Page 47 of Alien Viking's Plunder

“Tatus?You have these on Earth, too?”

“I thought so, but now I think it’s something else.” She hid a wide yawn behind one hand. “Sorry, I’m not bored. Really not. But thatbastuof yours…”

Bragr grinned, white teeth shining in the dark room. “Sleepiness is a known effect of the bastu. I’m sure you’ve done all the healing you can now.” He withdrew the foot and stood up. “Feels better already. Thanks.”

Josie yawned again. “I don’t think it worked. How did you get the marks, did you say?” She lay down and curled up on a fur, still naked. The fur was soft and delicate against her, warming that side of her, while the other side was slightly cooled. She was feeling really mellow and drowsy.

“It’s when the trials are nearly over,” Bragr rumbled, his deep voice having an even more calming effect. “The young man or woman must walk into the Ice Caves. Nobody can come back out without Straum having put its mark on them…”

- - -

When she woke up, the hut was much brighter and the fire was crackling. There was a delicious smell in the room and the sizzle of meat being fried. Rays of sunlight crisscrossed the room from above, passing in through the many transparent crystals set in the round walls. In the smoky atmosphere of the hut the rays looked like finger-thick laser beams in blue, green, red, and yellow, depending on the color of the particular crystal.

There was a fur covering her. She didn’t remember having pulled it over her, so it had to be someone else. She didn’t spend much time wondering who.

Bragr sat at the fire, his pants back on. He was busy frying meat and didn’t seem to notice Josie being awake.

The sight of him made tingles shoot down her front. Damn, he had been good. That tongue of hishadto have some kind of alien texture. And the climax had thrown her for a delightful loop in all its unexpected intensity.

She stayed under the fur, wanting to get as much rest as possible before they would keep walking. She knew she needed it after the fight with the dfergir. That had been a weird experience.

It had all seemed to happen so slowly, as if the dfergir and the whole world had moved in slow motion and given her all the time she needed to hit them with the stick and easily avoid their weapons. But the hunger afterwards had been downright scary. Her body had been desperate for nourishment. Her muscles had been used to the limit of their capabilities, a limit that lay much higher than most people realized. They had been dangerously drained.

That was one of the effects of the neural lace. It was a wispy spider’s web around her brain, mostly ceramics and exotic metals. If balled up it would only be the size of a small pinhead or a grain of sand. It had no processing power; it just made connections in the brain that would normally not be made. It helped her body work better, from the brain to the muscles. She had been warned against using the lace too much — it optimized the muscles and made them stronger and faster, giving them much more stamina. And it prevented the loss of muscle that could be an effect of long stays in space. But it was easy to over-use the muscles. That had happened to josie few times before, and it was always a temptation.

But not like yesterday. That was a level the lace had never worked at before. Josie had enjoyed it, the exhilaration mixed with worry that the lace might run away from her. She’d felt powerful and strong. Now she felt the muscles ache all over, and she was as stiff as a board.

“There’s water by your head,” Bragr rumbled, not raising his gaze. “And there’s more where that came from. Not just melted snow, either. I found a well.”

Josie slowly got up on her elbows, keeping the fur around her chest. Her muscles protested against the tiniest movement, and she winced. She grabbed the big cup of clear water on the floor and drained it, then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “That’s the cleanest water I’ve ever tasted. Did you go out?”

“It’s best to hunt before sunrise,” he said, turning over slabs of meat on a flat piece of iron over the fire. “The prey is less alert at that time.”

“Are we walking more today?”

A beam of light stroked Bragr’s face, and his blonde beard seemed to shimmer with golden threads. “We will stay here for a day. We need the rest, and this hut is safe. The builders used many runes all over it to ward off trolls and such. Even the well is surrounded by stones with wholesome runes carved into them. There’s an altar to Zhor nearby, too. We could probably stay here for many days. But we don’t have time for that. I must get to my people.”

And I have to find Aretha, Josie thought. “One day of rest should be good.”

Bragr got busy with the cooking and soon handed her a plate with a sizzling piece of meat on it. “It’s a simple meal, I fear. There’s not much else to find yet. The trees have no buds on them, and the ground is covered with deep snow. No herbs will grow here until it melts, and it could be weeks.”

Josie bit into the meat, careful about not asking what kind of alien animal it came from, in case it was some kind of reptile or giant insect. She was hungry and needed the energy. It was quite tender and tasted of smoke and pine needles. “I didn’t even know you went out.”

“You were tired after a day full of… experiences,” Bragr deadpanned. “You even slept through most of the story of how I passed the trials and got my Marks. Such a pity you missed it! It’s a very heroic story.”

“I’m sure it is.” She chewed. “But I’m awake now. Try telling me again?”

“It’s not a story for daytime,” the Viking said and bit into a piece of meat, considerably less cooked than Josie’s. Red juice dripped from his chin and hissed on the cooking plate. “Such stories need a campfire after a long day, so that the audience is less prone to asking questions about the most heroic parts.”

“Questions are for daytime, then,” Josie decided. “And I have one for you. My friend Aretha was plundered by your people, too. She was on one of the other ships.”

“Strange question,” Bragr rumbled. “I didn’t catch it at all.”

“I didn’t get to the question yet,” Josie said. “But here it is: when you and I get to wherever it is we’re going, will I meet Aretha there? Or is she on the other side of this planet?”

“She will be in Hjalmarheim. I think that was Bjornar’s ship. He lives close to my jarlagard.”

“And the other girls?”

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