Harry Harrison - The Technicolor Time Machine

“I do not think that this is Finnboggi and his men,” Lyn said. “I think this is a different ship that has arrived.”

Barney was a man of action, but not this kind of action. The sound of battle and the sight of the beheaded corpse and blood-drenched sand had a paralytic effect on him. What could he do? This was not his kind of world, his kind of affair. This was the kind of situation Tex or Dallas could handle. Where were they?

“The radio,” he said, belatedly remembering the transceiver slung over his shoulder; he thumbed it to life and hurriedly sent out a call for the stunt men.

“He’s seen us, he’s turning—he’s coming this way,” Gino shouted. “What a tremendous shot.”

Instead of returning to the battle, the killer was lumbering up the slope toward them, shaking the ax and calling out hoarsely. The handful of movie people on the hill watched his approach, yet did not move. This was all so alien that they could think of themselves only as onlookers, they could not imagine themselves being involved in the murderous business taking place below. The attacking Viking lumbered closer and closer, until the black marks of the ocean spray and the perspiration stains were clearly visible on the coarse red wool of his blouse—and the red spatters of blood on his ax and arm.

He went toward Gino, breathing heavily, perhaps thinking that the camera was some kind of weapon. The cameraman stayed in position until the last possible instant—filming his enraged attacker—jumping away just as the ax came down. The blade smashed into one leg of the tripod, bending it and almost knocking the camera to the ground.

“Hey—watch out for the equipment!” Barney shouted, then regretted it instantly as the sweating, maddened Viking turned toward him.

Gino was crouched, his arm before him, with the glistening blade of a knife projecting from his fist in a very efficient manner, undoubtedly the result of his childhood training in the slums of Naples. The instant the Viking turned his attention away, Gino lunged.

The blow should have gone home but, for all his size, the Viking was as quick as a cat. He spun about and the blade slid into the slab of muscle in his side. Bellowing with sudden pain, he continued the motion, bringing up the ax so the haft caught Gino on the head, knocking him sprawling. Still shouting angrily, the man seized Gino by the hair, twisting his head down so his neck was taut and bared, at the same time raising the ax for a decaptitating blow.

The shot made a clear, hard sound and the Viking’s body jerked as the bullet caught him in the chest. He turned, mouth open with voiceless pain, and Tex—they had not even been aware the jeep had driven up—steadied his hand on the steering wheel and fired the revolver twice more. Both bullets hit the Viking in the forehead and he collapsed, dead before he hit the ground.

Gino pushed the man’s lifeless weight off his legs and stood up, shakily, going at once to the camera. Tex started the jeep’s engine again. The others were still too stunned by the suddenness of the attack to move.

“You want me to go down there and give our extras a hand?” Tex asked, pushing fresh cartridges into his gun.

“Yes,” Barney said. “We have to stop this mess before any more people are killed.”

“I can’t guarantee that won’t happen,” Tex suggested ominously, and started the jeep down the hill.

“Cut,” Barney called out to the cameraman. “We can fit a lot of things into this film—but not jeeps.”

Tex had jammed something into the button so that the horn blared continuously, and kept the gears in compound low so that the gear box screeched and the motor roared. At a bumpy five miles an hour he raced toward the battle.

Ottar and his men had seen the jeep often enough before to be accustomed to it, but this was not true of the invading Vikings. They saw what could only have been some sort of bellowing monster approaching, and understandably refused to stand before its charge. They scattered to right and left while Tex skidded the jeep in a tight circle at the water’s edge, knocking down one of the men who hadn’t moved quickly enough. Ottar and his followers rallied behind the jeep and pressed in on the divided enemy. The invaders broke and ran, clambering back into the longship and grabbing up the oars again.

This was where the engagement should have ended, and it would have if Tex had not been carried away with battle fever. Before the ship had started to move astern he ran to the front of the jeep and pulled a great length of steel cable from the drum under the front bumper. There was a loop at the end and he took this up and clambered up onto the jeep’s hood, spinning it in larger and larger circles as he climbed. His rebel yell was clearly audible above the other shouts as he released the cable. Straight up the loop rose to settle neatly over the dragon’s head onto the high stem post. He gave it a pull to settle it home, then leisurely Jumped down and dropped into the driver’s seat.

With slow grace the longship began to glide astern as the oars churned up a froth. Tex lit a cigarette and let the cable run out until twenty, thirty feet of it stretched between the ship and the jeep. One of the Vikings aboard the ship was hacking at the steel cable, with no results other than the ruination of the edge of his ax. Tex reached out his shoe and kicked the power takeoff into gear. The cable rose dripping from the water, grew taut and bar-straight, and the longship shuddered through its length and halted. Then, slowly, but steadily, it was dragged back onto the beach. The oars splashed and dug deep into the water to no avail.

It was all over then but the mopping up. Whatever enthusiasm had carried the raiders ashore had been wiped out by this last maneuver. Weapons splashed over the sides and the men raised their arms in surrender. Only one of them had any fight left, the man in the bow who had been hacking at the cable. With bis ax in one hand, round shield in the other, he jumped ashore and charged the jeep. Tex cocked his revolver and waited, but Ottar joined the fight and cut off the attack. Both men shouted insults at each other as they circled warily at the water’s edge. Tex carefully released the hammer and slid the gun back into its holster when he saw that all other action had stopped as the two champions joined battle.

Ottar, drenched with perspiration and already elated by the fighting, was working himself into a berserker rage, roaring and biting at the rim of his shield and running forward until the waves were up to his thighs. The invading chieftain stood scant yards away, glowering out from under the edge of his iron helmet, shouting his own guttural insults. Ottar beat the flat of his ax against his shield with thudding sledge blows—then suddenly charged, swinging his ax in a looping blow at the other’s head. The invader’s shield swung up to deflect the ax, but the force of the stroke was so powerful that it drove the man to his knees.

There was a note of pure joy in Ottar’s bellow as he swung his ax again and again, never slowing, with the relentless measure of a woodsman felling a tree. The invader could not bring his own ax up, in fact he was leaning on his ax arm for support against the rain of blows. Pieces of wood few from the shield and a wave sent spray swirling around them.

For an instant the rhythm of ax on shield slowed as Ottar swung his weapon high and brought it straight down with all his strength at the other’s head. The shield went up, but could not stop it. The ax glanced from it, scarcely slowed, and hewed down into the Viking’s thigh. He howled with pain and swung his own ax in a backhand blow. Ottar jumped away, dodging it easily, and paused a moment to see the effect of his stroke. The invader struggled to a standing position, with all of his weight on his good leg, and it could be seen that the other was cut halfway through and pouring out blood. At this happy sight Ottar threw away his sword and ax and gave a shout of victory. The wounded Viking tried to attack him, but he dodged away, laughing at the clumsy attempt. All the northmen on shore—and most of the men in the ship— were laughing at the wounded man’s helpless anger. He kept crawling after Ottar, making feebler and feebler attempts to bring down his dancing enemy.