Page 55 of Alien Viking's Passion

“Valtyrr!” Craxon yelled. All the other crew members had their weapons out and were holding on to the ship with one hand while trying to reach the krakens with their blades. Signe was busy holding on to the steering board and directing the bow towards any wave coming.

A big gust of wind took hold of the ship and dragged it up on the crest of a huge wave. Beneath them, Craxon saw two krakens reaching up with long tentacles.

“Valtyrr!”

Finally his friend turned around. But there was something wrong with him. His skin was hanging off his face, and his clothes were torn. Flesh fell off his arms and legs, revealing white bone underneath. His torso was a mess of long seaweed, slimy growths and huge, brown barnacles. His eyes had a yellow glow in them. And his sword was a misshapen blade, all rust and seaweed.

“Prince Craxon,” the apparition said in an old, creaky voice. “Do you not know me?” The skin and flesh fell off his face and left only a white skull with glowing eyes, horned and strange, plainly not the skull of any man or woman. This was something else, altogether.

Craxon suddenly knew who it had to be. “Kofraks!”

“That was a guess, I think. But a good one! Indeed I am the Draugr King!” He straightened up, and at the same time a bolt of lightning crossed the sky in a blinding blue flash. It connected with the ship’s mast and splintered it, leaving the shredded sail to flap helplessly in the storm.

Craxon braced himself for the thunderclap that had to follow, but there was only silence.

He drew Krakhogg.

“Forged by fire, wielded by frost,

“When Kraghogg awakes, the enemy has lost!”

Many-colored sparks glittered along the blade.

“Where is Valtyrr?” he demanded, advancing on the draugr, having to always support himself on the bucking deck.

Kofraks had only a monstrous skull for a face, but somehow he gave the impression of smiling. “The big warrior whose shape I borrowed? He should know better than attack skrymtir in the night all by himself. Especially when one of the skrymtir is plainly a draugr. Or perhaps it wasn’t plain tohim.”

“He’s in Valhalla, then,” Craxon seethed, anger boiling in him. It was all he had left — even learning of Valtyrr’s death didn’t deepen his grief. “We shall drink to his memory when we’re back in Ragnhildros! But first, we shall destroy his banesman. Or rather, his banes-ghost!” He slashed at the monster with his blade, but it clanged against Kofraks’s sword. It was long and wet, rusty and blunt, overgrown with barnacles and slimy seaweed.

“I have often wondered if I am a ghost,” Kofraks said. “But I have realized that it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you are the Prince of Ragnhildros! And you… are inlove.”

The ship bucked and crashed into a deep trough between waves.

“What do you know about me?” Craxon asked, chopping at the draugr. “You have no idea what I’m feeling!”

“I havesomeidea,” Kofraks said with his ugly grin. Small barnacles were growing on his bare skull, as well. “I can feel when the ruler of the Ragnhildroses is happy. It is something in the air that I can sense. And I make sure to check. Usually your happiness is short-lived, and I retreat to my deep sea in disappointment. But this time, it didn’t stop. Your happiness tasted different. I saw skrymtir and krakens attack the Hjalmarheim coast, and I came with them. And I found you in love. In love, Craxon!” Kofraks laughed, and it was the most terrible sound Craxon had heard. It felt to his ears like what walking on needles must feel to bare feet. “Oh, foolish prince!How glad I am that nobody has told you about the curse I cast on you and your land!”

The others rallied around Craxon, weapons drawn, but Signe stayed aft at the steering board.

Again Craxon slashed his sword, wanting to score a hit, but the draugr’s blade moved fast and Krakhogg was unable to find an opening.

“Indeed I have heard of the curse,” Craxon replied, flustered that none of his strokes had found their mark. “And I thought, what kind of a pitiful joke is this? A draugr who is not strong enough to utter his curse in person, to the man he curses, cannot cast a curse worth a single one of your barnacles!”

Again Kofraks laughed. “You want me to curse you again?”

The storm suddenly stopped. The ghost ships churned around them, staying at a distance. The krakens reached their tentacles out of the sea, but didn’t try to reach for the ship.

Still the sky was black, and around them the waves were dancing as wildly as ever, towering over them. But it was as if theEira Einherjawas floating in the eye of the storm, where the sea was as calm as a mountain lake.

“I want you to die!” Craxon exclaimed and lunged.

19

- Aretha -

She couldn't see anything from out of the box, and she couldn't really move. She could only hear and try to figure out what was going on.

They had obviously just been in a terrible storm. People had seen krakens and ghost ships, and there had been one bright flash as from lightning. But there had been no deafening thunder.

---