Page 38 of Alien Viking's Plunder

Bragr couldn’t hit an enemy who was down, so he jumped over the first one and swung his sword at the next. The dferg had plainly never used his mining tool for fighting before, and he held it with helpless clumsiness. Bragr adjusted his first swing to cut the wooden handle off in the middle. It splintered, and the heavy mattock fell from the dferg’s hands and sunk deep into the snow.

Bragr ran past the dferg and attacked the next in line. That one was holding a heavy sledgehammer with a metal handle, and he was already mid-swing when Bragr jumped in close and punched the dferg in the nose with his left hand. The dferg lost his grip on the hammer, and it flew into the distance, slowly rotating in the air until it hit a tree.

The first dferg had collected himself and finally answered Bragr’s challenge with a guttural war cry of his own. He lifted his ax high over his head, as if preparing to chop wood, then ran at Bragr with a loud yell.

Bragr would have sidestepped, but in the deep snow he couldn’t move as fast as he wanted, and the dferg’s crazy assault surprised him. Not wanting to cut the dferg down, he took a step back but misjudged the distance to a tree. He hit it with the back of his calf, tripped, and fell awkwardly back. The dferg ran in close and aimed his ax at Bragr’s foot, deep-set eyes wide over the bearded face.

Bragr pulled the leg to him and tried to get up, but the ground was slippery near the tree, and he couldn’t let go of Brisingr. He succeeded in pushing himself further back, but the dferg only came closer and brought the ax down.

There was a woodenbang, and the ax missed his foot by a finger’s breadth. The dferg’s eyes rolled up, and he toppled forwards on the snow.

Behind him was Josie, spinning around to slam her weapon into the face of another ax-armed dferg behind her.

Bragr slowly got to his feet, not sure if he could believe his eyes. The small female whirled around on the snow, the thick end of her spear a blur as she fought the dfergir with vicious ferocity. The three remaining dfergir tried to form a battle circle, standing back to back, but Josie moved the spear faster than the eye could follow, and they couldn’t aim their weapons before she whacked them around their heads and chests, breaking their attempts to swing their weapons. One fell down and two ran, panicked by the whirlwind of pain suddenly among them. It was as if Freyja herself had appeared in their midst, Bragr thought, a goddess of battle chasing the dfergir home to their mines. It was an incredible sight, and he didn’t even consider helping out — Josie was in total control.

The last dferg hobbled away and Josie bent double, breathing hard.

Bragr ran over and supported her. “Did they get you?” But there was no sign of blood anywhere on her.

“I’m… fine,” the alien female managed. “Just… need rest.” Her breath came with a hollow rasp, and she was paler than Bragr liked to see.

He grabbed her and sat straight down on the snow with her on his lap. It took longer than Bragr had expected for her breathing to slow down to a normal rate, her throat still squeaking with each gasping breath. She started reaching down to scoop snow into her mouth, first with one hand and then with both, as if in desperation.

Bragr helped, offering her big handfuls of hard-packed snow. She ate it all with a hunger he’d never seen before, not even at after-raid feasts in the gildeskal, the feast hall at his estate. He opened the pouch in her belt and took out the alien pieces of sweets he had stolen from her station. She pulled off a glove, and with slender, trembling fingers she tore off the wrappers before she pushed whole bars into her mouth, looking up at him with fear and urgency in her eyes as she chewed, brown-stained spittle running down her chin.

“Eat it all. You’ll be fine.” He quickly unwrapped the rest of them, then cursed himself for not having more to offer her. The fight had plainly drained her completely and she needed food and water.

Bragr spotted dark items in the snow, things that the dfergir had dropped in their haste to get away. Gently putting Josie down on the snow, he sprinted over, hoping they had dropped something useful. One of the items was a rough bag made from bark, and he ran back with it. Tearing open the neat knot that held it closed, he found a pack of still green leaves and opened it. It was clearly food, although he couldn’t identify it. It looked like a dried stew, the kind of food that would keep for a long time and be ideal for travel.

He squatted and held it up to Josie’s face. “It’s food for dfergir, but they grow strong, so it can’t be all bad.”

Josie grabbed a piece, briefly sniffed it, and then bit into it, chewing with less urgency now. “Good,” she managed between mouthfuls. “Get some for you, too.”

“When you’re done,” Bragr said. “You just defeated a full band of dfergir all by yourself. Some rest is necessary.” As a last resort to feed her he briefly considered opening one of his veins and letting her suck blood from him, but her insane hunger seemed to have abated.

She nibbled on a snowball. “That was crazy. Sorry, I used too much energy in the fight.”

He sat down and unceremoniously lifted her onto his lap again. “No need to apologize. That was a legendary victory. I’m tempted to compose adrapatelling of this battle.” He thought for a moment.

“Bright was the day and cold was the snow,” he droned softly, the way Heidran would when composing heroic verses about some battle they’d won.

“Dfergir they followed the earl and his spear.

Josie was she, a maid from the stars.

Well, it’s a beginning.”

She laid her head on his chest. “Is that poem about me? I hope it will give me someagency. And tell them I look really good in thisuniform. Maybe fit in ‘curvy’a few times?”

Bragr gathered her closer to him and stood up with her in his arms. “First I must learn what those words mean. I’ll ask you to teach me when we’re sitting in front of a nice fire.”

“Fine.” She closed her eyes, curling up against him, letting him carry her.

He picked up her spear and quickly examined it. It had a good few marks of impacts with dfergir helmets and vettir claws, but it was perfectly intact. He wondered if anyone would ever believe that this small female had defeated eight dfergir with a wooden stick. Holy Zhor, the way she had moved!

Well, they weren’t trying again. Nothing moved among the trees. And if they did, he would be much less gentle with them. He had announced his presence with his war cry before he attacked, and there was no need to do that again. The dfergir knew that this was his land.

Only the position of the sun told him which direction he was going. One tree looked much like the next, and with the snow covering everything it was hard to make out any landmarks.

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