Viking Raiders (9 page)

Isis tutted. “It didn't do me any harm!” she said.

Suddenly, something dazzling and bright caught Tom's eye.

“Hey!” he said to Isis. “I think there's jewellery too. Let's get a closer look.”

Creeping forward, Tom and Isis spotted a necklace, hanging from the tip of a sword. Set into the centre of it was...

“The pink amulet!” Isis said, turning to Tom with excitement.

When Erik had finished chanting Viking prayers and poetry, the men started to push the boat towards the gently lapping sea. They heaved and grunted and harrumphed, scrabbling to keep their footing in the damp sand. Finally, rolling the vessel over logs they had found in the woods, the boat made contact with the beginning of water that stretched up the beach. “Farewell, Geir!” the men shouted.

“Oh, no!” Isis gasped. “The boat's sailing away!”

“We need to do something quick!” Tom said. But unfortunately, he had no idea what that might be. “What happens next?” he asked Magnus in panic.

Magnus wiped a tear from his pale eyelashes and sniffed hard. “When the boat has drifted well away from the shore, someone will fire a flaming arrow into it.”

“To set the boat on fire?” Tom asked.

“Yes,” Magnus said. “The whole vessel will burn, and the ashes of Geir's body, the things in there with him – all of it will be swallowed by the sea.”

Tom looked at Isis. Isis looked at Tom. They nodded – then ran!

Tom and Isis dashed up the beach to where the landing boats were moored. Tom fiddled with the ropes that tied them together. His hands were numb with cold as he worked at the knot.

“Hurry up!” Isis shouted.

Tom looked over his shoulder. The boat carrying Geir was drifting further and further from the shore. Gulls circled overhead. “Got it!” he cried, as the knot finally came undone.

“Help me, or we're going to lose the amulet,” Tom told Isis.

Together, they tugged the little boat on to the sea and started rowing. Amazingly, given how rubbish Isis was at rowing, they soon caught up with Geir's boat.

“Get away from there, you fools!” Erik bellowed from the beach. He looked furious as he watched Tom and Isis pull alongside the funeral boat. The Viking named Bjørn was beginning to light the tip of his arrow with a flaming torch.

“Just keep going,” Tom said.

Isis stretched out her arm. “I can almost touch it,” she said gleefully.

But just as she was within a fingertip's reach of the funeral boat, a huge swell of water, almost four metres high, rose up from the seabed. Tom let out a desperate groanas it pushed them out of reach of Geir's boat. The freak wave put an impossible distance between their boat and Geir's.

“WHOOPS!” rumbled a voice on the wind.

Cleo's fur stood to attention in stiff spikes.

A deep-throated chuckling rose up from under the waves.

“Anubis!” Isis said. “What a troublemaker!”

“We can't give up now!” Tom said. “Keep rowing!”

“I can't carry on much longer!” Isis moaned. “Princesses aren't really used to this kind of work!”

She wasn't the only one struggling. Tom let go of his oars to examine his stinging palms. He winced. The skin on his hands was blistered and raw.

“We can't give up,” he said. “There's just a couple more metres to go.”

Gritting his teeth with determination, Tom heaved his oars against the flow of water until, at last, they drew next to the other boat. He grabbed the side and loosely tied their boat to Geir's with a length of rope.

“Hurry!” he said, flinging himself into the funeral boat.

Tom stretched out a helping hand to Isis, but she ignored him and leaped nimbly across by herself.

Cleo peered over the side into the dark water, and took a step back, hissing.

“I don't think she wants to risk another wetting,” Isis said. “Poor darling. We'll just be a minute, Cleo. Now, where is that amulet?”

Tom and Isis rummaged frantically through the jewellery that lay strewn about the boat.

“Aha!” cried Tom, holding up the necklace proudly.

Isis snatched it from his hand. “Perfect!” she cried. “Now, let's get out of here.”

“I warned you two!” Erik yelled.

Looking out across the water, Tom could see how angry Erik was – his red face matched his hair.

“And now you're stealing from my dead warrior,” he roared, shaking his fist at them. “You've gone too far! I'll not delay this funeral any longer. Geir could use a couple of servants in Valhalla. Prepare to burn!”

Tom saw the Viking turn to Bjørn and give him an instruction. Bjørn nocked the flaming arrow against his bow. He aimed towards the boat.

The released arrow went off course in a gust of wind and fizzled harmlessly on the surface of the water ten metres away.

“That was a bit of luck!” Isis said. “Come on… hurry!”

Clutching the amulet necklace in her hand, she scrambled over the treasure and jumped back to the safety of their little boat.

But Tom was frozen with fear. He watched as Bjørn aimed yet another flaming arrow at the boat. This time, it sped up, up, up into the sky with a flaming, golden tail. And then it whizzed back down… straight towards Geir's boat.

“AAAARGH!” Tom cried, as the arrow found its mark in the hull.

The arrow splintered a plank with a
thud!
And then the hungry fire claimed its wooden feast.

Roaring flames sprang up and Tom could feel the heat against his face.

“Don't just stand there!” shouted Isis, snapping Tom out of his terrified trance. The flames were getting too close for comfort now. She started untying the little boat from the flaming funeral boat. “Jump!” she urged him.

Tom knew he had to jump, or else be fried alive in his very own Viking barbecue.

I am NOT going to sizzle like a sausage
, he thought.

Tom sprang over the side – but the little boat had drifted too far away.

Splash!

“Klaflooffla!” Tom said, as his mouth and nose filled with cold, salty water. His heavy, waterlogged cloak was pulling him down, down, down into the freezing, inky water.

He went under. The men shouting on the shore, Isis screaming, and the crackle of the burning boat suddenly all fell silent. The only thing Tom could hear was his own heart thumping as he sank.

I can't drown
, he thought.
Isis will never get her other amulets.

Tom started to kick his legs with all the strength he could muster. At the same time, he shrugged off his heavy fur cloak. Just when he thought his lungs might explode, he broke the surface, gasping for air.

“Swim, Tom! Swim!” Isis screeched.

Finally, he started to do his best front crawl towards Isis, remembering to breathe to the side and keep his kicking legs straight.
My swimming teacher would be proud
, he thought.

He quickly covered the distance between Geir's funeral inferno and their landing boat. He grabbed the side and Isis hauled him into safety. Tom collapsed in the bottom of the boat, dripping and shivering.

“OW!” He looked down at his toe and saw that Cleo had just nipped him. “What was that for? I nearly drowned.”

Isis grabbed a set of oars and rolled her eyes at Tom. “You trod on her tail, you clumsy boy!”

Before Tom had a chance to reply, Geir's boat made a sizzling noise.

He turned round and saw that the flames had greedily gobbled up everything, right down to the foamy surface of the water. Only a few planks of charred wood remained, and then they, too, sank to the bottom of the North Sea, taking the ashes of Geir with them.

“Goodbye, brave Geir,” Tom said solemnly. “I hope you make it safely to Valhalla.”

“Goodbye,” Isis said, sniffing.

Then Tom stood and took Cleo's paw in one hand and Isis's hand in the other. “Come on,” he said, shivering. “I'm freezing. It's time to go home.”

As all three of them touched the pink amulet, a tornado whipped round their legs. Tom felt himself being sucked up into the tunnels of time. With eyes clamped shut, the three friends shot round the bends, twists and turns through history.