Page 72 of Alien Viking's Plunder

“I’m alive, but I don’t know for how much longer. We heard Bragr is somewhere close, so I was hoping you’d made it, too. I saw your ship turn into firewood out in space, so I was sure you burned up or suffocated. Anyway, I’m being held prisoner by the creepiest fucking space Viking you ever saw.”

“Gornt, right? Yeah, he’s the one who attacked us in hyperspace or whatever it was. Where are you, exactly?”

“I’m in his longship. Going into the mountains, I think. What’s your situation, Josie?”

“I’m not a prisoner, exactly. I thought I’d figure out a way to get you out of there, then we’ll hijack a longship and get back to Earth.”

“Yesss! This is going to freak you out, but getting out of here fits perfectly with my plans, too! Can you do a triangulation with the comms to find out where I am? I have no idea where this is. I see mountains and rocks and snow. That’s about it. But if we can talk like this, you can’t be far away.”

“Wait.” Josie brought up the display-in-image and found the right function. “Got one reading. Hold on.” She jumped into the shortship and had it fly five hundred yards before she checked the display again. “Still there? Got the second reading. Now I know your direction and distance.”

“All right! You should know that there’s a bunch of monsters on this ship. They’re really creepy and weird. I think they’re zombies. So unless you have an army of your own, it might be better to stay away.”

“We’re in this together, Aretha. I’m coming for you. Stay in touch.”

Josie adjusted the shortship’s direction to a course that would intersect Aretha’s. They were still far apart, and radio comms shouldn’t have been possible. But maybe the energy from the pulsar made all electronics work better, not just her neural lace.

Hearing Aretha’s voice again energized her almost as much as the pulsar had. They were in this together, and they were getting closer to each other. There was still a chance.

21

- Bragr -

“Watch out!”

Prince Craxon ducked, and Bragr slashed Brisingr at the alien skrymt behind him. It was a good hit, but the blade got stuck in the gelatinous mass of its body and he had to pull hard to get it back out.

“That was close,” the prince said as he casually skewered the undead monster with his own blade, causing it to collapse on the ground. “These things are harder to destroy than they should be.”

“Gornt has grown strong in his witchcraft,” Bragr growled as he dispatched another skrymt. “These skrymtir are dead, but they move as if alive.”

The undead monsters were squat and thick, with fingers like scythes and heads that were almost all mouth and black teeth. They had scales and were a sickly yellow all over, splotched with brown and gray. Three eyes were mounted in a triangle at their fronts, surrounded by pads that leaked sticky yellow fluid when pierced with a sword.

Not only were they murderous, they were also hard to defeat. It had taken Bragr’s forces all morning to figure out that they had to ram the blade in the middle of the eye triangle to destroy the undead aliens.

Prince Craxon spun around and stabbed his sword into yet another adversary, holding it with both hands and hacking downwards, like with a dagger.

Bragr wiped alien fluids off his face. He had already lost several good warriors in the battle right in front of his jarlagard, the chief’s hall. Hundreds of aliens had surrounded the place and made it impossible to attack in any other way than head-on.

“At least they’re not terrorizing our villages,” Heidran said, using his sword with great agility for someone so old. “They’re all here, and we will cut them all down.”

“But at what cost,” Bragr seethed as he had to stumble backwards when two aliens attacked him at once. “I’m losing warriors fast here.”

There was no reply because there was nothing to say. This was the only way to get rid of Gornt, and they all knew it. They were fighting for their own land and for their lives. They would never give up, even if the aliens kept pushing them back. The Hjalmarheim warriors were getting better, but the aliens were, too. They had realized that mass attacking one warrior at a time was the way to overwhelm a sword fighter.

And yet his warriors fought well, their blades sparkling in the bright light from Straum.

Bragr knew he should feel proud, be gratified to see them at their best. But the sun had gone down in his mind and he felt only emptiness and coldness. Josie had filled his life and been a sun every bit as warm and bright as Straum. Now that she was gone, he was starting to understand how Siv had felt when Sigurdr had died. There wasn’t much left to fight for.

“We can still win this, Chief,” Eira said, a shieldmaiden with a round shield and a weapon that was a mix of sword and ax. “Don’t lose hope. We need your leadership.”

Holy Zhor, was his despair that easily seen? Could they all see it?

He had to pull himself together.

“Brisingr!” he roared, attacking with new force, piercing an enemy to the hilt of his sword. He climbed up on the lifeless undead alien and thrust his sword to the sky. “Come, my herjere! We shall throw them off our lands!”

Energized by their earl’s zeal, his warriors answered with an ear-splitting roar and fought harder.

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