Free Undercurrent by Michelle Griep

this day shall be your last.”
    He charged forward with a strong-armed thrust. Gerlaich pulled the distance, and Alarik’s attack fell short. But the quick movement was enough to throw his uncle’s footing off-balance.
    Alarik put all his remaining strength into the next blow. Time slowed. With a clarity that would likely haunt him the rest of his life, he raised his sword and plunged it downward. The blade lodged with a sickening thud near the base of Gerlaich’s head, stuck fast and deep into the man’s collarbone.
    His uncle stood motionless, confusion working his lips open and closed, like a fish yanked from water.
    Regret choked Alarik, but he forced it down with a swallow. He gripped the hilt as firmly as his trembling hands allowed, then planted a powerful kick to Gerlaich’s torso. The blade dislodged and his uncle toppled backward to the ground.
    Alarik turned away, panting. The two men accompanying Gerlaich advanced. Hopefully the quivering of his body from blood loss did not show in his blade. “Halt!”
    A broad smile split the face of the man Alarik knew to be Eric. He stopped as requested and held out his hand, palm up. “You have won an honorable victory, one we will not challenge. There is the matter of wergild, however, for taking Gerlaich’s life.”
    Alarik lowered his sword. He hated the idea of compensating for a man’s life. Justice could not rightly be served by trading gold for breath. “So that is the way of it, then. It mattered not to you who died, for a profit would be made either way, eh?”
    Eric shrugged, but his smile reached his eyes.
    The only valuable Alarik had to offer was the gold armlet spanning his bicep—on the arm that had been split open. He sheathed his sword and took great care in sliding the band downward, giving as much berth as possible to the gaping wound.
    Eric pocketed the costly piece into a fold of his tunic, then spent a great deal of time clearing his throat. Finally, he took a step back but pierced Alarik with an unrelenting gaze. “Did you do it? Did you kill Einar and flay Ragnar to pieces?”
    Alarik stared, unblinking, unfeeling. Numb from battle and shaky of voice, he spoke barely above a whisper. “I…cannot remember.”
    “ Coward!” The word gurgled from behind, and Alarik wheeled around.
    Terrible glassy eyes set deep in ashen skin looked back at him from where the shell of his uncle lay in the dirt. “Let me die…a warrior’s death.”
    A sigh shuddered through Alarik at what he must do. To leave his uncle half-alive, half-dead, well…Odin was capricious with the best of noble deaths. If the wound did not kill him and disease were to set in, his uncle wouldn’t stand a chance. Alarik closed his eyes, wishing away the awful task, but it was up to him now to help Gerlaich attain Valhalla. If Valhalla existed. Ragnar would argue otherwise with his talk of Jesu, but Alarik didn’t know what to believe anymore.
    “ Do it!” Gerlaich’s voice rasped.
    Rote training kicked in, and Alarik slaughtered his uncle as he might a sheep. Better to think of him as a dumb animal than a man who’d lived and breathed and loved—just like himself.
    He spun away and stalked toward the brook, calling out as he went, “Bury him.”
    The water washed away blood and sweat, but not the stain and stink in his heart. He hated killing. Always had. His uncle was right in calling him a half-breed. A true Northman would boast, not regret.
    His forearm refused to stop bleeding, so he ripped yet another strip from the hem of his tunic as he had for the woman. Soon he’d have no shirt left to—
    The woman.
    He’d forgotten.
    He stood, lightheaded at first, and swept a searching glance from tree to tree, shrub to shrub. His cloak lay discarded at the base of the oak where the axe yet lodged.
    Cass-ee was gone.
     
    Propped against a support beam near the front of Great Hall, Ragnar scanned the sparse number of men gathered. A poor harvest, indeed. Those present