Chapter One

      The hills had stood like sentinels for the past day and a half, watching over the boats as they steadily drew closer. The men’s oars cut through the murky water in a rhythm born from years of practice, a near silent heave-and-ho that kept the horde advancing with merciless efficiency. Vidar glared out at those hills, provoked by their silent taunting. Gwendolyn of Bernicia lived somewhere in the midst of them. His enemy. His bride.

      He swallowed past the thickening in his throat that accompanied the thought while his palms itched to grab his sword, to do something to fight the ugly truth of the wedding that was to come. No matter how Vidar wished it, he and the men were not here to do battle. They were here to see him married.

      He’d never met Gwendolyn and, if he’d had his way, he never would. Vidar wasn’t supposed to be the groom in this match arranged by his brother, Jarl Eirik. Vidar was supposed to be fighting to the south to expand their territory. The only reason he was here was because the true groom, Magnus, had decided to marry the low-born Saxon woman who’d saved him when he’d been gravely wounded.

      Disgust roiled in his stomach and he turned his eyes from the hills. Somewhere in those hills his new home waited. He’d passed the winter trying to reconcile himself with this change of events, but it hadn’t worked. He’d fought with Eirik so often that he’d eventually left Eirik’s home, spending most of the winter in a camp to the south plotting the spring advancement to take more Saxon territory. It hadn’t mattered that Vidar wouldn’t be there to take part. It had helped him to feel useful.

      Eirik had made this match, aligning his best warrior with the Alveys of Bernicia to help ensure the northern territory was held. There were threats even further north, so the Alvey land would be a barrier to those threats. There had also been some skirmishes with rebellious Danes who lived to the north, but there’d yet to be any evidence of a great band of them. There were the Picts and the Scots further north, but they were small tribes who’d undoubtedly be no match for seasoned Danes. Rather than fighting battles, this move north felt a lot like banishment.

      Vidar knew that he would be much more effective leading a group of warriors to battle and adventure in new lands. Protecting this land was the work of old men, not that of a warrior in his prime. He had years of travel ahead of him yet. He’d die before he lived out his years in these hills tending sheep and crops.

      Though the bitter cold of winter had drawn to a close, the days were still short and the sun had long since disappeared behind an endless haze of grey clouds. A slight wind blew in frosty air over those hills along with a feeling he couldn’t name. A trepidation he couldn’t place. At first he’d thought it had been his own distaste for all that the place represented to him. But Eirik, who led in the first boat, raised his fist high in the air, drawing the line of eight boats to a halt.

      A chill crept down Vidar’s spine and he leaned forward, his palms on the smooth gunwale of his ship as he scanned the trees on either side of the river. He couldn’t find anything amiss. The shores were still, which might have raised alarm except it was still cold enough in the nights that many of the wild animals had already settled down in their dens.

      Eirik had hoped they’d make it to their destination by nightfall, but Vidar confessed to a certain relief at not having reached it yet. Another night without a bride was one more night of freedom. Too bad there weren’t any women in their group with whom to enjoy it.

      ‘There!’ Eirik called back and pointed towards the eastern shore.

      Vidar squinted into the gathering dusk and barely made out an opening in the trees. It might be an animal path leading from the river, but it just as well could be a human trail. He sighed and stood up straighter when Eirik’s boat made for shore. It looked as if he was to be denied his last night of freedom after all. Very well. He’d meet his bride tonight. It was probably best to sort out the particulars of their arrangement sooner rather than later.

      As one the boats glided towards the eastern shore. Eirik’s boat reached it first. Two men near the prow jumped over the side, holding the ropes that would guide it to shore. Vidar called out to his own men to get them ready to disembark. Half pulled in their oars and readied themselves to jump overboard, when an arrow whizzed past Vidar’s shoulder. There was no warning, simply a hiss of air as it flew past. He would have thought he’d imagined the sensation of the air ruffling his hair if he hadn’t caught sight of it from the corner of his eye and watched it disappear into the dark water behind him.

      ‘Halt!’ a voice called out from the trees. There was still no sign of people on the shore, but that blasted arrow had come from somewhere. Eirik looked around, startled at the sound of the voice. It appeared no one else had seen the first arrow, but it was followed by another one that landed with a loud thunk in the open mouth of the wooden beast adorning Vidar’s prow.

      ‘Grab your shields,’ Vidar yelled and the men on all the ships hurried to obey the command. The two men on Eirik’s ship who had disembarked lunged back on to the boat. Before another arrow came down, the men crouched behind the walls of the ships with their shields above their heads, creating a nearly impenetrable wall of armour.

      Vidar stood higher than the others with his own shield before him. He grabbed his sword from the scabbard on his back and held it, ready to jump over the side and fight whoever had dared to attack them. He didn’t have to wait long before a row of men stepped out of the trees. They held swords and pikes and wore armour that looked as if it might have been left over from the days of the Romans. Some of the helmets were rusted and tarnished, but many of the breastplates and chainmail looked solid enough. They were not armoured well enough to be the rebel Danes said to inhabit these parts.

      Eirik called out to them in the common Saxon tongue and not one of them answered. He tried again in Danish, but there was no response. Vidar hadn’t thought they’d travelled far enough north to encounter any Picts or Scots, but he couldn’t rule out the possibility that they’d somehow stumbled across a group heading south. Perhaps Vidar’s seclusion in the north wouldn’t be as dull as he’d originally feared.

      Nearly a score of the men had revealed themselves on the shore, but there had to be more if they were bold enough to challenge the group of boats that held over a hundred warriors. A rustling in the trees drew his attention. A high limb on an evergreen shimmied