For a moment, Melcorka could only stare. The face that emerged was one that had filled her nightmares for the past fourteen months. Egil the Norseman, the killer of her mother and the man who had led half the army of Norse that had devastated much of Alba, stared out at her.
"You knew me as Egil," he said.
"It"s Father," Alva repeated and backed away behind Igraine. "Please don"t give me back to him."
Egil laughed. "Have no fear of that. I have a fine son. I have no use for a snivelling daughter." He stepped forward, arm raised as if to deliver a back-handed swipe to her face.
"If you touch her, we are no longer fighting to revenge Hector," Melcorka said. "Look around you."
Hector"s men were as bound by oath as Melcorka was, yet there were at least twenty arrows pointed at Egil at tha
