The Pirate Bride (29 page)

In truth, Mordr welcomed the road to Valhalla. Or did the Christians have the right of it? Followers of the One-God believed there was an afterlife where good deeds whilst living gained an entry into Heaven. According to their Holy Book, after death a man could meet up with those who’d gone before him. If that was the case, Mordr was lost. He’d never been baptized, and too many misdeeds would bar him from the heavenly gates. Alas, he would never see Jomar and Kata again.

By then, many of his men wearied of the vendetta and went back to Stonegarth, with Mordr’s permission, led by Atzer. Mordr never returned to his home, though he had heard years later that the estate prospered as the men under Atzer took wives, had children, and drew villagers and cotters to newly built longhouses. Even his six brothers, who joined him at first from their estates scattered across the Norselands, gave up after a while. It was not their fight.

“Mayhap you need to swive a lusty maid, or ten, to calm your mind,” his brother Ivak suggested before departing.

“Ivak, you think every problem in the world can be solved with your cock.”

“Can it not?” his halfbrained brother asked, and he was serious.

Vikar, the oldest of the Sigurdsson brood, gave his usual sage advice, sage in his own not-so-humble opinion. “Your pride has been assuaged. Accept the
wergild
offered by King Haakon to halt your vendetta, and use it to start over again.”

“Dost think this is about pride? Dost think I care for bribe coins? Dost think I could truly start over?” Mordr stormed. “I can never replace my two children.”

That shut up Vikar . . . for a while.

His brother Cnut mentioned the widow whose prosperous lands adjoined his in Vestfold.

“Would that by chance be Inga No Teeth?” Mordr asked with growing impatience.

“Well . . .” Cnut said defensively, “you know what they say about all cats being the same in the dark.”

“Whoever said that did not know cats, or women,” Ivak interjected.

They all turned to stare at Ivak.

“I am just saying,” Ivak defended himself. “Besides, there are advantages to a toothless woman in the bed arts.”

They all gaped at Ivak with incredulity.

“I am just saying,” Ivak repeated, this time with a grin.

“I do not need another wife,” Mordr said with growing impatience.

“You could go exploring with those Vikings who seek new countries to settle beyond Iceland,” said Trond.

Mordr arched a brow at Trond, who was the laziest Norseman ever born. Trond would never go exploring himself because it would require too much energy. “The only way I am going to Iceland is if there is an Hordsson sitting on an iceberg thereabouts,” Mordr declared.

Sigurd the Healer made one of the most outrageous suggestions. “Methinks you should let me drill a hole in your head. Trepanning, it is called. Mayhap all your body’s bad humours would be released, and you would lose this madness.”

His other brothers were as stunned as Mordr.

“I like my madness, thank you very much. You come within an arm’s length of me with a drill, and you will find that instrument lodged in one of your body parts, the one where the sun does not shine, lest it come up from a privy hole.”

Harek, the most intelligent and most wealthy of all his brothers—he was a moneylender and tax collector—said, “If you’re going to continue on this path of self-destruction, can I have Stonegarth?”

Mordr could not be angry with his brother. Harek was what he was, a greedy Viking bent on amassing enough treasure to establish his own kingdom.

“I’ve already given it to Atzer,” Mordr told him.

His brothers left him eventually, as did many more of his followers. In the end, Geirfinn was the only one of his original
hersir
s to stay. When Mordr could find no more Hordssons to kill, Mordr, Geirfinn, and a handful of loyal comrades-in-arms hired themselves out as mercenaries to kings and chieftains of many lands. For a while, they even became Jomsvikings, but Mordr chafed under the rigid rules of that monastic-like living.

Thus it was that five years after the invasion of Stonegarth and the death of his children, Mordr found himself in a battle against a band of Saxon villains. There were only twelve men with Mordr now, but thirteen powerful Norse warriors could handle twice, mayhap thrice, that many foemen. But not today. They were outnumbered five to one, and the gods were against them, pelting rain down in cold misery. If that were not bad enough, Thor raised his mighty hammer Mjollnir, causing lightning to flash, as if foretelling doom. Already vultures—ravens of death—circled overhead, just waiting to pounce on the human carrion.

The field became slippery with sword dew, as well as mud. The air rang with the clang of metal weapon against metal weapon, the death screams of the fallen, the grunts of soldiers brandishing heavy broadswords, and his own roars of berserkness.

Mordr cleared a path through the fray in front of him, trying to get to Geirfinn, who was being attacked from both sides. When he was almost there, he saw his good friend go down from a lance thrown from behind by yet another Saxon villain. A deathblow, it had to be.

With a bellow of outrage, Mordr tossed his shield and leather helmet to the ground. Storming forward, he wielded his heavy broadsword in his right hand and his battle-axe in his left. One foeman got his head lopped off. Another Mordr speared through the heart with the sharp butt end of his battle-axe. Still another would ne’er swive any maids in the future, for Mordr firmly planted his sword Vengeance in the soldier’s groin.

As he was pulling his sword back out of the groaning man’s body, Mordr made a huge mistake. Ne’er turn your back on the battlefield. Someone had come up behind him, quickly reaching around and garroting him from shoulder to shoulder. Blood gushed forth, and he felt a flush of heat race across the skin of his entire body, as if he had been scalded. His arms went numb, and his legs gave out, causing him to fall forward. Soon, the sounds of battle faded as he felt his blood soaking the ground beneath him. Someone rolled him over with a booted foot and laughed. “King Edgar will give me a great boon for having felled this vicious Viking.”

But then Mordr heard nothing as he sank into a dark slumber, and it was not a peaceful sleep as he’d expected death would be. It sounded like beasts gnashing their teeth all around him, just waiting for the cue to devour his flesh and bones.
Is this death then? Why am I not on the road to Asgard? Where are my Valkyries? Why am I not being welcomed into Odin’s great hall in Valhalla?

“Because thou art not in Valhalla, Viking,” a voice boomed above him.

Mordr hadn’t realized he’d spoken aloud. In truth, how could he speak with his neck nigh split through to his nape? He blinked his eyes open. He was still in the middle of the battlefield. Fighting was going on around him. Rain still came down in stinging sheets. Except for the circle surrounding him where a tall man stood over him. Instead of wearing a battle helmet and
brynja
of chain mesh, this lackwit wore a white robe, similar to those worn by men in eastern lands. It was tied at the waist with a golden rope, and his dark hair hung loose to his shoulder. Most amazing of all, a light emanated from the man, like a full-body halo. Mordr knew about halos, having once seen a Byzantine church mural depicting a saint, but that fellow’s halo had been surrounding his head only. This must be an important saint.

“Are you a saint?” Mordr asked, oddly unsurprised that he could speak.

“You could say that,” the man said, and from his back suddenly unfurled a massive set of pure white wings.

“Bloody hell! An angel?”

The man—rather, the angel—nodded. “I am St. Michael the Archangel, and you, Viking, are in big trouble.”

Mordr noticed that the angel did not say “Viking” in a complimentary way. “What do you have against Vikings?”

“You are a sorry lot of men. Vain. Prideful. Greedy. Vicious. Fornicators.”

“We are also brave in battle. Good providers for our families. Yea, I know what you are going to say. We provide by plundering, but that is not so bad when you consider we are doing a good deed by relieving your churchmen of the overabundance of wealth they garner for themselves. As for vanity, some could say that your God made Norsemen beautiful; therefore, ’tis not our fault that we are proud of ourselves.”

Michael’s eyes went wide before he shook his head as if Mordr were a hopeless idiot.

In fact, Michael said, “Idiot! Thou art in the greatest trouble of your life, and you dare to make excuses.”

“What would you have me do? In truth, I am not sorry to have my life end.”

Michael’s face softened for a moment. “Your children are safe and in a happy place.”

For the first time since he’d come across the ravaged bodies of Jomar and Kata, tears filled Mordr’s eyes and streamed down his face, mixing with the blood on his neck. A small sob slipped from his slit neck.

“Weep not for your children, but for yourself. You are a grave sinner, Mordr, as are your six brothers.”

Mordr stiffened, as much as a dead body could. “Are my brothers dead, too?”

“If they are not dead, they soon will be.”

“Why?” Mordr asked.

“You know why, sinner.”

Mordr did not need to think before nodding. “My berserkness. The killing. It started with the assault on Stonegarth, with the murder of my children. I had good cause to—”

“Foolish Viking! Vengeance is the Lord’s, not man’s,” the angel said in a steely voice. Then, “Do not try to excuse your actions. Even if you could be forgiven for killing those who killed your children, and I am not sure it ever could be, there have been so many other lives you’ve taken. Many of them innocent of any crime.”

“I understand why I must be punished, but you mentioned my brothers, as well. Why must you take all of us at one time?”

“Because you are grave sinners, each guilty in a most heinous way of the Seven Deadly Sins,” Michael explained with growing impatience, “as are many of your Norse race. God in his anger has decided to use you seven as examples, and—”

“Lucky us!” Mordr muttered.

Michael cast a black look his way for the interruption.

No sense of humor.

Michael continued, “In truth, there will come a time in the future when the Viking race will no longer be. That is the will of the Lord.”

Mordr’s numb brain tried to comprehend what the angel told him. “How exactly are you . . . or rather, your God . . . going to use me and my brothers?”

“Ah. I thought you would never ask.” Michael smiled, and it was not a nice smile. “God has commissioned me to establish a legion of vangels to fight Satan’s Lucipires, demon vampires. And, at the same time, to save those humans fanged by the Lucipires with a sin taint afore they commit some grievous act, causing them to commit a grave sin.” Michael motioned with his head to a sight directly behind the circle of light that surrounded him.

Mordr recalled, when he’d first emerged from his death-sleep, the sound of gnashing teeth, like leashed beasts. He saw now what had caused that noise. A band of grotesque beasts were trying—unsuccessfully, so far—to break into the halo barrier. They were huge, animal-like humans, tall as upright black bears, with scaly skin oozing slime. Their eyes were red, and their open mouths showed elongated incisors, like wolves, but longer and sharper.

“Lucipires?” Mordr asked.

“Precisely. You do not want to be in their clutches, believe you me.”

Mordr believed. With typical Viking self-confidence, Mordr knew he could fight off three or four foemen, but these were not men, precisely, and they numbered in the dozens. He thought for a moment, then burst out with a chortle of laughter, which only caused more blood to spurt from his mouth. “You said you would turn me and my brothers into angels. Now there is a task! Turning Vikings into angels.”

“Tsk, tsk. You do not listen carefully. I did not say angels. I said
vangels
.”

“And they are?”

“Viking vampire angels.”

“Huh?”

“For hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years, seven hundred years to begin with, you would serve the Lord as a vangel.”

“Seven hundred years?” Mordr exclaimed. “You mean, I would live for centuries.”

Michael nodded. “Mayhap even thousands of years.”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Of course. You can choose to be a vangel, or join the other side.”

“The other side? Oh. Oh no!” Mordr realized that Michael meant he would be taken by those beasts, slobber dripping from their fangs, their eyes glowing like torchlights, as they tried to break the barrier to get at him. “I choose vangels. Definitely.”

“So be it!” Michael said, and extended a hand over Mordr, causing him to be lifted to his feet.

Mordr put a hand to his neck and felt the skin intact. “Thank you.”

“Do not thank me yet, Viking.”

Mordr blinked several times. The golden halo was gone, as were the horrid beasts. In fact, the battlefield was now a clear field. No fighting soldiers. No dead bodies. There were so many questions riddling his mind, but he asked the most inane one. “Will I have wings, like yours?”

Michael hooted a short laugh. “Not yet. Maybe later. Probably never.”

That was clear as mud. “By the by, what is a vampire?”

Michael graced him with another of those smiles, which were not really smiles.

Immediately, Mordr felt a fierce pain in his mouth, as if his jaw were being broken and pierced with fiery tongs. When the pain went away, as suddenly as it had hit him, Mordr felt around his mouth with his tongue and realized that he now had a long . . . really long tooth . . . on either side of his front teeth on top. With horror, he said, “You made me into a wolf? I hate wolves. They are the most devious creatures, and they smell bad.”

Michael shook his head. “Not a wolf. A vampire.”

Then, more pain hit him. On his shoulder blades. He reached behind him, over his shoulders, and discovered two bumps there. He arched his brows at Michael. “Please do not tell me that you put teeth in my back.”

“Thickheaded dolts, that is what these Vikings are,” Michael muttered. Then he told Mordr, “Do not be ridiculous. They are bumps. Where your wings
might
emerge someday.”