Falling to the Viking Read Online Free PDF Page A

was no way to understand what was said or make her self understood to anyone else.
    She was led into a large building that already had a lot of people in it. It had numerous carved decorations on the outside, including the horns from deer and other animals she could not identify. There were some tattered clothes waving in the breeze at the top of the building, but that was all she had time to see as they entered. It didn’t take a lot to guess its purpose. Mostly men filled the long tables. Males and females carried food or drinks to sit by the men as they came in or when someone required more. The smell was good, but it was unreal, like something out of the History Channel . One thing she noticed was that not all the serving people wore the long garments. Some of the women wore long skirts with fur decorations. These women had gold bands on their wrists with fur tops adorned with gold and precious stones.
    A fire pit was in the center with only a small fire in it. She guessed because it was warm outside, they didn’t build it up. At one side of the room was a table by itself with several men who looked like they might be the big honchos. She couldn’t remember what you called the guy who was the leader of the Vikings, but she had no doubt that the room was definitely filled with large blond Norse men.
    Asta led her to a dark corner. She was grateful to be out of the way in a place where she could watch and learn. Her back all the way down to her butt hurt like hell. To tell the truth, she was scared. It was hard to believe that this bunch of barbarians could exist in modern day Denmark, yet, there was a slight possibility that she was no longer in modern day Denmark. That didn’t make sense either.
    The men, mostly decked out in leathers plus furs, had their long hair decorated in different ways—braids and ties with some areas cut short, some even shaved to the scalp. Nevertheless, all had some of the hair very long. To her surprise, there was a clean look to all of them, even as they ate with their hands or drinking drank from big tankards.
    She might expect to see big chunks of meat on the tables, but she was surprised to also see bowls of cooked along with fresh vegetables, including roots and greens. There were big mounds of cheese in various colors passed around as they used individual large knives to carve out chunks. She actually saw milk being poured into low bowls that bread was dipped into as they ate.
    She saw some bowls of small apples and plums that hands were reaching for as all the talk grew louder. As a joke, someone threw an apple, and a small food fight broke out, which wouldn’t have been a problem if a couple of knives hadn’t been added. They threw the knives with a great deal of precise control, landing point first near a comrade or embedded into the back of a large wooden chair. One flew into the wall near where Kathryn was carefully leaning.
    Kathryn flinched, but refused to move or slide to the floor as those near her did. There was a lot of laughter with more words that she didn’t understand. One of the large men jumped up over a table with the intent to retrieve his knife out of the wall near her.
    He reached for the blade, turning with a large grin. He caught sight of Kathryn. He had been one of the men who had found her in the forest. He seemed to recognize her. He stopped to reach for the long braid that was lying over her shoulder.
    “Hah.” That was the only word she understood as he pulled her by her braid out to the table. She grabbed her braid just above his hand to save the pain to her head, but had no choice but to be thrown on the table with all the food. As soon as he let go of her, she came up with a small knife on the table and closed her hand over the handle, but before she could do any damage, another large hand was immediately around her wrist.
    The man pulled down on her back as she looked up into the eyes of the man who had used the strap on her back—her back that