Viking Hunter Vol 3 The Valkyr's Kiss

Viking Hunter

A War of Outlaws

By Wulf Anson

Volume III

The Valkyr's Kiss

Text and Cover Copyright Wulf Anson and Wulf Publish 2016

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Also Available

Viking Hunter Volume 1 Grab The Wolf

Viking Hunter Volume 2 Kill Them Twice

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Viking Hunter is a work of fiction set in the 13th Century. It is not meant to disparage today's Catholics, Jews, Gays, Native Americans, Savage Mastiffs or any other current sub-groupings. The prejudices within are historically well documented.

When Leif Erickson sailed home to Greenland from his trip to Markland and its mammoth forests his news was snatched up as if it was free silver. The few trees in Greenland grew no taller than man height. Fortunes had been made importing wood from Norway to Iceland and Greenland. Land, forests, fish and game waited just over the horizon. The news shot back to Iceland and from there to Norway and Denmark and the rush was on. The Swedes were too busy taking over Gardariki (Russia) to notice, much less care.

First stop was the island of Hellulandia, across the icy seaway from Markland.

Markland to Hellulandia's west then became a dumping ground for Outlaws exiled from Hellulandia by its Courts. These following events occurred in that part of Markland known as Skoggangurstrond, (Outlaws Strand) and New Tara (today's Chesapeake Bay) where many of the Irish, sick to their eye teeth of being invaded by everyone, had built their own enclave, in the years 1278 and 1279.

Note on names:

Before you dislocate your tongue trying to pronounce the Viking names in it, the Icelandic J is retained in them.

Pronounce it as either a Y, or a long E.

Jarnulf becomes Yarnulf.

Anja becomes Anya.

Kjartan becomes Kee-yartan.

Table of Contents

CXXXIV What's This Nonsense?

CXXXV I'm Afraid You're Wrong

CXXXVI A Trick Of The Light

CXXXVII A Bit Short Handed Today?

CXXXVIII Consider It Settled

CXL He's Mine

CXLI Rista Orn

CXLII You Knew, Didn't You?

CXLIII A Slinging Match

CXLIV Hnikarr?

CXLV Odinn's Promise

CXLVI His Ghost

CXLVII Your Father's Steel

CXLVIII Da'Hjael

CXLIX That's Not Fair

CL But She Tried To Kill Me

CLI Heavy Skot

CLII We'll Use My Weights

CLIII For My Friend

CLIV Beans Of Death

CLV Praise No Ice

CLVI His Remaining Share

CLVII Wordless And Farting

CLVIII Magic

CLIX The Worth Of Wolves

CLX Then We're Agreed

CLXI A Dice Pouch

CLXII That Makes Us Kin

CLXIII Your Fo'c'sulbitch

CLXIV A King Sized Helping

CLXV An Overly Suggestive Mood

CLXVI Hello Hel

CLXVII You Know How They Get

CLXVIII Any Claiming Jarnulf

CLXIX I Name Names

CLXX The Compensation Of Friends

CLXXI Hoskuld's Finest Mead

CLXXII Cats And Rats

CLXXIII Swimming To Norway

CLXXIV Starri's Best

CLXXV Make Way

CLXXVI The Kvidur

CLXXVII Win Or Lose Your Mine

CLXXVIII A Mind Boggling Perversion

CLXXIX You Didn't Have Any Trouble

CLXXX Who's Your Father

CLXXXI May A Curse Lite

CLXXXII I Wouldn't Get Too Close

CLXXXIII The Way I Heard It

CLXXXIV Friends And Perverts

CLXXXV Braggi's Daughter

CLXXXVI Gundfrieda's Accident

CLXXXVII A Three Day Old Bruise

CLXXXVIII The Last Word

CLXXXIX Under The Owls

CLXC The Luckiest Man I Ever Met

CLXCI One Bite At A Time

CLXCII This Whole Sordid Mess

CLXCIII It Would Be An Insult

CLXCIV It Does Creep Up On You

CLXCV Only Till

CLXCVI A Half Dozen Lobsters

CLXCVII Not Your Fault

CLXCVIII You Know

CLXCIX I Will Lay Heaven In Ashes

Vols 1 and 2 of the Viking Hunter Saga Also Available

CXXXIV What's This Nonsense?

Hrafnstadir's women, a furied, jostling mob, were raising a brown cloud into the graveyard oak's branches. Even the sun looked angry through that cloud glaring down into the mob's open, twenty foot eye. In its midst struggled Nacarr as Olaf and Da'hal gripped him beneath his shoulders. He was glaring murder at Jarnulf and Hroghar and behind them their horses, more mob, and the grave dragon atop the church's back wall.

The tortured lowings of a hundred cows from the barn next door were adding to the women's shrieks for Nacarr's death. It was mid afternoon and the cows had not been milked. No one rushed off to relieve them. They'd live longer than Nacarr and no one wanted to miss his end.

Jarnulf stared west over Nacarr's head but in his eye, the rat swung plain as day, suffocating as suspended from the rope around his neck he jerked, twirled, and gagged on his tongue. Nacarr had just collected a few more bruises as the hunters wrestled him to the ground and removed his mail. Without its added weight he'd strangle just that much slower.

Mirha, with Kolfinna in pursuit, struggled through the throng toward Jarnulf desperate to prove her worth in any way she might, and shove Rakel's truth back into her mind's darkest storeroom, the truth that she'd almost got Jarnulf killed. She had not landed a single blow or fired a shot through all of it.

Ref caught her from behind. She shared her fears with him. Ref pointed out the backs of three women heading into the shadows beyond the church, and on toward main. They were Aethle and Rakel, escorting Aerin.

Aethle's lost her husband, Ref said. and Aerin her best friends and herself. If you really want to make Jarnulf proud of you.

Mirha shot both fists to her cheeks. She ran off after them.

I demand Holmganga. Nacarr bellowed at Hroghar. He was invoking the ancient right of trial by combat. Dueling had been Outlawed in old world Iceland back at the millennium, but this was not the old world.

Found your spine worm? Hroghar demanded, butting his axe's butt cap into Nacarr's chest.

Not surprised, he added with a hasty nod up to the limb above them and then a second to Jarnulf, who was staring straight down at his feet and shaking his head laughing.

Einvigi not good enough for you? Jarnulf said. You arrogant son of a bitch?

Einvigi was two men just going at it till one granted the other peace or killed him. Nacarr had called for Holmgang, an affair of rules, seconds, and honor.

A cloak five ells square was to be staked at its corners to the ground. Three staked out spaces a foot wide surrounded it. Ropes were tied between the stakes. Each dueler took turns whacking the other's shield apart as his second guarded him with it. Combatants were allowed two replacement shields. At any point the worse wounded could admit guilt and release himself by paying a duel ransom of three marks, or in Nacarr's case a rope.

Stepping outside the line with one foot was retreating, with both feet, running. When the shields were used up the duelers were to fight on over the cloak with weapons only. The first whose blood fell onto the cloak lost. The man challenged had to strike the first blow.

And, Jarnulf said. you'll want me to hold your shield for you against Hroghar's axe, right?

He caught up the trailer of Nacarr's noose and followed it back to Liv's saddle. She shied away from him as he untied it.

Nacarr fixed his cornered wolf glare back on Hroghar.

I'll face any man here. Nacarr blustered. Even you, you stinking Thurs.

There were three races of giants, and one common slander. 'Tall as a Risi, strong as a Jotun, and stupid as a Thurs.'

Jarnulf returned, holding out his coiled rope to Hroghar.

Hroghar swatted it away growling low, his gaze down upon Nacarr sharpening itself with a fine whetstone. The gentle humor his huge, hard lined, orange bearded face usually wore was as faded a memory as last week's mead. In its place thundered the granite sheared, battle grimed visage of some harbinger of the apocalypse. His broad set green eyes burned with a visible red. How much of it was lack of sleep and how much hellfire was anything but hard to say.

Nacarr wasn't a pretty sight either, even in his hammer burnished, rust free shirt of chain. Someone had spent a lot of time keeping it up, undoubtedly someone other than himself. His scarred and beaten face bore testament to how he'd achieved and held his position as Chieftain for thirty years. The blood from his fresh broken nose hadn't made his snaggled left incisor or his two broken off front teeth any more attractive either, coupled with the blue white scar running across his nose and off the side of his stubble under the bags beneath his eyes.

It's my right. Nacarr said. The law says.

Hroghar butted Nacarr's chest with his axe haft again.

I'm aware of the law. Hroghar said.

Nacarr spit at him.

Hroghar spit back, rolled his shoulders and began clenching and unclenching his free hand.

A disheveled and spent but freshly haughty Eirika strode forth in her earth stained, borrowed buckskins. In one hand was her bow. In the other, the hilt of Hroald's hard worked sword, its bloody length laying back over her shoulder. From the look of her Jarnulf half thought she was minded to cheat the hangman herself.

Da'hal let go Nacarr's shoulder and grabbed Nacarr's hair. He leaned forward into Nacarr's face. Da'hal's eyes were still sulfur and brimstone as they'd been since Kolgrim handed Nacarr over at the field, and all the way back to town.

There. Look. Da'hal commanded, wrenching Nacarr's face toward the train of nine horses with nine dead men and women draped over them, filing past the graveyard fence toward the church.

Hlif lay belly down over Ansvarr's roan. Da'hal had forbidden anyone else to move her, or touch her. Her long, loose brown hair hanging past her slender white wrists and hands rocked side to side in time with the horse's somber, knowing gait.

There's the booty you took from us, Da'hal said. and now you're going to recompense us.

He has a point, you know. Eirika began, her enunciation exact and exaggerative as ever.

We can't just hang him, now that we've left the scene of the action. We'll have to convene a Kvidur, and Outlaw him first.

Jarnulf started violently. His coiled rope slipped unknown from his hand. Eirika shushed him like an errant child. Hroghar licked the sweat and dust from his lips, tilted his head aside and spat it out.

Oh, he's dead, I'll guarantee it, and damn soon. he said.

Mordach approached to poke Nacarr in the ribs with his bloody spear.

Ever the problem, eh Nacarr? Eirika said. Since Hroald's murdered and Tore absent, I suppose I'll have to convene the Kvidur. We'll just make the best of this and muddle through, won't we.

She favored Jarnulf with a smile that drove daggers of ice through his scalp.

I think we've twelve men left, she said. whom you haven't murdered.

Hroghar turned on her.

What's this nonsense, you old bird? he laughed, corralling her under his tree trunk of an arm. He wasn't especially fond of her, but her observation that it really was all over, and the realization that he really did still have his son, had stuck him like a lightning bolt, a very giddy lightning bolt.

It's called the law. she snipped, and rapped his knuckles with her bow.

Can't go taking what isn't ours into our own hands now, can we? she said.

He laughed it off and reached for her shoulder again, and she gave him a second rap.

Can we? she said, but with a lot more salt and bark in it this time.

Perhaps not. he mumbled, sucking at his stinging knuckles.

She cast about, pointing and calling her Kvidur by name, Ref, Da'hal and Olaf, her Marshal, Hoskuld, Mordach, Gudrod, Thorarin, Andar, Kjartan, Hroghar, and finally little Frakki.

Let's see. she said. I suppose the Marshal owns the clearest claim against you in this suit, as you murdered his uncle.

Fine. Jarnulf said. Let's get it done.

Can't just rush into this. she said. Nacarr's a very well versed expert at law, having broken every one there is. He might win his defense if it's you prosecuting him.

Jarnulf regarded her narrowly. This morning had broken her mind.

You'd best assign your case to me. she said.

Women can't bring suits, you kerlinga skruka. Nacarr said.

Kerling meant hag, and skruka meant shrimp. Together they implied a hag as old and dried out as a shrimp's shell.

Her icy smile remained uncracked.

CXXXV I'm Afraid You're Wrong

As I am the head of my household, I'm afraid your wrong, dead wrong. she said.

I promise you, she told Jarnulf. that he's not half the old law hag I am. No one is.

And for the first time in Jarnulf's life, and with all the warmth of an eagle on a corpse, she winked at him. Jarnulf thought it best to humor her. If she'd really lost her mind he could still take matters into his own hands and explain it to Tore later.

Logmadur Eirika, Jarnulf said, warily. I lawfully assign the prosecution of my suit against Nacarr to you.

Hroghar patted the top of Nacarr's head.

Nacarr spit at him again.

Again, Hroghar wiped it off and closely inspected Nacarr as if he couldn't decide whether to eat him whole or just take the hams and back straps. Hroghar's throbbing knuckles, the only wound he'd taken, had sobered the giddiness right out of him.

Gawd, Hroghar. Eirika moaned. Let's get this done.

That didn't sound like her either Jarnulf thought. She reveled in arguing minutia for days. She wasted one quick, and very annoyed frown up at Hroghar. She was still put out with his bizarre familiarity.

Nacarr's eyes darted from hunter to hunter. Bonfires blazed back at him from their eyes in those swirling green, brown and tanned faces. And those two young blood spattered bulls, the twins, were showing him their teeth, grunting and heaving their chests in and out gulping great breaths, as if readying themselves to charge. They all seemed furied enough already to award him his duel, each hoping for the honor despite the old hag's overweening confidence.

He fixed his glare back on Hroghar. That idiot pride and honor he cloaked himself in whenever he gazed at his son, the other giant crushing his arm, said he'd never let himself be hanged. He'd laugh in the face of a thousand and drown in their mingled blood first. The greatest legacy he could leave his son would be his own reputation.

If, Nacarr said, glaring up at Hroghar as if he were a rat on a high pantry shelf. you're not regi, like sonny boy here, with a sideways nod at Jarnulf, I'll meet your challenge after.

Hroghar turned his sneer to Eirika.

A very well versed expert? he said, before fixing it back on Nacarr.

You challenged me, meaning I get the first and only swing.

Eirika glared up at him as if they were married and she couldn't pry him out of the Mead Hall.

She started, wondering if she'd overreached. Jarnulf was livid, the knuckles of his hands white, strangling his hilts. And there wasn't a face among the others not icily demanding the vengeance honor for themselves.

She ordered Nacarr hauled inside and handed Hroald's sword off to Draeng, instructing him to open the church's shutters for their guests the Ottarrs. Da'hal yanked the rope tying Nacarr's elbows viciously upward, and he and Olaf frog marched the Nahri Chieftain toward the graveyard fence.

In the press crowding past the fence for the church door Eirika singled out Aud. She was still bearing Hroald's axe in both hands as if more Skraelings and Nahri might come swooping in on them at any moment.

Are you all right? Eirika said.

No. Aud moaned. "Priest Hroald, and Tjorni, and what if wins his case and kills Hroghar too?

Eirika side stepped the axe and gathered Aud beneath her shoulder, just as Hroghar had earlier.

I want to kill him myself. Aud shrieked.

Eirika drew her in closer.

CXXXVI A Trick Of The Light

The Hrafn's church hadn't changed since his last visit, Nacarr saw as he sat at the left claimant's bench feeling little pricks and pins in his tight tied hands, marooned here on this bench as his enemies dark, and bloody converse flooded past him.

Ref and Gudrod laid Ansvarr into the shroud of ruby and purple light from the stained glass windows draping the desk before him. The four dead women on the desk to their right were curtained briefly by Maeve and the fifth horse clomping out past him. The tread of its iron shoes boomed about the cavernous dim, and against his head, like the Thunderer's hammer.

Thirty feet before him rose the black, nine paneled desk. Langlif's two raven gavels perched atop its midst, stooping, their wings spread. Ten feet above the desk's ends roosted dead, Great Horned Owls glaring back at him with their dead, watery eyes as if he were a tidbit for their dead hatchlings.

In the open square's jumble of garish hues between him and the desk twirled Kolgrim and his two brothers, who'd broken his nose running him to ground, spinning about waving their arms before them and calling to each other as their arms changed colors. Empty sheaths were strapped to their backs. Weapons had all been shed on the porch before the door. The old witch's Marshal however, appeared exempt, still sporting his.

The Ottarrs had seen windows before, but not these shimmering sails of dream glass. Ref envied them dancing there in the corner of his eye, deigning the while to even glance at them. They'd feel it as he and any hunter, or their quarry, would. Odds were they'd pay it no heed, but he wasn't about to chance making them self conscious and spoiling the wonder of it for them.

Adis led Ansvarr's roan up the aisle with Hlif's body across it. Adis mien and bearing were twain, warring with each other. Her stern prosecutor ravening for vengeance commanded her eyes as the tearful, terrified babe trembled her lips, and then her demons would trade places on her face, over and again.

Da'hal stopped her. He beckoned Kjartan to take hold of Nacarr. Then the giant, gore drenched smith tenderly lifted the dead girl from the saddle and laid her in state, and reclosed her eyes. He unfastened his silver cross and hammer from his belt, and lifting her head, draped its thong round her neck, and gave her his first kiss.

As he returned no one but Nacarr dared meet his gaze. Da'hal lightly laid the stone knuckles of his huge fist against Nacarr's temple.

If you look at me again, Da'hal said, quietly. no one, will be able to stop me.

Nacarr looked away convinced it was some trick of the light. In the giant's eyes had flared the red of his smithy's kilns.

Eirika swept past them toward the desk, blinking first purple, and then blood and on through the splinters of a junk heap of shattered rainbows. Her Marshal and the massive red haired smith followed after her as the last of the dead men, Bror, was laid in state to his left. The Kvidur mounted the dais and seated themselves behind the desk with Jarnulf on her center right, Mordach her left, and Hroghar as Foreman, towering above Mordach's left. Ref sat the far right and Hoskuld the far left.

Olaf and Da'hal remained standing behind Nacarr's shoulders.

Kolgrim gave him a wry sneer as he strutted cock like by to join his Ottarrs in the church's rear. Kolgrim's brothers Rani and Raknar danced by on tiptoes clasping their hands behind their backs as they smiled at him, whistling a tuneless funeral dirge.

The bony backs of Eirika's white claws swept the oily, night blue ravens out to either side of her and she called the Court to order. The pained bellowings of a hundred cows in the barn next door swelled into the silence.

I, Eirika Starkaddottir, she began. name everyone in this church to witness that you, Gerard Beauvais, not only engaged in an illegal conspiracy to murder all of them, but that you actually did cause the deaths of these nine before us. I demand Full Outlawry, without ring payment, as the legal penalty.

Ring payment was a metaphor, an anachronism. Centuries ago the convicted Outlaw had paid a gold ring to the court for their sparing his life until his Outlawry began, no ring, no grace period. His immunity was forfeit the instant he left court. Jarnulf found himself not liking this a bit. She'd skipped all manner of prefatory legal rantings and recitings. Definitely not the Eirika he knew.

You can't demand Outlawry without the grace period. Nacarr droned. It's illegal.

Take it, or the rope now, Gerard. she said. Nacarr winced like she'd slapped him with a hot poker.

Untie me. he growled. Chieftain Nacarr will not stand trussed like a trael before women.

Then sit before them. Eirika said. We've seen all too much of your back already today.

Nacarr winced again.

Da'hal and Olaf muscled him down onto the bench, and he glared acid back at Eirika over Galinn, dead on the desk before