Borss growled, a mix of irritation at being questioned, and arousal at the thought of what the witch woman would be doing to him later. “It’s what the informant said. They move ever southward. But these lands are full of those loyal to me. We’ll stop them. And then we’ll find out what this prize is they seek, and take it for ourselves.”
Borss turned to find that Zeilly had dropped her robe to the floor around her feet. Her perfect body shone in the low light seeping in from the gauzy curtained windows. She slipped forward into his arms, careful to avoid the large spikes on his armored chestplate. He could feel her slender hands glide up to the buckles on his shoulders.
“The Blue Men were always a long shot. They might have accidentally killed the Northerners. And there was no guarantee they wouldn’t travel around the city ruins.”
“True, but our forces are not yet returned from the raid to the eastern wastes. I can’t chase them all over the land. We need to send other…proxies after them.” Borss smiled, knowing the way he spoke only made her more aroused.
He heard a click, and the massive spiked chestplate fell away. Zeilly deftly sidestepped, and the armor clattered across the wooden floor. As soon as the plate spun away, she slipped back to his chest, and pressed her nakedness against him. He carefully put his arms around her, avoiding scratching her with his fist spikes.
He wondered if this time he’d manage to get the gauntlets off before they began.
“Who next?” she asked. “Surely not the Völkisch?”
“They are very loyal,” Borss began, as her hands slid to his waistband. The Völkisch were devoted to Borss almost as much as they were to their ancient ideology of hate. Their facial tattoos were disturbing, but Borss knew there were worse groups of human beings.
Zeilly made a scoffing noise, like the sound others made when clearing their throats. “They are loyal, but inept. They place all their faith in their weapons, and their racism.”
“They are powerful, and they have the greater numbers. It should be enough.”
The svelte witch woman moaned as she ran her talented fingers over his scarred chest. “And this prize they seek? It will be important?”
“It is what I have heard.” Borss prized her counsel, but he would never tell her everything. At least not up front. After he had what he needed from the Northerners and had collected his reward, then he would tell her. Then it wouldn’t matter anymore. “We will have it, and we will be all powerful.”
That was what she needed to hear.
Suddenly she was frantically tearing at his pants with her long nails, and he struggled to quickly remove the vicious spiked gauntlets.
He got one of them off before she pulled him down onto the floor. It was hours before the acrid smell of the corpse they were lying on drove them away.
21
The Northmen traveled to the east, avoiding the city of Hamburg. They had seen flickering campfires from a distance. They didn’t know how many people lived in the city, but where there were people, there was also the chance for needless confrontation. Stig had lobbied for another fight, but Val had insisted their mission was more important, and even Morten had agreed with her.
South of the city, small villages were plentiful, and devoid of human life. But each was welcomed, as they scavenged propane tanks from which they could refuel.
When they reached the small village of Greven, little more than a wide spot in the road with crumbled former dwellings being reclaimed by mother nature, their first mechanical disaster struck. Oskar’s ATV coughed and sputtered to a stop, refusing to start again.
Val had them move their vehicles off the road and into a cluster of trees. Erlend and Stig went to work on taking the vehicle’s motor apart and cleaning it, laying the parts and Erlend’s tools on a blanket spread out on the ground.
“I did nothing to it,” Oskar declared.
“The fuel line is probably clogged,” Erlend muttered, spinning a wrench in his nimble fingers.
While the mechanics went to work, Anders and Nils walked off to search for game, the former setting Skjold free to soar the skies, where it could spot prey with its keen eyes. Oskar and Morten began to set up their camp, expecting the repairs might take a while.
Val and Ulrik walked west of town toward a small river they had seen earlier in the day. They would fill the water skins and bottles for everyone in the group.
“What were you going to ask me on the day Morten found the bog bodies?” Val said.
Ulrik shrugged. “I do not remember. It was a while ago.”
Val walked by his side on the road, her black leather jacket slung across her shoulder with three empty water skins. “I thought you were flirting with me.”
The shocked look on Ulrik’s face was enough to tell her the thought had not crossed his mind. His blue eyes were wide, before he turned his face away, pretending to scan the countryside for threats.
“Were you... Were you wanting me to...flirt?” The way he asked it made Val wonder if he had ever flirted with a woman before. He was a big, broad man, and in his thirties. He had most likely been with women, but she wondered if he had ever needed to chase one. The village girls probably threw themselves at him.
She just laughed softly and said, “You were just very talkative that day. Asking about my name...”
He turned his piercing gaze on her, then returned his eyes to the road ahead. They walked several more steps in silence. Even their footsteps were quiet, muffled by the carpet of grass coating what had once been a road. As the silence spun out, she wondered if she had insulted him.
“I...was curious. I have never met anyone else from the Åland islands, and certainly never a woman like you. As you know, many women are not fighters at all, and while I have shared a battlefield with some...”
“I understand. There is not much to tell. My parents were killed when I was very small. I needed to survive.”
He didn’t press her for any more details, and she was grateful.
The two reached the river in silence. Ulrik’s mind was filled with thoughts of the strange young woman he followed. She was an enigma, for sure. A more competent fighter than most men he had known, a good leader and a decent judge of character and personality. He had watched how she had managed Morten’s small rebellions with congeniality, until the man no longer seemed interested in being a persistent thorn in her side.
Ulrik had seen Val nurture Nils’s confidence, by appealing to his knowledge, and how she had steered Stig toward Erlend, reducing his initial allegiance with Morten. She had shown great respect for Trond, after the man had saved her in the harbor fight in Stavanger. She had spoken good words over him during the ceremony. The woman spoke little each day, and she pushed them hard on their mission, but she always seemed to sense when the group needed rest.
He leaned down to the river to fill the clanging metal bottles he had carried.
Val dumped her skins on the grassy bank of the slowly flowing river. Moving down-stream, she said, “It is hot today. I will take a quick bath and return to help you with the water.”
He watched her walk thirty feet down the bank, before dropping her jacket and pulling her black tank top off, revealing her bare chest. He turned away, giving her some privacy. Their trip had been long, and he had seen her bathe before. Nudity was not frowned on in the North, but after her question about flirting, he suddenly found himself thinking about how he looked at her.
He set about filling the bottles. When the receptacles were full, he walked over and picked up the water skins Val had dropped, thinking to save time by filling hers. He felt no resentment at needing to fill them; it was simply expedient. He did not begrudge her a swim. The day was warm, and he was thinking of swimming, too, after the work was done. Maybe if they stayed the night in the village, he would come back again in the morning for another bath, before they set off.
When the last skin was filled, he lifted them all and slung them over his shoulder, pulling his ax out and swinging it in his o
ther hand as he walked, balancing the weight across his body.
He walked along the grassy riverbank, the blue sky overhead warm and filled with puffy clouds, but none threatening rain, and the winter was still a few months off. The bulbous clouds just added decoration to a brilliant day. Ahead of him, Val was lazily swimming in the river. He dropped the water skins in the grass.
She hadn’t heard him approach, and the loud noise of the skins sloshing onto the ground startled her. She was swimming nude, but it was not her body she tried to hide when he saw her turn, surprised.
It was her eyes.
She had been swimming with her ever-present goggles lowered to dangle around her neck. But when she saw him, she snatched them up and moved the red lenses into position over her face.
“I...” he started. He was about to say that he was just thinking of swimming, as well, if she did not mind. Instead he said, “The skins are full. We should get back to the others.”
He turned his back to her, indicating he was giving her privacy to get out of the river and dress. He heard her step out of the water and pull her pants and shirt on. Then she strapped her weapons on herself and reached down to collect the full water skins. She started walking back to the village without a word to him.
He grabbed the metal bottles and walked several paces behind her, thinking of nothing but her startling eyes. He had never seen anything like them.
No one had.
22
Morten the Hammer was dissatisfied with the mission’s progress. He had understood that this journey, with the goal of saving humanity, was of utmost importance. He had also realized it would be difficult and long. What he had not bargained for, was that they would suffer losses before they even reached their destination, and that they would be traveling for weeks with little to do.
On some level, Morten had realized there would be slow times, but he had also been expecting battle after battle with opposing forces. He was not prepared for day after day of riding on the ass-numbing ATVs. And when they had faced threats, their foes were inhuman, like the thing at the bridge, or barely human, like the curious Blue Men.
Now the endless fields of northern Germany were dulling his eyesight, and filling him with exhaustion. He craved a simple fight with some bearded barbarians.
“This bores me, Oskar,” he said. They were once again resting beneath the shade of a tree, their mid-day custom. The others sat under neighboring trees.
“You don’t consider going on alone, do you?” Oskar asked him. The thin man was loyal, but sometimes thick, needing things explained to him.
“Not that, no. Although I have been thinking that maybe we should return to the North.” Morten lay on his blanket, staring up at the blue sky through the fluttering of a maple tree’s yellowing leaves.
“What?” Oskar was shocked. “What about this genetic material we seek?”
“It is a mission for the survival of the human race, yes. Women cannot have babies. I understand that. But do you realize that you and I have no women? We will not be fathers if we return to the North and the mission fails, but neither will we become fathers on this journey.”
They lapsed into silence and Oskar seemed to be considering Morten’s words.
“If we return, we have a chance at life, and finding some women. On this trip we have seen just one since leaving the North, and she is not interested in either of us.” Morten stretched his arms and sat up.
“Do you think she fancies Ulrik?” Oskar asked.
“I think she fancies the mission,” Morten admitted. “But I am bored of riding ever onward. Plus, there is a bigger problem.”
Oskar tried to puzzle out what the issue was, as was his way. Finally he shrugged and asked Morten.
“We are running out of food,” Morten told him in reply. “Anders has been unable to find game for a few nights now. His bird can’t even find a field mouse. We are bored. Our fighting skills are wasted here. And soon we will all starve to death.”
Three days later, Morten’s complaint was being felt by all. They had scavenged through three small villages they had passed, and come up empty. Anders had been unable to find any big game, and for the second night the company had had to go without any meat.
The group had passed several lakes and streams that had been poisoned with orange and red chemicals, which left shiny smears on the surface of the water. The Vikings had drinking water, but fish would have been welcomed. If they couldn’t find a new source of fresh water soon, though, their reserves would diminish.
Ulrik knew that the lack of food would fray tempers. He had expected an outburst from Morten by now, but the Laplander had been quiet the last few nights, even shrugging off the constant peppering of questions from his companion Oskar, with one-word grunted answers.
The problems came from an unexpected source.
“When will you or your bird find us some food, huntsman?” Stig grumbled, his heart not really in the complaint. Everyone knew the bird would sometimes come and go as it pleased, not returning for days. He was speaking more to himself than to Anders. Unfortunately, everyone present heard him.
Val and Nils had scouted ahead, while everyone else rested. The autumn day was bright and clear, but the threat of winter was on the chill in the breeze. The snows would bring a different world of woe.
“When will you stop eating twice your share of food, fat man?” Anders retorted. The others collectively held their breaths.
Oh shit, Ulrik thought. Here we go.
Hunger had reduced them to children. Stig shot up and rushed for Anders. The bowman screamed incoherently in reply and ran into the charge, his long braided hair bouncing behind him. Stig was powerful and broad, but also slow. Anders ducked low in front of the charging bull and plowed into the man’s stubby legs. Stig was flipped up and over the hunter, flying through the air and crashing into Morten, both of their bodies crumpling into a tree.
Oskar had not seen Stig’s initial charge, because his attention had been diverted by Anders’s yelling, so when he saw his cousin hurt, he instantly jumped to the wrong conclusion—that Stig was attacking everyone, Morten included. Oskar rushed in to fight Stig, throwing punch after punch. Morten scrambled up and began swinging wildly, unsure of his enemy, but certain he was the target.
Then Erlend tried unwisely to pull the brawling men apart.
In seconds, Ulrik had gone from thinking his own thoughts to watching everyone trying to beat each other senseless.
Ulrik considered just waiting the men out, but he would be risking one or more of them getting seriously injured. Instead he got up and went to Erlend’s ATV, opening up the seat and revealing a hidden storage compartment. Erlend had shown him some of the tools in the cramped space, and he had explained what they were for. The item that had caught Ulrik’s eye then, was what he was after now. A small metal round canister with a red plastic top. The mechanic had explained what it was, but had been reluctant to show Ulrik its use. ‘It might only be good for one use,’ he had said.
Ulrik thought it was worth trying the strange device now. The can had rust around its edges, and the metal was cold in Ulrik’s hand. He pointed the red cone on the top, as Erlend had showed him, and depressed a button on its back with his thumb.
The resulting blaring burst of sound from the air horn was stunning. Ulrik had been expecting it to be loud, because Erlend had told him that was what the thing was for, but he had not expected it to hurt his ears worse than the roar of the mutated bear they had battled in Sweden.
His hand flinched away from the can, which fell to the ground.
The brawling men stopped and looked up at Ulrik, shock on their faces. Stig pulled himself to his feet, blood streaming from a cut on his forehead, and running out of his nose. “Odin’s balls, Ulrik. If you had something that loud on you, you could have used it before half my brains were dribbling out of my face.”
The other four men, still on the ground, began laughing. Morten wiped his eyes of tears and blood, while
cackling on the grass. Erlend surprised them all with a guffaw-like snort that had the others in additional fits of chortling.
Despite having startled himself, Ulrik was pleased with the outcome. Until he heard Val and Nils racing back down the road on their quads. For some reason, their arrival made the others erupt in yet more laughter, when they had nearly been finished.
“Stop, you cackling fools,” Val shouted. “Take cover!”
Ulrik sobered instantly, realizing his folly with the horn, as he saw the swarm of black flapping creatures following Val and Nils.
They looked like bats. Their wings stretched only a little further than the bats Ulrik knew from the North. But the creatures had thick horns on their heads, like miniature cattle.
Anders stepped up to Ulrik’s side, his bow raised at the flock. Twenty or more of the creatures sped down toward the oncoming ATVs. Ulrik raised his shield, waiting for the horned bats to come, while the others all picked themselves up and made for the cover of nearby trees.
Val and Nils sped past them, skidding to a stop in front of the first tree. Nils hopped off his steed and beat a retreat into the forest. Val came forward, her long ax held aloft.
“Wait,” Anders said.
Then Ulrik saw it. In a different part of the sky, something was blasting through the air, like a lightning bolt. Aimed directly for the flock of bats.
Skjold.
The bird of prey swooped in. Its talons split the wings of two bats, before it pounced on a third, twisting and beating its wings hard, carrying its victim straight upward.
The rest of the flock scattered in a chaotic, frantic jumble, some retreating the way they had come. Others raced off to the west.
The attack was broken, but the bird showed no sign of coming back down, or sharing its supper.
Ulrik understood the bird’s selfish hunger.
If they didn’t find food soon, things would become dire.
Viking Tomorrow Page 10
