As soon as he hit the ground, Agnes turned and jabbed her knife into the Vector woman’s back twice, sinking the blade to the hilt each time. With both lungs punctured—and probably her heart sliced as well—the Vector woman was out of the fight. Heinrich shoved the body hard, and by that point, as the weight of her rolled off of him, Agnes had already turned to finish off Ulrik’s new victims.
Val was about to face off against three foes at once because Heinrich had been forced from his post. He wanted to get back into the fight, but there was a problem. He looked down at where the Vector woman’s club had hit his hip. The long metal spike sticking out of it had plunged all the way into his inner thigh, just barely missing his goods.
Even though the long iron nail was still sunk deep into his leg, the wound was squirting an arc of blood a foot high, squeezing out of the space between his impaled flesh and the dark metal. If he pulled it out, the blood would probably shoot to the ceiling. He was done, and he knew it. But he could still help Val in one way.
Ahead of him, the three oncoming Vectors leapt for Val. He watched in awe as she jumped up and over their extended clubs, which were pointed forward like battering rams.
She landed deftly on the shoulder blades of the middle man, and shoved, thrusting him downward with the power of her legs and bringing her arms low enough to put her axes into the men on either side. The two men screamed as they were driven to the floor, just over the first hump of bodies Val and Heinrich had created. The man in the middle crashed into Heinrich’s legs, dislodging the club and its spike. Heinrich punched the man in the side of the head, his fist traveling through the spray of his own blood. Then he picked up one of his long knives and as the man tried to claw his way up Heinrich’s body, he thrust the blade into the Vector’s eye.
Heinrich grabbed the club that had ended his life, even though he still drew breath, and used it as a crutch to clamber to his feet. The puncture in his groin sent shivers of pain through his body, as his head and chest began to sweat.
Heinrich balanced on his good leg, and pulled his backpack off, reaching inside for what he needed. It took him only seconds. Behind him, Ulrik and Agnes had advanced into the men and women on the other side of the aisle, the big man clearing two and three bodies at a time with his mighty ax, and Agnes delivering the killing stroke to anyone still breathing.
“Go,” Heinrich said, thrusting his stolen club, the nail on the end piercing the skull of the Vector who had attacked Val from the side. She lunged threateningly at the Vectors, who leaned back as a group, fear now coloring their attacks. Heinrich looked up into the shelving and saw more of the Vectors rushing along the tops of the crates. Soon they would make suicidal leaps into the battle, as the woman had done. The Vikings would be overwhelmed if they stayed here and fought.
Heinrich stepped forward on his injured leg, a buzz of angry burning torment shooting up the limb to his brain. He shoved his hand in front of Val, still gripping the item he had pulled from his pack and pulled her back a step. “Go!” he shouted at her.
She looked down into his grip, then saw the waterfall of blood pouring down his leg and the squirts that shot out of him. She took one last swing with her ax, from one side of the aisle to the other, and Heinrich smiled as the four men clustered there swayed back in terror. Behind them were probably another thirty men and women, all waiting for their chances to get up to the front of the line.
Val turned, leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, and then she ran to join Agnes and Ulrik.
In a quick glance back, Heinrich saw that the mountain of a man had cleared another twenty feet toward the door. Heinrich turned back and found the four Vector men cautiously approaching him over the hazardous tumble of blood-slicked limbs.
Heinrich raised his club in one hand. The item in the other would have to wait for the precise moment.
Val rushed to Ulrik’s side, and he adjusted accordingly, reducing his ax sweeps to just the left half of the aisle. She took up the right, hacking forward with her long ax. She handed the hand-ax backward, and Agnes took it, still clutching the blood-drenched knife in her other hand.
“We need to be quick, Ulrik. Remember the tunnels.” Val shouted, then hacked her way forward as she ran.
He understood, welcomed the heightened senses and rushing blood that came with a berserker rage, and surged forward, swinging the ax faster, and then knocking the next man back with the tip of the ax head.
Then he roared a scream of anger, murder and raw malevolence, that stopped the onrushing men and women. Those in the back turned tail and fled, while the last five still in their path were trampled under Ulrik as he blasted forward like a snorting bull.
He took the lead, chasing after the fleeing Vectors while still hollering at the top of his lungs. Val was right behind him, swinging at the men he had simply pushed aside, and jabbing the handle of her long ax into the face of a woman, shattering her nose and the bones of her face with a sickening series of crunches.
Then suddenly there were no more bodies to strike, and Val ran after Ulrik, her arms suddenly heavy with the slippery ax. She cast a sideways glance and saw Agnes at her side. The girl had been cast into a baptism of fire, and her face and clothes were covered in blood. Further back was a pile of bodies—what Val assumed was a dog-pile on top of poor Heinrich. He had made the ultimate sacrifice for them.
“Are you hit?”
Agnes shook her head, and put on a burst of speed, running side by side with Val. The determination on the young girl’s face suggested she could fight longer if needed.
Then they were out into the rain, and the last few Vectors fled to the left, rounding some empty containers, Ulrik giving chase, lost in the rage.
“Ulrik,” Val called. “Come back!”
The man skidded to a halt and turned. The pouring rain was clearing the blood from his face, but his beard was still crusted with gore.
Val pointed as she ran.
On this end of the long warehouse, the river was close. Parked straight ahead of her was a long, gray metal boat. But in front of that, was a white twenty-five-foot sailboat, its sails furled and its body clean, as if the Vectors had been caring for the vessel. Without slowing, Val ran for it with Agnes at her side, huffing and puffing. The girl might have had more fight in her, but she couldn’t run forever. Ulrik reversed direction and angled to meet them at the boat.
Then he skidded to a stop, as a huge man walked from around a building, along the shore, blocking their path to the boat.
His chest glistened in the falling rain, the giant metal spikes welded onto an armored chestplate making the man seem larger than he was.
Borss.
From the huge man’s gauntlet-covered hand, a giant spiked metal ball on a chain dropped to the ground. It thunked into the mud, and then Borss tugged on a two-foot-long stick at the other end of the chain, and the spiked ball came soaring up.
Val blinked in awe as the man whirled the ball at the end of its chain so fast that it blurred around him, and the chain began to look like a solid shield.
“I will deal with this,” Ulrik said. Then he took a step forward and staggered, dropping to one knee and grunting in pain. His wounds had finally taken their toll. He tried to rise once more, but pain robbed his consciousness and plunged him face first into the mud.
Val would need to dispatch Borss on her own.
Not a problem, she thought. He is too large, and his armor too heavy, for him to move very fast.
But then Borss ran at her, moving like lightning, as the devastating spiked ball whirled for her head.
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The man’s speed was astonishing. Val dove to the side at the last second, but one of the metal spikes on the speeding ball snagged in her hair and tore a hunk of it from her scalp before she hit the wet ground. She slid several feet on the front of her leather jacket, before she rolled to a stop, swinging her ax upward.
Her timing was perfect, as the massive armored man reversed his swing, bringing th
e spinning death ball down toward her head. The metal ball cracked into the head of her ax, saving her face and life. The vibration sent a twang through both of her arms.
As Borss tugged on the chain, yanking his spiked flail back over his shoulder, Val rolled backward on the wet ground, distancing herself from the deadly weapon. She came out of the roll swinging her fully extended ax.
The lateral sweep would have sliced right through the giant man’s calf if he had not seen the attack coming. Instead he nimbly leaped straight up, and the swipe missed. But it bought her a little more space and time to plan her next attack.
The big man wound up for another flail strike, swinging the chain with brutal efficiency. She was stunned by his speed, but now that she had the measure of him, she needed only to come up with a way to get inside his defenses. The enormous spiked chest and back plates would keep most of the man’s vital organs safe from anything she could dish out with her ax.
Borss swung his flail, and Val was once again caught off guard by his strategy. He released the weapon, and the heavy metal ball sizzled toward her head, trailing its chain and handle. Val was just about to stand, and her only defense was to once more throw herself backward onto the ground. The aerial weapon missed her, sailing over her face and warming the air over her skin with its passing.
She was still falling as she heard the giant’s pounding footsteps, as he raced for her position. She got her ax handle across her chest just in time to deflect a powerful punch from his metal coated fist. But the incoming hammer of a limb was still deadly, and the re-adjusted punch blasted into her shoulder, sending her flying to the side.
Her shoulder exploded with pain as she slammed into the ground yet again. But to Val’s relief, instead of pressing his attack, Borss continued running right past her, to retrieve his thrown flail.
There’s his weakness, she thought. He relied on the weapon and its reach too much. He had shown that he could inflict damage with just his body, but his sheer size would limit his range in close quarters combat. Remember the Polar bear.
As Borss reached down to collect his weapon from the ground, Val used the short reprieve to scramble to her feet. The giant stood in place, whirling the flail. He was clearly used to using his size to intimidate others in a fight. But he was no larger than the oversized oaf she had dispatched back in Stavanger. This one will fall, too.
She just needed to goad him.
She stood straight and placed her ax handle between her legs, running one hand back and forth along the shaft of it, mocking his display with the flail.
It worked.
Borss rushed at her, the spinning flail off to his side.
Val held her ground, and her pose. She didn’t want to give anything away. Her shoulder ached, and she wasn’t sure whether she could withstand a direct hit from Borss’s fists. Keeping him reliant on the flail was the only way she would survive. But a single strike from the huge weapon would probably turn her into paste. Timing was everything. Just like the bear.
She waited almost a hair too long.
Borss was huffing as he raced toward her, his immense, tree-trunk-like biceps straining as he swung the vicious weapon with what had to be all of his strength.
Val dropped to a squat and lunged sideways, sweeping her ax for Borss’s ankle as she flew under his strike. The spiked ball came down and clipped the sole of her boot, but she scored a hit, the fine edge of her ax, chewing through the unprotected skin of the man’s leg.
Borss screamed and dropped to his knee, taking pressure off the wound, but Val had dropped her ax and rolled with her fall, coming up on Borss’s side, on her feet in a crouch.
Val scrambled up the side of Borss’s arm as he tried to stand and recoil from her at the same time. She went up and over his huge spiked gauntlet, and up the beefy biceps. Then she reached out and grabbed the side of the man’s unprotected face, the tip of her middle finger digging into and popping his eyeball with an audible smacking noise.
Borss shrieked. But Val wasn’t done. Using her hand like a hinge, she swung behind the man, stepping on the tops of the backplate’s spikes. Her other hand snaked out, and she grabbed around the other side of his head, her other middle finger finding the softness of his remaining eye.
Understanding through his pain what was about to happen, Borss tried to raise his right hand to his eye, but his big metal glove was still tightly wrapped around the haft of the flail’s handle. The tip of it cleared Val’s wrist and smashed into his own temple.
Val yanked with both hands, the tip of each middle finger digging into an eye socket, and she climbed higher until she could thrust the sole of one boot against the back of Borss’s neck. Pulling with her hands, and thrusting out with her foot, Val threw her weight backward.
A giant crack reverberated out of Borss’s neck, and the noise was so loud, Val almost mistook it for a shot from a gun like the Hanger man had used in the Italian mountains.
Borss’s head flopped sideways, and his huge frame began to sink toward the ground. Val jumped backward, but she didn’t stick the landing, her ankle turning under her.
She hit the ground once more, this time cracking her skull. She saw a burst of stars, but then immediately, two sets of hands were helping her up.
Agnes was on one side of her, and Ulrik, looking pale but awake, was tugging her upward.
“I have her,” he said.
Val could hear the exhaustion in the big man, and she knew it might not be long before he passed out again, but for now, he helped her manage her own weight.
She shook her head to clear it, and her vision returned to a sharper focus. “I am fine. Go. Heinrich can only buy us a small amount of time.”
Agnes, familiar with boats from her life in Venice, raced straight for the bow line, and quickly cut it with Val’s hand-ax. Then she shoved the bow of the boat away from the dock.
Val angled toward the stern, but Ulrik got there first, swinging his heavy ax, and slicing through the finger-thick white rope that held the boat to shore. Val leapt onto the boat and Agnes climbed aboard after her. Ulrik threw his ax into the stern of the craft and shoved the hind quarter of the boat before leaping after it.
The boat was large, and it inched away from the shore. Val had picked up the big man’s ax, and now she leaned it over the side, using the head to push the stern further away from the dock.
Agnes climbed a short ladder to a second story bridge, and grabbed the wheel of the vessel from inside its glassed-in booth. She cranked the wheel hard and the bow began to turn out into the current of the river.
Still the progress was too slow.
Val saw the first Vectors running out of the open door at the end of the warehouse, two hundred feet away. They had made it past, which meant that Heinrich was dead.
Then a shockwave slammed into them, knocking them all down, before rolling into Val. She threw herself down, as the warehouse erupted in a fireball, and the thunder god’s fury raged across the docks.
The entire warehouse was engulfed. A billowing tower of dark smoke and flame shot up into the raining sky, before the moisture pressed back on it, forcing it down.
Heinrich had only shown her the one block of plastic explosive clutched in his grip, but he must have had more in his bag, and the warehouse was probably stockpiled with explosive materials. The bang was too large. Much larger than the one she had witnessed in the mountains.
As the fire roared, Val looked for surviving Vectors, but all she saw was smoke, and then the current of the river pulled their stolen boat past a permanently moored slate gray ship, obscuring her view of the maelstrom. The ship was easily a hundred feet longer then their appropriated sailboat, but without sails or fuel, the behemoth was just another relic of the old world, and it would rot in place forever.
Ulrik unfurled the yacht’s canvas sails, and hoisted them up the mast. Agnes had already stopped looking at the tumultuous fire, and was focused on safely navigating them to the sea.
Val pulled the go
ggles from her face, dropping them to the fiberglass deck. She hung her head and breathed in deeply.
We are alive.
And she meant not only the three of them, but the whole of the human species.
Epilogue
Winter had come early to Stavanger, but the sea had still not frozen. It would happen soon though. The boat swayed and creaked under the weight of the frost and ice that had formed on its lines and mast. People had gathered around the shore and its long wooden plank piers to watch the mysterious sailboat come in.
The townspeople had fought off raiders from further north along the coast earlier in the year, but the pirates attacked with multiple wooden longboats. Nothing like this white shining vessel.
As the boat came closer to shore, people cringed back from the man standing on the bow. He was a brute, probably two hundred and twenty pounds of muscle, with a frost encrusted beard that fell halfway down his broad chest. He wore a thick bandage over one half of his head, concealing his eye, and his hands were covered in thick gloves.
He wore black leather over his broad chest and legs, causing him at once to resemble both a pirate and a nightmare version of Odin himself. But the man’s hands stayed at his hips, and he showed no sign of emotion on his face. He did not look angry, even though his appearance was enough to send some of the villagers running.
The sails lowered and the woman who had taken them down, also dressed in black leather, stepped up by the man’s side as the boat slid against the pier. Her long blonde hair had been braided, and her face was covered with red makeup like the wings of a bird. Red-lensed goggles covered her eyes.
She leapt off the boat onto the creaky pier, and marched toward the pebbled beach. The man followed her, and a moment later a younger woman—maybe sixteen, jumped onto the pier and walked after the big man. She was wrapped in layers of fabrics, and carried a sword strapped across her back.
Viking Tomorrow (The Berserker Saga Book 1) Page 30
