Page 11 of Viking Warriors: Vol. 1-3

“If we do this, the entire web trembles. Change one thing and all may change. The women carve our destiny, but destiny can be changed.”

I shrugged.

“It’s an interesting story, but it’s not true. I don’t believe in this tree, or the three women.”

Helka closed my palm.

“The stories show who my people are. They help us remember that we all struggle, and we all desire. We fight for what matters to us.”

I moved away from her, submerging my shoulders under the water again.

“I don’t know if anything does matter to me.”

It sounded petulant, I knew.

“I love my grandmother,” I admitted, “But I don’t know what I want, or what’s worth struggling for.”

Helka smiled. “It takes time to know. Our feelings change quickly, like the movement of clouds across the sun. But there will always be the sun, the sky. Perhaps in nature, you find your resilience.”

This made sense to me. I felt most myself when I was in the forest, or swimming in the lake. I wanted to be free but I also wanted to know who I was. I came closest to finding that when I was outside.

I’d also felt most myself when Eirik had lain with me. I’d become more, in fact. I’d become part of him, feeling his strength inside me. It had been as if I was breathing with his lungs.

Helka interrupted my musing. “I’m making a decision today. We’ll take no one from your village unless they wish to come, and we’ll harm no one. We ask only that you continue to mend our sails. As soon as we can, we’ll leave.”

* * *

I’d just stepped from the bath when the door opened. Eirik entered and something caught in my throat, though it appeared that he’d come for Helka rather than for me. He paced straight to her, speaking rapidly in their Northern tongue.

Helka nodded and turned to me.

“There are men coming, on horses. We’ll fight.”

She paused at the door, looking back.

“Remember what I said.”

Eirik noticed me then, standing naked, my skin risen in gooseflesh.

Two axes hung from his belt. A larger one was strapped to his back.

I waited for him to smile, in his lazy way. Instead, his expression was grim, intense.

In one swift motion, he was upon me, raising me into his arms. He grasped me under the buttocks and my legs wound about his back. With my body forced against his armour, he kissed me, my nipples rubbing on the knotted leather. I took his tongue into my mouth, wishing to devour him, as he was devouring me, with fierceness. A violent pang blazed in my cunt. He found the fur wet between my legs and pushed his fingers inside.

When our lips parted, I saw that his eyes were like the sky, filled with a storm waiting to break.

His men were calling him. He had to go. There was no time for consummation, though his cock stood monstrous. He returned my feet to the floor, where I found that I almost lacked the strength to stand.

He spoke hurriedly.

“I do not fear death. If I die, my axe will be in my hand, and I shall join Odin. I shall stand by his side when the time of Ragnarok comes. I hope that day is not today, for I wish to return to you, and I shall show you what it is to be loved by a Northman.”

11

The village seemed strangely quiet as people crept from their homes, subdued, in sorrow and in shock. We who remained were a pitiful sight. Our strongest men had been cut down. We were mostly women, children, the elderly. The eyes of the girls who had been in the hall the evening before were downcast, their faces pale. Some limped, sore between their legs, I supposed.

Grindan’s mother found a single shoe and cradled what had once been her husband’s. Grindan comforted her, let her weep.