Preacher's Bloody Rampage by William W. Johnstone

Author:William W. Johnstone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pinnacle Books
Published: 2023-10-06T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 17

Tall Dog reacted instantly. He broke off the conversation he was having with Arne Winterborn and the other men from Skarkavik and dashed toward the trees. As he entered the woods, he grabbed the rifle he had leaned up against the trunk of a spruce when he, Audie, and Nighthawk had arrived on the scene.

Preacher and Nighthawk weren’t far behind the young warrior. Whatever was going on, they wouldn’t let Tall Dog face it by himself. Dog bounded along beside them, weaving around the trunks, bursting through gaps in the undergrowth, and gradually gaining ground on them.

Because of that, the big cur reached the scene of the trouble first. Preacher heard growling and snarling ahead of them, followed by angry shouts. Concern for Dog made him move even faster, risking a bash on the head from a low-hanging branch.

He burst out into a clearing just a couple of steps behind Tall Dog. Nighthawk, who hadn’t been able to get through the dense growth as quickly because of his massive size, was a few steps behind Preacher. But the giant Crow emerged only a couple of heartbeats after the mountain man did.

Preacher came to an abrupt halt gripping his rifle, ready to fire if he needed to. Tall Dog was a step to his left, and Nighthawk loomed up on his right.

The clearing was about twenty feet wide and fifty long. On its far side, to the right, Horse, Skidbladnir, and the other horses stood. Horse and Skidbladnir, along with Audie and Nighthawk’s mounts, were accustomed to trouble and didn’t move, but the other animals were a bit skittish from the sound of the shot and the smell of powder smoke.

Directly in front of Preacher and his companions, Dog crouched, ready to spring. Facing him was a man with blood on the leather leggings he wore, probably where Dog had clamped his jaws a few moments earlier. The man clutched at the wound with one hand, waved one of those short axes in the other hand, and yelled what were probably Norse curses at Dog.

Beyond them were half a dozen more men, all dressed in the same mixture of frontier and Viking garb that marked the men of Skarkavik. One of them was a tall, brawny man with white hair and a long beard worked into a pair of braids. He wore a leather vest that left his powerful chest and muscular arms bare except for brass rings with symbols engraved on them that encircled both upper arms.

Just below the ring on his right arm was a bloody streak where something had gashed the flesh. The wound didn’t keep him from holding a short-bladed sword in his right hand. He pressed the weapon to Betsy’s throat as he kept his left arm clamped tightly around her waist.

The man shouted something in Norse. From the corner of his mouth, Tall Dog said quietly, “He orders us to stay back, or the girl will die.”

Preacher spotted Odgar Haugstad among the other men.

He

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