A Whisper to the North

Chapter XXXIX ✠ The Blood Sacrifice

Everyone cheered except for Alaric.

"Now, you will give me her blood, or your sister will."

Alaric turned around, frightened.

"I have taken her place, remember? She does not catch the blood anymore in the skull. She does not pierce the pure hearts?" Alaric said, looking frantically around.

He hoped she had not been invited. She had been tormented and raped enough.

"Nay, you are mistaken, Alaric. Tonight is special. We do not need the skull. You see, I hope it didn't have to come to this, yet here we are." Wilona laughed, turning around.

"Bring her here!" Wilona demanded as a few men outside of the circle brought in Ingrid.

She was bound at the feet and wrists, and she had been stripped naked.

"Ingrid!" Alaric ran over to her.

"Alaric!" Ingrid cried out his name.

"Shut up, you shit whore!" The man said, slamming her down into the ground.

Ingrid let out a long, painful cry as Wilona looked down at her with a grin.

"She is the one who tried to kill me. You know it, I know it, and she knows it. There must be a trade, blood for blood. Now pick, it's Una's heart or Ingrid's." Wilona laughed.

"Ingrid is not a virgin!?" Alaric exclaimed.

"It doesn't matter. She tried to kill me, so she is up for an offering tonight. If you do not pick, I will have my men gut them both. If you try the easy way out and slit your own throat, I will have my men sard both of them."

Alaric's heart began to turn. He hated Wilona, but now he wanted to kill her. If the spirits made him ill or damned him to hell, so be it. He would rather kill everyone here and Wilona than let Una and Ingrid suffer.

"Now, choose, or I will choose for you." She said, pulling out a shiny dagger from underneath her cloak.

"You know what you have to do. My kingdom depends upon it. Don't you want to see this place burn, after what they did to your father? You had to move here because of it. This kingdom gave orders to that region, orders that made them kill your family. The orders to kill the Danes who did not pay their debts instead of throwing them in jail."

"Ingrid is all I have left," Alaric said sadly as he took the knife.

"Do it for your people, your true people." Wilona grinned.

Alaric began to walk to the altar stone.

"No, Alaric, stop! Take me, kill me!" Ingrid cried out.

The man who brought Ingrid slammed his foot in the back of her head, hitting her skull into the mud. Wilona looked at Alaric with approval and laughed at Ingrid's willingness to die. She did not realize that the foot on the back of her head was suffocating her in the mud.

Alaric approached the stone. Una was laid naked on her back. She was still unresponsive. Alaric clenched his jaw as he looked upon her.

"Is there not another way, must she die?" Alaric pleaded with Wilona turning around.

Wilona walked up to Alaric and placed her hand in his.

"You must, or my child will grow weak and die. We must feed it, and Una shall fill my child for many months."

"Please, my queen. There must be another way!" He pleaded, turning around and freeing his hand from her.

"Alaric...you do like her!" Wilona paused and grinned.