Page 18 of Alien Viking's Passion

“Skrymtir,” Eira said tightly as she dropped her end of the tree. “Get behind me, Aretha. And cover your ears.”

Aretha did both, crouching down behind Eira as the Viking woman quickly got her ax into her hands.

“Skryyyymtiiiir!” the shieldmaiden shrieked so Aretha was sure she would go deaf, despite clenching her hands to her ears. “Herjereeeee! Your swoooords are neeeedeeed!”

Even the skrymtir froze for a moment before they came lumbering on from all sides.

“Skrymtiiiir!” Eira yelled again, the piercingly high pitch clearly calculated to make the sound travel as far as possible, the wayyou would want in battle.

The skrymtir were surrounding them and advancing from every direction, past the trees, lumbering steadily through bushes and undergrowth as if it wasn’t even there.

“There’s a lot of them,” Aretha said, wishing she were as strong as Josie. And that she had an AR-15.

“Stay down,” Eira said, throwing her ax around in a wide arc. The heavy steel head whistled through the air. “Our friends will soon be here. We just have to keep them at bay.”

Aretha was both gratified that Eira said ‘we’ when she herself was clearly the only one who could fight these things, and scared because it was a long way from the jarlagard to here. Even if the other warriors had heard Eira’s first yell, it would take them a while to get this far into the woods. And the skrymtir were blocking their escape down the hill. Any helping friend would have to fight their way through the mass of zombies.

“Tell me what to do,” Aretha said as her skin crept at the sight of the skrymtir. “I’ve never fought anyone in my life.”

“Just let me keep you safe,” Eira told her flatly. “No friend of mine gets taken by skrymtir.” Her blue eyes narrowed.

A shiver went down Aretha’s back. It was not the first time she saw a Viking fight a battle, and the last one had been Craxon fighting the vettir. She recognized the determination and the fierceness in Eira’s eyes. But Craxon had been fighting vettir, who were smart enough to flee when they risked losing. Eira was going to fight skrymtir, mindless and uncaring about their own safety because they were already long dead.

The skrymtir started making eerie, thin noises as the closest ones began swinging their blades and tried to hit the two women with their clubs. Their movements were so slow it was almost funny, but when there were so many of them, all comedy was lost and it became chilling.

Eira’s ax clanged with a blade, sparks flying. She ducked out of the way of a huge club and fended off another blade with a fearsome screech of metal against metal.

All around there was loose skin hanging off bones, exposed muscles and bones, long, straggly hair, and dead eyes. It would have made Aretha laugh if she hadn’t been in the middle of it, fearing for her life. Because Eira was good, but the skrymtir were many. The smell of decay and rot made her retch.

The skrymtir had come in close and were swinging their weapons with wild abandon. Eira clearly concentrated on parrying the blades, because they were more dangerous.

The first club hit the shieldmaiden with a glancing blow, but it was enough to make her give off a strange sigh and drop to her knees.

“Eira!” Aretha exclaimed and grabbed hold of the Viking woman’s massive shoulders.

Her blue eyes were unfocused for a moment, and Eira swayed on her knees. “There are too many of them. Run if you can. I will—oof.”

Another blow from behind hit the Viking woman, and she sighed again. Staying down on her knees, she swayed as she swung her ax in a wide arc, cutting down four skrymtir at the knees. But the trees limited her range, and she paid for the move by being hit by two rusty blades. One of them was deflected by her shield-likebrooches, but the other stuck in her back beside one shoulder blade. Aretha yelped in empathy — that had to hurt.

Eira only gasped before she fixed her eyes on Aretha. “Run!”

Only then did the words hit home. The shieldmaiden had cut an opening for Aretha to escape through, but it was quickly closing as more skrymtir came staggering, making their unholy noise.

Aretha bolted, sidestepping quickly between two half-rotted zombies and jumping over the bulk of one that had broken both legs and crushed its skull falling down from the tree. Thinking fast, she squatted down to grab its discarded blade, finding she could just about lift it with one hand.

She took a swipe at a skrymt that was getting too close, hit its hand, and then ran on, cradling the heavy blade close to her and praying she wouldn’t stumble.

The direction wasn’t great. She was running away from the lowlands, back up the hill and out of the woods. The path was steep and filled with big boulders on both sides, and she could only continue on. Behind her she still heard the sounds of battle, Eira’s ax clanging against skrymtir weapons. It didn’t last long before it all went quiet. She didn’t want to think about what that might mean.

She ran on, past the steep part of the path, seeing a small grove of trees ahead. Perhaps there she could catch her bearings and find the way back to the villages to raise the alarm.

As she passed the first tree, she knew she was in trouble. Two big shapes stepped slowly into the path in front of her, much bigger and rounder than the skrymtir, looking like two piles of rocks. But they were clearly alive. Aretha spotted big, round eyes and a thick, primitive net that they held between them.

She didn’t stop to ask who they were, simply threw herself around to sprint back. But there was another pile of rocks blocking her way, moving towards her.

For a moment she was paralyzed with surprise and mounting fear. What thehellwere these things?

There was a softswishas the net was thrown over her and tightened. She dropped the big cutlass and screamed in horror, then fought it, grabbing onto the coarse rope and trying to pull it off her. But she only got more entangled, and before she knew it, she was dangling in the air, stuck in the ever-tightening net.

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