Page 3 of The Shipwreck
Kimbery crouched a few feet away from him, resting her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands, peering curiously into his face.“Is it my da?”
“Nay!”Avril replied, a little too vehemently, though she could see why the lass would think that.The man’s face was hidden behind strands of long blond hair that was the same pale color as Kimbery’s.He was covered in a cloak of seal fur, and his sealskin boots looked much like theirs.But there the resemblance ended.He was a giant, a head taller than any man she knew.His shoulders were broad and his feet huge.A silver cuff in a dragon design encircled one thick wrist, and hanging around his wide neck from a leather thong was a hammer of silver with foreign runes carved into it.
Thank God he was dead.His kind—the invaders from the North—were bloodthirsty, vicious, ruthless murderers.
She shuddered.Despite the value of all that silver, she had no desire to loot the corpse.She didn’t want to touch a Viking at all.Then she frowned in distaste.Whatwouldshe do with the body?She didn’t want it rotting on her shore.She’d have to bury it, she supposed.It was a pity itwasn’ta beached seal.That much meat would have seen them through the winter.
Kimbery, flouting Avril’s instructions, picked up a club of driftwood and began nudging the man’s bloody shoulder.Avril shook her head.The lass might not openly disobey her by touching the dead man, but even at four years old, she had an annoying habit of stretching the rules as far as she could.
“Wake up!”the lass shouted into his unresponsive face.
“He’s dead, Kimmie.”
“Nay, he’s not.”
“Aye, he is,” she said, though Kimbery’s yelling was fit to wake the dead.
Kimbery curled her determined lip and nudged him again.
Avril raised a sardonic brow.Maybe shecouldcook him up for supper.There was probably a few hundred pounds of muscle on his large frame.
Then again, Viking meat was probably tough and foul-tasting.
“Wake!Up!”Kimbery punctuated each word with a hard poke of her driftwood.
“Kimbery, leave the poor—”
Then he groaned.
Avril froze.Shite.Kimbery was right.He wasn’t dead.
“See, Mama?I told you he was—”
She snatched the lass up so fast, the little girl’s head snapped backward.
The man groaned again.Avril snagged the driftwood out of Kimbery’s hand and held it in front of her like a weapon.
Then Kimbery began to wail, which caused the man to rouse.
“Sh-sh-sh-sh-sh.”Avril bounced the lass on her left hip, hoping to quiet her, to no avail.Damn!What would she do if the man regained consciousness?She wished she’d brought her sword.He’d swat away her driftwood club as easily as a piece of straw.
She could run.If she hurried, she could make it to her cottage with Kimbery before the man found his feet.But that would only delay him.Eventually he’d come and knock down her door, probably with one solid punch of his oversized fist.
Kimbery, enraged at being thwarted and oblivious to the danger, squirmed out of Avril’s grip just as the man’s eyes fluttered open.
“Run!”she screamed at Kimbery, who was already tearing off toward the cottage in fury.
Avril turned back to the man.She just glimpsed the ice-blue hue of his opening eyes before she swung around with the driftwood, clubbing him in the head as hard as she could.
Chapter 2
Avril was glad Kimbery hadn’t witnessed her mother clouting a helpless castaway.
She winced as she used the pointy end of the driftwood to cautiously sweep aside the unconscious man’s hair.Blood tricked down his temple where she’d struck him, but his pulse still beat steadily in his throat.
Thank God she hadn’t killed him.True, Northmen were degenerate and insidious and evil.But slaying an unarmed man went against everything her father had taught her about honor.
Now what was she going to do with him?He might wake again at any moment.She couldn’t keep clubbing him.But she had to keep him subdued.And she had to get him out of sight.
