Rurik would be proud. Sandulf Sigurdsson surveyed the mean chamber where the assassin had attempted to hide like a rat run to ground. The stench of the overturned sweet wine vied with stale sweat and the reek of death, getting into his lungs. Sandulf breathed shallowly through his mouth, keeping the roiling in his stomach down.
The memory of his first battle and its aftermath swamped him—his distress had amused his father. After he’d scrubbed Rurik’s boots clean, his half-brother had given him invaluable advice on how to control his wayward stomach.
Sandulf plucked the golden-arrow pendant which his mother had once worn from the corpse’s fist. The dead man had tried to bargain with it, pleading for mercy. Sandulf had given it—a clean death, far more than the worm deserved.
His next target lay far to the north and west. Glannoventa in the Kingdom of Northumbria and the woman he had marked. Two dead, two to die before he embraced his brothers. He carefully closed the door with a click and strode towards the port.