Vaulting down from his horse, he made it over to them in time to hear Sandulf whisper, ‘Brandt, there’s something you must know.’ His voice held a slight waver.
Their older brother was not listening. His eyes were wide and on something in the distance. Rurik turned to see several bodies lined up on the ground. His gaze skimmed over them, unwilling to linger on a face, afraid that he might see one precious to him. On the end, a cascade of golden hair spread across the dirt, somehow saved from the dark red blood that marred the wearer’s gown and puddled next to her. Rurik did not have to see her face to know that his brother’s pregnant wife lay dead. Nausea turned his stomach as Brandt let out a howl of pain so terrifying in its sorrow that Rurik’s limbs went cold.
In his mind’s eye, he saw Ingrid’s smiling face and gentle eyes as she had been mere hours ago. He saw Brandt lean over her, pressing her back to the wall as he grinned and stole a kiss... Their final kiss. Her voice had been high and clear like music as she had called out to them to be safe. No one had thought to repeat the warning back to her. She had been home, surrounded by their father’s warriors. She was supposed to have been safe.
Sandulf made to go after Brandt when he went to her, so Rurik put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Leave him.’ His voice sounded raw and jagged. He existed in a void where numbness and rage struggled for control.
Sandulf paused and up close Rurik could tell that he had minor wounds. He favoured one shoulder while blood and soot crusted over a gash on his head. Though he was young, Sandulf had seen battle before. Rurik could not help but wonder how his wounds were not worse if he had been involved in this battle. ‘What happened?’ he asked.
Sandulf was pale and visibly shaken. ‘They went into the hall and locked the doors. I tried to...’ He swallowed as if the very telling of it was trying. ‘Father is dead, Rurik.’
Rurik’s gaze jerked back to the line of bodies at the edge of the clearing, searching for their father. If Sigurd was dead, then Rurik had no chance of ever reconciling with him. The man had never been easy and Rurik had always felt at odds with him, but never had he thought there would not be enough time. The bulk of a man lying at the other end, opposite Ingrid, drew his gaze. There was a familiarity in the breadth of the man’s shoulders. Pain swelled in Rurik’s chest, drawing his lungs tight as it forced its way up through the numbness.
Sandulf grabbed his arm in a near-desperate grip. ‘I tried to stop this. I marked one of them.’
Rurik should have been here, but instead he had been sent north. He should have stopped this. Instead, Ingrid’s life had been entrusted to this boy. It was unfair, but Rurik could not stop the words that tore out of him. ‘Only marked? Were you not able to kill one of them?’
He left before Sandulf could answer him. Rurik needed to find his twin Danr, and Alarr. They were the only real family he had left. The only ones who mattered to him. He found Alarr lying in his own blood.
Rurik hurried to his side and knelt beside him. ‘Where are you wounded, Brother?’
‘Gilla.’ Alarr’s voice was a harsh rasp as if his throat was raw from yelling for his bride. He seemed only half-aware of what was going on around them, his eyes unfocused and wary. Someone had already tied cloths around both of Alarr’s calves to stem the flow of blood from his wounds. There was so much of it, Rurik could only guess if his brother would ever walk again.
‘Who did this to you? Tell me and I swear to you that I will hunt the coward and cut him down.’ He did not know if Gilla was alive or dead, but the fact that he had not seen her among the living did not bode well for her.
‘Feann,’ Alarr whispered. ‘Feann and his men.’ He closed his eyes as Hilda, Alarr’s mother, brought a cool cloth to his face. She deftly ignored Rurik, much as she had for all his life, unwilling to acknowledge the living proof of her husband’s unfaithfulness.
It was no surprise the Irish King had turned on them. Rurik had been suspicious of the man’s cunning eyes and arrogant smiles from the start. Feann would be taken care of. ‘I will find him. I promise you.’
But now he had to find out if Danr lived. Rurik was close to all his brothers, but Danr was his twin. The only full-blooded brother he had. The only connection left to his mother. If Danr had died... He forced himself to swallow the ache in his throat and stared at Hilda.
Her hands were eerily calm in the face of what had happened. That had always been her way. She faced all that Sigurd and life had thrown at her with a calm efficiency that might have brooked respect in Rurik if she had bothered to offer him a tiny scrap of the affection she held for her own children. Hilda had never liked him and Danr, for they represented a time when she had lost Sigurd’s affection to the twins’ mother.
‘Have you seen Danr?’ he forced himself to ask Hilda. ‘Does he live?’
Her shoulders tightened and she did not look at him, but she did answer. ‘I do not know.’
His breath rushed out in frustration as he raised his gaze to the devastation. The living rushed around them, hurrying to put out errant flames and to tend the wounded. He wanted to scream out the rage and sorrow building within him. Danr had to be alive. He wouldn’t allow himself to believe otherwise. Finally, his
