The Color of Vengeance by Kim Iverson Headlee Kim Headlee Page A

warrior’s foot to trip him, distract him, anything to divert his attention from Talya. The sword descended with a sickening thud. She crumpled with a gurgling cry. Spurting crimson stained the pristine snow.
    The warrior turned on him. He raised his pitchfork to block the blow. The sword splintered the shaft and bit into his shoulder. Agony branded his brain. He shut his eyes. Tears chilled his cheeks.
    The raider’s laughter mingled with the crunch of boots on the snow as he stalked off in search of other prey.
    Dwras surrendered to oblivion.

    OTHER VILLAGERS joined the fight, women as well as men. To Badulf, it mattered naught.
    The cattle stomped and bellowed inside the byre. Stampede posed the biggest danger at this point in a raid. Badulf had witnessed the destruction wrought by spooked cows and had no stomach for it tonight, though not in pity for the Brædeas. Runaway cattle could be hard to capture, and often injured or killed themselves and others in the process. Too many Eingel womenfolk and children starved at home to allow such a disaster to occur.
    At Badulf’s command, a pair of men slipped into the byre to calm the beasts while Badulf led the others in search of Brædan survivors and provisions and anything else of value in this squalid village.
    After the Eingel warriors had secured their bovine treasure and eaten their fill of dried beef and barley cakes, washing it down with tangy ale, their appetites turned to delicacies of a different sort. Badulf inspected the trembling, doe-eyed girls who’d been herded into one of the larger stone huts while their mothers and fathers and brothers and younger siblings lay stiffening under the stars. These girls, fated to become Eingel bed thralls, wouldn’t be joining them for perhaps a very long time.
    Baring his teeth in a grin, he selected the prettiest. As he ripped her tunic to the waist, exposing milk-white breasts, and fastened his mouth to the tender flesh, she cried out but didn’t struggle. Nor did any of the others as his men cheerfully followed their leader’s example.
    This part never made it into the songs, either. Perhaps, Badulf mused as he unlaced his trews, bore the whimpering girl to the dirt, hitched up her skirts, and forced her legs apart, it was just as well. Some rewards ought to remain a secret. Fewer to share them with.

    SHRILL CRIES and coarse laughter woke Dwras. The noises seemed confined to one place, mayhap another hut. Heaven only knew what his clanswomen were suffering at their captors’ hands.
    He resolved to find out.
    Instinct goaded him to wariness. The cloud-shrouded night told him nothing of how long he’d lain unconscious. More raiders could be about. As he strained ears and eyes for signs of movement, he found none. Even the animals had fallen silent.
    He pushed himself up, gritting his teeth and swallowing a scream. Black grief engulfed him. He couldn’t help the survivors, for his right shoulder was a burning, bloody mess. But he was alive.
    Talya and Gwydion, he learned to his horror as he gently turned his wife over, had perished, throats slashed.
    Forgive me, dearest ones!
    Dwras struggled to his feet, swiping at furious tears and fighting acrid nausea as his senses reported the surrounding carnage. All thoughts of burying his wife and son fled. If his wound didn’t kill him, the first raider to find him lingering here surely would.
    Chieftain Loth had to be told! If Loth would give him a spear, he, Dwras map Gwyn, gladly would use it to spit these murderers over a slow fire—though that fate seemed far too kind. For Talya and Gwydion and the others, vengeance remained the only burial gift he could bestow.
    Clutching his useless arm to his chest, breaths birthing gray ghosts, he lurched toward the dun hills.

 
    T RENCHER BALANCED ACROSS his good forearm, Dwras map Gwyn returned to the eating area of Dunpeldyr’s Great Hall to find another man seated on his bench. Empty seats abounded, but Dwras was sick unto