Warrior, page 1
Warrior
The Viking Tales, Volume 1
W.J. May
Published by Dark Shadow Publishing, 2024.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
WARRIOR
First edition. April 23, 2024.
Copyright © 2024 W.J. May.
ISBN: 979-8223949558
Written by W.J. May.
Copyright @ 2024 by W .J. May
This e-book or print is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book/paperback may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the arduous work of the author.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual person, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
All rights reserved.
Copyright 2024 by W.J. May
Warrior, Bk 1 of the Viking Tales
Cover by: Book Cover by Design
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews.
Have You Read the Kerrigan Series?
The Chronicles of Kerrigan
Book I - Rae of Hope is FREE!
Book Trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gILAwXxx8MU
How hard do you have to shake the family tree to find the truth about the past?
Fifteen year-old Rae Kerrigan never really knew her family's history. Her mother and father died when she was young and it is only when she accepts a scholarship to the prestigious Guilder Boarding School in England that a mysterious family secret is revealed.
Will the sins of the father be the sins of the daughter?
As Rae struggles with new friends, a new school and a star-struck forbidden love, she must also face the ultimate challenge: receive a tattoo on her sixteenth birthday with specific powers that may bind her to an unspeakable darkness. It's up to Rae to undo the dark evil in her family's past and have a ray of hope for her future.
The Queen’s Alpha Series
Eternal
Everlasting
Unceasing
Evermore
Forever
Boundless
Prophecy
Protected
Foretelling
Revelation
Betrayal
Resolved
Find W.J. May
Website:
https://www.wjmaybooks.com
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Author-WJ-May-FAN-PAGE/141170442608149
Newsletter:
SIGN UP FOR W.J. May's Newsletter to find out about new releases, updates, cover reveals and even freebies!
https://www.wjmaybooks.com/subscribe
The Viking Tales
PREQUEL: Adversity
Bk 1 - Warrior
Bk 2 - Defender
Bk 3 - Contender
Bk 4 - Affinity
Bk 5 - Heroine
K 6 - Victory
The WARRIOR Blurb
They say some people are favored by the gods. Others need to make their own luck.
There is a single lesson in the heart of every Viking: Those who use magic are put to death.
When a handsome young warrior rides into her village and Liv barely has time to notice. There is coin to be made with the arrival of the king.
But the fates have other plans.
The two strike up a friendship that grows closer, even though Liv knows she will never rise above her station.
She makes a promise that even though she cannot love him, she will protect him.
And that promise will require the greatest sacrifice of all.
Contents
Have You Read the Kerrigan Series?
The Queen’s Alpha Series
Find W.J. May
The Viking Tales
The WARRIOR Blurb
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
The Defender
Adversity
Chapter 1 Sample of Adversity
The Viking Tales
Find W.J. May
More books by W.J. May
Prologue
They say a single river connects us. A seam of endless water, circling the length of the world...
It’s a cradle-story, sung in sweet-voices over babes too small to listen, then barked at the feasting tables once those babes are fully grown. In all my days, I’ve never met anyone who didn’t believe it.
It settles into the heart of my people, blending the line between fact and fiction, between truth and myth.
I could not say for the rest of the world, I had seen such a small part of it, but the waters ran the length of our kingdom, a winding ribbon from toes to crown.
It was said to be a sign of hope. It was said to bring healing.
I’d never found it as such.
I’d always found more truth in the legend of the great serpent, continuous and inescapable, devouring itself inch by ravenous inch. It would make more sense: that we were living somewhere amidst those constricting scales.
Still, there was a part of me that longed for the river.
Where it might go...
Chapter 1
I’d always thought it would be rather easy to die.
Since I was a child, death had been a part of the discussion. Hardly a few weeks would pass before we’d be lowering someone new into the ground. People a lot less capable than I was. People who’d somehow managed to find their way to those sacred halls. Those who’d been left behind would stand by their mounds, stand by their pyres. Shrieking and wailing, tearing their clothes in despair. But it had always seemed to me like something of a relief. Their scrapes and toils were behind them. They would leave our grim shores and enter Valhalla’s radiant embrace.
I’d mentioned this precisely once and gotten slapped across the face.
“Don’t ever speak like that! You’ll tempt the gods!”
I wanted to believe that. I wanted to think about it the way a person should. But I didn’t think the gods particularly cared whether we lived or died. Especially me.
And if they did, they had a strange way of showing it.
A quiet buzzing caught my attention, and I lowered my gaze to a bee crawling over a blanket of aspen leaves by my foot. Its velvety head bobbed up and down, almost as if in prayer, as it made its way slowly along the pebbly shore. My first thought was that it must have been hurt; why walk when you’d been given wings to fly? But there didn’t appear to be anything wrong with it. Aside from a loose grasp on time, it was merely going about its daily tasks—flowers, and honey, and sun.
I could scarcely blame it for wanting to prolong the morning. I’d wandered into the woods with the same desire myself. The sun had come out today, warm and bright, and the woods had come alive with it. The terns and the quails had flushed from their nests. Long-winged herons cast slanting shadows from the sky. The apples trees were rattling in the breeze, the air around them sweetened with the scent of ever-ripening fruit. It was the first true day of summer. The blushing embrace of a season that was always the most welcome to see coming, and the first to say goodbye.
Where are you going...?
The bee had changed directions, skittering purposely back the way it came. I had perhaps foolishly believed it to be something like myself—having left the morning routine behind to seek out simpler pleasures, abandoning the buzzing hive for the warm respite of a walk across the leaves.
Perhaps it was just stupid.
My eyes caught a flicker of movement, and I watched as a little sandpiper hopped out of the brush, drawing closer and closer to the log where I sat. It hadn’t yet seen my bee, but at this point, I was prepared to intervene if it did. One learned to foster a sort of detachment when it came to such things, as the laws of our land were simple: eat or be eaten. But I had never been very good at those lessons. I was the child who’d baited the garden path with honey, and brought in strays after every storm. My adolescence had brought no greater maturity, I’d simply learned to be craftier in my aims.
The strays were tended in the forest. The bee was already named, but I kept it to myself.
A rush of wings, and a muted crackle. The sandpiper had speared itself a mayfly. Just a stone’s throw away, the bee ambl ed closer to the water, never seeing the danger just beyond.
With an idle curiosity, I abandoned my perch and sank to the leaves beside it, stretching on my stomach and watching as those whisker-thin legs heaved its body, fat and swollen with pollen, over one leaf and onto the next. The effort must have been astounding. A tiny miracle, hidden in the underbrush, unnoticed as the rest of the world hurried by. When it felt the cool of my shadow, it froze a solitary moment, then took suddenly to the air. In the blink of an eye, it was gone.
“Safe travels,” I murmured, staring at the place it had disappeared.
The sun had already risen high above the forest, glints of light spearing through the canopy of leaves. I had done something I shouldn’t. I had left the bustle of the village, the duties and chores that hounded me, and ventured away on my own. It was such a lapse, that no one would think to challenge it. They would assume I was off attending some task and think nothing more. Even if they had thought to send someone, they never would have guessed to look for me here.
The water splashed at my feet, cool and unending, winding ever onward to bear the northern ice-melt into the warmer summer plains. I stared from a distance, watching as it spilled noisily over the rocks. Sixteen years, I had lived alongside the river. Never once had I gotten fully inside.
Why not today?
The thought was sudden, arresting—breaking over me like a fever that had been too long kept at bay. While my brain reflexively balked at the idea, a more sensible part couldn’t find any reason not to. The forest was empty and settlement was drowning in preparations. I could slip in and out without anyone being the wiser. I could be dry by the time I made it home.
The seconds ticked past, one after another, then with a sudden burst of determination, I pushed to my feet. My hair was already pinned half-back, but I took out the band and let it drop past my shoulders, unlacing the boots that encased my feet and leaving them on the shore. A kind of giddiness had taken hold of me. My body was thrumming, and my heart was pumping too fast.
I took a step, and then another. The pulse of adrenaline had bolstered me, but beneath the summer sun, my skin was clammy and pale. My fingers fumbled with the laces on my tunic, as the frothing water lapped over my toes. It was freezing, exhilarating. Inviting.
...too much.
I stepped back just as quickly, breathing as hard as if I’d run all the way from the road. The laces were abandoned and the boots were snatched back off the rocks, but a second before I could cram them over my feet, a distant chorus of laughter filtered through the trees.
I went perfectly still, tense and bristling, like a rabbit that realized it had wandered too close to a wolf. A sense of panic swept over me, paired with a grim anticipation. They were laughing at me, but that was no matter. People had laughed at me before. They had seen me undressing, but that was fine. I’d gotten no higher than my ankles. I would face whoever it was, stoic and free of emotion, before making up some excuse and marching straight back to the house. They were young, the voices I’d heard. Even younger than I was. There was no need to fear any of the usual—
“—again, Dag!” a voice called in the distance. “Before it gets away!”
My eyes lifted slowly, peering through the trees.
For the second time that morning, I had been wrong. The voices hadn’t come for me, they were there for something else. Their laughter rang up again, in a cold and familiar chorus, twisting the edges of my stomach and thinning the lines of my mouth. I should have gone home. I should have thanked the gods for allowing my transgression to go unnoticed, and ghosted into the trees.
But I was feeling rather spontaneous that morning. And bad things came in threes.
Without a trace of hesitation, I finished with the boots and hurried through the forest, picking up speed as that laughter echoed again. I was closer, now. Close enough to glimpse a clutch of familiar faces. There were half a dozen of them, girls and boys who ran in a little pack through the village, though I could tell you little more about them than that. They were drawn together in a tight huddle, looking down at something that appeared to be lying at their feet.
There was a quiet rustle, followed by a rending cry.
“What are you doing?”
They sprang apart, as I’d hoped they might—their faces flushed with guilt, their hands clapped innocently behind their backs. For a flash of a second, they stood there, waiting in silent obedience for whatever was coming next. Then they saw who it was, and let out a collective breath.
“It’s only her,” one of them half-sighed with relief, glancing over her shoulder, as if I might have brought reinforcements. “Come on, let’s finish the—”
“What are you doing?” I asked again, sharper this time.
Not a single person answered, their pride was too great for that. But with some strange compulsion, half of them shifted aside in the same instant, allowing me to look for myself.
I should have guessed, from the way they were jeering.
A hawk had gotten caught in some brambles, hurting its wing and leaving it tethered to the ground. Our forests were thick with hawks, they hunted for game same as the rest of us, but this was one of the largest I’d seen—large enough that the ring of children wouldn’t dare venture within range of its talons. They had contented themselves with poking at it with sticks, letting out another chorus of demonic laughter every time it flinched away with a desperate cry.
My throat constricted, and I pulled in a deliberate breath. “Get away from it.”
That should have been enough. The children were much younger than I was, they should have scattered. But they were enjoying their game and merely looked at me, clutching those cruel sticks in their hands. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise, but it stung just the same.
A manut, I was called. A girl with limited prospects, and even more limited authority.
“What if we don’t?” one of them taunted. He was standing in the center, half-obstructing the bird. It had been his idea to get the sticks. “What are you going to do about it?”
“What am I going to do?” I stalled, eyes flickering around the circle.
At that point, most people would have either scared them off or threatened to inform their parents. Viking children were hard as the frozen ground upon which they’d been raised, but like all others, they had a healthy fear of their parents. The problem was, Viking parents would have little concern for the well-being of a bird. I weighed my options, and decided to aim higher.
“What am I going to do?” I repeated with raised eyebrows, looking around the circle like the answer was obvious. “I’m going to pray, of course.”
Without further ado, I knelt to the ground and opened my arms, tilting my face towards the heavens. The children flashed quick looks at each other, but didn’t dare to interrupt. The ones that were standing farthest away, had dropped their sticks and were already edging into the forest.
“I call upon Freya,” I declared in a ringing voice, “great goddess in the skies and protector of earth’s living creatures. I beg you to spare this poor animal, and deliver it from the hands of those who might cause it harm. I beseech you to punish its oppressors, to seek out all who would...”
I peeked open my eyes.
The children were gone, leaving a pile of sticks behind them.
You better run.
I stared after them a moment, listening as those panicked whispers grew quieter and quieter, before turning back to the hawk. It had gone still when I started speaking, watching the scene with unnatural attentiveness, those sharp eyes dilated to their fullest extent. When I took a step closer, it stood its ground—flaring out its remaining wing in a silent warning.
“It’s all right now,” I murmured, pulling a knife from my belt and circling to the far side of the brambles. “No one’s going to hurt you. I’m going to get you out of here.”
To prove myself, I started cutting far away from where the bird was tangled, letting it see as I removed the thorny branches, one after another. It tensed again as I drew near, but watched as I took the stem that had ensnared it—keeping far away from those talons, and sawing it by the root.
