CHAPTER THREE: my sister, my sister, my sister

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LOCATION:  DUNHOLM

BY THE TIME THEY ARRIVED AT DUNHOLM IT WAS ALMOST NIGHTFALL. The army made sure to hastily set up camp before the Kjartan and his men discovered they were outside the walls.

As everyone was walking to the edge of the forest, where Uhtred and his men will depart from Ragnar and his men, Estrid could hear the insistent whining of Aethelwold behind her - complaining about the plan.

She was trying to focus on reciting in her head what she was going to do in the siege but she couldn't with his jarring voice cutting through the air.

Spending so much time with Aethelwold on their travels, Estrid wondered how no one has killed him yet for simply annoying the shit out of them. The man knew she disliked him, she wasn't exactly discreet about her feelings for him - well, lack there of.
If she was being truthful she often imagined lacing his ale with more a good few crushed up wolfsbane, or another she had hidden in her bag. She imagined watching him start to choke, clutching at his throat as it that was going to stop the plant already in his system. Of how his skin would start to turn a purply colour, until he looks like one of those blackberries she so loved to eat. She wondered if, because he was of royal descent, if his blood would run blue. Or would it run red like the rest of us? Perhaps a red so dark it looks black? She imagined blood, oozing from his nostrils, dripping out of his ears, blinking tears of the thick liquid. In her imagination she could see herself standing over him, while his bloodshot eyes somehow managed to lock onto hers. Watching the oxygen leave his lungs with every gasp he took. In her imagination she always felt anger - so much of it she wasn't quite sure why she had so much. She had felt it before, when she discovered the truth about her family. But nothing now could make her feel this way. Right? Perhaps it was because they were so close to the man behind her family's deaths that she felt this anger, this resentment. Maybe she won't feel so murderous around Aethelwold after Ragnar kills Kjartan. She hoped so at least. It was just everything he did seemed to do make her annoyed beyond belief.

Ragnar stopped the army. "This is where we part." He told Uhtred. "We will show ourselves only when we know the east door has been opened. We will attack. Then it is up to you to save us. We will be lambs to slaughter."

"Lord... may the gods be with you." Said Clapa to Uhtred.

Beocca cut in, "Um, God, may God be with him, us."

Uhtred laughed at the priest, "You just watch over Ragnar. Hmm?" He then walked to Ragnar, clasping hands in union and good luck.

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