Sandra Hill (4 page)

“You know, SEALs are not the most politically correct beings on the planet. Next they’ll be giving us sensitivity training. Find our inner female, or some such crap. This is going to be a nightmare,” Zach concluded.

“More like a field of land mines. We’ll have to be careful where we step, but I’ll be damned if I’ll change special forces training just to accommodate these women. If they want to join the game, they’re gonna have to play by our rules. Anyhow, we’ll have a briefing later this afternoon. All SEALs, SEAL trainees, and any testosterone-oozing body within a mile radius of the compound will know by tomorrow what they can or cannot do.”

Including no laughing at farts. Unbelievable!
Zach nodded. “So this is going to be my punishment.”

“It’ll be fun.”

Zach was too appalled to say anything but, “Hoo-yah!”

A woman’s gotta do what a woman’s gotta do…

Britta figured that she must have landed on her head when she fell over the cliff, knocking her unconscious. Or was she dead? Could this be the famed Other World? If so, its glory had been vastly exaggerated, in her opinion. There was not a gold sword or one-eyed god in sight.

Or mayhap this was Muspell. It was certainly hot enough. But, nay, Britta did not think she had done anything so bad in her lifetime to merit those eternal fires.

Still, I must be in bad odor with the gods. Naught goes right with me anymore.

When Britta emerged from the haze she found herself in, it was not her head that throbbed but her backside. She wasn’t impaled on the sharp rocks but sitting in a flat, sandy arena.

A man wearing short, thigh-exposing braies and a short-sleeved
shert
leaned over her, his clean-shaven face florid with anger. To her shock, she realized that she was dressed in a similar fashion, right down to the heavy skin boots. Into her ear, the man shouted, “Lady, get yer butt in gear and climb back up that cargo net. NOW!” He had a ruddy complexion, which got redder, a clear sign of his anger.

Best he be careful. She knew a man, Snorri the Red, who’d had a similar ruddiness. One day in the midst of one of his yelling fits, he just dropped over, dead as a lutefisk.

“Move it, move it, move it!” the man continued to scream.

“What?” She glanced upward and saw not the cliff face but a high wall made of rope. And women, in similar attire, were climbing upward. Could they be Valkyries? Nay. None of them looked goddesslike in beauty. And, truth to tell, if they were all virgins, she would bite her best sword. Not in that scant attire.

One of them fell down, dusted herself off, and immediately started over. Some men, blowing metal whistles, smirked as they stared at the women’s fabric-strained buttocks sticking out like obscene boulders above them.

“You heard me, birdbrain. And you know the correct response. Yes, Master Chief Uxley, sir. Say it with the proper respect.”

Birdbrain? Is he calling me birdbrain?
“What did you say?” Britta was about to clout the insulting man aside his head, which had been shaved nigh bald, but then she reminded herself that she was in some strange place. Mayhap she should play along till she got her bearings.

“Are you mocking me? Are you mocking me? Drop, sister, and give me ten,” the man hollered, spittle pooling at the corners of his mouth, as he jabbed her in the chest with a forefinger.

“What?” she said again.
What has got the miscreant’s bald head in a blaze?

“You heard me. Push ’em up, sweetie.” He said “sweetie” as if it were a slur and pointed to a woman behind her who was raising and lowering her body, which was level with the ground, but never quite touching it. She assumed this was what he wanted her to do when he mentioned “pushing-up.”

“Yes, Chieftain, sir,” she said, dropping down to the sand. But what she thought was,
Go swive a goat, Chieftain, sir.

Anger flared in his eyes. “Master chief. Not chieftain. Now give me thirty for insubordination.”

I would like to give you something, you witless cur, but it has naught to do with pushing-ups.
Gritting her teeth, Britta decided that compliance was the wisest course of action till she determined where she was.

Thus it was that she found herself raising and lowering her body like a lackwit, along with a half dozen other women. If this was meant to be punishment, she had news for the man with the flaming face. Flogging was punishment. Kneeling on a stone floor for a day was punishment. Eating gammelost was punishment. Being imprisoned in a nunnery was punishment. Raising and lowering the body in sand was not punishment.

The whole time she and the other women did the pushing-ups, the chieftain kept goading them. “Are you sure you don’t wanna ring out? Nothin’ wrong with bein’ a quitter. It’s only your first day. You gotta have a fire in the gut to succeed here, ladies. I don’t see a spark in a blasted one of you.”

One woman muttered, “I got fire,” and the rest echoed her refrain. Britta did, too, figuring it must mean something significant.

“Do you really wanna put yourselves through this pain? Wouldn’t you like a nice manicure about now?” the miscreant leader continued.

“For a certainty, it would be nice to have a man to cure me.”

The chieftain’s face got ruddier, his eyes bulging.

That was her cue to remain silent, she suspected. Since none of the other women were quitting, she followed suit. When in doubt, just follow your instincts; that had always been her philosophy. When she completed the exercise, which was more difficult than it appeared, no doubt due to her recent bout of mead madness, he ordered her once again to climb the rope wall.

She started to climb, then turned back to stare down at the chieftain. “Dare to look at my arse, you bloody lecher, and you will find your face in the sand when I come back down.”

His sputtering and the other men’s laughter could be heard as she climbed up the rope netting, not an easy task, since it swayed and moved to and fro with the climbers. It would have been easier if she were barefooted. Leastways, she could grip the ropes with her toes. This way, her skin boots could get no purchase. But anger fueled her, and she soon reached the top, which she straddled, as best she could, panting for breath. She had not realized how high it was…more than two floors of a fortress castle. She tried her best not to look downward.

Glancing around, Britta realized that from this vantage point she had a bird’s-eye view of a vast region. She should have recognized the scent of salt water in the air, but still she was surprised to see the blue ocean on one side with extremely large metal ships not so far away. Not a low-riding wood dragon ship in sight. Was it a harbor of some kind? If so, where was the market town that usually catered to the incoming and outgoing traders on longboats and knarrs?

There were people running on the beach, both singly and in groups. Was someone chasing them?

On the other side of the arena where Britta sat, high up, there were many buildings, but none resembled the timber-sided keeps she was accustomed to or the rare stone castles that the Normans favored. Nor were there farmsteads and grazing animals. Not even the wattle and daub cotters’ huts. These buildings were rather ugly, although they did hold precious glass windows.

But wait. In the distance she saw a white castle with a red roof. How odd! Why would anyone want a white dwelling? It must get dirty. She figured the king must live there, since only a king would have staff enough to keep the building clean.

And the people…Thor’s toenails, there were hundreds of them walking about, most of them in uniforms of brown or white, even women. She also saw what appeared to be horseless carriages traveling hither and yon, but mayhap she was mistaken about that. She must be.

Another woman swung her leg over the top, facing her. She was not panting at all.

“Whose castle is that over there?” She pointed to the white building with the red roof.

“Huh? Oh, you mean the Hotel del Coronado.” Grinning at Britta, she said, “Hey, did you just get here? You must be my partner.”

Partner? We are partners?
“Uh, what is your name?”

“Teresa Evans. You can call me Terri.” The petite woman with red curly hair and dancing green eyes was a head shorter than Britta but just as well-muscled, especially her upper arms and thighs.

Britta’s forehead creased with bafflement, but then she shrugged. The man with the red face had mentioned this being their first day, so Britta’s failure to recall her partner’s name might be understandable.

“And you’re Britta Asado, right? I was told that my swim buddy would be the foreign exchange officer from the Norse navy.”

Since when do I need a “buddy” to swim? And since when does the Norselands boast its own knave-he…whatever a knave-he is?
Britta could understand what these strange people were saying in a strange tongue, but the odd words here and there were a puzzle to her. She was about to tell the woman her last name was Asadottir, not the shortened Asado, but then decided she liked the sound of it.

“Where are we?” Britta asked.

The woman eyed her even more curiously. “Coronado, California. At the special forces training compound. Trying out for the new team.”

Ah! A military training area.
Britta nodded her understanding, even though she did not understand one bit.

“We were told last night that the Norse officer, Olga Svensson, had rung out before even arriving. She apparently eloped with her boyfriend, right? Good thing you were available for a last-minute replacement.”

“Yea, ’tis a good thing,” Britta said quickly. Until she got her bearings, she figured it was best to blend in. “I was just a mite muddleheaded from hitting my head.”

Terri laughed. “I thought it was your bottom you hit, not your head.”

Britta laughed back. “Both.”

“Do you know Olga very well?”

Olga? Oh, that Olga! Nay.
“Of course.”

Terri gave her a questioning look, waiting for her to elaborate.

Think quick, Britta. Make up a story.
“Sweet Frigg! Olga ever was the fey one, dancing from one man to another. But when the lustsome Gunnar cast his wicked eyes her way, well, Olga did not stand a chance. When given the choice of serving her country or serving her man, she chose—”

“Her man,” Terri finished for her with a laugh. “Wicked eyes will do it every time.”

“Yea, but ’tis more than that with Gunnar. He has wordfame for his impressive…endowments. A manroot the size of a gourd…a big gourd.” She spread her hands apart to show just how big.
By the runes! Where do these ideas come from? Mayhap I have a gift for lying.

Their attention was diverted then by a man down below who took hold of the ropes and scaled them with surprising agility up the wall, over the top, and down again to demonstrate how it should be done. “That’s the way, girls. Easy as Friday night hooking,” he said, winking at one of the women closest to him.

“You oughta know. It’s the only tail you get,” a woman shot back.

Another man yelled to a nearby woman on the ground, “Hey, Sanchez, yer so small, if we tied a string to yer ankle, you’d be a kite. Ha, ha, ha! Why dontcha fly on over and ring out?”

The woman named Sanchez said something in a language Britta could not understand. It was not English. But she suspected the words were foul, as evidenced by the widened eyes below.

Good!

Down below, the men continued to yell orders up at her and Terri, something about getting their sorry arses down the ropes so they could move to the obstacle course.

Hah! I would think this rope wall is obstacle enough.

“Yo, GI girls, wanna jump? I’ll try to catch you.” One of the men leered up at her and Terri.

Another yelled, “Hey, honey, want me to come up and hold your hand?”

The chieftain, whose face was now purple, nigh screamed, “Either come down or ring out. Make up your friggin’ minds.”

“Those guys are jerks, aren’t they?”

Britta nodded, figuring that jerks must be comparable to crude, lust-filled males, which they definitely were. All men were, for that matter. “Yea, just because they have dangly parts somehow makes them think they are superior.”

Terri laughed. “I know they’re trying to get us to quit. None of them want women in the SEALs, but dammit, I’m not going to give them the satisfaction.”

“SEALs?” Britta homed in on that one word. She had heard of SEALs afore. They were an elite military force in a far-off land. “Dost mean we are in Ah-mare-eek-ah?”

The other woman’s forehead creased even more. “Are you okay? The sun is hot. Maybe you’re getting sunstroke.”

Britta shook her head.
Nay, I just fell off a cliff, am suffering from the world’s worst ale-head, must needs avoid my father and his hirdsmen who want naught more than my sword dew on their blades or my maiden blood on a husband of their choosing’s cock, and then I might just find out if I am dead or alive. Being hot is the least of my concerns.