Page 121 of Tears of the Wolf
“How?” Cenric demanded, all his frustration exploding out of him in that one word. “How should I do that? I don’t have enough thanes. Those I have, I need to guard the village and gather the cattle, or we risk a lean winter. Hróarr is injured asare most of his men. It’s just me. What exactly am I supposed to do?”
Rowan retreated until her back hit the door. She had gone pale, shrinking before his anger.
Snapper whined, stepping between them.Cenric?
Cenric realized he had been advancing on her and took several quick steps back. He hadn’t meant to take it out on her like this.
Rowan spoke, her voice barely above a whisper. “What would Brynn do?”
“Something clever,” Cenric muttered. “Something I’m not thinking of.”
“And what are you not thinking of?”
Cenric wanted to hit something. How was he supposed to know that?
With that wagon, Selene’s people would have to take the roads. That would mean going through Olfirth’s lands to reach the sea.
What had Brynn said to him? That men only cared about their pride. That meant Brynn would do something he was too proud to see.
Something humiliating, but possibly effective.
“You’re going to marry one of Olfirth’s thanes,” Cenric muttered, scratching the stubble on his chin.
“Yes.” Rowan frowned.
“Olfirth has thanes.” Cenric braced himself. This was going to sting, and he hated it. If this had happened even a few days ago, he wasn’t sure he would have tried it, but this was Brynn. And he was desperate.
Rowan still sounded confused. “He does.”
Cenric snatched his helmet off the stand on his side of the bed. He set it aside as he grabbed the mail shirt and pulled it over his head.
He had a plan, a desperate one, but a plan nonetheless. Cenric rarely wasted time after he made a decision.
“You know what you’re doing?” Rowan sounded hopeful.
“Have my horse saddled. Tell Edric I’m going to Olfirth.”
Rowan opened the door and fled, leaving it open.
Cenric tied on his greaves, reinforced with steel slats, and his bracers reinforced with the same. He had no idea if they would help him against a sorceress, but they might help him against her guards. There was something cathartic in moving and having a course of action again. He buckled his sword belt over his armor, reaching for his wolf helm next.
Go?Snapper asked, tail wagging.
Go,Cenric answered.
By the time he strode out in his full battle gear, the longhouse went quiet. No one spoke, but the household girls and the injured Valdari stared.
Selene had killed his thanes and taken his wife. Cenric was going to make her pay.
Cenric headed straight for the stables where Gannon was already saddling up Bada. Cenric murmured a blessing on Rowan for her thoroughness.
“Going somewhere?” Edric called, trotting up on his bay steed in his own lamellar armor, helmet under one arm.
“I’m going to ask Olfirth for help,” Cenric said, though the words tasted like bile.
Edric’s nose wrinkled at that. It was one thing to ask help from a friend like Hróarr, but it was quite another to seek the help of a man who’d been your unspoken enemy for nearly two years.
The peace with Olfirth was new, and Cenric suspected it was still more an alliance with Brynn than himself. This would be seeking aid from a foe.
