one hand on his groin. I understood that gesture all right.
I rolled onto my hands and knees, scrabbling away from him, my right hand reaching for my sword. A fist shot out and grabbed me by my long plait, yanking me back so forcefully I crashed to the ground on my back, the air shooting out of me again. I had the sword half out of its scabbard when his other hand grabbed mine, pinning me down as he leaned over me. He said something else and laughed, leering at me from thick lips and lust-filled eyes.
For a moment, fear paralyzed me.
Then he bent and licked my face, leaving a trail of warm spittle across my skin.
His touch sent a shock of white-hot fury coursing through me. No. I was a warrior queen. I swung my knee up and caught him hard between the legs with all my strength.
With a high-pitched shriek, he staggered back, anger contorting and darkening his face. Anger and pain.
I scrambled to my feet and whipped my sword out, every bit as angry as he was. After all, he had no virtue to defend, and I did.
He stood, one hand on the offended organ, gasping and swearing. I should have gone in for the kill, but some vestige of the twenty-first century made me hesitate. Idiot that I was. Never give the enemy a chance to recover. Not one this size and holding an axe, anyway.
Raising his weapon, he advanced. I stepped back, my sword between him and me. Another grimace of pain distorted his face. Good. I’d done him damage.
The axe swung; my sword went up. Like someone swatting a fly, he knocked it out of my hands. I reversed some more, reaching for my dagger. He raised the axe again, blood lust in his sea-blue eyes, now I’d quenched his lust for sex.
He was young, his face barely lined by sun and wind, his nose crooked where someone had broken it for him in the past. Gold rings dangled from the lobes of his ears, and around his neck hung a chain of gold links. All this I saw in that fraction of a moment, as his lips curled back in fury to show his gritted teeth.
He was going to kill me, split my head like a melon as one of his fellows had done to the priest. I’d never see Arthur again, nor Amhar or Archfedd. A strange peacefulness draped itself over me, an acceptance that death was coming. At least it would be quick. Would I meet my father and tell him how I’d married King Arthur, lived my life as his queen? Born his heir?
Wait. What was I thinking?
I shook off the peaceful shawl. If he was going to kill me, then I’d make it hard for him. Knuckles whitening on my dagger, I took a step toward him.
Shock transformed the warrior’s face. His eyes bulged wide, his jaw dropped open as a trickle of blood ran down his chin, and the axe slid from his slack hands. For a second, I thought fear of me had done that, then he toppled forward onto the grass at my feet. An arrow protruded from the center of his back, the feathered shaft still quivering.
My eyes were probably bulging too. I stared past him in the direction the arrow must have come from. Galloping across the water meadows came a phalanx of riders, the banner billowing in the breeze showing a rampant black bear. A white horse led the charge.
Arthur.
Legs suddenly unable to support me any longer, I dropped to my hands and knees as they bore down on me. Briefly, I raised my head and met Arthur’s angry and accusing eyes, before he swept past on Llamrei, his men in close formation behind him. Beneath my splayed fingers, the thunder of their hooves shook the ground like a mini earthquake.
I knelt motionless, frozen to the spot by that look of fury.
Shouts rose from within the town walls. Weapons clashed. Screams, wailing, roaring. I couldn’t move, but sat stunned on the grass beside the dead Irish warrior, concentrating on remembering to breathe. The knowledge that it was best if I kept well out of the way lodged in my head and held me there a long while, even after the strength returned to my limbs.
