Free Viking Ecstasy by Robin Gideon Page B

time to see Ingmar pushing his way through the sparse crowd at a dead run, moving toward the dock where his men waited.
    The willful betrayal of Ingmar's plan stunned Tabor. Hedeby was a free village, a place for commerce and entertainment. It had been a tacit agreement by Vikings everywhere that the villages of Hedeby, Kaupang, and Birka were to be free zones where violence and raiding would not be tolerated. Ingmar had to know that to break that pact would make him an enemy to Viking leaders everywhere.
    But then, who besides Tabor, Son of Thor, had the strength, the will, the resolve, the well-trained Vikings, and the courage necessary to confront Ingmar the Savage?
    The battle began in an instant when the leading edge of Ingmar's troops clashed with Tabor's Vikings. Tabor met two men head on. Axe in one hand, sword in the other, he slew them both in short order and looked for more.
    "Behind you!" Tanaka screamed.
    Tabor did not trust the woman, believing that she had been used by Ingmar to distract him, but without hesitation he ducked, bending his knees and wheeling to his left. The sharp edge of a sword sliced through the air a fraction of an inch from his head. Still crouched low, Tabor lunged out with his sword, driving the deadly blade in deeply. As he pulled his weapon from the corpse, he was aware that he owed his life to Tanaka; and the question of why she would warn him of the blind-side attack, even when she herself had been sent by Ingmar to subvert his defenses, took root deep in his mind.
    Three more of Ingmar's men were felled by Tabor's axe and sword, but though he was successful in his own skirmishes, he sensed around him that the battle could not be won. His own Vikings, though fighting bravely and skillfully, could not match the monumental advantage of sheer numbers that Ingmar's warriors possessed. Although retreat was something that Tabor and his Vikings had never before had to do, to continue fighting would only result in their death.
    "Be gone with us all!" Tabor shouted. "We'll fight these swine another day!"
    He looked to his right and was surprised to see Tanaka. Sven had released her to put both hands and all his attention to the fight, so she had had plenty of opportunities to escape. Why had she chosen not to?
    "To the ship! To the ship, good men all!" Tabor shouted above the cries of the villagers, who had never before witnessed carnage within the walls of Hedeby.
    Tabor confronted one last warrior, slaying him with his bloody axe, then looked about him again. Though the lives of all of his Vikings were precious to him, he valued Sven's most. Tabor would not retreat until he knew that his friend was alive and capable of retreating. Sven and Tabor had saved each other's life many times, and neither would abandon the other.
    Tabor found Sven with his back to a wall, fighting off three of Ingmar's swordsmen. Though attack from behind was not an honorable method of attack, Tabor launched into the three with ferocious wrath, swinging battle-axe and stabbing with sword. He felled two of the men as Sven dropped the third.
    "To the ship," Tabor said to Sven. "There are too many of them to fight now!"
    "Aye! And I fear that our warriors in Medworth have already fallen!"
    Tabor nodded, about to fight his way to the rear entrance of Hedeby, when an arrow pierced his left biceps. He growled more in rage than pain as the battle-axe that had been his father's, and his father's before that, dropped from his hand. Blood spurted from the wounds fore and aft, the arrow lodged through the muscle.
    "I'll kill the dark wench for you, my friend!" Sven hissed as he snapped the shaft of the arrow very near the inside of Tabor's biceps. Before he could pull the arrow from Tabor's arm, another arrow cut through the air, narrowly missing them.
    In unison, they looked in the direction of the attack and saw Ingmar, standing atop a building, shooting down at them.
    The ensuing chaos made it possible for Tabor and Sven to