The door opened and a lantern cast Absolon’s long shadow into the cell.
“What are you doing?” Absolon’s voice was a growl that raised the hair on Ragnar’s arms.
“Do not come any closer or I’ll cut its throat.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
He crushed the dog and pushed the blade harder against its windpipe. The dog whimpered. “I would. Now throw me the keys, or I’ll cut your dog’s head off then nothing in this world will love you.”
Absolon’s breath labored, his shoulders rose and fell, his chest expanded like bellows. Because of the light, his features remained in shadow but there was no mistaking his fists and the gathering rage.
“You’re wasting time, Absolon. Throw me the keys and walk away. Once I’m free, then I’ll let it go. Do you understand me? That’s an order!"
Absolon’s breathing quickened. Ragnar opened his mouth to again demand he be let loose and shout above the heavy beat of his heart in his blood, but Absolon roared and charged him.
He didn’t have time to threaten the dog again. He let go and raised the blade in defense, but no sooner had he got it up than Absolon drove him into the wall. He held him there, pinned by his upper arms, his strength nothing short of monstrous, and bellowed into his face. He slammed Ragnar against the wall, knocking the wind out of him and cracking his head on the stone.
Stars twinkled in his eyes as his head lolled back and forth. Absolon was going to crush him. He readied to slam him again. His spine was going to break. He couldn’t get the breath to plead for his life, even if it could have infiltrated Absolon’s berserker fit. Absolon readied him for another blow.
Here it comes.
The dog’s whining and whimpering shut Absolon’s mouth and paused his throttling. He dropped Ragnar and ran to the animal, but it fled from his master’s hand and out the door as fast as it could run, tail tucked between its legs.
“Trogen?” Absolon called softly and ran after it, leaving the door ajar.
Collapsed in an aching heap on the floor, Ragnar rolled towards the exit, spying the lantern that illuminated his prison and his only way out, but the door may as well have been locked and barred for the impossibility of him being able to use it. Dull pain trundled through his body like a wagon, kicking up sharp stones that made him twitch. He took shallow breaths; it hurt to breathe too deep and too long. He didn’t move.
And in the distance, Absolon’s voice grew softer as he begged for Trogen’s return.
Chapter 3
There was no greater torture than an open prison door that could not be walked through. Absolon did not return that night, neither to seal the door nor strike Ragnar for losing him his dog. No sound that Ragnar heard indicated Absolon had returned at all. He did not call out for help. In fact, he barely moved from his position, finding the smallest comfort before exhaustion refused to let him keep watch any longer.
When the next day dawned and Absolon had still not appeared, he called out, but no assistance came. He had been abandoned. But Absolon had to return, didn’t he? There were still twenty-nine days until his execution. Absolon wouldn’t just leave him there.
Not like I did.
He pushed himself away from the ground and the thought. He cringed from each movement. He peered beneath his shirt at the purple bruises spreading across his chest. Had Absolon broken his ribs? The wound on the back of his head had reopened during the assault and blood had dried around his neck. He scrubbed it off, but it only stained his palms.
He saved his breath and his throat, and leaned against the stone wall, hissing against the dull pressure in his back. Absolon had rattled him as if he weighed nothing more than a child. How was that possible?
He scoffed. How was any of this possible? Absolon had killed thirty men with touch alone, had imprisoned him with a strength beyond comprehension, and no order he gave could make the man stand down. He’d tangled with Absolon often enough in the past that his strength, although worthy, had been surmountable.
Absolon had liked being mounted, that was for sure.
And Ragnar had liked it when Absolon mounted him in return.
That had been part of the problem. He’d liked it too much, and it had been a distraction from his revenge.
As those memories now proved. He had to focus, though that was hard with no food in his belly and his tongue drier than lutefisk. The door was open, but how to get through it? As the day wore on, he tried to break free, not caring for the noise he made, though always wary of any sound or shadow that crossed the doorway.
Meanwhile, the question of Absolon’s power kept presenting itself. How had he gotten so strong? How had he become so deadly? What would Ragnar do if similarly blessed?
He could slaughter those generals who had ridiculed him and cast him aside. He could exact vengeance on his father and his brother and make them kneel before him like the cowards they were. He could lead the King’s armies and cut a swathe across Europe, decimating the forces of Denmark, Russia, and France, all for the glory of Sweden. Then none would ever hold sway over him again. He would be Ragnar the Red.
Those fantasies stalked his mind while his weakened body searched for escape, but they were both for naught. For that whole day and the next, Absolon did not return. And without Absolon there was no freedom, let alone new power.
Two days and three nights passed. He forgot his hunger, but his thirst raged, his tongue sticking in his mouth, his throat dry and raspy. He licked the stones clean of whatever dew bloomed on them in the morning, but it wasn’t enough. He would die of thirst. He dreamed of water, a crisp, clear river running in the distance, so full he could smell it, but no matter how fast or how far he ran, he never reached it. He heard it so close, but he fell, his leg twisted and caught, before he crested the hill.
He was so close…
A waterfall came out of nowhere and drenched his face. He woke coughing and spluttering from the water that had been thrown over him, cold and icy in the new morning. He swallowed reflexively and gasped from his need.
More!
He wanted more, but fear overrode his thirst, and his vision cleared to reveal Absolon standing in front of him with an empty bucket in his hand.
“I should kill you now and be done with it.” Absolon’s voice sounded like it tumbled with rocks. His fist closed hard around the bucket’s handle. The dog was not by his side.
“We both know you’re not going to kill me.”
“Don’t test me, Ragnar. I have killed plenty of men. Taking your life will not be any harder.”
“Then why not do it now? Why wait?”
“Because it’s not the right time.”
“Oh yes, what are we now? Twenty-seven days from my execution. Has someone put you up to this? Is that why you’re waiting? My father perhaps? General Lundgren? Is that what this is about? You’re doing this for them, so they’ll let you back into the army?”
Absolon shook his head. “You understand so little.” He said it so softly it was like he spoke only to himself. “None of them care about you, Ragnar. They didn’t then; they don’t now. What I do, I do for myself.”
“Then at least have enough honor to put me out of my misery.”
“You dare to talk to me about honor? You think you know misery?” Absolon laughed but it wasn’t the sound Ragnar was used to. Then there’d been joy in Absolon’s voice. Then there’d been life. Now it was full of bitterness and a tone of death. “You tied me up in a dungeon with no means of escape and left me to die.”