Éire’s Captive Moon Read Online Free PDF Page B

it Foe-Piercer. It was inspirational.
    Erik returned to his side, like a particularly persistent itch. Agnarr held in a sigh. He’d been young once.
    The young man’s face was drawn, suddenly, and his hands clenched into white-knuckled fists around his weapons. Agnarr nodded his head to indicate Erik could speak.
    “Well, I’m worried,” Erik confessed.
    “Would you let your fate go unmet? Your wyrd will not be avoided,” Agnarr cautioned, speaking of the destiny that each man had been given by the Norns in the beginning.
    Erik straightened, gripping his axe more securely. “I would see Valhalla!”
    Clapping him on the shoulder, Agnarr inclined his head sharply. “Good man. Back to your place.”  
    Tuirgeis instructed Agnarr to advance slowly, allowing the men from all the boats to gather behind him. The mists were thinning, and they wanted to make a rush of strength to overpower the men in the monastery, not to give them waves of weaker forces. “I will wait,” Agnarr said, glancing to see the other warriors lining up behind his men. He led them up the incline again and over the dirt path to continue to wait.
    “Agnarr! They have no guards?” Erik asked.
    Agnarr studied the gate. “They think their god will protect them.”
    “Like Odin?”
    Remembering what he had heard of the Islanders’ religious practices—eating the flesh and drinking the blood of their god every day—Agnarr shook his head briefly. “Odin’s priests are civilized.” No longer were humans sacrificed to the One-Eyed One. He was content with animals and ritual. This island needed to meet Odin in his power.
    A glance back showed him that all the men were ashore, lined up, and ready to run. He raised his left arm, fist high, and pulled it back to his shoulder again in the signal for attack.
    Agnarr led the way to the gate. He signaled to Thorvald, his second, to take the archers to the outer walls. They would send arrows through the defenseless windows. Soon the rest of his men would follow, but the gate had to be breached first.
    He kept his men silent as they ran. The gate that guarded the monastery barred them from their prize. Didn’t the monks know that wood could be burned? Foolish men.
    Agnarr and his warriors were the first to reach the gate. He presumed that the villagers who had sighted them earlier would have warned the monks, and that the gate would be locked. Those two who had entered unarmed must have been villagers, Agnarr decided. Even so, Agnarr told Erik to test the gate.
    The dull sound of old oak on iron echoed in Erik’s helmet for all to hear, for he had gone in head-first. Looking dazed, but determined, Erik made to try again.
    “Enough!” Agnarr said, pulling him back. “Listen!”
    Shouts vaulted the protective stone walls. “Let’s try again,” he demanded, shouldering the door himself. “All of us. Ready? One, two—!”
    With the creaking explosion of splintering wood, the gate gave way.
    “For Thor!” Agnarr roared. Other men shouted the names of Odin, Frigg, and Hel. Still others chanted to the ancestors who awaited the fallen in Valhalla, home of the valiant.
    Agnarr thrilled to the coming of battle. His body tensed, his heart soared as he met the first of the monks.
    A stalwart man with thick jowls and little hair stood before Agnarr. His stave measured one body length and more. The words he spoke made no sense, but they conveyed melodic defiance.
    Agnarr lifted his bared blade. “Out of my way! You’re no good to me dead, but dead you’ll be if you don’t move.” Agnarr didn’t want to waste a strong back.
    The stave went into motion. Agnarr fought back. One heavy slash told the Ostman that the stave was more dangerous than he had thought. Another slice of the blade rendered the monk headless. His life’s blood pulsed red onto the beaten earth beside the dropped stave. Such futility, death without Valhalla.
    Agnarr shook his head before moving beyond the dead defender.

    “So none of