Free Loki's Daughters by Delle Jacobs

grandfather, a gaunt, bent man whose face glared his hatred for the intruders.
    "Nay, Mildread," Elli said. "Arienh is not to be blamed for what they have done. They are the ones who have come to invade our valley and take our land."
    "If she had not let that one live."
    "And then they would have killed us all," Elli replied.
    Old Ferris interrupted. His eyes gleamed as if he sensed approaching triumph. "You have no sense of these things, Mildread. They are animals. They live for blood and revenge. If we are to kill them, we must be sly. Slyer than the fox."
    Areinh stiffened, sensing trouble. The man would destroy all of them for his own vengeance if he must. She stepped forward to head him off. "We aren't going to kill anybody. We just need to get rid of them."
    Small Selma, her golden curls glowing in the torchlight, winced at the harsh talk. "But we do need help, Arienh. What if they are telling the truth? If they only come to settle, can that be so bad?"
    "Settle?" Birgit snorted. "You would live among Vikings? Their sheep will take all the pasturage. And we will die because our animals starve."
    "Aye," said Elli, "even if they do not also claim our animals for their own."
    "They will make slaves of us, I tell you," Mildread insisted. "They are merciless devils."
    Elli nodded. "They are naught but marauding rapists and murderers, Selma, no matter how they disguise themselves. I am surprised you could think of them otherwise."
    "I only meant-"
    Old Ferris' black eyes gleamed from the narrow confines of his wrinkled lids. "Do you not know they kill and eat the children they capture?"
    "They do not!" Liam shouted. The women turned surprised stares at the boy, whose blue eyes shone brightly with tears. "He promised he wouldn't hurt us."
    "Who?" asked several surprised women.
    "Egil, the big one," Arienh said. "He did make a promise to the boy. We heard it." She put a comforting hand to Liam's shoulder.
    "They lie, too," said Old Ferris. "You are foolish to believe him, Liam, for he will beguile you into the woods, and then-"
    "Stop it." Birgit threw protective arms around her son. "You do not know any such thing, and you say it only to scare the boy."
    "Do you defend them now too, Birgit?" Elli asked.
    "Nay. Only that things are bad enough as it is. You do not need to be making up things to scare children."
    Elli snorted and folded her arms. "What do you think they will do to you when they find out about your eyes?"
    Birgit flinched at Elli's words.
    "Aye," Mildread replied, nodding. "'Tis said they drive the old and feeble out into the winter storms to die, when they don't want them anymore. We must protect our own."
    "And expose babies they don't want, too," said a woman from far in the rear.
    Elli nodded, certain of herself. "And their sexual appetites. They cannot be satisfied. And I have heard, their organs are so huge that they cannot help but hurt a woman."
    "Is it so, Birgit?" Old Ferris' malicious grin punctuated his words.
    Birgit's mouth closed tightly.
    The old man went too far. If the Vikings got rid of any, surely Old Ferris would be the first, for he had become as useless a human as she had ever known. Arienh stepped between him and Birgit. "And how shall we defend against them if we have no more sense than to attack our own?"
    Mildread pushed herself up beside Arienh, buttressing the barrier between the old man and Birgit. She had a soft spot for her dim-sighted cousin, and could always be counted on to help protect Birgit. And she didn't like Old Ferris any better than the rest of them. "Arienh is right. We must stick together. We must get rid of them, but Arienh, there isn't any other way but to kill them."
    Arienh shook her head. "That is impossible. They are big and strong, and they have all the weapons. They almost outnumber us."
    "Not impossible," said Old Ferris. "We have something they want."
    "What?"
    "It's very simple. You are women. You lure them into your beds. Then all on the same night, we kill