Page 24 of Alien Viking's Plunder

She touched his arm. “If you speech more, I speech better sooner.”

“That screech will call the rest of the swarm,” he said, surprised at the touch of her gloved hand.

“And then they attack?”

“They attack, but I defend.” He slapped the side of Brisingr as he walked on. “We should get as far as we can before the attack begins.”

“Bragr.”

He looked behind him, strangely excited about hearing his name spoken by her bright voice in that alien way. “Don’t worry, we’ll fight them off.”

“You have…” she pointed at his sword. “I need fight them off, too.”

“You want a weapon? You won’t need one when Brisingr is around.”

“I want a weapon,” she echoed. “Not need a brisingr.”

“You like fighting with sticks,” he said. “I can make you a stick.” He drew Brisingr, marched over to a suitable sapling, chopped its branches and top off, and then cut it off at the root. “Here is a weapon for you.” He handed it over. It was as long as Josie was tall and dripping with sticky sap. But it was thick and heavy, a good club.

She smiled as she took it into her gloved hands. “What I say when you give?”

“‘Thank you’,” he told her.

“Thank you for my stick,” she chirped, swinging it through the air at an imagined enemy.

He let a smile play at the corner of his mouth. There was something about this small female that made it difficult to think of her as a captive.

A shadow crossed the sun. There were no more screeches — the vettir had heard the first one and were circling in the sky, waiting until they felt they were enough to start attacking.

They had reached the edge of the tree line, and further ahead there was only snow with no cover.

“We’ll stay here,” Bragr decided. “The trees will get in their way. Stand under this one and try to be out of sight. Better to surprise them than show yourself.”

Josie walked as close to the tree as she could without her feet breaking down through the snow. She would get some cover, at least.

Bragr smiled at the way she gripped her stick and scowled up at the vettir. She wasn’t that scared of them.

The first of them suddenly swooped down, then broke off just above the treetops. In its screech he thought he recognized the word ‘Bragr’. Yes, they would know the earl of this land when they saw him.

“Bragr, Bragr, Bragr,”the others started cawing.

The vettir weren’t as mindless as some other creatures, but they also weren’t deep thinkers.

Two of them came diving, aiming between the trees and screeching to intimidate their target. Bragr kept Brisingr in its scabbard until they were almost within striking range. Then he pulled the sword in one fast movement and slashed it at the nearest one. It neatly cut the vette in half. The other beat its wings frantically to stop before it came within his reach. It was too late — Brisingr chopped the vette’s head off, and it fell to the snow like a wet rag. Thin, blue blood stained the snow.

The vettir circling overhead first went quiet, then started screeching wildly as they all rose much higher: “Brisingr! Brisingr! Bragr! Bragr!”

Bragr looked back the way they’d come. The dfergir were not yet in sight, but he didn’t want to have to fight two enemies, one coming from the air and the other very close to the ground.

“Let’s go,” he said and walked out from the trees, keeping the blue-stained Brisingr visible to the vettir.

Josie had the sense to stay close as they went up the incline. Bragr had spotted a field of large rocks halfway up the mountains, where it would be easier to find cover and perhaps even hide from the dfergir. Straum was getting close to the far mountains, and neither dfergir or vettir liked to be active in the dark. But there would be other dangers.

The vettir kept circling, high above. Two of them broke off and started circling over the woods, marking the place where the party of dfergir would be trudging through the snow on their short legs. They had not gained much, Bragr was satisfied to note.

The hill got steeper and more slippery, with more ice and less snow.

“Take my hand,” he said, offering it.

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