Page 34 of Alien Viking's Plunder

“Perhaps,” Bragr said, looking up the slope. “It would help us waste less time on these things. Being at the very top would be better, but it’s too far to go now. There, that looks like a steep part.”

They made their way to the spot he had pointed to. It looked no steeper to Josie than most of the other places, but she was happy to help him maintain that illusion for them both.

She tried to pack some snow into a snowball, thinking it might be possible to start a small one rolling down and then grow much bigger by the time it hit the creepy skrymtir down there. But the snow was far too dry.

Bragr gave her a little smile. “This will be too easy to be a worthy test of your warrior skills, Josie. But it’s better than nothing. Try to see it not as wasted time, but as a simple drill for fighting against more serious enemies. I can picture how you beat up two of my biggest huskarls, Eystein and Haraldr. They still can’t believe it!” His deep laugh rolled over the valley. “Which reminds me. When we get back, you must give them both a horn of myod and loudly thank them for the sport and for letting you win. It will help them recover some of their honor. Everyone will know that you won fairly, of course.”

“They were on the ship when it broke up,” Josie said, swinging her stick through the air and thrusting it like a spear. “Do you think they survived?”

“I would be very angry with them if they didn’t,” Bragr said. “And they know better than to face my wrath.”

The skrymtir made their way up the slope. Even from this distance, their movements were stiff and unnatural. Some of them were almost as big as Bragr, but most were smaller. They wore rags that hung off their rotting bodies. Here and there bare bones were visible. They all carried some kind of weapon, long rough knives or cutlasses or simple metal rods.

Josie was horrified. “They’ve been robbed from their graves!”

“It’s a frightfully evil thing to take the dead and turn them into wretches like that,” Bragr seethed. “Gornt must be stopped!”

Josie was creeped out by the sight of the zombies, but she started to feel the same anger as Bragr. “I think you’re right.”

The first of the skrymtir were now almost close enough to reach. They moved silently, lifeless eyes staring ahead and not moving.

Bragr took Josie’s hand and looked into her eyes. “Remember that fighting a skrymtir and destroying it is a good deed, restoring dignity to the man or woman whose body it was.”

Then he turned around.

“Sharpest steel

Cleave the foe

All will know

Brisingr is out!”

Swinging his sword, he cut into the first two skrymtir and sent them tumbling down the hill.

Josie stood ready behind him while he quickly dispatched the first dozen attackers. Then the main wave of zombies reached them, some from below and some coming in from the side.

Josie took aim at the nearest, swung her staff, and connected at the side of the zombie’s head with a sound like a wooden bat hitting a bag of potato chips. Its knees gave way under it and it sagged to the ground, sliding a few yards down on the snow.

“Good hit!” Bragr yelled. “Soon you must name your spear!”

The next one swung a metal rod at her, but it was badly aimed and she ducked out of the way before she carefully thrust the point of her spear through the zombie’s chest and pulled it back out. The zombie collapsed, thankfully without spraying blood. Or bleeding much at all, Josie noticed. That was fine with her.

Glancing at Bragr, she saw he had cut down two dozen zombies and sent them rolling and sliding down the steep hill. It was a machine-like fight, mechanical and routine, and he clearly took no joy in it.

But it was challenging. Josie had to stay on her guard and think several steps ahead, even with the neural lace helping to make her moves quicker and harder than otherwise.

The key was to keep the zombies far enough away that they couldn’t reach her with their weapons, and for that purpose her long staff was just about perfect. She could swing it like a long baton or she could stab with it when presented with a bare, undefended chest. She still had the kitchen knife in her belt, but she was hoping to never have to use it for combat.

Some of the skrymtir were female, she noted with a shudder. Shit, if she were to see Aretha’s face on one of these things, she’d faint on the spot.

She whacked a big, lumbering zombie at the knees, then stabbed the spear into its throat and pushed so it toppled down the hill.

Bragr looked behind him and smiled. “I’m starting to think you like this.”

“I hate it,” Josie said sincerely. “But at least they’re not as good as the other ones.”

“Gornt himself was there when he boarded our ship,” Bragr said, thrusting through a skrymt and kicking it off his blade. “He keeps the best skrymtir close to him. And I imagine his witchcraft is weaker if he’s far away.”

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