Page 86 of Shared By the Vikings

Tali wore a sleeveless leather tunic tied at the waist with a rope. He’d smeared black from the fire onto his face, blacking out the skin around his eyes as though wearing a black mask. His pale eyes were all the more surreal peering from the darkness.

They reached the archway that led to the monastery. The wooden doors were wide open, several chickens pecking at the entrance.

Suddenly the bells stopped.

Erik paused and looked at Gunnvar. “It is a little late to stop shouting their whereabouts. The storm has arrived.”

“And we are the storm.” Gunnvar tipped his head back and laughed.

Erik swung his attention to Ingrid. “Remain around the entrance.”

Ingrid wanted to object, the monastery was like naught she’d seen before. Curiosity was gnawing at her. And so far the most danger was posed from a few plump chickens.

Erik stepped through the archway. Tali and Gunnvar were close behind.

Ingrid followed, Tali at her side.

“Do as he says,” Tali said. “Or you’ll be over his knee with your ass being reddened.”

“If you care for my rear, Tali, keep up with me.” She spotted a wooden staircase to her right. “Up here.”

Tali frowned at it, glanced at the others, then nodded.

As Ingrid placed her foot on the first step, a yell of terror rang out. It was followed by a shout in a language she didn’t understand.

More shouts. More screams.

She hurried up the ladder, pulled an arrow out, and glanced at the cobbled courtyard.

Men in long brown tunics and with disks of hair missing from the tops of their heads were scattering. They had to gather their clothing up from their feet to run. Not one held anything remotely like a weapon.

“Hurry,” Tali said. “There may be more, and they may be warriors.”

She quickened and reached a walkway on the wall. It appeared to lead to a room of some sort of store built of wood.

“No further,” Tali said. “Stay here.”

Ingrid frowned but did as he’d asked. She positioned her bow and arrow and looked past the quiver at the courtyard.

It was chaos, with men running like scared little piglets this way and that. Raud, Gunnvar, and Tali were striding right past them, heading toward huge oak doors.

“No, no,” one man shouted, tugging on Erik’s arm. “Leave us in peace.”

Erik batted him away the way he would a gnat.

There were more frantic foreign words from the men in brown; they held their hands beneath their chins, some dropped to their knees and closed their eyes, babbling under their breath.

Erik led the way into the largest building, the one with the bells, where they hoped to find treasure. He hadn’t even raised his sword. He hadn’t lost one drip of blood.

“Keep an eye out,” Tali said. “In case warriors are on their way.”

“These people are weak as children,” Ingrid said. “Do they not have enemies?”

“They do now.” Tali laughed and gestured to the ladder. “I’m going to keep watch from the archway in case their warriors are coming from the dunes. Stay here.”

She nodded and kept her arrow aimed at a man, larger than the others who was hiding behind a barrel and staring at the doorway her Vikings had gone through. His eyes were wide; he appeared to be talking to himself as he held a pendant strung around his neck.

Tali hurried down the ladder, then with his sword aloft, he went into Ingrid’s peripheral view.

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