WRATH OF THE NORTH [BJÖRN IRONSIDE]

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

When Vál didn't hear the sound of their feet moving behind her she turned around. The man next to Harald had also fell to the ground with his hand gripping the bleeding wound on his leg. The other men, including Harald and Halfdan themselves only stood there and looked at her with wide eyes. Then both of them composed themselves, Halfdan looked at her with a smirk as Harald gave her a harsh glare with his jaw clenched. They walked over to her with confident steps and their switched mood gave their other men the same confidence. Vál only raised her brow at them.

"You think you just can seriously injure my men without any consequences?" Harald said and she huffed.

"If you call those smaller grazes serious injuries you're weaker than I thought." Vál chuckled and Harald only clenched his jaws even tighter. Harald took a few steps closer to her but she didn't back away, she kept looking into his eyes as her anger grew inside her. She ignored Halfdan's widening wicked smirk. Harald peeked over his shoulder to look at his men before giving them a nod. Vál also looked at the men who roughly pulled the young women into their arms, bruising their smaller arms. Four men held the trembling women as the others killed the people on the roof with their swords, what she believed was the father got pulled down after he tried to stop the sword with his hands. Blood stained the ground beneath him. He continued to say the words he had been shouting before, the plea before his head rolled on the ground. Vál clenched her jaw as Harald and Halfdan made their way towards the women again who cried for their now dead parents.

Vál gave Harald a death glare as he slowly pulled one of the women's skirt as she placed her hand over her arrows. They all laughed and Vál could feel her rage building inside with great force, her hands started to shake slightly as she saw how terrified the women were. Both women looked at Vál with pleading eyes as they screamed something in their foreign language, almost sounding like what their father had been repeating moments earlier. Before their dresses got any further she quickly let two arrows fly through the air which hit both women through the skull; one in each, ending their pain. Harald and Halfdan looked at the dead women beside them and when they all looked back up; Vál was gone.

Vál roughly pulled the branches from her face as she walked out on the shore, everyone had awoken and she could feel eyes on her as she stomped to her smaller tent. She ignored Björn and his father as she passed them. When she reached her tent, her back was facing everyone else and she took a deep breath as she placed her hand over her neck, feeling the necklace push against her skin. She had almost forgotten that it hung around her neck, she had grown accustom to the feeling and it had never left her neck since she had taken it from her dead fathers neck. No one accept Björn and Ragnar had seen it. Björn had seen it multiple times but never asked since she walked away whenever his eyes had lingered on it. Ragnar might have noticed it when she was bathing but wasn't sure if he looked at other areas instead.

"Where have you been?" Björn asked and she groaned, not wanting his questions after her encounter with Harald and Halfdan.

"Leave me alone Björn." She spat and he frowned.