Page 17 of Alien Viking's Passion

“Sounds bad,” Aretha offered, chilled by the obvious fear in Eira’s voice.

“Terrible,” the shieldmaiden said. “But I always thought, that draugr just needs a good woman in his life. There must be female draugr, right? Maybe he just hasn’t found the right one.”

“Uh-huh,” Aretha said, having her doubts. Shieldmaidens were known for being an extremely romantic bunch of women, most of them forbidden from entering a relationship while in war service. “Yeah, maybe that’s it.”

“Well, it’s just an idea I have. I don’t know more about draugr than what is commonly known. Perhaps you should ask Prince Craxon about it. His people have more experience with krakens, at any rate. Indeed the prince’s name means ‘kraken-bane’.”

The unexpected mention of his name sent a barb through Aretha’s heart and made her clench her eyes shut for a moment. Craxon, with the soft touch and the hard cock that made her come the moment he penetrated her. The prince with the right words, the lonely heart, and a tendency to get her out of trouble.

The prince who fled the moment he’d got his pleasure from her and hadn’t been seen in several days since.

“It’s not that important, Eira. I won’t bother him with it.”

“I’dbother him with it,” the shieldmaiden sighed in a dreamy tone. “Holy Freyja, I’d bother that prince any chance I got if I weren’t one of Earl Bragr’shuskvens. I must keep my dignity, you know? I’m almost glad it was you he saved from the vettir and not me. Because I would have assaulted him in the most indecent way if he’d savedmylife, my oath as a huskven be damned. Didn’t you want to?”

“It was nice of him,” Aretha said, not a fan of the topic. “He saved Chen and me and made sure we got the help we needed.”

“He’s a brave one,” Eira said. “He always leads from the front, and he has the scars to prove it. And he has the marks of our Ice Caves. Not many from outside Hjalmarheim are allowed to do those trials, Aretha. It’s too dangerous for them. But he handled it like… like Bragr himself did. And he came out withwhitemarkings! Nobody’s ever seen that before. There was much talk about why.”

Aretha sighed. “I’m sure he’s very nice. Now, look at that tree over there—”

“I wish Craxon wasn’t a foreign prince,” Eira went on. “If he was one of our own warriors, I’d be all over him. And so would every unmarried woman I know. But they say he’s picky. He’s not been seen with anyone since he came here.”

“He hasn’t?” Somehow that made Aretha feel a tiny bit better.

“Well, except you and Chen, I suppose. Apart from that, he’s kept to himself. Apparently he’s never been close with any woman. I mean,relationshipclose.”

“And men? That one looks good, doesn’t it?” She pointed to another tree.

They walked over to it, a much smaller tree that was straight and looked tall.

“Yes, this is a better size for the ship,” Eria agreed. “No, no men either. That doesn’t seem to be his thing. The rumor is that Craxon…” The shieldmaiden looked around quickly to make sure nobody was listening, then continued in a low hiss. “That Craxon has something wrong with him, that his… umm… hismanly speardoesn’t work right and so he can never satisfy anyone.”

Aretha had to suppress a sudden burst of laughter, turning it into a cough. “Sorry. Yes, I’m sure that’s it.”

“I don’t believe it, though,” Eira said and got her ax out of her belt, looking up to the top of the tree. “He’s way too confident to have any problem there. I bet he’s hiding something really fine in those pants. Probably it works perfectly well, but he knows his worth as a prince and will only choose a wife who will strengthen his realm. A princess from another land. You know how it works with royals. He’s so responsible! And now he must besoworried about not being home during the Big Shine. So we should really help the prince out and get this mast for his ship. Stand back, Aretha.” She swung the great ax and cut the tree down in six chops.

They tied ropes to the felled tree so they could carry it easier, Aretha at the lighter end as they started on the way back down the hill. Like almost everything the Vikings did, it was hard manual labor.

“Eira, you guys have gone on raids to dozens of alien civilizations for thousands of years. Those civilizations have many things that you don’t have. Likemachinesandspaceshipsandcell phonesandcarsandmissilesandjet fighters. And still, everything you do here, you do by hand. Look at this tree. On Earth, we have machines that could have cut it down and stripped it of branches in the same time it takes for you to take your ax out of your belt. Why don’t you use those things?”

Eira slowed down as they got to a small creek. She easily strode across with the tree still over her shoulder, then slowed down and let Aretha use the tree as support to keep her steady as she jumped. It was obvious that Aretha was not needed at all, but she liked how Eira made itseemas if she was.

“I don’t understand your alien words, but I think I understand the question. We all ask that question when we’re young,” the shieldmaiden said as they continued on their way. “Then we go through the trials, we get our Marks, and then we don’t ask about it again because we understand. This is the way we do things, Aretha. This is the way we want to be. Wewantto cut trees with our axes. Wewantto fish from wooden row boats. Wewantto fight with swords. Wewantto drink myod and to suffer the consequences the next morning. Wewantto smell the freshly-tilled earth, to cook our food over the fire and to be cold and curse the snow in the winter. We want it; we choose it. We’ve seen other worlds where they make things easy for themselves. We’ve seen many worlds like that. And we know that we don’t want that. We want to live like our foremothers and forefathers. It must be difficult to understand, Aretha. But we like it this way. No, that’s not it. Weloveit this way.”

“And if you change your minds about it, there’s no need to make anything or invent things,” Aretha said with a bit of acid in her voice. “You can just raid other planets and take what you want.”

Eira laughed, not taking it as criticism at all. “Yes! Exactly. We often take things we need. Maybe that’s one reason why we can live like this and enjoy it. We know we have an easy way out if we need it. Well,had,I should say. Now the longships are dead, and we’re forced to live like this, perhaps we will change. Watch out for that branch.”

Aretha wrinkled her nose as an unpleasant smell wafted over her. “Did we just pass a bog or a trash heap?”

“Here?” Eira said, half turning. “We’re still in the woods— oh sweet Zhor!” She stared behind them, then all around.

Aretha heard many thuds, as from large apples falling to the ground. She stiffened and followed the shieldmaiden’s gaze. Then she dropped her end of the log, ice going down her spine. “Shit!”

Big things were dropping from the trees around them. For a split second she thought they were rocks or gigantic fruits, but then she saw what they really were and her heart dropped in her chest.

It was as if the whole forest was moving towards them from every direction. They were about Viking size, but they wore only rags and threads, their limbs were half rotted away, with bones showing, and they moved awkwardly and stiffly. Their faces were splotched with black and gray, most didn’t have noses, and their eyes were dead and empty. Most of them held weapons. Some wielded rusty blades, some carried clubs, and some held bones or branches. Several of them hadn’t been able to handle the fall from the trees, and were now crawling flat on the ground, their legs shattered under them.

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