The Lord of Vik-Lo: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 3) Read Online Free PDF Page A

the swell and a cold breeze suddenly enveloped them like a breath from the grave. Grimarr felt the fear return. Was this Fasti, or the Irish come back to plague him? He looked out to windward. The sky in the east was black and ugly, the cold breeze the harbinger of foul weather coming. Bad weather , Grimarr thought. Storm’s coming up fast .
      “Very well,” he said out loud. “Get her out of there, she’s no spirit, just some sorry Irish thrall. Get a tow line on Sea Rider . Let’s get to Vík-ló before this damnable shit weather is upon us.”
     

Chapter Three
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Before his billow-steed
    battle-bush Erik, tossed
    by the tempest, has seen
    more blue breakers back in the east.
                                 The Saga of Gunnlaug Serpent-Tongue
     
     
     
     
     
    Fifty sea miles to the north and east, that cold gust of wind that Grimarr Giant had felt, that chill that had brought to his mind images of the angry, displaced souls of the slain, caught the longship Far Voyager under full sail. The weather clew of her big red and white checked square sail was tacked down to the beitass, thrust out from the starboard side. The wind rolled her to leeward, and as she dipped her sheer strake a line of water spouts burst through the gaps between shields mounted on the larboard shield rack.
      Aft at the tiller, Thorgrim Night Wolf allowed the ship to pay off a bit to leeward, and she stood more upright in response to the subtle twist he gave to the steerboard. Thorgrim saw nothing supernatural in the cold blast. He was, to be sure, no less aware than his fellow Norsemen of the unseen world of spirits, trolls, demons, and the lurking horrors in the depths of the dark water, but he had been watching the storm building for hours on the eastern horizon and recognized this as the gust that heralds a change of weather.
      He turned his face into the wind, felt the breeze tugging at his beard, a dark beard, shot through with gray now. His hair, too, showed more and more white strands, as well it might, he having been on that earth for a bit more than four decades - four hard decades.
      Thorgrim’s father-in-law, Ornolf the Restless, stood just forward of the tiller, leaning on the weather rail, a drinking horn in hand. His long hair, mostly white but with vestiges of the original red still visible, was whipping off to leeward. Ornolf was roaring drunk.
      “See here!” he shouted, pointing with the horn toward the horizon. Mead sloshed over the deck and ran in rivulets down the boards and joined the sea water in the bilge. Lightning flashed far off under the thick layer of dark clouds to the east. “See here? Thor looks to kill me as soon as I put to sea! Hah! He has tried before, but my friend Ægir protects me! Why? Because Ægir is a god who protects men who know the use of the sea and the drinking horn, and I am such a man!”
      Ornolf drained the cup, tossed it to the deck, turned and began to climb up on the ship’s side. “You want me, Thor, you cowardly whore’s son?” he shouted. Thorgrim looked to the leeward side. His son, Harald, and Starri Deathless were seated with backs against the ship’s side. With the wind steady and the sail set and drawing, there was not much else for them to do. Luckily, Ornolf would not allow them to become bored.
      They met Thorgrim’s eyes and Thorgrim jerked his head in Ornolf’s direction. Harald and Starri were on their feet, each grabbing one of Ornolf’s arms and easing him down from the sheer strake he was trying to mount. “Here, Grandfather,” Harald said, “you’ll frighten Thor and make him piss his pants and I don’t care to think what would happen after that!”
      Grudgingly, Ornolf allowed himself to be pulled down from the rail and seated on a small bench. Starri retrieved the drinking horn and Harald grabbed up a wine skin still mostly full of mead and filled the horn, and that seemed to mollify the