Vulgar the Viking and the Rock Cake Raiders (4 page)

Vulgar stopped talking, and that was when he heard it. The slow
clop-clop-clop
of footsteps on the stairs behind them. Something was with them in the cellar. Something was moving in the shadows.

And whatever it was, it was getting closer.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE THING IN THE CELLAR

“It’s a troll!” screamed Knut. “Or a dragon! Or … or a
dragon
troll
!”

“Shut up!” hissed Vulgar, clamping a hand over Knut’s mouth. He was too late, though. Whatever was coming down the stairs had heard them, and now it was moving faster, clomping down the steps, closer and closer and—

“Hello,” said a voice from somewhere right behind them. This time both boys
screamed, before Vulgar recognised the voice.

“Freya?” he groaned. “What are you doing here?”

A candle spluttered to life, and lit up the princess’s face. “I would ask you the same thing,” she said, “but I know exactly what you’re doing here. I heard you talking upstairs.”

Vulgar shot Knut a nervous glance. “What did you hear, exactly?”

A sly smile spread across Freya’s face. “
Everything
,”
she said. “The pond. The cakes. Building your own longboat. I heard it all, and I’m going to tell your mum you skipped basket-weaving. Unless…”

“Unless what?” demanded Vulgar.

“Unless you let me play, too,” she replied.

Vulgar looked horrified. “Play?” he
said.
“
Play?
We’re not playing, we’re looting!”

“And pillaging,” Knut reminded him.

“Yeah, and pillaging,” agreed Vulgar. “We’re
proper
looting and
proper
pillaging, like
proper
Vikings do. It’s not a game!”

“Look,” snapped Freya, bringing her face close to his. “If you don’t let me join in, I’ll tell my father what you’re up to,
and
that you tied my hair to the pillar. You’ll be thrown in the dungeon. What do you think of that?”

“But girls can’t be Viking warriors,” said Vulgar weakly. He didn’t really fancy the dungeons much. He’d heard there was a machine down there that ripped your beard out,
one hair at a time. Vulgar didn’t have a beard, but he still didn’t like the sound of it.

“They can now,” sniffed Freya, and she pushed past them into the cellar.

“Well, you showed her,” said Knut, trying his best not to laugh. “Some Viking warrior, being pushed around by a girl.”

“Yeah, well at least I don’t scream like one,” replied Vulgar, before he stomped after Freya.

It took a few minutes to light the torches around the cellar, but just a few seconds to realise that building a longboat was going to be more difficult than they had thought.

Vulgar had expected to find enough supplies for a whole fleet of ships. It turned out that he had been wrong.

“So,” he said, “tell me again what we’ve got.”

Knut looked down at the items laid out on the floor before him. He took a deep breath. “One barrel, full of ale; three planks of wood, all broken; a big rock; another rock, not quite so big as the other one; something green and squidgy.” He bent down and gave it a sniff. “I think it might have been cheese, but I’m not sure. And two oars, different sizes. That’s the lot.”

“Building a longboat out of this stuff isn’t going to be easy,” said Vulgar.

“Building
anything
out of this stuff isn’t going to be easy,” corrected Freya. She sighed. “This is a complete waste of time.”

“Where’s your Viking spirit?” cried Vulgar. He stared accusingly at the princess. “When your dad was lost at sea, did he give up? No! He made do with what he had. He ate bogies and drank seagulls’ blood! And that’s what we’re going to do.”

“What, eat bogies?” asked Knut, with a frown.

“I’ll do no such thing,” gasped Freya. “Princesses do
not
eat bogies.”

“No, I mean we’re going to make do with what we’ve got,” explained Vulgar. “See, look at this!”

With a heave, Vulgar tipped the barrel over. Gallons of ale sloshed out on to the floor. When it was empty, he hoisted the barrel back up and peered inside. “I bet we could fit in there,” he said. “And it’s watertight, too.”

“How do you know?” asked Knut.

“Well, if it can keep beer in, it can keep water out,” said Vulgar. He looked around the cellar. The rocks would be no help, and the squidgy green stuff was no good. He couldn’t think of any uses for the broken planks, either, so that left only the oars.

He grabbed the longest oar and propped it up inside the barrel, so the flat
end was raised towards the ceiling. “This could be our mast. We can tie my cloak on for a sail!”

“We’re hardly going to sail very far like that, are we?” scoffed Freya.

“We won’t have to,” said Vulgar. He could see his whole plan coming together now. “We’ve still got one oar, so we can row across the pond.”

Freya pulled a face, and Vulgar thought she was about to object. He was surprised when she said, “It might work. I suppose.”

“Of course it’ll work!” cried Vulgar.

Over the next ten minutes, Vulgar shouted enthusiastic instructions to the other two, using everything he knew about constructing a longboat. Which was precisely nothing.

“Doesn’t it need, like, a dragon’s head at the front?” asked Knut, halfway
through putting the boat together.

Vulgar immediately set to work on one of the broken planks, carving it into the shape of the scariest face he could think of.

“Here, that looks quite like your mum,” said Knut, when the carving was finished.

“Yeah,” said Vulgar, hooking the terrifying figurehead on to the side of the barrel. “I know!”

At last, it was finished. Vulgar and the others stepped back to admire their handiwork.

“It’s not really a
long
boat, is it?” said Freya.

“More a shortboat,” agreed Knut.

“Well, more like a barrel with a stick in it,” continued the princess.

“It’s perfect!” Vulgar told them. “Grab an end and help me carry it up to the pond.” He rubbed his hands together in anticipation as his crew followed his orders. His very first Viking adventure was about to set sail!

CHAPTER FIVE

THE GREAT CROSSING

The barrel-boat bobbed violently as the three would-be pillagers dropped it into the pond. For a moment, it looked like it might sink straight to the bottom, but it rose up again just before water started sloshing in over the sides.

The children leaned over the little wooden dock by the side of the pond and peered down at their vessel.

“It’s heavier than it looks,” said Vulgar, rubbing his aching arms.

“I bet even real longboats aren’t that heavy,” agreed Freya. “I bet it’s your mum’s big face that made it weigh so much.”

“Hey, leave my mum’s face out of it!” Vulgar warned her. “It’ll scare away any sea monsters we meet.”

“Pond monsters,” Knut reminded him.

“Same thing,” shrugged Vulgar. “Ponds are where sea monsters go on holiday.”

With a well-timed jump, Vulgar landed inside the barrel.

“What happened to
ladies first
?” Freya asked him.

“I keep telling you, you don’t get lady Vikings, so I’m just going to pretend you’re a boy.”

“Don’t you dare,” snarled Freya.

She hopped into the barrel next to Vulgar. It spun wildly and, for a moment, they forgot their argument and raised their arms above their heads, laughing as the barrel twirled them round and round.

“Come on, Knut,” urged Vulgar, when the spinning slowed to a stop. “Hurry up.”

Vulgar couldn’t wait to set sail. Ivar’s rock cakes were legendary, and they were just across the water. Not only did they taste delicious but they could knock a man out from twenty paces, if you threw them hard enough. This, for Vulgar, was the sign of a truly great cake.

“Here I come!” cried Knut.

There was a loud
thud
,
and Knut landed in the barrel, head first. His legs kicked wildly in thin air for a moment
before he managed to turn himself the right way up.

It was a tight squeeze with all of them in there, and the barrel was very low in the water. Freya was saying, “It’s a good job there’s no one else coming with us,” when a dog hit her squarely in the face.

“There you are, Grunt,” laughed Vulgar, as his dog licked Freya’s face then squeezed into the tiny gap between Vulgar’s feet. “Right, Knut, get rowing!”

Knut grumbled as Vulgar pushed the oar into his hand. “Don’t see why I have to row.”

“Because I’m the captain,” Vulgar told him. Knut pushed the oar into the water and paddled. The barrel turned in a complete circle.

“No,
I’
m
the captain,” said Freya. Knut dipped the oar into the water on the opposite side of the barrel, and it began to spin the other way.

“You don’t get girl captains!”

“Yes, but you’re pretending I’m a boy, and this
boy
says he’s captain. Because, might I remind you, this
boy
is a princess!”

Knut paddled left, then paddled right. The barrel moved in a reasonably straight line.

“Boys can’t be princesses!”

“But boys can be captains,” said Freya.

Vulgar frowned. He had a horrible feeling he was walking into a trap. “Well, yeah…”

“Good. Then I’ll be captain,” said Freya, and she crossed her arms to signal that the argument was over. “Start rowing, Knut,” she commanded, before she realised that he already had, and that they were almost at the opposite shore.

“What’s the plan, captain?” asked Knut. He was careful not to look at
anyone when he said it.

“Me and Freya jump ashore, loot and plunder some cakes…” began Vulgar.

“And pillage,” Knut reminded him.

“Oh, yeah, and pillage,” agreed Vulgar. “We loot, plunder
and
pillage the cakes, get back to the longboat…”

“Shortboat,” corrected Knut.

“Barrel,” said Freya.

“Whatever,” sighed Vulgar. “We get back here, where you’ll be waiting to row us back, and Thor’s your uncle – mission complete.”

“That’s a stupid plan,” snorted Freya. “It’s so obvious. You’ll be caught right away.”

The barrel bumped against the shore. Freya and Vulgar leapt out. Knut and Grunt stayed behind. “You need a distraction,” said the princess.

“Like what?”

Freya’s scream was so high-pitched it could have made a troll’s head burst.

Startled, Vulgar looked along the shoreline to where a row of rickety wooden huts stood. People came rushing outside to find out what the fuss was all about.

At the far end of the row of huts, a fat man with a bald head and a pasty white face appeared in a doorway. Vulgar
recognised Ivar right away. The big baker waddled in the direction of Freya’s screams.

“What are you doing? Ivar’s coming over!” whispered Vulgar.

“That’s the point,” Freya told him, pausing to catch her breath. “Now hurry up, I can’t stand here screaming all day.”

As Freya let out another screech, Vulgar slipped around the back of the huts and hurried along to the end of the row. The aroma of baking drifted from Ivar’s hut, drawing Vulgar inside. The young Viking’s eyes lit up when he spotted a tray of rock cakes cooling on the table.

The cakes were warm, but not so warm that Vulgar couldn’t hold them. He grabbed two in each hand and shoved them down his seal-skin shorts. He snatched another four, and crammed
them up inside his leather tunic. Another two went into his boots, and the last one he tucked beneath his horned helmet.

Vulgar looked down at the empty tray and grinned proudly. “Looted, plundered
and
pillaged,” he said, then he turned to the door.

A hulking shape stood in the doorway. In one hand it held a rolling pin. “Well, well, well,” growled Ivar, stepping inside the hut. He hit the rolling pin against the palm of his other hand menacingly. “What
have
we got here?”