The Thrall (The Viking Hero Series Book 1) Read Online Free Page B

they could. Bjord
looked at them and said, "well,.. [he abruptly stopped to gag]
we've indeed found something unpleasant lurking about here.
Something's definitely dead near here. I don't think it's any of the
sheep. They haven't been dead long enough to rot and smell like that.
Plus the other sheep we found didn't smell."
    Sven and Rowan both nodded in agreement not
wanting to speak and uncover their mouths.
    "Whatever it is, it's been dead for awhile. I
don't know what would make such a stench, but I don't think I want to
find out." Bjord added.
    The notion made both Sven and Rowan turn pale as
their hearts fearfully sank. They've all heard the stories about the
things that supposedly lived in the forest and in the mountains.
Places said to be for bidden to men
where both unseen folk and beings from the legends were said to
inhabit.
    In the brush, they
could clearly see where the remaining sheep had ran. They ran right
through, breaking limbs and everything else in their way, as if they
were desperate to escape whatever was chasing them.
    The entire way had
been this way. It didn't take any real tracking skills to follow the
panicking sheep's trail. In this spot, the trail ran right through
some dense bushes.
    Bjord scratched
the back of his head and knelt down to examine the torn bushes. "They
must have been cornered and ran right through it." He
plucked a piece of wool from a branch and stood back up.
    "Yes, I do believe that is what happened.
Here's a piece of wool from one of them. They tore through those
bushes and made their own path."
    Sven and Rowan just looked at each other, not sure
what to think about the whole ordeal.
    After a moment of kneeling back down and trying to
look through the hole in the bushes, Bjord stood up and motioned to
Rowan while pointing at the hole, "crawl though there and see if
you can tell where they went."
    Rowan silently gulped and nodded. He wasn't sure
what lie beyond those bushes and whether or not he wanted to meet it
face to face while crawling on his knees through some bushes.
    He removed the rope he was carrying over his
shoulder and set it down on the ground. He got down on his hands and
knees and carefully began crawling into the hole in the bushes. He
could see light on the other side. It looked like it was quite a few
paces from where the sheep had gone in and then busted out on the
other side.
    Rowan crawled through hole. It was only as high as
he was on his knees and barely as wide as his own body. He continued
to crawl through to the other side.
    When he came out through the other side Rowan got
quite the startle as he almost fell.
    Abruptly on the other side of the thick bushes and
brush that the sheep had ran though was a steep cliff. It was a very
steep cliff that dropped for a long way.
    Rowan backed up carefully, as not to fall off the
side. "There's a cliff at the other end of these bushes!"
he shouted.
    Bjord hollered back, "what? What do you see?"
    'There's a steep cliff that goes down the
mountainside," repeated Rowan.
    Bjord drew his brows together and wrinkled his
forehead, giving Sven a puzzled look.
    "Do you see any of the sheep?"
    Rowan edged closer to the side and looked over.
All he could see was a abrupt decline that fell several ways down
into the rocks below. He gasped and safely scooted himself back
again. He turned and yelled back, "I don't see them. It falls
straight down into rocks. There is no sign of them down there."
    Bjord looked down, sighing in his breath and
mumbled something about 'thralls.' He looked back up at Sven and
said, "go in there and look. Tell me if you can see where the
sheep went."
    Sven did not want to go in there. Regardless of
his daydreaming, he wasn't exactly 'hero' material. But before he
could make any kind of protest, Bjord frowned at him and motioned
towards the hole torn in the bush.
    "Go now boy!"
    Sven nodded and removed his bow and leather weaved
quiver. He set them down on top of where Rowan had set the rope.