Page 49 of Alien Viking's Plunder

The pup snuck closer again, turning its ears this way and that, giving off a little whimper.

Then Josie saw the injury. The right flank of the fenr had a deep, red gouge in it. It looked fresh.

“Oh my!” she exclaimed. “You’re really hurt!” She went down on one knee, making sure to have her spear ready in one hand if the pup were to suddenly attack.

It came closer, then withdrew, then came closer again until it was right in front of her. Josie was tense, but not afraid. She got one glove out of a pocket and pulled it onto one hand. If she had totally misjudged this and the fenr would bite her, at least the glove would give some protection. Then she reached over to the pup’s muzzle. “Hey.”

The pup sniffed her glove and looked up at her, ears still up, so she stroked her hand gently along the fenr’s head. It crossed her mind that this was something that probably no wild wolf on Earth would tolerate, and she also doubted a wounded wolf would be this eager to seek contact.

The pup whimpered and looked up at her with big, yellow eyes. It smelled of wild animal, but not very strongly.

Josie took a chance and leaned in to stroke the creature’s back, avoiding the injury. The fenr didn’t seem to object, so she carefully pulled it to her so she could look at the wound. It was deep, revealing bare muscle fibers. It seemed to follow along the side of the spine. The fenr was limping on one of its middle legs, so probably the muscles for that leg had been ruined.

Suddenly the pup jumped six feet back away from her, then withdrew backwards, head by the ground.

“Cute little thing,” a deep voice rumbled behind Josie. “Cute little things grow to be much bigger things that aren’t cute at all.”

She glanced behind her. “He’s injured, Bragr. There’s a deep wound in his back. He must have been in a fight yesterday.”

“It looks like the work of skrymtir,” the Viking said, hand resting on the grip of his sword. “Some blunt blade, anyway. He shouldn’t pick fights with them. By all means try to heal if you want, but I’ll feel better if Brisingr and I are nearby.”

That was not what she had expected. “You’re fine with this?”

He looked at her with his sky-blue eyes. “You plainly have talents when it comes to healing, and it would be a strange thing to bid a gifted woman to not use her gifts.” He grabbed one of the band-aids Josie had put on him and ripped it off. Beneath was a wound that was clearly halfway healed.

“That’s fast,” Josie said, surprised. “Are they all like that?”

Bragr ripped off more bandages and balled them up, revealing that all the injuries from the fight with the vettir were healing, as well as the cut in his thigh. “And that’s not all.” He bent over and pulled his boot off. His injured foot was still red with purple spots, but it was no longer swollen, and it looked better than the night before. “The old myths speak of healer warriors sometimes fighting along with their kings. I’d never seen one before I met you.”

Josie was astonished. None of those injuries should have healed this fast, unless the Vikings were completely different from Earthlings. “I’m not sure that’s because of me. But there’s not much I can do for that pup anyway. The medpack is empty.”

“Perhaps it’s not the covering of the wound that’s important,” Bragr pondered as he pulled his boot back on, “as much as the caring touch. Look, he’s coming closer again.”

It was true— the fenr pup was doing the same thing as before, coming closer, then pulling back, then coming closer.

“I’ll be right over here,” Bragr said and walked a few paces away. “Until I see that he’s not playing tricks.”

With the huge Viking chief at a safe distance, it didn’t take long before the pup was right back with Josie again, sniffing and whimpering.

She pulled off the glove and gently placed her fingertips on the fenr’s spine, its fur soft and smooth. The pup looked back at her, but didn’t move as she put the other hand behind one long ear and scratched the way she knew Earth dogs liked. This one didn’t seem to mind.

The fur around the wound was stiff and rusty red with congealed blood. Josie put her hand across the deep gouge and tried to focus her thoughts on it, wishing it healing and seeing in her mind’s eye as it closed and healed, the fur whole and back to normal again.

“That’s all I can do,” she said softly and took her hand off the animal. “But maybe he can do more.” She looked over at Bragr, who was standing a few paces away, absentmindedly tossing his sword spinning ten feet into the air and catching it again without even looking. “Do you have any meat to spare?”

Seeing how the fenr was clearly harmless, Bragr sauntered into the woods and came back dragging a big, disgusting mass of red, black, and purple. He dumped it in front of the fenr. “I hunted akeigr, but I usually prefer not to eat its guts. I buried it in the snow to rot, but he’s welcome to it.”

The pup attacked the heap of frozen guts with great energy, growling and gnawing and ripping pieces off it.

“He seems to like it,” Josie said, taking a couple of steps back to not be sprayed by old keigr blood. “Is it common in Hjalmarheim to give names to animals?”

“We name our ships and our swords and our children,” Bragr replied. “I’ve never heard anyone name a fenr they meet in the vilmark.”

“Then we will be the first,” Josie decided. “What should we call this one?”

“He behaves strangely for a fenr. Perhaps it were right if he had an alien name.”

“All right,” Josie said. “His fur is black, and remember how he was sneaking up on us that first time? How aboutNinja?”

---