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The Color of Vengeance

     
    P RINCE BADULF, SON of King Colgrim of Bernicia, studied the slumbering Brædan village sprawled in the valley below and waited.
    Being cramped behind cold boulders and winter-stripped thickets on the hillside, the night wind freezing one’s ballocks and whipping the breath away—this part never made it into the songs.
    Minstrels preferred the warm, soft luxury of the king’s hall. Details gleaned from the war-bands therefore were sketchy in some places and embellished in others.
    What of it, after all? No harm in heaping an extra measure of glory upon a warrior’s name. If omitting the tedium won more young hearts into the war-bands, so much the better.
    At least the flurries had blown off, though the obsidian sky portended a colder wait. Tucking his gloved hands under his armpits, Badulf returned his gaze to the sliver of moon, willing it to slip faster behind the dark breasts of the far hills.
    There would be sentries to get past, of a sort, but farmers with pitchforks and scythes couldn’t hope to outmatch warriors with longswords, especially Badulf’s men. They’d amassed the highest cattle count of all his father’s bands.
    Like a timid maiden dipping her toe into a pool, a tip of the moon disappeared. Badulf sensed the growing restlessness of his men: a stifled cough, the stamp of a booted foot, the creak of leather. Nothing loud enough to betray their position, though even the best eventually wearied of waiting.
    More of the moon slid from view. Badulf shed the gloves and cupped his hands to his mouth. An owl’s cry drifted through the hills, answered by a gentle rustling like wind in dead leaves. He signaled again, and the men inched toward the village’s cow byre.
    The lone sentry, little more than a boy, slumped beside the byre’s door, staff across his knees. As Badulf and his band crept closer, the lad’s snores buzzed in Badulf’s ears.
    They’d almost reached the byre when a dog started barking. The Bræde came awake, screaming. Badulf’s brain made the connection between the lad’s cry of “Angli!” and the correct pronunciation, Eingel . Then his sword splintered the wooden staff and bit into the unprotected neck, and the warning drowned in a bubble of blood.
    Too late; the village had been alerted, and the rush began.

    “ANGLI! ANGLI!”
    The stone-muffled cry wrenched Dwras map Gwyn from sleep.
    Cattle raid!
    He didn’t bother to weigh the odds of defeating a skilled fighting force in the dark, on the snow, armed with naught but farm tools and raw courage. After wrestling into tunic, breeches, cloak, and boots, he grabbed his pitchfork.
    At the hut’s door, he nearly collided with his wife.
    Dressed in her thick woolen undertunic, Talya clutched their bawling infant son, Gwydion, to her chest. The gloom hid her face, but Dwras heard fear in her ragged breaths.
    He stroked her hand, yanked her cloak from its peg by the door, and settled it about her shoulders, cursing the lack of time for words. Not about where to hide; he knew she’d try to cross the village, where the forest and safety lay a short dash beyond.
    For what he wished to tell her, a swift kiss had to suffice.
    With Talya pressing behind him and Gwydion’s cries reduced to fitful whimpers, Dwras opened the door. An appalling clamor spilled through the slit: the clash of metal on metal, the baying of dogs, the lowing and stomping of cattle, the screams of the wounded, the whoops of the raiders. Dread and fear warred in Dwras’s stomach.
    The fight hadn’t reached their hut. Dwras reached for Talya’s hand. If she hurried, she still could make it to the forest…
    An Angli warrior sprang at them. Pitchfork lowered, Dwras charged. The raider parried the blow, whirled, and lashed out with a booted foot as Dwras stumbled past. His knee buckled, and he fell.
    Rolling onto his back, he watched the warrior close on Talya as she wailed for mercy.
    Desperately, Dwras flung out a hand to catch the