“Sarah? Your turn for the watch” said Leif, shaking her gently by the shoulder.
“Huh? Oh Leif, sorry forgot where I was for a moment, yep I’m coming” said a groggy Sarah, not sure how long she had been asleep but certain it hadn’t long been enough. Leif lead the way over to the cliff face and showed her the easy way up. Standing there at the top, she stretched out her limbs and turned around. Along the coast a bit she could see the thin column of smoke rising in the air, which Leif had mentioned and had advised her to keep an eye in that direction.
Leif was not going to sleep but rather was making preparations for the journey home and it was Sarah’s job to keep an eye out for any surprises. She wandered over to the little rock formation that, as Leif had explained, would give her a good view out to sea and the cove, as well as keeping her hidden from prying eyes on the landward sides. It also had the added advantage of protecting her from the brisk breeze which announced the end of summer.
As she sat there listening to the gannets her mind was, for once, relatively blank and she wasn’t drifting off to sleep. Her problems seemed inconsequential compared to those of the kidnapped children destined for a foreign slave market. With these thoughts on her mind she felt the amulet warm against her skin and reaching under her tunic, removed it and looked at it.
“You have caused me a lot of trouble” she whispered to it closing her eyes while her thoughts wandered to the sandy haired Rolf, bright as a button and to Harald with his cheeky smile, always ready for a cuddle.
Without warning her world shrank away alarmingly, her stomach rolling in protest. With amazement she found herself looking at Rolf, Harald and the other children. They were huddled together on the beach, some sleeping. One of the girls was quietly weeping and Rolf had his arm around her comforting her as best as he could but however, despite frowning defiantly his eyes were those of a scared little boy.
Oddly, no one had yet noticed Sarah. Glancing down she found that she could see right through her feet to the shingle below. Sarah’s heart leaped as she frantically looked at her hands, her arms, her legs. She felt her face, yes, she could feel her body even though she looked like a ghost.
Being invisible was a very strange sensation and one which gave her see through flesh goose bumps. Swallowing the hard lump of fear she decided that this was a good thing as after all she would now be able to gather some information about the situation without getting caught. Silver linings and all that?
The warriors had also stopped to get some rest and whilst most of the men on the beach were rolled up in blankets sleeping, one was guarding the children and another was on watch further down the beach. Looking carefully at the warrior guarding the children she realised he was the leader, the one who had been giving the orders at the hall. The tattoos on his forearms caught her interest. One appeared to be a snake twisting around a sword, the hilt of which had runes inscribed on it that Sarah was unable to read.
Not knowing how much time she had, she looked towards the beach and counted the sleeping forms, including the guards and ‘snake arms’ there were twenty warriors, quite a few more than had raided the steading. The beach itself was interesting because they had chosen a spot not unlike their own cove, surrounded by steep granite cliffs with in the distance the noisy…
Sarah came back to reality with a start – gannets. Jumping up, she quickly moved off the cliff edge, her eyes drawn in the direction of the thin column of smoke she had seen earlier...but it was no longer there. Thinking about what she had seen, the fire that had been there earlier had been put out by the time of her vision. Should she make the trek along the cliffs to see if what she saw was true? There was still time before they were due to leave, so after a moment’s of indecision, she set off.
Just as she was about to give up and put her vision down to wishful thinking she heard loud male voices. Dropping to the ground, the smell of damp earth in her nostrils, her heart pounded so loud that she was sure she would be heard. Getting her breathing under control she tried to make out where the voices were coming from. To her own amazement she found herself crawling forward on her belly, commando style. The voices were coming from just up ahead, so staying on her belly she inched forward, a small voice in her head telling her to turn around and get away.
When she was almost on top of them it became obvious that the voices were coming from below her. Still on her belly she slowly moved towards the edge of the cliff, her heart racing. As she reached the edge she kept her head down, too afraid to look over in case someone saw her. Listening to the voices she felt a similar sensation to the one when she first arrived into this Viking world and Ulf was talking to her. At first the words made no sense and then slowly she could pick out one or two words and then all of sudden it was as if she had spoken the language all her life. Many of the words were actually very similar to the language she had already been speaking, although obviously a different language.
“Right get those brats onto the ship, move your lazy arses, I’m not paying you to fiddle faddle about!” said one which Sarah assumed was ‘snake arms’. Figuring (and hoping, mostly hoping) that the warriors would be looking out to sea as they got ready to board their ship Sarah dared a peek. Sure enough, the warriors were mostly aboard the slim warship with the children being dumped unceremoniously on board.
“Hmph! We’ve been babysitting for weeks now; you told us we were going to be striking a blow at the Danes, not wet nursing a bunch of snivelling brats. It’s no work for a warrior! The price has just gone up,” said one of the warriors still on the beach, a defiant hand on his sword hilt.
The tattooed man who had been overseeing his crew with his back to the beach now slowly turned around, his teeth barred in a parody of a smile.
“We agreed a price and it will be paid once we have reached Gotland with these children. Once paid you can all return to your stinking swamp of a homeland…except you,” he pointed to the warrior who had complained. “You are going to die here on this beach without honour your body feeding the carrion birds.”
As he finished speaking, a warrior wearing an animal skin cloak with the hood up over his head, jumped from the ship and roaring pulled his sword from its scabbard and charged at the dissedent warrior. Backing away in a scramble the defiant warrior lost his footing and landed heavily on his backside. Before he could get up again the roaring warrior used a backhanded slash to sever the man’s head from his shoulders.
Slapping a hand over her own mouth to stifle the scream that threatened, Sarah closed her eyes wondering if they had bitten off more than they could chew. Silence had descended and Sarah did wonder if the rest of the warriors would do something in defence of their fallen comrade. But soon the normal noises of warriors preparing to leave started up again, and Sarah dared to look once more, trying to avoid the corpse on the beach.
“Hey stop it, you’re hurting us” Rolf’s voice floated up to Sarah “You don’t want to damage the merchandise do you?” he asked in a superior voice, Sarah held her breath. The warrior who was rough handling the children looked as if he wanted give him a good smack, however, with an indifferent shrug of his shoulders he simply checked the children’s bonds and walked away. Even after seeing one of his captors murdered for the slightest complaint he was brave enough to speak up and so taking her cue from the little Viking Sarah calmed her breathing once more, resolving that nothing now would stop her from rescuing these children.
Knowing that there was very little she could do at this point, she crept slowly back away from the edge and when she thought it was safe enough, jumped up and ran very fast back the way she had come. The warrior in the animal skin stopped cleaning his sword with the dead warrior’s tunic and scrutinised the cliff top where moments before Sarah had been hiding. A slight smile played on his lips.
“Hakon, Leif quick wake up. We have to get moving...now!” shouted Sarah with the last of her breath as she scrambled down the cliff face. To their credit both boys woke up fa
r quicker than she could and both had weapons in their hands – not for the first time did Sarah realise that they were very different from the lads she knew at home. Both ran over to her, Leif was the first to speak.
“What’s going on? Are we under attack?”
Sarah shook her head and tried to get her breathing under control, “No…no but the Kurlanders who took the children are near…”
“Don’t be stupid, they would never land here, they have no allies here, the risk is too great” scoffed Hakon as he sheathed Gunnar’s sword.
Ignoring Hakon Sarah continued with her story, “Had a thought about that smoke you saw, and went to investigate. No one saw me, I was really careful, heard them say that they were heading for Gotland and I saw the children – who are all fine so far. Rolf is trying to be a pain in the backside from what I saw.”
This brought a smile to Hakon’s face; he had a special soft spot for his younger brother. However, the smile didn’t last very long and was quickly replaced by the almost permanent scowl.
“Hmph, all sounds like hogwash to me, just admit it, you fell asleep and dreamed it all!” said Hakon, folding his arms and glaring at Sarah. Finally Hakon had pushed Sarah’s buttons one time too many, she got angry.
“Oh, for goodness sake! Hakon you are the second oldest in your family and almost a man, but sometimes even little Harald behaves in a more honourable manner then you. I have told you the truth and if you don’t want to help that’s fine but I’m going anyway. Have I ever given you reason not to trust me? Do I habitually lie? Would I lie now and risk the lives of the children or us for that matter? You obviously have a low opinion of me although I really can’t think why but I am willing to work with you to get the children back home. They are more important than some silly grudge you have against me.”
She really wanted to smack that scowl off his face into next week and it was with great effort that she kept her arms firmly at her sides.
Leif turned away from his brother, embarrassed that someone like Sarah needed to remind Hakon about honour. Leif didn’t know why his brother was behaving like this with Sarah but he had watched his brother change recently. Hakon had never been an easy brother to get on with but recently it seemed that the scowl never left his face. He walked towards the boat; there were children to rescue and regardless of what Hakon thought, Leif realised that Sarah was an important part of this rescue and without her they would fail. He only hoped that Hakon would soon realise this too.
With a sigh of relief Sarah followed Leif, although as she reached the boat she turned back to look at Hakon. She would try one more time.
“So is our captain going to join us or is the beach so comfy he wants to stay all winter?” She asked with a little smile.
Looking at the girl who somehow had become the bane of his life, his face finally relaxed as he came to the understanding that the gods had decided that they would be the ones to rescue the children. They were stuck with one another; they were in a sense each other’s shield mates. Hakon jogged over to the boat and with a quick push they were on their way again.
Chapter Ten