[To be titled viking story]

THIRTEEN

Kadlin

"How could you?!" The woman yelled. "You weren't treated half as badly as the other slaves!"

I could have screamed at the woman, but I tried to keep myself composed. I grabbed her by the back of her neck and held the edge of the blade just under her nose. One flick of my wrist and the woman would be disfigured.

"Your husband was a monster!" I yelled. "He was a rapist and a beater of women! He was no better than the swine he raised!"

She cried out at my harsh words.

"He killed my daughter! He drowned her because she was a girl!" The agony was tangible in my voice. "He would do well to rot for what he did to her!"

I dragged the blade alone her cheek in a flash. Blood seeped from the wound. It wasn't deep enough to do any real damage. It was purely a flesh wound.

"That will serve as a reminder, slave, to remember your place here," I used the woman's words against her. "You're lucky that you're allowed to live what's left of your pathetic life."

It was the first words that she had ever seethed at me.

I was finally pulled away from the slaves by my cousin. I didn't fight him as he threw me over his very broad shoulder and tossed me in one of the ships. My backside hit the wood hard, pain radiated up my back from the impact.

He wasn't happy with me, or possibly from what he had just heard.

I wanted to curl into a ball of tears as I remembered everything that the now dead man had done to me.  I was glad he was dead. I was glad that I was the one who did it.

Yori grunted and rolled his eyes. He had always thought the opposite was too emotional, he had said as a child that he never wanted to take a wife. Yori walked away from the ship.

We both knew that no one from a respectable would take a reformed slave into their home as a wife. I was going to be lonely because of circumstances that no one could have controlled.

I stood and held onto the side of the ship to see Yori look at Taf's crying wife as she leaned on him. I could see the tension in his shoulders as he thought about what I had said. Taf had killed a part of Yori's kin and to Yori that was unforgivable. I knew it was because we had been raised the same way.

Our opinions have always mirrored each other.

Yori called over one of the warriors. He prickled my memories, but I couldn't place him.

"Kill them all. We won't be taking any slaves from here."Yori said gently.

The warrior smiled and nodded. "Consider it done."

He went to the group of men watching over the group of warriors.

Then I had a thought: Svarti!