late in the night I staggered outside to relieve myself of some of that wine I’d consumed. I had just finished watering a bush when I heard odd sounds coming from beyond the bushes. I put myself away and stumbled over to see what was what and came across one of my comrades, Erik, being choked by a stranger with the bodies of at least three of our comrades already dead on the ground around them.”
Magnus paused briefly before continuing. “I should have shouted an alarm to bring the others, but Erik and I had been friends since childhood. He was the one to suggest I go a’viking to make the coin I needed to win my bride. I did not think, I simply ran forward trying to help.” Grimacing, he admitted, “Unfortunately, with the battle over and drink in my belly, I was foolish enough to leave my long sword in the church. I had no weapon to hand, so I grabbed the stranger by the nearest arm and tried to pull his hand away from Erik’s neck, but the bugger was mighty strong. I tried punching him, but that had no effect at all, so I did the only thing I could think of—I leapt on his back and bit into his neck. Not some little nip either,” he assured her. “I full on latched my teeth into his throat, and dug in, ignoring the blood that squirted into my mouth. Swallowing it to keep from choking, but not letting go, and in fact tearing at his skin and making him bleed more because he was not letting go of Erik.”
“He was an immortal,” Allie breathed with realization.
Magnus nodded slowly. “Yes. The stranger was an immortal. And I accidentally turned myself.”
“Did he know?” she asked at once. “The immortal? Did he know that you’d turned yourself?”
Magnus paused to consider that. It was something he’d wondered often over the centuries, but after a moment he shook his head. “He may have, but I suspect not. In battle, you do not feel pain like you should. Sometimes you do not feel it at all until after the worst of the fray is over and your adrenaline slows, and from what I know of immortals, he would have been well healed by then.” Magnus shook his head again. “No. I do not think he knew. I think he walked away that night thinking he killed me along with the others.”
“What do you mean?” she asked with dismay. “What did he do?”
“Well, after he finally finished wringing the life out of Erik, he dropped him, reached back to grab me by the scuff of the neck, and yanked me over his head like a wee pup. Once he had me dangling in front of him, he pulled a knife from his belt and gutted me, then dropped me and walked away, leaving me for dead.”
“Oh, my God,” Allie breathed, her eyes dropping to his stomach and Magnus had the sudden, ridiculous urge to suck in his gut, sit up straight, and flex his pecs. Not that he really had a gut to suck in, but still, he had the urge to do so.
“But you weren’t dead,” she said, shifting her gaze back up to his face.
“No. Apparently, I had taken in enough nano-filled blood that the turn was starting before he finished killing Erik. That being the case, the nanos would have rushed straight to the wound in my stomach the moment it happened, stopped the bleeding, and closed it as quickly as possible before doing anything else.”
“It’s a good thing you bit him, then,” Allie pointed out.
“Yes. Well, I did not know any of that at the time,” he pointed out, and continued. “I woke up on the ground the next morning, lying among the bodies of my dead comrades. There were more than had been there when I was stabbed the night before. I stumbled back through the bushes and into the monastery and . . .” Magnus shook his head as he remembered the scene. The stone floors and walls that had been splattered with the blood of the priests when last he saw them were now painted with even more blood, and the bodies of his comrades lay everywhere. They had not survived their celebrations. Finally, he simply said, “Everyone was dead. We hadn’t been that large a party—only three boats, sixty men. But every one of them lay dead in and around the monastery. In truth, I