The Thrall (The Viking Hero Series Book 1) (4 page)

Bjord scratched
the back of his head and knelt down to examine the torn bushes. "They
must
have been cornered and ran right through it." He
plucked a piece of wool from a branch and stood back up.

"Yes, I do believe that is what happened.
Here's a piece of wool from one of them. They tore through those
bushes and made their own path."

Sven and Rowan just looked at each other, not sure
what to think about the whole ordeal.

After a moment of kneeling back down and trying to
look through the hole in the bushes, Bjord stood up and motioned to
Rowan while pointing at the hole, "crawl though there and see if
you can tell where they went."

Rowan silently gulped and nodded. He wasn't sure
what lie beyond those bushes and whether or not he wanted to meet it
face to face while crawling on his knees through some bushes.

He removed the rope he was carrying over his
shoulder and set it down on the ground. He got down on his hands and
knees and carefully began crawling into the hole in the bushes. He
could see light on the other side. It looked like it was quite a few
paces from where the sheep had gone in and then busted out on the
other side.

Rowan crawled through hole. It was only as high as
he was on his knees and barely as wide as his own body. He continued
to crawl through to the other side.

When he came out through the other side Rowan got
quite the startle as he almost fell.

Abruptly on the other side of the thick bushes and
brush that the sheep had ran though was a steep cliff. It was a very
steep cliff that dropped for a long way.

Rowan backed up carefully, as not to fall off the
side. "There's a cliff at the other end of these bushes!"
he shouted.

Bjord hollered back, "what? What do you see?"

'There's a steep cliff that goes down the
mountainside," repeated Rowan.

Bjord drew his brows together and wrinkled his
forehead, giving Sven a puzzled look.

"Do you see any of the sheep?"

Rowan edged closer to the side and looked over.
All he could see was a abrupt decline that fell several ways down
into the rocks below. He gasped and safely scooted himself back
again. He turned and yelled back, "I don't see them. It falls
straight down into rocks. There is no sign of them down there."

Bjord looked down, sighing in his breath and
mumbled something about 'thralls.' He looked back up at Sven and
said, "go in there and look. Tell me if you can see where the
sheep went."

Sven did not want to go in there. Regardless of
his daydreaming, he wasn't exactly 'hero' material. But before he
could make any kind of protest, Bjord frowned at him and motioned
towards the hole torn in the bush.

"Go now boy!"

Sven nodded and removed his bow and leather weaved
quiver. He set them down on top of where Rowan had set the rope. He
reluctantly knelt down to crawl through the hole and paused a second
to look through. He then looked back at his quiver real quick to make
sure he had set it down so that none of the arrows would fall out.
This was when he noticed that he'd grabbed the wrong quiver.

The quiver he'd grabbed in his haste contained
fishing arrows with the arrow heads made from bone. They had small
barbs in them and shattered when they hit against anything. They were
not the sharp iron tipped arrows for hunting.

He grabbed the bow and arrows in case they came
across some wolves or something and needed to defend themselves.

He hoped his father didn't notice his bumble. He
seriously doubted that he'd need his bow, but he didn't want to catch
hell for grabbing the wrong quiver of arrows.

Bjord grew openly annoyed at Sven's hesitation and
kicked him on the rump with the side of his foot. "Get in there
boy, stop being a damned coward."

Sven crawled through the passage to where Rowan
was knelt down on the other end. He crawled through, tearing a hole
in his trouser knee, and knelt next to him.

Sven carefully looked over the edge to see what
was there. Rowan grabbed Sven on the shoulder and steadied him as he
got near the edge. "Be careful." he said.

He just shot Rowan a dirty look and said, "don't
worry thrall, I've got this."

Sven hesitantly looked further over the side and
carefully scanned the area below in disbelief. Seeing the rocks below
from the sudden long drop, he backed up and looked at Rowan with a
look of baffled disbelief on his face.

Rowan nodded in agreement and looked over the side
again himself.

Sven backed up from the ledge slightly and called
back. "It's true. There's a sudden drop over a cliff at the end
of the passage. It's a long drop and there are rocks below. Nothing
could survive that kind of a fall."

"Do you see any sign of the sheep?"
Bjord called back.

"I don't see any sign of the sheep. It's like
they just disappeared. I can't say for sure, but I don't see their
bodies anywhere down there."

Puzzled, Bjord angrily cursed under his breath.
"Go ahead and come back through. Make sure you look one last
time to make sure there's no sign of them. They had to go somewhere.
Things don't just disappear in thin air."

"We're coming back out," Sven called
back. He didn't need to be told twice to get out of there. He didn't
want to crawl through that hole in the first place. And he absolutely
did not like being next to that cliff with its sudden drop to a
guaranteed death.

Sven began crawling out through the hole with
Rowan following closely behind.

When Sven got through, he quickly stood up and
quickly began brushing the dirt from his hands and knees before
gathering up his bow and quiver.

Rowan crawled out and picked the rope up from the
ground, slinging it back over his shoulder.

The air was still thick with a putrid smell from
something dead and rotten. Sven covered his nose and mouth with the
inside of his arm, trying not to gag. When they had crawled through
the hole, the air on the other side was much clearer and didn't reek.
It was only when they crawled back that it hit them again.

"What is that smell?" protested Sven to
nobody in particular.

Bjord answered, "I don't know, but it can't
be from the sheep. Even if they'd been dead for a long time, they
wouldn't leave behind a stench such as that. This smell is from
something that has been rotting for a very long time. It is
unnatural."

After a brief moment Bjord decided to continue
looking for the sheep. There was no real proof that they ran over the
cliff. Although something could have carried them off below, such as
wolves or other wildlife. But they also could have seen the cliff and
turned around.

He wasn't going to be satisfied unless he'd given
the area a proper look.

"Let's go further up the hill and see what we
can find out. Maybe the sheep ran up there. The brush is very thick,
but we can still get through this way." He indicted which
direction by pointing to a less dense area and started walking
towards it.

Bjord led the way as they made their way through
the thicket up the hill. He used his ax to chop some of tree limbs
out of the way to allow for their passage.

The smell of decay was getting even more intense.
Sven stopped once when his stomach couldn't handle it anymore and
retched out his earlier meal.

Rowan secretly got some satisfaction from
observing this. Sven hadn't the common compassion to share his meat
and tossed the remainder in the woods. Having an empty stomach now
paid off for Rowan. Even though he wasn't sure for how much longer.

Alas they finally got through and came out of the
thick brush to a clearing on the other side. On the clearing there
was very little brush. It opened up to a clearing that was mostly
rocky. Nothing seemed to really grow there and in the middle of it
all was a mound of piled river stones and dirt.

The mound also appeared to have been freshly made.

The putrid smell in
the air was now worse than ever at the clearing where the mound was.
It smelled as if there were rotting corpses all over the place. There
was nothing but this barren mound of stone and soil.

Gasping from the stench in the air, Sven asked,
"what is this place?"

"I don't know," replied Bjord "it
appears to be a burial mound."

"A burial mound?" said Sven in near
disbelief. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, I know a burial mound when I see one."
said Bjord. "But what I don't get is why it's way up here hidden
in the forest on the mountain and why the dirt is so fresh. It looks
like it was just made."

Rowan just stood behind them, covering his nose
and mouth, trying to not get sick from the stench that lingered in
the air.

Bjord walked toward the burial mound to inspect it
more closely. The other two moved slightly closer behind him, but
still kept their distance.

"I don't understand why it smells so bad,'
said Bjord as he looked at the mound closely with his eyes visibly
starting to water from the offensive smell in the air.

"What do you mean?" asked Sven.

"Well for one, whatever is buried here
shouldn't be smelling like this because it's buried," he pointed
out "and there's nothing exposed here to make the smell."

Bjord bent down on one
knee to get an even closer look at the earth mound, brushing some of
the soil on the mound to the side.

"Yes, this soil
seems fresh on this." He observed. "Even stranger is
whoever made this used river stones."

"So what? Lots of
people do that." said Sven.

"Yeah, but not
way up here on the mountain side. They had to carry those stones up
from a river. Why didn't they just use the rock that was already
here?"

It was then when they noticed a heavy mist
beginning to form around them. It was originating from the mound
itself.

Sven and Rowan exchanged a worried look.

"This is very odd," Sven said. "Mists
don't just form out of nowhere and they don't form that fast.
Something isn't right about this."

Bjord stood up and looked around. Just as he was
about to say something, they all noticed a dark figure standing in
front of them on top of the burial mound. It just sort of 'appeared'
in the mist.

The smell of death in the air was stronger than it
had ever been before.

"What is that?" asked Sven as he gagged
from the stench in the air.

"Who's there!" Bjord demanded of the
large figure standing in front of him in the mist.

Bjord lifted his battle ax up in front of him. He
gripped the handle tightly with both hands and and briefly looked at
Sven and said, "get an arrow ready, boy," before looking
back at the figure.

The mist was starting to fade away and they were
able to get a better look at the figure.

It was twice as tall as a man and bloated twice as
wide. Its rotting flesh was pink and purplish blue. with dead white
eyes glaring through swollen eyelids.

The smell of decay that came from it was so strong
it sickened everyone to a point of actually wanting to drop to their
knees and start gagging. It made them want to wretch, but fear from
the very sight of this thing prevented any action but gazing at it in
horror.

It was the draug, the dead walker that Grandmother
Helga warned of.

It stood there
for a moment looking at them menacingly
before it let
out a piercing scream and leapt forward at Bjord.

It pounced on top of Bjord before he could react.
Still in shock, even though he had his ax at the ready, it was
useless in his hands. Bjord fell to the ground on his back with the
creature on top of him.

You could see Bjord's face turning red as he
struggled under the weight of the beast. It had him pinned down. Its
knee was on his arm and prevented him from raising his ax.

Bjord was pinned and helpless. He was completely
unable to defend himself. That was when the ghastly thing brought its
huge fist down upon him and smashed him in the chest. The powerful
hit made Bjord gasp painfully for air before spitting out some blood.

Both Sven and Rowan stood frozen for a moment with
their mouths agape looking on in shock before they were able to
react.

Sven, seeing that it was killing h
is
father, grabbed his bow and retrieved one of the bone tipped fishing
arrows. He nocked the arrow, drew back and released it into the side
of the dead walker.

The beast was so
large, it was nearly impossible to miss as the arrow struck its
target and pierced deeply into the creature's rotting flesh.

The arrow strike
didn't even phase it and it struck Bjord again with its massive fist
while letting out a horrifying roar.

Sven released another
arrow, piercing it again which also seemed to have no affect on the
beast. It was as if the thing didn't even notice the arrows Sven was
firing into it.

Rowan was now able to
move from the initial shock. He took his small ax from his belt,
gripped it loosely on the end of the handle and then hurdled it at
the beast.

He was hoping to
sink the ax blade deep into the
monster's
skull. T
he ax hurdled through the air and swished pass the
creature's head, missing completely and fell in the thick brush
behind it. Lost forever.

Rowan just stared in disbelief at the brush where
the ax fell. He didn't know what made him think he could actually hit
the creature with it. He'd never thrown an ax before. He'd seen one
of the men from the village throw one into a tree truck and was
impressed by it. He didn't considered such a skill would actually
take practice.

Now he was disarmed because of his foolish act.

Sven paid no attention to what Rowan was doing and
sunk another arrow into the beast. Regardless of yet another arrow
finding its mark and sinking deeply, the beast continued to ignore
the arrows as if they weren't even there.