Page 16 of Alien Viking's Passion

“Oh? Must you?” Craxon didn’t like the sound of that.

“I have never seen Kofraks in a vision before, Your Highness. If it concerns the Curse on our homeland, then the Royal Council must know.”

Craxon wanted to groan, but he had a lot of experience in keeping a smooth, unmoved exterior. “Ah. I see. Yes, of course. Do what you must, Soothsayer. Rest now. I may need your services again soon.”

“Yes, my prince.” She bowed again and left the room.

Craxon stared into the dark fireplace.

Kofraks was laughing, then. That couldn’t be a good sign. Did he know about the innocent little tryst Craxon had with Aretha? Or was it perhaps not as innocent and fleeting as he was hoping?

She was only a woman, for Zhor’s sake! Alien and unmarked by the Ice Caves, she was unspeakably different from him. How had she managed to turn his head like this?

One thing was certain: he had to stay away from Aretha and ideally all the Earth females. The risk to his people was too great.

He ignored the longing to see her again immediately, tightened his sword belt, and walked out into the bright morning.

6

- Aretha -

“These should be the best ones,” Eira said and slapped the smooth bark of the tree with one hand. “Tall and straight, planted way back when we still built ships in the old way.”

Aretha shielded her eyes to look up at the top of the tree. It had to be a hundred feet tall. The trunk was completely smooth, with not a single twig or branch below the thick, dark green crown. “It must be much too tall, right?”

The huge shieldmaiden nodded. “It’s been left to grow for many years. I don’t think we ever made ships big enough to handle a mast like this. Now it has grown too big and mighty. It would be a glorious ship, though.”

Aretha turned around and looked down to the coast from the wooded hillside. The Viking woman and she had been walking all morning, to the old planted forests where the Hjalmarheim shipwrights had grown and then harvested wood for their ships. The ship that Earl Bragr was having built for Prince Craxon was only half finished, but they still hadn’t found a tree that wouldmake a good mast. Eira had volunteered to look for one, and Aretha had offered to come along, to everyone’s surprise. But Aretha needed another day away from the jarlagard.

“Why did your people stop building them?” she asked. “Seems to me they would have been useful, even if you also have the flying longships.”

“The longships and the ocean ships were used together for a long, long time,” Eira told her, getting a clay pot out of her pack and handing Aretha a drinking horn. “The longships for raids and for taking the earl anywhere he wanted to go in space, and the ocean ships for trade and other travel on Gardr. But then the krakens started to become a nuisance, and we lost a lot of sailing ships to them. They went out of use, and over time we just used the longships more. Now they’re all we use for anything except fishing and carrying cargo along the coast, where the ships are mostly safe.” She poured a red-tinged drink into both their drinking horns and lifted her own. “To victory!”

That, Aretha knew, meant that the drink was alcoholic. The Vikings never toasted in non-alcoholic drinks.

“To victory and to friendship,” Aretha said, lifting her own horn.

Eira drained her horn in one go. “Nothing better than new friends. I have an alien friend! I would never have guessed that was in my future.”

Aretha drank more slowly from the tasty concoction, which she immediately recognized as the fortified wine Craxon had given her after the vettir attack. Eira was at least twice her weight and could handle the strong booze better. “Nor would I, but for different reasons. Until the day I was abducted, nobody on Earth had seen an actual alien. We didn’t know if they existed.”

“Then it was about time,” the shieldmaiden said and wiped her mouth. She was a glorious sight in the sunlight, tall and strong, built like a fitness model. She knew it too — her clothing was perfectly decent, with a skirt and a blouse, but they were all tight in the right places and showed off her warrior’s body in the best possible way. An ax hung from her broad belt, and her two brooches were big, conical, and made of polished steel. They looked more like pieces of armor over her impressive chest than accessories to keep her clothing tidy. Her blonde hair hung down her back in a single thick braid, and her two small, curved horns had a golden sheen to them. “And it was about time you left that strange flying orb in space. Gardr is a planet much better suited for you, Aretha! This is a world for the brave and clever.”

“No doubt about it,” Aretha said. “And unfortunately I’m neither.” She had deliberately sought out Vikings to talk to, noticing that learning their language was much faster when she was actually using it every day. Her neural lace was a big help.

Eira laughed. “You’re brave enough to walk into the mountains and seek out swarms of vettir, and you’re clever enough to make sure you have me keep you safe today. I think you qualify.”

“I don’t,” Aretha confessed, finishing her drink and feeling the warmth of the alcohol. “I’m going home the first chance I get.”

“Fair enough,” Eira said and replaced the pot and drinking horns in her leather pack. “There’s no place like home, as we say. Mighty Zhor, six wild krakens couldn’t drag me away from my home to live somewhere else.”

Aretha gazed out towards the ocean and the horizon. “Are there krakens near Hjalmarheim?”

“Sometimes,” Eira said and leaned on the tree. “They were never a big problem until last Shine, when a draugr called Kofraks claimed to be the Draugr King and demanded that everyone pay tribute to him. It may be true that he is. Now there are many more krakens than ever before, and they don’t stay in the depths where they belong. We think Kofraks has disturbed them and maybe conquered them.”

“That’s very naughty of him,” Aretha said, feeling a little buzz coming on. “What exactly is a draugr, Eira? And what is a kraken?”

“You don’t have them on Earth? Lucky planet. A kraken is a giant, slimy creature with many tentacles and a murderous temperament. They can pull whole ships down into the ocean with their suction cup arms, murdering and eating the crew. A draugr is… well, nobody knowsexactlywhat. It’s a creature in the shape of a man, a dead warrior, rotting and terrible. But still alive, still dressed in the remains of his armor and his clothing, now all threads and rags, overgrown with seaweed and barnacles, dripping with stale water, his eyes glowing and his skull like that of… well, of a draugr. He’s like the skrymtir that Gornt used to fight us, except not mindless and much more dangerous. He feasts on people, taking whole crews and eating them. He has powers, Aretha! Powers over the sea and the waves and everything that lives in the depths. Some say he can come on land, taking the shape of a beggar or a sailor. Indeed it is my opinion that of the many deadly things on Gardr, Kofraks the Draugr King is the worst.” The shieldmaiden shuddered, despite the warmth and the bright light from the pulsar Straum in the sky.

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