Viking Raiders

At the head of the group, Tom noticed a Viking who was as tall and broad as a door – a hulking, muscle-bound man compared to the others. Bright-red hair hung down his back in wild, matted clumps. His bearded, ruddy face was covered in freckles. In his huge hand he swung a gleaming axe.

“Do you think that axe is meant for us?” Isis asked.

The red-headed giant thundered towards them. His steely gaze was fixed on Tom.

“We’re about to find out,” Tom said, trembling like a jelly. “Please don’t kill us!” he shouted, holding his hands above his head in surrender, as the stranger came to a stop and loomed over him. Hardly daring to look into the Viking’s fearsome face, Tom stared at the man’s boots instead. He had the most enormous feet.

Tom hoped the Viking had understood his plea for mercy. Everywhere else that Anubis had sent them, he and Isis had magically been understood. He just had to hope that his English words had come out in Old Norse.

Beside Tom, Isis skipped backwards and forward. Her fists were balled, but next to the huge Viking, she looked like a chick trying to pick a fight with a cockerel. “Come on, then, you big red hairball!” she shouted up at him. “You don’t mess with a princess!”

Cleo hissed and swiped a claw at the Viking. The little cat’s stripy fur was standing on end. Tom admired his friends’ courage.

“I am Erik the Red!” the man said in a voice so deep it seemed to come from his toes. He grabbed Isis by her cloak and held her up so that her fists punched helplessly at thin air. “And I’m going to knock your brains out for skulking about near my boat.”

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“Please let her go, sir, she’s only a little girl!” Tom pleaded, desperate for Erik to release Isis.

“Little girl?” Isis shrieked, outraged. “There is nothing little about me. I am royal – and I fight better than you ever will.”

Erik burst out laughing and dropped Isis back to the ground in a heap of plaits and furry cloak. Cleo rubbed up against her, checking that she was all right.

“She’s a feisty one, isn’t she?” Erik said to Tom. “Where did you find her?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Tom said, laughing nervously. He decided to draw Erik’s attention away from Isis, in case she annoyed him again. “So where are you and your men off to?”

Erik set his helmet straight on his head. As he did so, Tom caught a whiff of sweat and damp.

“We’re about to go on a little expedition,” Erik said. “There’s nothing like a bracing ocean voyage to blow away the cobwebs.”

Tom looked at the dragon at the helm of Erik’s longship and remembered the words of the riddle. “Setting sail on your long and thin boat, are you?” Tom said loudly, trying to attract Isis’s attention.

But Isis was busy trying to pull Erik’s red beard.

“Sailing acrossstormy seas, eh?!” Tom shouted.

Isis finally turned to Tom and winked. “Can we come too?” she asked Erik, innocently.

Erik’s fiery eyebrows bunched together in a terrifying scowl. “Children on a Viking raid? Are you trying to insult me?” he boomed. “This is a looting party, you know. Do you have any idea what me and my men will be doing?”

Tom pursed his lips and swallowed hard. “Er, setting fire to people’s houses? Stealing? That kind of thing.”

Erik grinned and slapped Tom hard on the back. “Precisely, lad! That’s no pastime for a youngster like you. You’d only get in the way.”

Tom felt their chance slipping away… if he didn’t hurry up and convince Erik to let them come, they’d never get the amulet and he’d be stuck in freezing Scandinavia forever.