Viking Raiders

by Chris Blake

  “Oh, no!” Isis gasped. “The boat’s sailing away!”

  “We need to do something quick!” Tom said. But unfortunately, he had no idea what that might be. “What happens next?” he asked Magnus in panic.

  Magnus wiped a tear from his pale eyelashes and sniffed hard. “When the boat has drifted well away from the shore, someone will fire a flaming arrow into it.”

  “To set the boat on fire?” Tom asked.

  “Yes,” Magnus said. “The whole vessel will burn, and the ashes of Geir’s body, the things in there with him – all of it will be swallowed by the sea.”

  Tom looked at Isis. Isis looked at Tom. They nodded – then ran!

  Tom and Isis dashed up the beach to where the landing boats were moored. Tom fiddled with the ropes that tied them together. His hands were numb with cold as he worked at the knot.

  “Hurry up!” Isis shouted.

  Tom looked over his shoulder. The boat carrying Geir was drifting further and further from the shore. Gulls circled overhead. “Got it!” he cried, as the knot finally came undone.

  “Help me, or we’re going to lose the amulet,” Tom told Isis.

  Together, they tugged the little boat on to the sea and started rowing. Amazingly, given how rubbish Isis was at rowing, they soon caught up with Geir’s boat.

  “Get away from there, you fools!” Erik bellowed from the beach. He looked furious as he watched Tom and Isis pull alongside the funeral boat. The Viking named Bjørn was beginning to light the tip of his arrow with a flaming torch.

  “Just keep going,” Tom said.

  Isis stretched out her arm. “I can almost touch it,” she said gleefully.

  But just as she was within a fingertip’s reach of the funeral boat, a huge swell of water, almost four metres high, rose up from the seabed. Tom let out a desperate groanas it pushed them out of reach of Geir’s boat. The freak wave put an impossible distance between their boat and Geir’s.

  “WHOOPS!” rumbled a voice on the wind.

  Cleo’s fur stood to attention in stiff spikes.

  A deep-throated chuckling rose up from under the waves.

  “Anubis!” Isis said. “What a troublemaker!”

  “We can’t give up now!” Tom said. “Keep rowing!”

  “I can’t carry on much longer!” Isis moaned. “Princesses aren’t really used to this kind of work!”

  She wasn’t the only one struggling. Tom let go of his oars to examine his stinging palms. He winced. The skin on his hands was blistered and raw.

  “We can’t give up,” he said. “There’s just a couple more metres to go.”

  Gritting his teeth with determination, Tom heaved his oars against the flow of water until, at last, they drew next to the other boat. He grabbed the side and loosely tied their boat to Geir’s with a length of rope.

  “Hurry!” he said, flinging himself into the funeral boat.

  Tom stretched out a helping hand to Isis, but she ignored him and leaped nimbly across by herself.

  Cleo peered over the side into the dark water, and took a step back, hissing.

  “I don’t think she wants to risk another wetting,” Isis said. “Poor darling. We’ll just be a minute, Cleo. Now, where is that amulet?”

  Tom and Isis rummaged frantically through the jewellery that lay strewn about the boat.

  “Aha!” cried Tom, holding up the necklace proudly.

  Isis snatched it from his hand. “Perfect!” she cried. “Now, let’s get out of here.”

  “I warned you two!” Erik yelled.

  Looking out across the water, Tom could see how angry Erik was – his red face matched his hair.

  “And now you’re stealing from my dead warrior,” he roared, shaking his fist at them. “You’ve gone too far! I’ll not delay this funeral any longer. Geir could use a couple of servants in Valhalla. Prepare to burn!”

  Tom saw the Viking turn to Bjørn and give him an instruction. Bjørn nocked the flaming arrow against his bow. He aimed towards the boat.

  The released arrow went off course in a gust of wind and fizzled harmlessly on the surface of the water ten metres away.

  “That was a bit of luck!” Isis said. “Come on… hurry!”

  Clutching the amulet necklace in her hand, she scrambled over the treasure and jumped back to the safety of their little boat.

  But Tom was frozen with fear. He watched as Bjørn aimed yet another flaming arrow at the boat. This time, it sped up, up, up into the sky with a flaming, golden tail. And then it whizzed back down… straight towards Geir’s boat.

  “AAAARGH!” Tom cried, as the arrow found its mark in the hull.

  The arrow splintered a plank with a thud! And then the hungry fire claimed its wooden feast.

  Roaring flames sprang up and Tom could feel the heat against his face.

  “Don’t just stand there!” shouted Isis, snapping Tom out of his terrified trance. The flames were getting too close for comfort now. She started untying the little boat from the flaming funeral boat. “Jump!” she urged him.

  Tom knew he had to jump, or else be fried alive in his very own Viking barbecue.

  I am NOT going to sizzle like a sausage, he thought.

  Tom sprang over the side – but the little boat had drifted too far away.

  Splash!

  “Klaflooffla!” Tom said, as his mouth and nose filled with cold, salty water. His heavy, waterlogged cloak was pulling him down, down, down into the freezing, inky water.

  He went under. The men shouting on the shore, Isis screaming, and the crackle of the burning boat suddenly all fell silent. The only thing Tom could hear was his own heart thumping as he sank.

  I can’t drown, he thought. Isis will never get her other amulets.

  Tom started to kick his legs with all the strength he could muster. At the same time, he shrugged off his heavy fur cloak. Just when he thought his lungs might explode, he broke the surface, gasping for air.

  “Swim, Tom! Swim!” Isis screeched.

  Finally, he started to do his best front crawl towards Isis, remembering to breathe to the side and keep his kicking legs straight. My swimming teacher would be proud, he thought.

  He quickly covered the distance between Geir’s funeral inferno and their landing boat. He grabbed the side and Isis hauled him into safety. Tom collapsed in the bottom of the boat, dripping and shivering.

  “OW!” He looked down at his toe and saw that Cleo had just nipped him. “What was that for? I nearly drowned.”

  Isis grabbed a set of oars and rolled her eyes at Tom. “You trod on her tail, you clumsy boy!”

  Before Tom had a chance to reply, Geir’s boat made a sizzling noise.

  He turned round and saw that the flames had greedily gobbled up everything, right down to the foamy surface of the water. Only a few planks of charred wood remained, and then they, too, sank to the bottom of the North Sea, taking the ashes of Geir with them.

  “Goodbye, brave Geir,” Tom said solemnly. “I hope you make it safely to Valhalla.”

  “Goodbye,” Isis said, sniffing.

  Then Tom stood and took Cleo’s paw in one hand and Isis’s hand in the other. “Come on,” he said, shivering. “I’m freezing. It’s time to go home.”

  As all three of them touched the pink amulet, a tornado whipped round their legs. Tom felt himself being sucked up into the tunnels of time. With eyes clamped shut, the three friends shot round the bends, twists and turns through history.

  “Wheeeee!” Tom shouted. “This is better than being tossed on the high seas!”

  “And it doesn’t smell of fish!” Isis cried.

  “Meow!” said Cleo, sounding a little disappointed.

  They were catapulted back to modern-day England. Tom landed in his cinema seat with such an almighty thunk! he felt his teeth to check they hadn’t been knocked clean out. Isis and Cleo landed beside him. Flump! Flump! Both were in their mummies’ wrappings once again.

  “We’re back,” Tom said, looking
up at the flickering screen. “And the film is right where we left it.”

  On the screen, the hero was grappling with the baddie on the roof of a skyscraper. The baddie knocked the weapon out of the hero’s hand, and pushed him closer and closer to the roof’s edge.

  “Ooh, goody!” Isis said, bouncing in her seat. “This is exciting!”

  Tom sighed. He’d had quite enough excitement for one day. In real life, he’d just taken part in a Viking raid and very nearly burned to death on a funeral boat. That was a million times more exciting than what was happening on the screen.

  But before he’d even had a chance to recover from his Viking adventure, Tom’s seat started to rumble and the curtains on either side of the cinema screen started flapping again.

  “Uh oh!” Tom said. “Looks like there’s more drama ahead…”

  “Honestly,” Isis grumbled. “Why can’t he wait until the end of the film? I want to find out what happens…”

  Tom groaned loudly as the jackal-headed god burst out of the cinema screen, more terrifying than any movie baddie. “I don’t think Anubis wants us to have a happy ending,” he muttered to Isis.

  “Shh,” hissed the man sitting behind Tom. “If you don’t stop talking I’m going to get the manager.”

  The man obviously couldn’t see the enormous Egyptian god towering at the front of the cinema, his red eyes narrowed in anger.

  “Where’s my amulet!” Anubis growled so loudly that Tom covered his ears and slumped down in his seat. The god loomed over the rows of seats and snarled at Isis, showering Tom with a spray of doggy slobber.

  Isis dangled the necklace from her fingertip. The pink stone caught the light from the film projector and twinkled in the dark.

  “I don’t think you deserve it,” she said. “The big wave you caused just wasn’t playing fair.”

  “HA!” The god of the Underworld laughed humourlessly. “I’ll tell you what’s not playing fair – hiding the amulet that was rightfully MINE. You got yourself into this situation, Princess Isis. So don’t come crying to me about what’s fair.”

  Anubis snatched the amulet from her. He greedily examined the pink stone, baring his sharp teeth as he growled in satisfaction.

  “I’m surprised those hairy Vikings didn’t tear you to pieces and throw you on the bonfire,” the god admitted.

  “Guess you underestimated us,” Isis said smugly, crossing her bandaged arms over her chest.

  “Don’t underestimate ME!” Anubis boomed. “I obviously haven’t made these adventures hard enough—”

  “You have,” Tom interrupted. “Trust me, you have!”

  “Silence, boy!” Anubis shouted. “Since you’re finding these missions so easy, I’ll be sure to send you somewhere more DANGEROUS next time!” Chuckling ominously, the god vanished as suddenly as he had appeared.

  Tom turned to Isis. “Why can’t you ever hold your tongue?” he said.

  “Why can’t YOU hold your tongue,” the man sitting behind them said angrily. “You’re ruining the film for us!”

  Tom settled back into his chair and watched the rest of the film in silence. Soon, the theme music started playing and the credits rolled. Tom blinked as the house lights came on.

  “Well, how did you like your first trip to the cinema?” Tom asked Isis, ignoring the glares he was getting from the man sitting behind him.

  “It was… BRILLIANT!” she said. “I wish we’d had movies back when I was alive.”

  Cleo, who was gobbling up spilled popcorn from the floor, meowed in agreement.

  Tom smiled. Isis didn’t usually admit that Ancient Egypt wasn’t perfect.

  As they walked out of the cinema, Isis stopped to stare at the posters for upcoming films. One poster featured aliens coming out of a spaceship, another showed a cowboy.

  “Ooh! Can we go and see this one!” she squealed, pointing to a poster of a vampire.

  “Maybe,” said Tom. Movies were fun, but he was more excited about their next time-travel adventure. So far, they’d been to Ancient Rome, King Arthur’s England and the land of the Vikings. He knew that wherever Anubis sent them next would feature more danger and action than any movie.

  And Tom couldn’t wait!

  WHO WERE THE MIGHTIEST VIKINGS?

  Erik the Red was a real Viking! Find out more about him and other fearsome Vikings.

  IVAR THE BONELESS was a Viking leader who ruled parts of Denmark and Sweden. No one knows for sure why he got his name – some people believe he had an illness that made the bones in his legs soft, so that he had to be carried around on shields. Even if this was true, it didn’t stop him from invading England in AD 865! He must have been a fierce warrior.

  ERIK THE RED is thought to have got his nickname because he had red hair. But it might have been because of his temper… He was thrown out of Iceland after killing two of his neighbours. He travelled across the sea and discovered a cold, icy land, which he called Greenland. He convinced other Vikings to move there, and the settlement grew to 5,000 people. In AD 1002 a new group of immigrants brought over a disease which killed many of the settlers, including Erik the Red. Erik’s son, Leif Erikson, was also a great explorer – he was the first Viking to reach North America.

  HARALD BLUETOOTH was King of Denmark from AD 958. According to legend, he got the name Bluetooth because he liked eating blueberries so much that they stained his teeth! During his reign he ordered the building of many forts and bridges. Harold died in battle in AD 986, fighting against rebel forces led by his son, Sweyn Forkbeard. Now that isn’t a nice way to treat your dad, is it?

  CANUTE THE GREAT was a Danish king. His army invaded England in AD 1013 and by 1016 Canute was the King of England as well. He didn’t stop there – over the next twelve years he became king of Denmark, Norway and parts of Sweden! Even though Canute had invaded England, he was a popular and successful king as he respected old laws and was seen as a fair ruler.

  WEAPONS

  Vikings often sailed to foreign shores and raided towns and villages for gold and weapons. They were terrifying fighters and used lots of different weapons when they attacked.

  Viking Sword: handed down from generations. Made from iron and steel and usually double-edged. Sword handles were decorated in gold or silver.

  Spear: a common, cheap weapon. It had an iron blade and a wooden shaft and was usually two to three metres long.

  Bow and arrows: used to attack an enemy from a distance, or for hunting.

  Battle axe: so sharp that they could cut through helmets and shields.

  Chain mail: worn by richer Vikings who could afford to pay for extra protection.

  VIKING RAIDERS TIMELINE

  In VIKING RAIDERS Tom and Isis set sail on a Viking longboat. Discover more about where the Vikings travelled to in this brilliant timeline!

  TIME HUNTERS TIMELINE

  Tom and Isis never know where in history they’ll go to next! Check out in what order their adventures actually happen.

  FANTASTIC FACTS

  Impress your friends with these facts about Vikings.

  Vikings had an interesting use for skulls. They would wash them out, fill the eyes, nose and ear holes with wax and use them to drink from.

  Now that’s a deadly cocktail!

  The word ‘berserk’ comes from the Berserkers, who were vicious Viking warriors. They were so tough that they wore animal skins instead of armour, fought in a ‘trance-like’ state and had terrifying battle cries.

  Yikes!

  In Viking times children would become adults when they turned twelve.

  No more homework – woohoo!

  Greenland was named ‘green’ by Erik the Red to trick people into settling there. It was actually very icy and cold.

  Brrrr!

  Viking men were often given nicknames based on their appearance or personality, like Eric Bloodaxe, King Sven Forkbeard and Harald Bluetooth Gormsson.

  What would your Viking name be?

  Who were the Spa
rtans?

  What were they fighting for?

  And why did they need a wooden horse?

  Join Tom and Isis on another action-packed Time Hunters adventure!

  “We need clues,” Tom said.

  He looked around. To his right, as far as he could see, were pale stone walls reaching up to the blue sky. To his left, the green sea was fringed by dazzlingly white sand. The beach was teaming with—

  “Soldiers!” Isis cried.

  Tom held his hand over her mouth and dragged her behind a sand dune. “Shhh!” he said. “Not so loud. Let’s work out who these guys are before—”

  “First of all,” Isis scoffed, “it’s my job to talk loudly. I’m a princess! Second of all, they might be able to tell us where my amulet is.”

  Tom squinted at the soldiers’ uniforms. On top of bright red tunics they wore bronze breastplates that made them all look as though they had rippling muscles. On their legs, they wore sandals with straps that held metal shin pads in place. They carried round shields with pictures on the front – some showed winged horses and some had the letter V upside down. But best of all...

  “See those plumed helmets?” Tom said. “I’ve seen those in Dad’s museum. They’re Ancient Greek army helmets. And that upside-down V was the symbol of the Spartan army.” He peered up at the pale stone walls. “Those look like the walls to some ancient city. But the Greeks are on the outside, so—”

  “They’ve got lovely horses,” Isis said. She climbed on to Tom’s back for a better look. “Stallions!” she said. “And they’re tied together in groups. I think these soldiers are getting ready for battle.”

  Tom nodded. He looked up at a tall wooden contraption that loomed high above the soldiers. It looked like a giant catapult made from enormous planks of wood, levers and ropes.