Blood Moon| The Last Kingdom| Sihtric Kjartansson

SEVENTEEN

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"Uhtred! We can not allow it! They are Danes. They killed our soldiers on the battlefield!"

I awoke in the pitch black of a dark tent, laid out on the ground with a thin cloth covering my body.

"She saved my life. Does that count for nothing?" Uhtred's voice yelled back at the man speaking from outside the tent. 

"Your life is not worth the twenty or thirty men they killed," the man snapped back. He must have been the boy king.

I took in a shuddering breath, my whole body aching as I tried to sit up.

A clang made me paused and I looked down at my hand, feeling something tightly bound there. I moved my hand into the light, coming from the crack in the tent flaps. A dagger had been tied around my hand, runes drawn into the bandages that kept it there.

"I will not let you kill them," Uhtred's tone was final and decided, "You will have to kill me first, and I would like to see any man stupid enough to challenge me."

"And me," Finan's voice piped up suddenly.

"I will fight too," Sihtric muttered as well, all of them somewhere outside the tent I was in.

"This is treason," the boy king told them curtly, "there will be a trial—"

"There will be no trial," Uhtred quipped. "The battle is over. I will return to Coccham, and I will take the Dane women with me."

"Uhtred—"

"I will not argue," Uhtred cut off the king. "I have let you keep them here like prisoners, but I will not let you condemn them for the acts of other Danes. They will walk freely."

I groaned softly, the noise beginning to create a pounding in my head. I dug my fingers between bandages, removing the dagger from my hand. My fingers were cool against my skin as I lifted them to my temple, soothing some of the pain coursing through my body.

I sat up fully, moving my legs slightly, trying to stand.

Only I couldn't.

Metal rattled at my feet, and I frowned, brushing aside the cloth that covered me. A metal chain was bound around my foot, locking me up against a post in the middle of the room.

A small, quiet laugh drew my attention to the darkness on the other side of the tent. "Now... we are the same."

I swallowed harshly, my throat aching painfully, my words coming out broken and wispy, "Ja—Jackdaw?"

Jackdaw hummed in response, "I see the Dane in you now."

I cast my eyes away from where his voice came from, looking to the tent flaps, "Where are we?"

I heard another chain rattle as Jackdaw moved. "Still in Bedanford. The Saxon turds can not leave here. The rain is too strong,"

I closed my eyes, and surely enough, I could hear the firm patters of rain over the tent roof, followed by the angry winds. 

"They think it is your doing." Jackdaw revealed, "They say you did something on the battlefield. The Saxons call you the devil. They say blood dripped from your eyes and coated the earth."

I swallowed again, lifting my hand to my throat; my curse had been strong enough to damage all of the forest around us. 

"Is it true?" Jackdaw pushed, "Did you do this?"

I moved my gaze away from the tent flap, seeking out his outline in the dark, "Yes."

Jackdaw snorted, some approval coating his voice, "You have driven the Christians mad. Your father would be proud of you."