Free Assignment - Black Viking by Edward S. Aarons Page A

lived in today’s world.”
    Elgiva tried to strike him again. Her angular face was twisted in the mist. Durell caught her arm and forced it down. She struggled against him, her body rich and strong.
    “Help me find Peter,” he said harshly. “Come with me, if you like. You’ll see for yourself—”
    The sound of the shot checked him.
    He heard a thin ripping sound, and Elgiva fell away toward the seething, wild pool below.
11
    HER CLOAK saved her. Durell caught its wide flap and for a heart-stopping instant he held her as if in a sling over the abyss. Another shot cracked through the fog. Stone chipped off the ledge and stung his face and hands. He had no time to look for the source of the attack. For another moment he held Elgiva Neilsen over the brink and stared deep into her wide eyes. There was no fear in her. He couldn’t guess what turbulent thoughts possessed her. The sea thundered, bursting about them with a shower of cold spray, bellowing as if for a sacrifice.
    Then he pulled her in. She fell against him, then flung herself swiftly away and flattened against the wall of the ledge, arms wide against the rough limestone.
    Her face was white. “What happened?”
    Durell tried to see through the fog. “Somebody up there doesn’t like us,” he said wryly. “We were shot at. Twice, so far. Were you hit?”
    “No. No, I’m all right. But who would shoot at you like this?”
    “Maybe you were the target, Elgiva.”
    She looked confused. “Are we trapped here?”
    “Maybe. Stay where you are.”
    “You seem pleased by this.”
    “It means the trail is getting warm at last. It means you know something that can help me.”
    “But I do not. I truly do not.”
    He edged away, looking for a place where he could see to the top of the cliff. The sea turned the pool at their feet into a thundering cauldron again. He took advantage of the noise to take a few more steps to the right.
    The gun cracked again. It sounded thin and far away in the ocean’s roaring. The bullet made a thin splatting sound against the ledge at his feet. He searched again for the sniper. In the strange, pearly light, he thought he saw something stir in the sky above. His gun was in his hand. He fired once, but he knew it was not effective. Yet the movement stopped, and he couldn’t tell if it was a man up there, or just another of the grotesque rock formations created by millennia of winds and seas.
    “Elgiva!”
    “Yes,” she replied quietly.
    “Do you know another way back up to your house?” “It is difficult, especially in this poor light—”
    “We’re cut off from the way we came down.” He wondered angrily where Mario and Gino might be. He had taken them along for just this contingency. He reached for Elgiva’s hand. It was cold, but strong. “Let’s go.”
    She led him around the pool, toward the cave. The mouth of the hole yawned with dank blackness. Durell thought he heard the scrape of a shoe on the cliff above, but he could not be sure, nor could he tell how many people were up there. Beyond the cave entrance, Elgiva took his hand again and pulled him after her.
    “It is difficult for a stranger here.” She was calm, considering her narrow escape from death. He felt a twinge of admiration for her. She surely wasn’t accustomed to being ambushed and shot at. “Just follow me, Mr. Durell.”
    She climbed by slow and painful handholds and waited for him in the gloom to take each grip as she released it. There were tall, monumental crags of upright stone, carved by the sea far back in geological ages. Then she stopped.
    “We are just below the top. Listen.”
    Garbled voices came through the mist. Again, Durell wondered what had happened to his two Vesper crewmen. Then abruptly there was another shot, and a woman screamed.
    It was Sigrid.
    There was no time to guess what was happening. With his head just above the lip of the cliff, he saw the muzzle flame as it was fired again. He moved Elgiva aside, clambered