[ Book 1 of my "The Last Kingdom" Fanfiction series]
Khaana was a rare find and a wild prized gifted to Earl Ragnar as a slave from a wealthy ruler who once considered her a prized pet.
The Danes have never laid eyes upon a Black African, and figure...
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The birds fell silent and the wind calm through the woodlands. Khaana rested in the limbs of an old and dying tree as the last rays of sun started to duck under the horizon and the moon started its rise.
With eyes closed she tried to sense Ragnar and after a while, she could hear loud snoring in her mind.
"Wake up, I have ill news." She thought to him. But he did not stir.
"I said awake with you! Ragnar, please. It is ugrent." She thought, still he snored on, "let me rest today was long." He murmured.
Khaana sighed, she almost did just that. "Ragnar..." her thoughts were soft and he could feel sadness in them. Across the sea in a small yet ever growing hall in Ireland, Ragnar opened his eyes and peered at the cieling above him.
"What bothers you An-nana?" He whispered.
"There was an attack on your father's lands..." Khaana started, a hiss of an blade cut off her thoughts. A dagger landing in her shoulder.
She screamed grasping the hilt as it lodged in her flesh, and Ragnar screamed right along with her. He checked his shoulder, there was no wound and no blood, though it felt as real as anything.
"Khaana?" He called to her sitting up in his bed. "I am alright." She thought to him quuckly. "You don't feel alright, what is happening?" Ragnar questioned.
Khaana pulled free the dagger and looked down from the tree. Below her were danes, some carrying torches the others armed.
"Khaana?" Ragnar's thoughts called to her.
Khaana focused on the Danes below, she could not make out their colors, but they had the look of Oarmen, which meant they'd not settled long.
"Who are you? Who is it you serve?" Khaana called down, she spoke calmly. She would not fear them until they gave her better cause than a hasty knife toss.
"Gnupa Ironside." One of them announced.
"I know not this Ironside." Khaana replied.
"He is old, and elderly sword-Dane of poor health as of late. He survives because of his son..." Ragnar thought to Khaana. He could not hear the men, but he could hear her thoughts and it was giving him no more clues to what was going on.
"What is happening? " Ragnar asked her again, yet Khaana's focus was elsewhere.
"Why have you attacked me?" She asked the danes. "Orders by Earl Ubba, he seeks of elf of Ravnson. We come to deliver his prize in the name of Ironside. It would seem the gods favor us this night." Called the Dane which looked to be their leader.
Khaana grimaced "I will not, but going anywhere, much less to Ubba. I will not serve a lesser master!" She called down.
Illusions of shadowy wolves started the surround the men.
