Page 40 of Alien Viking's Plunder

There was so much passion and feeling in Bragr’s voice that Josie had to look up.

He was staring emptily into the fire, hands on hips, his thoughts far away. He was obviously very serious about it.

That didn’t surprise her. It fit with the rest of his personality, that need to protect and keep safe, even if it meant injury to himself. Being one of Bragr’s people meant having him shield you from trouble as well as he could. Josie had been on that side of him for a while now, and she didn’t like to think about losing that sense of being taken care of and protected. She’d never have thought something like that would be addictive. But then, she’d never needed a protector before, except very recently.

“You didn’t leaveUnityalone,” she pointed out mildly.

He poured myod into two cups and gave her one, filled to the brim, some of it still frozen. “Unityis the space station? Where wastheirearl when I came with my longships to raid them? Where was the warrior who would rather die than have someone conquer and oppress them? I didn’t see him. I only saw one warrior there, and I brought her with me. Perhaps I felt that she was too good for that place.”

Josie took a sip of the fluid, still being both hungry and thirsty after that intense battle with the dfergir. She noticed that Bragr didn’t say ‘your station’ or ‘your earl’. He was already thinking of Josie as one of his own. She should be annoyed at how it warmed her. But she also realized it was a mark of honor — they had fought together, and she had saved his good foot from the ax of that dferg. It was his way of showing that she had earned his respect.

“The station chief never expected longships to come,” she said. “Nobody knew that the station might be raided.”

“They had forgotten that we came before,” Bragr said, starting to prepare food. “In fairness, it was a long time ago.” He got up and crawled out without another word, holding a big iron pot. When he came back the pot was full of hard-packed snow.

“We need water for cooking,” he explained. “And for something else, I hope.” He opened the low door in one side of the hut. It led to another part that had been walled off. Inside there it was dark, and Josie wondered if it was some kind of bathroom.

Bragr ducked his head to go through the door. “Ah. Even better than I thought.” He got a piece of burning wood from the fire and took it into the other room, then lit something in there.

Josie craned her neck to look inside, but it was still dark. She just saw some glimpses of bare wood, like shelves. “What’s in there?”

Bragr came back out and closed the door. “You’ll see. Now, you finished all the sweets you brought. But these dried fruits should be sweet, too.” He offered her a big handful of dried berries that looked like blue raisins. “If you’re still hungry.”

Josie accepted them and tasted one, then popped half of them into her mouth and chewed. They weren’t as sweet as raisins, but the tanginess made them at least as good. “I still am. It was a long day.”

He looked at her, blue eyes glowing in the dim hut. “And a short battle. No blood drawn, even. The dfergir ran as if chased by a furious Freyja.”

Josie shrugged, enjoying the sweetness of the berries. “They were not used to fighting, I think. Not that kind of fight, anyway.”

Bragr laughed. “Nobody would expect a small female to move so fast and to whack them around the ears with a club! They were more shocked than hurt. They must have thought you were some kind of new enemy, a valkyrie or a vette. How is it that you fight so well? Or rather, move so fast?”

Joise wasn’t sure if she wanted to give away that secret of her neural lace just now, so she settled for a half-truth. “Your pulsar gives me strength.”

“Straum gives you strength? You? Analien?Did your old sun do the same?”

“Not like this. Our Sun isverydifferent from your Straum. I’m not sure if I even fathom how different.”

He gave her a long look, clearly not believing her. Damn, it was so hard to deceive honest people.

“Straum gives you strength, and still you need to eat and drink like a crazy woman right after. Straum gives me strength too, but not like that.”

She looked away. Would it be a bad thing if he knew? She was still not sure about his intentions with her. But she had a feeling he wouldn’t betray her.

Such a weird thing to think about my kidnapper.

The hut was quiet except for the crackling from the fire and the soft hissing sound from the boiling pot. It smelled good, like a spicy casserole.

Bragr drained his cup of myod and refilled it, as well as Josie’s. This time there was no ice in it. “When Gornt was the Earl of Hjalmarheim, he was not well liked by the people. He was callous, uncaring. He would go on raids to other planets and tell his men to murder as many aliens as possible. After the raids, everyone had to show him the heads of two dead aliens before they would be allowed to get aboard the ship to go back home. Those who could only show one or none were left behind on the alien world, having to face the anger of the raided people. Many families lost their sons and daughters that way.”

Josie changed her position to get more comfortable. She could tell that this would be a long story, and it felt right to her. This was how humans on Earth had lived for many generations, in small huts and caves, telling stories around the fire after the day’s work was done.

Bragr grabbed a fur and tossed it over to her. “Sit on this. The floor is too cold. Other families lost their fathers when Gornt came to their farmstead to claim taxes and they didn’t have the full amount that he thought he was owed. He would kill the oldest male and take the rest of the family captive, selling them as thralls to other realms on Gardr. He would set his eye on attractive women and force them to join him in his jarlagard. Most of them were never seen again. He would stage raids on his own lands, stealing from his own people and killing them if they resisted. He married three women and murdered them all, accusing two of them of faithlessness and having them executed. The third he poisoned.”

Bragr paused and drank from his cup. “He was the most terrible earl Hjalmarheim has ever had. Hjalmarheim was in a state of despair. For the first time, there was famine. The raiders came home with only dead aliens but nothing of real value. The vettir and trolls dared to come closer to the coast, dfergir raided homesteads and took everyone captive, and even darker forces were seen in the east, coming from the dark, hot mountains.”

“That must have been a difficult time,” Josie said, wishing she had something more profound to offer. All she could do was sympathize.

Bragr grabbed a rough clay plate and loaded it with steaming food from the pot. He took a wooden spoon from one of the chests and handed it all to Josie. “Be careful. It’s hot.”

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