Page 93 of Alien Viking's Plunder

Prince Craxon of Ragnhildros came over. After the battle with Gornt he had stayed in Hjalmarheim for unspecified reasons, although Josie thought she knew why. “Earl Bragr, that is a Shine or I’m the king of the dfergir. I wonder what effects it will have.”

“Your Highness,” Bragr greeted him. “Yes, the effects are different every time, so they say. Whatever it means, I’m determined to make the most of it. We shall use the good effects to our advantage, and whichever bad effects there are we shall find a way to deal with. Or just ignore. This shall be the best Shine in the history of Gardr!”

The prince laughed. “Marriage has been good for you, Bragr! No longer are you worrying and brooding about everything. Now you meet the dangers head on with a determination to triumph!” His eyes shifted behind them and became soft.

Josie was pretty sure she knew what he was seeing. “Hi, Aretha.”

“Uh… hi,” Aretha said. “Do you have eyes in your back now? How did you know it was me?”

Josie glanced at the prince, who was slowly moving away, sending the occasional glance behind him. “Just a guess. Damn, we’re being swept by the energy beam of a pulsar. We’re the first Earthlings ever to experience that.”

“And we’re still alive,” Aretha pointed out. “I would not have guessed that. Those energy beams are supposed to be all kinds of hard gamma and x-ray. And here we are, not fried to a crisp. The Vikings say they’ve had this happen many times before, even. Though nobody remembers it. Told you that’s not a regular pulsar. Or a pulsar at all.”

“I’ve been thinking the same thing,” Josie said, happy to finally be able to talk shop with another astronomer. “It looks like one. But it’s too weird to be one. It doesn’t pulsate, for one thing—”

A warrior came running. “Chief Bragr!”

Bragr spun around. “What is it, Huskarl Gudmundr?”

“The longships, Chief! They all fell over!”

“What? Fell over? How?”

“They usually balance on their keels, Chief. Now they’ve all fallen over on their sides, like an ordinary ship would. And we can’t straighten them! It almost looks as if… as if they’redead.”

Bragr walked fast towards the boathouses where the longships were stored when not in use. Josie and Aretha followed, as did many of the others.

Inside the boathouse, warriors and craftsmen were standing around scratching their heads. indeed all four ships were lying on their sides as if they had lost their balance.

“What could be the cause of this?” Bragr wondered out loud. “Some lingering malice from Gornt?”

“It’s the Shine,” Heidran said as he joined them. “We’re seeing one of the effects ofthisShine.”

Bragr went over and put his hand on the bow of one of the ships. “They must all be examined carefully! Perhaps they still work.” He climbed into the ship as well as he could and started to check it.

Arch Shaman Heidran shook his head slowly. “It’s the Shine. Straum made it possible for longships to work. Now it has taken its gift away.”

“Bragr,” Josie said, getting a bad feeling about it. “What does this mean?”

The Viking chief climbed back out and slapped the bow of the ship in frustration. “It means no more raids while the Shine is on.”

“But for the girls? What does it mean for them?”

Bragr turned around and fixed her with his sky-blue eyes. “These longships can’t travel in the River anymore. They can’t go into space. Indeed I don’t think they can go anywhere. Including Earth. I’m sorry, Aretha. But it looks like you and your friends are stranded on Gardr.”