Page 3 of The Outlaw Viking

But Rain squinted her eyes nonetheless, trying to better see the central figure in the painting. “You don’t mean the handsome rake who seduced all the women, the one who always teased you and joked with the children?”

“That’s the one. He was so good-looking, like a Norse god. And charming! He just smiled and the women melted.”

“I don’t know,” Rain said skeptically. “This man looks too grim and battle-scarred to be the same person. You must be mistaken.”

Her mother stared thoughtfully at the contorted face. “Maybe you’re right. Selik was a lover, not a hater.”

Rain shivered. “Let’s go, Mom. I’ve had enough of Vikings for one day.” Her mother laughed, and they walked back to their hotel, only a few blocks away.

That night Rain’s nightmare returned, but now all the pieces of the puzzle came together in one horrid, gruesome battle to the death, complete with the sounds and smells of war. When she saw her lone Viking warrior raise his sword and shield to the sky and scream out his agony over his fallen comrades, Rain cried too, waking her mother and probably half the hotel as well. After she calmed down and sent her mother back to bed, Rain huddled in the window seat and stared blindly out at the street, knowing she’d never sleep again that night.

Soon after dawn, she dressed, left a note for her mother, and walked the empty streets of York for hours. She was the first one in line when the museum doors opened at nine.

Rain made a beeline for the lobby where the oil painting hung. Scaffolds had been erected overnight, and laborers worked noisily on repairs to the high plaster ceiling. Rain ignored the barrier put up to keep tourists away from the work area and moved as close to the picture as possible. Then she pulled a small paper bag out of the large carryall slung over her shoulder. She unwrapped the magnifying glass she’d just purchased in a tourist gift shop and examined the compelling Viking soldier—Selik, her mother had called him. She rolled the name softly on her tongue.

Rain had no doubts now. Selik was the specter who’d been haunting her dreams for years. She furrowed her brow in confusion. What did it mean? Did she have some kind of telepathic skill? Was the dream a message or warning of some type?

“Hey, lady, look out!”

Rain glanced apprehensively up to the shouting man on the scaffolding. At the same time, she heard a loud cracking noise. She had no time to move out of the way of the massive block of heavy plaster ceiling that fell ominously toward her.

Rain felt a sharp pain on top of her head, then nothing. The physician in her recognized instantly that she’d been dealt a fatal blow. Then, miraculously, Rain moved spirit-like over the huge pile of rubble that covered her body and viewed the scene dispassionately. Workmen tried frantically to get to her, but Rain didn’t care.

A shimmering white light approached, and Rain smiled, feeling an incredible peace envelop her.

So, this is what it’s like to die.

But then the beautiful white light formed a hazy, body-shaped figure, and its head moved slightly from side to side, halting her progress. Its hand pointed her in another direction.

Rain recognized the sweet, sickening scent immediately. She’d been in too many hospital emergency and operating rooms awash with the wasted life force of countless victims to remain ignorant of the deathly odor of blood.

She felt wetness on her face and the suffocating weight of the fallen plaster. Apparently she hadn’t died after all. She tried to lift the heavy object off her chest and face, then slowly opened her leaden eyes to see better.

“Help!” Rain screamed at the horrifying sight she saw. It wasn’t plaster that pinned her to the ground, but a man—a very large man by the weight of him. She hadn’t realized that another tourist had been standing next to her in the museum before the accident. Or was it a workman? And the sticky wetness that covered her face and linen jacket—was that her blood or his?

She screamed again while grief and despair tore with sharp talons at her throat. She felt as if she had been buried alive. When no help came, Rain braced her feet firmly on the ground, bending her knees, and placed her palms on the man’s chest. With a mighty push, she heaved the body off her and stood up shakily.

Stunned, she reached blindly for her carryall on the ground and grabbed a handful of tissues and Wash ’n Dries to clean her face. Glancing about, Rain gasped and quickly closed her eyes to escape the overwhelming horror that surrounded her.

Slowly, reluctantly, with a dull ache of foreboding, she unshuttered them again, dreading what she would see. Some way, some crazy, convoluted, humanly impossible way, she had landed in the middle of her dream—at the Battle of Brunanburh in 937 A.D., more than one thousand years ago, just the way it looked in the museum painting.

She looked down and saw that the mail-clad man who’d covered her face and chest had his head half-severed at the neck. That accounted for all the blood. A man near her feet—a handsome youth whose body was protected only by a tightly fitted helmet and a thick leather vest over a thigh-length tunic and leggings—had a sword still stuck in his chest. His open eyes—a pale, pale blue—stared up at her.

Nausea churned Rain’s stomach and rose to her throat. Bending over, she vomited repeatedly until only bitter bile remained. She threw her blood-stained blazer to the ground and used the rest of her tissues to wipe her mouth, then turned stoically to view her surroundings.

Thousands of men lay dead and dying about her on the plain. Weondun, the museum card had called the flat-topped volcanic plain, or “Holy Hill.” More like “Unholy Hill,” Rain thought, recalling that it had once been the site of some heathen temple.

If ever Rain felt justified in her pacifist views, it was now. Everywhere she looked, she saw evidence of man’s inhumanity to man. Some soldiers had succumbed instantly from quick thrusts of a sword or battle-ax; others were grotesquely mutilated and missing body parts—arms, legs, heads.

Rain retched again, then picked up her shoulder bag and moved gingerly through the fallen warriors. She slipped often in spots slick with the vast quantities of lost blood and human viscera.

Although the battle appeared to be a decided Saxon victory, judging by the disproportionate number of large, Viking-clad soldiers in their conical helmets and mail tunics who lay on the field, death had taken its toll indiscriminately among the thousands that day. Fair-haired Norsemen, English-looking Saxons, dark-eyed Welshmen, Scots in their clan plaids, and Irish in their saffron trews—all fell, side by side.

Rain wanted desperately to believe that this was all a dream…a nightmare, but the stark reality surrounding her told another story. Despite her resistance, Rain was beginning to believe she had traveled back in time—just as her mother had claimed all those years.

Rain’s misery weighed heavily on her shoulders. Why was she sent here? What could she possibly do?

Considerable distance separated her from the savage hand-to-hand combat still taking place among hundreds of soldiers on the far side of the once verdant plain. Rain could see the Saxon troops with their shield walls as they moved with deadly force toward their foes. The Viking companies fought valiantly in a defensive wedge formation, with chieftains at the point and the lower ranks spread out fan-like behind them.