Page 53 of Alien Viking's Plunder

Josie let the spear rest across her thighs. “Tornado the spear. All right.”

“It will need a chant to go with it,” Bragr said, standing up and stretching to touch the ceiling with the palms of his hands. “When you go into battle, you will chant it so the enemy knows who he’s dealing with and can start to panic before you’ve even swung your weapon once. But there’s no rush. That spear is already famous among the dfergir, even if they don’t know the name.” He got busy preparing more food. They had a lot of meat from the keigr, and they couldn’t bring it all with them. It was better to eat as much of it as they could before they walked on.

They ate while he asked her questions about Earth and she asked him about Hjalmarheim. Neither of them were in any hurry to get up. Bragr enjoyed the sight of Josie happily eating a big keigr steak, her hair drawn back and shining in the occasional ray of colored sunlight. He made sure to sit in a way that made his excitement obvious. She should know the effect she had on him.

Finally he got up. “I’ll go out and get something.”

Josie just nodded, her eyes following him and snagging on his crotch.

He crawled through the tunnel and stood still, scanning the area for enemies. The sun was well over halfway on its journey across the sky, and the shadows were getting longer.

He made his way into the forest, finding that the six honey trees he’d spotted were already making sap. The sticky, golden liquid ran slowly into the wooden bowls he had found in the hut and placed under the special, V-shaped cuts that had been made in the bark of the trees. He had doubted it would work — it was springtime, but here in the mountains spring came late.

Carrying the stack of cups back to the hut, he enjoyed the afternoon and the giddy anticipation of what might happen later. He’d fire up the sauna again, and then—

He froze. There was movement among the trees. Something dark was sneaking closer.

Squatting down, he carefully deposited the cups and their precious cargo on the snow. He silently drew Brisingr and walked slowly out of the shadows.

16

- Josie -

Josie froze. There were some weird sounds coming from outside. She stood up and looked out of a few of the crystals in the wall she could reach, but saw no movement except for quickly moving shadows.

There was definitely a fight going on.

She grabbed Tornado and quickly crawled out.

Bragr was locked in some kind of deadly embrace with a black fenr. His sword was on the ground, and it looked like he was losing.

“Get the hell away from him!” Josie yelled and lifted the spear as she ran.

The fenr jumped off Bragr and stood on its six legs, both tails whipping back and forth.

Bragr bounced up, unharmed, and lunged at the fenr. “I’ll get you!”

It jumped aside to avoid his arms, then pounced on him. He embraced the wild predator and rolled in the snow with it, laughing.

Josie relaxed. That was Ninja and Bragr playing the way boys do, wrestling.

It was clearly Ninja — the injury along his spine was easy to recognize.

Ninja got out of Bragr’s grip, grabbed his wrist in his gape, and growled. Then he let go, bouncing on the snow. Bragr threw himself at the fenr, missed completely, and landed in the snow, face first.

Josie couldn’t help but laugh at the horseplay.

Bragr laughed deeply, grabbed Ninja, and tossed the fenr pup into the air, making sure he landed in a thick drift of snow. Then he sprinted over to Josie, grabbed her, and tossed her into the air.

She squealed and dropped her spear, rotated once in the air, and was caught in strong arms long before she reached the ground. It lasted for one second. Then Bragr tossed her into the same drift as Ninja.

When she tried to get up, the pup gently pounced on her, barely touched her with his paws, but still managed to push her over before he bounced back, whimpering as if she had been fighting.

“You rascal,” Josie exclaimed and tried to catch him. He easily dodged her and pounced on Bragr instead.

She gave in to the urge to play for a while. Her muscles were not as sore as in the morning, and the pup was adorable.

So was Bragr, she couldn’t help but notice. He pretended that the little fenr was a ferocious predator, letting the pup climb on top of him as if victorious. Then he grabbed the fenr and tossed him off, laughing as Ninja somersaulted through the air, all six legs stretched out, before easily landing on his feet in the deep snow and bouncing right back.

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