Page 30 of Alien Viking's Plunder

She kept looking down, wanting to step in his footsteps. But they were deeper now than before, not individual foot prints but two continuous furrows, as if he was shuffling along.

She squinted. Was he really this big and wide? Where had his horns gone? His tattoos? And when had his arms grown long enough for his knuckles to drag along the ground?

Ice settled in her stomach as she froze in place. Whatever it was she was following, it wasn’t Bragr.

The shape stopped, too, then turned around and gazed at her with one red-glowing eye, placed to the side of the head.

“Harlok ter kresn mansblo,”came a slow voice, sounding like stone crusher.

Josie raised her spear in an instinctive defensive movement. That wasn’t Bragr at all, or anyone like him. It looked most of all like a troll.

A dark shadow came out of the darkness right at the edge of her vision, leaving her no time to protect herself.

9

- Bragr -

He’d thought Josie was right behind him, but when he turned to check, there was nobody there.

Did she lose sight of him? Or was she making some kind of escape?

He retraced his tracks, having to bend closer to the ground to see them in the darkness.

There was the cave, and there were his tracks. There were Josie’s much smaller ones. They followed his for three paces, then veered to the side.

He sped up, seeing her tracks very closely.

And there… a set of much bigger tracks, going deep into the snow. Marks of feet with only two wide toes on each one.

A chill went through him. Josie was following a troll.

He wanted to yell a warning, tell her to turn back. But that would warn the troll, too.

He ran, limping on the foot which had now swelled badly inside his boot.

Before long Josie’s tracks vanished and only the troll’s were left. It must have lifted her in its arms and was now busy carrying her away. He hadn’t heard as much as a peep from her, so the troll must have used its ability to move its long arms with surprisingly great speed, grabbing her.

Bragr kept running, following the two deep furrows through the snow. They were going towards the ridge where the next valley would begin. It was more than likely that the troll was going back to its cave. And trolls never lived alone.

The tracks became less furrow-like and more like footprints, meaning that the troll was walking faster, lifting its feet. Carrying a small female like Josie wouldn’t slow it down much.

He spotted it, not far in the distance, a dark, lumbering shape moving across the snow. Over one round shoulder it carried something much smaller, like a pack.

Silently drawing Brisingr, Bragr hurried to catch up, stepping in the troll’s own footsteps to keep the noise down. The snow was already compressed in those tracks and didn’t creak.

He would have loved to cut the troll down from behind, but that would be dishonorable. Trolls were thinking things, and he had to challenge it before he attacked.

Quickly packing snow together to a ball, he threw it at the troll’s left shoulder, while he sprinted around its right side.

The troll grunted and stopped, turning left to see what had hit it. When it slowly turned back, Bragr was standing right in front of it.

“Drop the female, and you may live,” the Viking chief said, pointing Brisingr at the troll’s huge nose.

“Huh?” the troll grunted. They were never the smartest of creatures. This one had a single eye mounted askew on its face and long, straggly hair. Its bulbous nose was the size of Bragr’s fist, and a small, withered bush grew out of one ear.

“Drop her,” Bragr said, having never had conversations with a troll and already losing patience. “She is mine.”

“Found,” the troll managed after a pause, looking between the unconscious Josie and Bragr. “Found this.”

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