Divide and Conquer (17 page)

After all, she was the girl who’d stayed up for two days straight figuring out the previously unsolvable Yang–Mills existence and mass gap problem.

But now she didn’t have two days to figure out a solution to their situation; she was lucky if she had two hours before dawn came and the Franks attacked. Rollo and his men had been arguing much of the night, Dak interjecting at times, trying to figure out how a few thousand Viking warriors could fight their way past tens of thousands of Frankish and Burgundian soldiers.

They’d all come to the same conclusion: It wasn’t possible. Every avenue of retreat had been cut off by the Franks. Even though the fleet of Viking ships floated less than a league away, it might as well have been the distance to the moon.

Yet a feeling in Sera’s stomach told her she was missing something obvious. She stood from the fire and walked slowly through camp. Everything was so quiet and subdued, nothing like their previous battle experience, full of urgency and hasty preparations.

A part of her missed the noise. Even though it had been terrifying at the time, there had been something thrilling about the clanging Parisian church bells and the blaring Viking horns signaling the start of battle.

Sera froze, one foot still suspended in the air. “That’s it,” she said out loud to no one. She laughed at how perfect of a solution it was as she raced back to Dak and Rollo.

She was winded when she found them in front of the fire. “The horns,” she blurted excitedly. “We may not have enough men to fight the Franks, but they don’t have to know that. Dak, Riq, and I will sneak into their camps with battle horns and start sounding them — the Franks will assume they’re under attack and scatter. In the confusion, you run for the ships!”

She beamed with pride.

Rollo scowled. “I’m not sending kids into the enemy camp,” he grumbled.

Dak bristled at being called a kid, but before he could complain Sera piped up.

“No one would ever suspect the three of us,” she argued. “If the Franks find a Viking wandering in the woods they’ll get suspicious and everything will be ruined. But if it’s just us . . .” She shrugged. “We’re kids, how much trouble could we be?”

Dak was glad that before leaving the Viking camp he’d finally been able to change out of his wolf pelt, replacing it with dark leggings and a thick cloak pulled from an injured Frankish soldier. His familiar axe still rested at his hip, and in his hands he carried a large war horn.

Clouds had rolled in while they’d debated the details of Sera’s plan. Now, even though dawn was imminent, the night was pitch-black, which made navigation rather difficult. Dak had never been a particularly graceful individual and not being able to see where he was going wasn’t helping matters. Every step he took seemed to bring with it a cacophony of cracking branches that caused him to jump (which only set off more noises).

After finally agreeing to the plan (it took a lot of arguing), Rollo warned the three time travelers not to get too near to the Frankish camps. They’d likely have guards posted, he warned, and they couldn’t risk getting caught.

At first Dak obeyed this command but the longer he waited out past the edge of the camps, the more restless he became. After all, he was a historian first and foremost, and he saw it as his duty to properly record what he witnessed throughout time. He’d already begun drafting his magnum opus, titled
The Time Lord
, which, he was quite sure, would establish him as the preeminent authority on all things historical.

Besides, it was boring out in the woods alone. His mind made up (not that he took much convincing), Dak moved toward the Frankish camp. The closer he got without anyone sounding an alarm, the bolder he grew.

He kept himself tucked low as he advanced through a collection of lean-tos, pausing every now and again to listen to the snores of the soldiers. His heart pounded with a mixture of fear and excitement.

Dak was just peeking his head into a crudely built cabin when he heard the first horn blow: Sera. The sound sputtered at first and then gained in volume and urgency. Another horn joined in: Riq.

Already the sound of mumbling and surprise drifted among the soldiers scattered throughout the tents and bedrolls littered around the camp. A few men popped to their feet, weapons already drawn.

There was no time for Dak to sneak back out to the thick woods and so he did the only thing he could: hunkered down behind the nearest tree and blew his horn as hard and loud as possible.

It looked easier than it was. At first the instrument only let out a wheezing, choking sound. Dak’s cheeks began to blaze hot and red with the effort, his head spinning with light-headedness as he heaved in another breath. He changed the shape of his mouth and that did the trick: The horn let out a horrid, piercing wail.

Whoever hadn’t been woken by the other horns was certainly awake now. Soldiers sprang from their bedrolls, some of them yanking on shoes, some of them reaching for weapons, but most merely fleeing.

“The North Men are attacking!” Dak yelled, encouraging their panic. “Retreat!” His warning spread like wildfire, and Dak heard it repeated again and again. Soldiers scrambled, fleeing the camp so fast that Dak couldn’t help laughing in between bouts of blowing the war horn.

The ruse had worked; the Frankish army was in disarray, which is exactly what the Vikings needed to break toward the river. He couldn’t wait to meet up with Sera and congratulate her on such a brilliant plan. Especially since he’d never really been convinced it would work in the first place.

With a smile on his face, Dak turned toward the cover of the forest — when a hand suddenly clamped on his shoulder. Dak reached for his axe, but he was disarmed immediately and found himself pinned to the ground, staring up at the dawn-tinged sky.

A figure hovered over him, sharp knee digging against Dak’s ribs. “If it isn’t my old nemesis,” the man said. “You don’t seem to have aged a day.”

He hauled Dak to his feet and dragged him toward a fire. As the light spilled over the man’s face, illuminating the scar that slashed from his left eyebrow to the right corner of his mouth, Dak felt his insides twist.

Even though the past twenty-five years had added wrinkles and age spots to the soldier’s face, Dak recognized Gorm instantly. The aged man yanked Dak’s hands behind his back, tying them tightly with a length of rope he’d been using as a belt.

“You don’t have to do that,” Dak muttered.

The Time Warden barked out a laugh. “That’s what the man and woman said, too. And since they were older I believed them. That’s the last time I trust anyone from the future.”

Dak’s heart froze. He swallowed. “A man and woman? From the future?” It could only be his parents.

“Head still hurts from where the woman conked me with a rock,” Gorm grumbled. Then he gave Dak an evil look. “I’m not taking any chances this time.”

S
UDDENLY, NOTHING
mattered more to Dak than getting back to Sera and Riq. And if that meant leading the Time Warden right to where Rollo and his men were clambering into their ships, so be it.

He had to tell Sera about his parents. If the knot on Gorm’s head was as fresh as it looked, they’d been here only an hour or two ago. They could
still
be here, somewhere. It took everything Dak had not to start calling out for them in the dusky dawn.

If the Time Warden was suspicious that Dak offered only a halfhearted resistance before giving in to his demands to be taken to the Vikings, he didn’t show it. Instead he just trudged along behind Dak, recounting how losing the time travelers in 885 had caused Siegfried to banish him and how miserable his life with the Frankish army had been ever since.

Dak didn’t care and he barely listened.

“Siegfried took my sword,
Leggbítr
,” Gorm grumbled. “Do you know what it’s like for a Norseman to have his weapon taken from him?”

When Dak didn’t answer Gorm prodded him in the back to elicit the correct response. Dak shook his head.

“Humiliating.
Leggbítr
was my father’s sword and his father’s before him. And what do I have to pass on to my own son?”

Dak glanced back at the Time Warden, wondering if his son had inherited his thick nose and drooping ears. If so, he should be glad to get nothing else from his father.

Another shove to the back and Dak mumbled, “What?” He tried not to think about what Sera and Riq would say when he led the enemy into their midst. He was being stupid and he knew it and yet he didn’t turn back.

“Nothing,” Gorm barked. “That is, until I trade that magical metal device to Siegfried. You take me to camp, you give me the thingy, and maybe I let you live. Deal?”

As if to emphasize his point, Gorm swung his axe through the air, cleanly slicing a thick limb from a nearby tree. His message was clear: If things didn’t go well, that could be Dak’s neck. He shivered, trying to shake off Gorm’s all-too-real threat.

When Sera realized what Dak was doing she was going to be so ticked off. But that didn’t matter to Dak right now. What mattered was figuring out how to find his parents again.

“He should be here by now,” Sera hissed. She walked in tight circles along the shore of the misty Eure River while Riq sat along the bank skipping rocks across the water. It was a cloud-choked morning and the stones sailed into the gray before sinking.

“It’s Dak,” Riq answered. “I’d be surprised to see him again before noon.”

Sera whirled on him, crossing her arms over her chest. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

One of Riq’s rocks sank into the water with a loud
sploosh
. He lifted a shoulder. “Only that it’s Dak. We let him go alone to an enemy camp. I figured we had a fifty-fifty chance he wouldn’t do something stupid and get caught.”

Sera felt her blood boil hot in indignation and then drain from her cheeks in worry. “Dak’s smarter than that. I’m sure he learned his lesson last time,” she said.

“When hasn’t he gotten in trouble? Alone
or
with us? Look, I understand the dude’s fascination with history — this whole trip must be like a field day to him. But he’s not exactly smart about avoiding risks and taking precautions.”

Sera wanted to argue. She even opened her mouth, ready to defend Dak. But nothing came out. The truth was, Riq was right.

With a huff, Sera turned her back and resumed her pacing. Just downriver Rollo and his men were piling supplies into their tethered boats and preparing to cast off. With so many men, it would be a long and involved process but if Sera, Riq, and Dak wanted to be with them when they left, they had to be ready soon.

It wouldn’t be long before the Franks realized that the Viking attack had been nothing but a ruse and then they’d regroup and come after them. She really didn’t want to stick around to see what an enraged Frank looked like in this century.

For a while longer, Sera began to pace and then she stopped in front of Riq. Losing Dak wasn’t the only problem occupying her mind.

“Do you think getting Rollo out of here is enough to fix the Break?” she asked.

Riq just shook his head.

“And you’re basing that on . . . ?”

Riq looked up at her and she glimpsed something familiar in his eyes. “My Remnants are getting worse,” he confessed.