Free Viking Gold by V. Campbell Page A

off the walls.
He’d found Ragnar. He should have remembered the rowan marker – the tree that
protected against witches. Forgetting had cost vital moments.
    He eased into the void. The
shaft was narrower than he remembered. Or maybe he was just bigger. He pressed
his feet against the wall, bracing with his back, and began shuffling down.
Soon the daylight was no more than a pinprick above his head. The dark below
endless. He thought about going back. Returning to his uncle to let him sort
things out. But anger drove him on; his mother’s final words spinning through
his mind:
    Find your father .
    The father he’d never known. Been
deprived of these sixteen years past. Murdered by Ragnar – she’d said so
herself.
    And now …
    Now nothing made sense. His
past was a lie. The only thing he knew for sure was Ragnar had killed
his mother. He’d seen that with his own eyes. And he was going to exact
revenge.
    Everything he’d worried about
before – Harold’s bullying, his uncle’s expectations, suddenly it all seemed
foolish. Petty. The worries of a boy.
    He must have shuffled down
twenty feet, maybe more. His thighs ached, his back felt raw. It had been
easier when he was a boy hunting gull eggs. The chalk down here was damp and
pulpy, and as he moved lower, it started to crumble beneath his toes. He
scrambled against the tunnel sides with his hands, tried to dig his elbows, his
knees, anything into the soft walls. But still he slipped into the darkness,
his cloak twisting round his shoulders, over his head. He kicked out, fought
with the wool, clawed at the walls. Flame Weaver got caught between his
legs, he kicked it away, wedging it in the wall and gradually his fall slowed.
    When he came to a stop, he
had no idea how far he’d fallen. The tunnel opened above a cavern and it had
been his plan to jump the last ten feet to the floor. But he needed to judge it
right. Too soon, and he’d break his legs. He unclipped his cloak pin and tossed
it into the void, counting one, two, three , in his head before he heard
the telltale rattle. He gulped. Three. He reckoned ten feet for every
number. Jumping thirty feet onto hard rock was madness. Suicide in the pitch
black.
    He looked at the pinprick of
light above. Maybe he could climb back up. But by the time he got to the top
Ragnar would have escaped. Above him, something moved across the tunnel
entrance. He froze. Had one of Ragnar’s men spotted him? There was no going
back now. He peered into the darkness.
    That meant only one thing …
    Light
from above pierced the tunnel, bleaching the rocks white. The flash stunned
Redknee, sending him flailing blindly downwards. He reached out with his hands,
grabbed at Flame Weaver , and was left dangling in mid-air. He heard a
deep rumble. Thor was charging across the sky, wielding his hammer in anger.
    Moments later, the next flash
lit the tunnel. Redknee heard whinnying and looked up to see the old mare
peering down. He laughed. It hadn’t been Ragnar’s man at all. Fear played
tricks on you. Had to be conquered. Stay calm. That’s what he had to do. He
stuck out his left foot, there was no more rock, just air. He’d reached the end
of the tunnel. Time to jump.
    When the next flash of
lightning came, he loosened his muscles and slid, blind, into the gloom. It was
hard to land safely when you couldn’t see. But he kept his knees bent and hit
the floor on all fours, like a frog, tumbling into a forward roll, then the
floor disappeared and he was spinning out of control through the blackness,
towards the bowels of the earth, head first into hell. He braced for the impact
that never came …
    The water welcomed him,
streaming into his nose, his mouth, his eyes. Still he fell, but slower now and
he fought it. He kicked, stretched out and now he was going upwards, slowly at
first, then he broke the surface, gasping for breath. Air had never tasted so
good.
    He bobbed in the waves,
struggling to get a sense of things. He’d