Page 2 of Alien Viking's Plunder

Bragr stiffened and turned to throw a glance at Shaman Heidran. A Prophecy? He’d never had that before. It had been almost a century since the last time the oracle had offered one. A Prophecy was more than a prediction; it was something that was certain to happen in less than a year and would be of the greatest importance to the earldom and all of Gardr.

Shaman Heidran shrugged, just as clueless as his chief.

The oracle was still quiet.

Ah.She was waiting for a response. Not every earl wanted to hear a Prophecy when it was offered. It could be really bad news that he’d prefer not to know about in advance. For instance, only suspecting that you’d lose a war was better than knowing it for a fact. Hjalmarheim had been an earldom where earls didn’t last long.

Bragr searched his memory for the correct phrase. “I, Earl Bragr of Hjalmarheim, will hear the Prophecy as stated by the Seeress Hjordis.”

The seeress stared into the crystal, her face now lit in an eerie light blue. “This is the Prophecy: The clan of Einungar will lose the earldom of Hjalmarheim. But there will come a Meistr from outside, a mighty warrior who may help the Einungar clan keep their lands. The crystal is now dark.” She stepped back and stood still with her hands folded over the clasp of her wide belt, eyes once more blind and unmoving.

Bragr had to concentrate to not stagger backwards from the shock. Lose the earldom? How? When?

He was sorely tempted to ask for more details, but that would be undignified — the oracle had told him everything she could see and never answered questions.

“The seance is over, Chief,” Heidran whispered from behind him.

Bragr pulled himself together. “I thank the oracle for the predictions and the Prophecy.”

The seeress didn’t move, just stared right through him with her blind eyes.

Bragr turned his back to the crystal and the woman, walked out of the oracle cave and up the stairs ahead of Shaman Heidran. He was suddenly full of unease and worry. Lose the earldom?

It had been in the Einungar clan for centuries, and they had often had to fight to keep it. But never had they come close to losing it.

He walked out of the hut and stopped, drawing in the sharp mountain air. In front of him lay the earldom with its steep mountains and long, turquoise fjords that snaked their way between the green hills out to the ocean in the distance. It was a craggy and rocky island, where the living was tough and the land fought them every bit of the way. But that made his people equally tough and hardy. Apart from the crystal and the longships, there wasn’t much of value in the earldom, despite its considerable size. But it was home.

He turned and looked into the mountains. There lived the dfergir and the vettir, terrible creatures that were always harassing Hjalmarheim, forcing them to keep a strong force of defenders on guard at all times.

And beyond that… Bragr forced himself to peer into the distance, past the tallest peaks, always silvery white with snow. Beyond lived even worse things of unspeakable horror.

He forced a grin, as he always did when looking that way. That horror must always see him confident, never afraid. Not that he could be seen him from that distance, of course. But it was a good habit to have, keeping himself from worrying unduly about that enemy. Hjalmarheim had a formidable army. It was small, but fierce. And it would fight any invader.

“Whatever happens, there must be as little bloodshed as possible,” he said, thinking out loud. “My people have suffered enough.”

“I’m most surprised about this Prophecy, Chief,” Heidran puffed, winded after the walk up the stairs. “Not just that it was offered, which is extremely rare. But what it said. Clearly it can’t be Gornt who will reclaim the earldom. He is as much Einungar as you are.”

“Someone else, then,” Bragr seethed. “Someone will exploit the conflict between Gornt and me and swoop in to conquer Hjalmarheim.”

“That’s always possible, Chief.”

“Is there some trickery here? Perhaps the Prophecy is not to be taken literally. Perhaps it really means something else.”

“No, Chief,” the shaman said with certainty. “The Prophecies of the oracle are always literally true. There is no trickery involved. Your clanwilllose the earldom before the next time the oracle speaks.” His willingness to contradict his chief in private was one of the reasons Bragr liked the old man. But he wasn’t thrilled about what he was hearing.

“Has a Prophecy ever been wrong, Heidran?”

“Never, Chief. The crystal is always right.”

Bragr sighed. He knew roughly how it worked — the crystal was of an extremely rare type of stone that trapped light inside it. Some of the light came from the future, by some magical way that nobody had been able to explain to him. The light formed images that could be understood by a seeress. They were always old women with decades of experience in interpreting the strange, churning images the crystal would show those who knew how to see them.

All the oracles were blind — losing their sight was the seeress’s sacrifice for the gift of being allowed glimpses of the future. It seemed a terrible sacrifice to Bragr, but no oracle ever regretted her choice — seeing the world through the crystal was said to be much more fulfilling than seeing it with ordinary eyes. The crystal allowed a carefully-trained seeress to see the future of the world as it truly was, which was why it was maddening to someone not prepared for it.

“I’m ‘in very grave danger’,” Bragr pondered, absentmindedly adjusting his sword belt. “It has an ominous ring to it.”

“The oracle has said you were in danger before,” the shaman reminded him. “Such as last year, and the year before. It clearly doesn’t mean you will be dead in a year, Chief. It is simply part of the oracle’s duties to state whatever she can see about the earl’s life. An earl is always in danger, especially one who keeps having to defend his people and insists on leading his army from the front.”

Bragr smiled patiently at the old man’s need to over-explain. “The oracle has never before said I was in ‘very grave danger’, only ‘in danger’. That in combination with my clan losing the earldom is what makes it ominous.”

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