Viking Enemy by M J Porter

Author:M J Porter [Porter, M J]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Endeavour Media
Published: 2017-09-12T22:00:00+00:00

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The year began with a scream, the clang of swords on shields and a death. When Leofwine looked back as the year turned from bad to worse, he couldn’t quite decide which event affected him the deepest. Clearly, the birth of another lusty baby son was fantastic news, and he thanked God for his bounty by arranging for more land to be set aside for the monastery at Deerhurst, but it was all marred by the death of his faithful Hunter. She’d looked ill for much of the winter and often he’d been forced to leave her behind, taking with him one of her children that he’d half-heartedly been training to replace their mother.

But planning for the future and accepting that she was gone were two entirely different things. He’d not invested enough time into training his new companion dog, and it showed.

His young children had aptly named the dog Hammer, after a lengthy and long-running debate after his birth two years before. Northman and Leofric had insisted on a ‘proper’ name for the dog but had then proceeded to spoil him and make him more pet than Hunter had ever been. Even before Hunter had been called upon to be his eye, she’d been a dog of activity, not prone to spending any amount of time seeking attention.

Hammer loved his children, as he saw them, and tolerated Leofwine and his commands when he must. He was the opposite of any dog Leofwine had encountered, keen to growl at the master and a playful puppy in the hands of the master’s children. To curb his frustration with the dog, he finally announced that Northman was old enough to escort him as he went about his duties. Northman was ecstatic, but Leofric and Ealdgyth didn’t share in the joy and Ǽthelflaed grew tired with their constant moaning and bewailing that their dog had been stolen away by their father.

His own frustration high, having tripped over yet another obstacle the damn dog had failed to alert him to, he told the children he would get them their own puppies provided they trained one of them to help him. Ǽthelflaed laughed at him then – the first time he’d heard her relax since the birth of their son – and she queried whether the new child would have his own dog too. When the entire litter had arrived from the old farmer that Leofwine had initially sought advice from when first training Hunter, his household descended into happy chaos that, surprisingly, Hammer calmed and took charge off.

Ealdgyth sat for hours grooming her small puppy, whereas Northman had his and his father’s dog to be, outside undergoing a harsh training regime that he’d devised himself. Leofric squirrelled away with his own puppy and the one for his new brother, and belatedly Leofwine realised that the two brothers were in competition to see who could raise the best-trained puppy.

Much to everyone’s surprise Hammer took his responsibility as surrogate father to the five puppies very seriously

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