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If Ubba’s superstitious belief was right, and the battle would finally bring death to Andor, he would welcome it.
The Anglo-Saxons assumed a defensive position, and Ubba was about to throw the spear that would start the battle when pink flashed between the two armies. Andor had never seen this color in his life. It was like the pink of the sky at sea before the sunrise—but so much more intense, it hurt his eyes.
Right between the Viking and the Anglo-Saxon forces stood a woman. She was covered with bright-pink skin, except for her face, her hands, and her feet. She was tall and muscular and blonde.
An elfin? A giantess? A Valkyrie?
If she was a Valkyrie, Ubba was right—they were doomed, and she had come to take the dead.
Andor was not the only one seeing her, because the roar of seven hundred Norsemen around him died. Their weapons sank. They stared at her.
The enemy took advantage or their astonishment and launched at them.
The battle began. The spear did not fly. Odin did not bless them.
“Shieldwall!” Ubba cried.
As Norsemen began grouping into shieldwalls, Andor sank behind his shield, the strange woman disappearing from his vision. Battle fury stewed within him.
He had said it himself—all there was left for him, was battle.
* * *
Cathy wanted to scream, but terror paralyzed her throat. She emerged on a pebble beach between a gray sea and sky, giant cliffs lining the shore. It was so cold—so cold, that the wind turned her into an icicle.
Worse, she stood between two medieval armies. One group looked like English knights, the other—like Vikings.
Her breath froze in her throat and the ground sank under her feet, but she saw one face that made heat rush through her, melting the fear away.
Brad’s face.
He stood among the Vikings, in the first row, staring at her, like the rest of the horde of bearded men behind him, with an open mouth. He held a round Viking shield and a sword. His hair was long and wavy, the lower part of his face hidden under a beard.
“But I just shaved you,” she whispered to herself. What an idiot she was. As if that was the most important thing right now!
How about the fact that he wasn’t in a coma anymore?
But then the knights roared and launched—right at the Vikings.
Right at her.
Finally, the fight-or-flight instinct kicked in. Her feet unlocked, and she flew out of the charging men’s way, towards the cliffs, towards the bushes.
A Viking roared “Skjalborg!” The word rang strange in her ears, as though it was in a foreign language. Somehow she knew it meant “shieldwall.” Then several similar commands echoed.
As metal and wood and men clashed behind her, she saw a cave behind the bushes in the cliff. She sprinted for it as fast as her legs could go. She ignored the pain of the pebbles digging into her feet, the burning of her lungs, until she made it to the opening. It was a small cave, barely two feet deep, and there was no way she’d be able to stand up in there. But she crawled in, and only when her back pressed against the far wall, and she was certain no one had chased her, did she allow herself to breathe.
Her ragged breath was so loud and so heavy, it echoed off the cave walls almost drowning out the sounds of the battle. Her hands shook, and she realized the soles of her bare feet hurt. When she inspected one of her feet, she found it was bruised and cut in several places from sharp pebbles, although not deeply.
The cave wall cut into Cathy’s back and chilled her. It smelled like wet earth and old seaweed.
This place didn’t smell like the baked saltiness of the Pacific.
Where was she?
Why was Brad dressed like a Viking warrior and about to fight hundreds of people who looked as though they’d stepped out of a British period drama?
The screams and roars and thuds of weapons rang loudly on the beach. If anything, they were getting closer to Cathy.
